The Babylonian creation story in the final form in which it has come down to us may be taken as the typical illustration of the transformation of doctrines brought about through Marduk’s advance to the head of the pantheon. Several old nature myths have been combined in this story to form a great ‘Marduk’ epic—a grand pean sung in his honour. ‘The overthrow of Tiamat, the monster symbolical of the chaos that rules during the
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rainy season, was probably accomplished by Marduk, as the sun-god who drives away the storms. But there are evidences in the tale of the existence of a far more powerful being, Apsw (‘the deep’), who has been conquered by Ea; and it was the latter, no doubt, to whom, in one form of the story, the creation of mankind was ascribed, So in other versions, originating in different centres, we find other gods invested with this distinction. But all rivals fall into the background by the side of Marduk, to whom everything is attributed; and the gods themselves bestow fifty glorious names upon him—and thus transfer their own attributes and powers to the chief god of the city of Baby- lon.* They resign, as it were, in his favour. Hence the interesting phenomenon that the origin- ally solar character of the deity crops out only in the ideographic method of writing his name as ‘child of the day,’+ and in incidental references ; whereas the side that is most strongly emphasized is his headship of the pantheon, concentrating in his person all the attributes and powers distri- buted among the gods.
His consort is generally Sarpanit—a name sig- nifying originally the ‘ shining one,’ but inter- preted as though compounded of zér ‘seed’ and bdnitu ‘producing,’ so as to admit of identify- ing her with the mother-goddess Ishtar. This is actually done in hymns, though the process is not, as a rule, completely carried out. Sarpanit appears merely as an associate of the powerful Marduk, sharing in his glory without materially contributing to it.
7. Nebo.—Opposite Babylon lay a city, Borsippa, which there are good reasons for believing to have been older than Babylon itself. Such a supposi- tion best accounts for the fact that the god of the place, Nebo, holds a prominent position in the pan- theon by the side of Marduk. True, Borsippa becomes, in course of time, merely a suburb of Babylon, and this dependence finds expression in making Nebo the son of Marduk; but, on the other hand, on the great festival of Marduk, which was the New Year’s Day, Nebo takes a part; and even Marduk pays homage to Nebo, his son, by accompanying the image of the latter part of the way back to the sanctuary at Borsippa, after the formal visit of the son to his father. Moreover, there is one attribute assigned to Nebo which signals him out even from Marduk. He is the representative of wisdom; and to him the art of writing is ascribed even by the priests of Babylon, who in their astronomical reports do not hesitate to mention Nebo before Marduk—a custom that was adopted by the Assyrian scholars. In this respect he bears an affinity to Ea; and, like the latter, he appears to have been originally a water deity—perhaps the god who had his seat in the Euphrates river, as Ea was supposed to dwell in the Persian Gulf.
There is, clearly, some connexion between the Ea and Nebo cults, though its precise nature is still unknown to us. Nebo appears under the form Duwmu-zi-zwab, which designates him as a son of the ‘deep,’ here used for Ea. Berosus is in accord with the evidence derived from the Babylonian literature in representing Ea—whose name appears in Syncellus’ extract from Berosus as Oannes§—as the god who instructs mankind in various arts, including writing. a retains to the latest period the general attribute of wisdom, besides being regarded as the general protector of mankind; but the specific trait of
*
* See King, Seven Tablets of Creation, i. pp. 94-111.
+ Delitzsch, Beitrdge zur Assyr. ii. 623. ao ;
teg. Craig, Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts, i., No. 1, lines 12-25,
§ Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 57.
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RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
being the god of writing is transferred to Nebo, though this is done to a much more decided extent by the Assyrian scribes than by the Babylonians. One is inclined to conjecture that the northward course of culture, which led to the founding of the city Borsippa and to the establishment of an im- portant school there, with a more special cultiva- tion of astronomy than elsewhere, led to the in- vesting of Nebo with Ea’s attributes; and, as the intellectual centre shifted from Eridu to Borsippa, Nebo assumes, in a measure, the réle formerly assigned to Ea, without, however, overshadowing the latter. The priests of Babylon seek to effect a compromise between the present and the past, by making Marduk the son of Ea, while Nebo in turn becomes the son of Marduk, so that the ultimate source of wisdom under this system is still the god of Eridu, even though his activity is transferred in such large measure to Marduk and Nebo. It isa feature of an established priesthood that it never breaks entirely with the past, and in the systematized Babylonian pantheon the honour of Ea is protected by making him a member of the great triad, whereas the real head of the pantheon is Marduk, to whom Nebo is given as a kind of messenger, entrusted with carrying out his dictates. In Assyria, where the connexion with the remote past was less keenly felt, this process is still further developed, and the Nebo cult is laid hold of as an offset to the predominance of Marduk, who was felt to be a rival to the patron god of Assyria —Ashur, naturally placed at the head of the pan- theon by the Assyrian priests. Hence some of the Assyrian rulers, while not altogether ignoring Marduk, preferred to manifest their homage to the gods of the south by the glorification of Nebo. They erected sanctuaries to this god in their capital, and proclaimed their confidence in him. Assurbanipal, in collecting the literature produced in the south, ascribes the inspiration of this policy to Nebo and his consort Tashmit (or Tashmitum), who, as he tells us in the subscription frequently attached to the copies, ‘opened his ears’ and in- structed him to make the wisdom of ancient times accessible to his subjects. As originally a water god, Nebo is also an agricultural deity, who opens the subterranean sources and irrigates the fields. In religious as well as in historical texts he is invoked as the one who causes the corn to grow. His consort, generally termed Tashmit, but also known as Nand, plays an independent part. The name Nand, properly belonging to the chief god- dess of Erech, indicates that this consort was regarded merely as a form of Ishtar—at least in the later periods—while Tashmit is a purely arti- ficial creation. The name signifies ‘revelation’ ; and Tashmit appears to have been originally merely a designation of Nebo himself, who is, in fact, spoken of as iw tashméti, i.e. ‘ god of revela- tion.” Under the influence of the doctrine which assumed that every god must have a female con- sort, Tashmit became the associate of the god of Borsippa.