In time this systematization reacts on the popular beliefs, and modifies them considerably ; but, forall that, the popular religion always lags more or less behind the ‘ official’ form as revealed in the scien- tific literature, such as the astronomical and astro- logical texts, and in the official inscriptions of the rulers, which were naturally produced under the prevailing theological influences. It would be idle to discuss to which of these two phases of the religion the preference is to be given. Both must be studied if we would penetrate to the core of the religion, and in the case of the pantheon it is obvious that due consideration of its systematiza- tion by the priests must be our guide in an en- deavour to obtain a clear view of its extent and of its general character.
(A) THE CHIEF DEITIES.—1. Anu, Bel, and Ea.— Perhaps the most striking feature of the theological system devised by the priests is the doctrine which places at the head of the pantheon a triad consisting of the god of heaven, the god of earth and of the atmosphere above the earth, and a god of the watery element. These three gods, corresponding to the three divisions of the Universe, thus cover the sum and substance of Divine government; and it is hardly necessary to advance further arguments for the view that such a triad does not represent a popular belief, but is the outcome of theological speculation. Of the three gods,—Anu representing heaven, Bel the earth, and Ea the water,—Bel and Ea we know were originally deities of a local character, whose worship was centred in a well-defined locality. Bel, written ideographically En-lil, was the chief god of Nippur in northern Babylonia, and the prominence at one time of Nippur is illustrated by the title Bel, 7.e. ‘lord,’ which became the common designation of En-lil. Ea belongs to the extreme south of Babylonia, whose worship was originally centred in Eridu, an exceedingly old settlement that at one time lay at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The name ‘En-lil’ merely de- scribes the god as a powerful demon; but from other sources we know that he was conceived also as an atmospheric deity, who manifested himself in storms and other violent disturbances of nature. Ea, on the other hand, was a water spirit ; and one
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
can readily understand how the character of the large body of water—the Persian Gulf, which was sacred to him, and which led directly to the shore- less ocean—should have led to making Ea the symbol of the watery element in general. As for Anu, while we find even as late as the 12th cent. B.C. that his cult was specifically associated with a definite centre,* the process which resulted in making him the personification of heaven in general, appears to have been a purely scholastic one, and independent of any traits that may originally have been ascribed to him. His wor- ship in the south was never carried on at any of the large political or religious centres, and, what- ever local associations he may have had, dis- appeared as early at least as the 4th millennium before our era, when we already find Anu gener- ally written without the usual sign before deities, and designated simply as the ‘heavenly’ or ‘ex- alted’ one.+ One is inclined, in view of this great antiquity of the symbolization of Anu, to regard the name, together with the conceptions associated with it, as due to scholastic speculation, and to suppose that the association of a god Anu with any particular locality is of later origin, due to the reaction of theoretical speculation in practical forms of belief.
However this may be, the parcelling out of Divine manifestations among a triad representing heaven, earth, and water, belongs distinctly to a theological system—is part and parcel of a Weltan- schauung which could have arisen only in the schools, and which from the schools may have made its way to the people. The important feature of the triad is the symbolization underlying it: the choice of Bel and Ea to symbolize earth and water is secondary, as is the choice of Anu to symbolize heaven, whatever the origin of the name may have been. The Bel of the triad has in reality nothing but the name in common with the chief god of Nippur, and, similarly, when Ea of the triad was invoked there could have been only a remote association in the minds of the Babylonians with the water deity of Eridu. Still, such is the force of old conceptions that even the theologians could not entirely keep the double character thus resulting for Bel and Ea apart, and, accordingly, in the earliest occurrence of the triad dating from the days of Gudeat (c. 3000 B.C.) we have Nin-kharsag, the consort of Bel or En-lil, inserted between the latter and Ea. Nin-kharsag§ is a title of Belit as the wife of the chief god of Nippur, and the insertion of the name in con- nexion with the triad shows that the Babylonian scribes could not free themselves from the associa- tion of Bel with his original home at Nippur. In later periods this is rarely done, and it is interesting to compare the arrangement of the triad in Gudea’s inscription with the one on a boundary stone from the llth cent., where the goddess corresponding to the old Nin-kharsag, Belit, appears as Nin- makh, ‘the great lady ’—dissociated from the Belit of Nippur—and assigned a place behind Ea. Be- tween these two dates we have the inscription of Agumkakrime (c. 1650 B.C.), in which we find at the beginning the usual order Anu, Bel, Ea, whereas towards the close there is associated with each one of the three a consort, thus furnishing the series Anu and Antum, Bel and Belit, Ea and Damkina. Of these consorts, Belit and Damkina represent the wives of the Bel of Nippur and Ea