7. The Babylonian Cosmology.—It is natural to find in a country which developed such a remark- able culture as that of Babylonia and Assyria, that the popular and more or less crude speculations regarding the beginnings of things should in the
*The same direction is given, e.g., in the ‘Labartu’ series (Myhrman, Zeitschr. f. Assyr. xvi. 160), and forms a parallel to similar directions among the Greeks in the case of offerings to Hecate, with whom Labartu has much in common, as M yhrman, ic. p. 151f., poimts out.
course of time have yielded to more consistent and systematic cosmological theories. Corresponding to the efforts of the priests attached to the tem- ples in the great religious centres of Babylonia to systematize the pantheon, which, through the olitical supremacy acquired by the city of Baby- on, led to making Marduk, the god of Babylon, the central figure of the Babylonian theology, we have a literary and intellectual process which had its outcome in the production of a poem or epic * of Creation, in which the chief réle is assigned to this same god, Marduk. As constituting one of the main sources for our knowledge of Bate louie and Assyrian cosmology, it will be desirable to present an outline of this production, so far as the portions of it found in Assurbanipal’s library and in New Babylonian copies from Babylonian temple archives enable us todo so. Although, since the discovery of the first fragments of the composition by George Smith in 1875, large portions of it have come to light, due chiefly to the activity
‘and scholarship of Budge and King of the British
Museum, even in the latest and most complete publication + there are many gaps which often seriously interfere with a satisfactory interpreta- tion. We can also see in the composition itself evidences of considerable editing before it re- ceived its definite shape. Thus, while the poem embodies distinct traces of purely popular specu- lations and fancies which form, indeed, the basis upon which the main conceptions rest, an inter- pretation has been put upon these speculations and fancies that places them upon a much higher level of thought. What is, perhaps, even more signifi- cant, is the evidence which the composition atfords of having been originally an ‘ epic’ celebrating the deeds of En-lil or Bel—the god of Nippur—in his capacity as the creator, or, to speak more accu- rately, as the establisher of order and law in the Universe. Wearethus led to Nippur as the source of the main features found in the composition, and it is furthermore safe to conclude that in connexion with the literary activity centring around the great temple E-kur, the seat of the worship of Bel, a Creation poem or epic arose which was remodelled by the priests of Marduk’s temple E-sagila at Babylon. The rdle of Bel is transferred to Marduk, and additions were made to the old tale, partly intended to justify and illustrate this transfer, and in part prompted by the desire to glorify the chief god of Babylon, and to interpret old tradi- tions in a manner in accordance with the theological system perfected in Babylon, and which became the dominant school of thought in the Euphrates Valley as well as in Assyria, albeit with certain modifications introduced by the Assyrian priests. The assigning of the chief réle in the establishment of the Universe to En-lil or Bel, of course, reflects the attachment of the priests, and in a measure also of the populace of Nippur, to their own favourite deity ; but from indications in the Crea- tion poem itself, as well as from other sources, we know that traditions were also current in Baby- lonia which assigned the same réle to Ka, Such a tradition would naturally arise in the ancient city
* Our justification for speaking of this Babylonian Creation story as a ‘poem’ rests upon the character of the composition itself, which is distinctly poetical in its form, See King, Creation Tablets, i. pp. cxxii-cxxili, and more fully Delitzsch, ‘Das Baby- lonische Weltschipfungsepos (Leipzig, 1896), pp. 60-68,*and the references to the opinions of Budge, Zimmern, and Gunkel ; it partakes of the character of an epic by virtue of the prominence assigned in it to a single personage, Marduk, whose glorification constitutes the main purpose of the composition in its present form.
+ Cuneiform Teats from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, pt. xiii. (1901), with a volume of supplemen- tary texts and transliterations and translations of all the frag- ments known, by L. W. King, 7'he Seven J'ablets of Creation ; or the Babylonian and Assyrian Legends concerning the Creation of the World and of Mankind (2 vols., London, 1902).
568 RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
of Eridu, the main and oldest seat of Ea worship ; and there are reasons for believing that in other religious centres Ishtar and, perhaps also, Anu were accorded the distinction of having brought the Universe into existence, At all events, it is certain that the Creation story which we are about to analyze represents one only of several versions produced in the Euphrates Valley ; and, in extract- ing from it the cosmological theories upon which it rests, we must make due allowance for those features which reflect the attitude of a specific body of priests or a special school of thought to- wards a favourite deity.