The New Year’s Day, known as Zagmuk, is referred to in the inscriptions of Gudea, and is there declared to be in honour of the solar deity Nin-girsu and of his consort Bau, who occupies at this time, in the district controlled by Gudea, the position which afterwards was reserved for Ishtar. The spring, as the period when nature awakens to fresh life, when fertility, interrupted by the long season of rain and storms, once more mani- fests its power, would naturally be associated with a solar deity and with the mother-goddess; but when, at a subsequent period, Marduk was ad- vanced to a position at the head of the pantheon, the honours of the New Year’s celebration were transferred to him. The festival season in the month of Nisan was known as Akitwu, whereas the term Zagmuk proper is applicable only to the first day. Gifts to Bau marked the day in Gudea’s time, whereas, in the days of Marduk’s supremacy, a formal procession of the gods, headed by Marduk, along the sacred street of Babylon,} was one of the chief features. In accordance with the views developed in the schools of Babylon, Marduk was supposed to hold an assembly of the chief gods extending from the 8th to the llth day of the sacred month, for the purpose of deciding the fate of individuals during the coming year. In this ~ way a more distinctively religious character was given to an occasion which was originally an agri- cultural festival, marking the beginning of seed- time in the spring.
Likewise of popular origin was the festival of Tammuz, the youthful consort of Ishtar, who is slain by the goddess. The death of Tammuz symbolizes the approaching end of the summer season. Ishtar, though the producer of fertility, cannot maintain it beyond a certain period, and the change of seasons was popularly interpreted as due to the cruelty of the goddess, who deceives the youthful Tammuz—a solar deity, symbolizing more particularly the sun-god of spring-time—and, after gaining his love, destroys his life. Tammuz disappears in the fourth month of the year, and in his place comes Nergal, the violent and raging summer sun, which consumes everything with his fiercely burning rays, and in whose wake follow disease and pestilence. To this festival a more distinctively religious turn was likewise given by the Babylonian theologians, through making it a kind of ‘ All Souls’ Day’ for the commemoration of the dead. Dirges were sung by the wailing women, to the accompaniment of musical instruments, and offerings were made to the dead. This Tammuz festival appears to have been common to several branches of the Semites, though its spread and continuance throughout the Semitic world may have been due directly to Babylonian influences. The Tammuz cult was maintained till a late da by the Phenicians, among whom the youthful god was known as Adonis; and there is an interest- ing reference in Ezekiel (814), showing that the Hebrews also continued to observe the Tammuz
* Rawlinson, v. 61, col. v. 51-vi. 8.
t Now excavated by the German expedition. ungen der Deutschen Orient. Geselischayt, No. 6.
See Mittheit-
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
festival, just _as the Greek population of Asia Minor yielded to Semitic influences, and incor- porated the Babylonian nature myth with their own mythology.
The frequent references to the sense of guilt, and the emphasis laid upon a penitent spirit, both in the Incantation texts and Hymns, and more parti- cularly in that subdivision of the religious litera- ture known as the Penitential Psalms,* show that the Babylono-Assyrian religion must have had its sombre aspects ; and at times the impression is left, that constant fear of the gods and of the demons and evil spirits overshadowed confidence in the goodwill and favour of the superior powers. The chief festival of the year after the supremacy of Babylon as the capital of the country—the Akitw —was of a decidedly serious character; and in a religious calendar,| setting forth in detail the specific character of each day, whether unfavour- able or favourable, the unfavourable days on the whole predominate. All the festivals of the Babylonians and Assyrians, so far as our know- ledge goes, partake, to a greater or less extent, of the nature of ‘ penitential’ occasions, appropriate for securing, by the manifestation of a contrite spirit and by expiatory rites, the favour of the gods. Even in the joyful words of the hymns sung on these occasions in honour of the gods there is an undertone of sadness, occasioned by the dread lest at any moment the gods may change their favour into wrath.
In keeping with this general character of the religion, we find that, at least in two months—the 6th and 8th—of the year, no fewer than five days in each {—the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th—were set aside as ‘evil days,’ on which priests and rulers had to observe special precautions in order not to provoke the gods to anger. The priest was not to furnish oracles on those days, the physician (like- wise a priest) was not to attempt a cure, while the ruler was not to put on his festive robes, nor to mount his chariot, nor to eat food prepared by fire, nor to announce any official decisions. Such days appear to have been known as ‘days of pacification,’§ a designation expressing the hope of the worshippers rather than the real character of the occasions; and, while it is not certain that the term shabattu (or shapattw) was also applied to these days, it seems likely that this was the case. || At all events, we know that the Baby- lonians used the term shabattu to designate a ‘day of pacification’ ; and there are good reasons for believing that the Sabbath of the Hebrews, which must stand in some relationship to the Babylonian rite, originally had a sombre and penitential char- acter, and that it subsequently underwent a total transformation by making the shabattw in the literal sense ‘a day of rest’ for God, and then, in imitation of the Divine example, for mankind also.