condition of the kindred of Aljraham (q. v.) himself in | the great plain of Aram is distinctly aUuded to in Judg. xxiv, 2. According to Kawlinson (Essay in his Herod.), the Pantheons of Babylon and Nineveh, though origin- ally dissimilar in the names of the divinities, cannot as yet be treated separately. The principal god of the Assyrians was Asshnr, replaced in Babylonia by a god whose name is read II or Ra. The special attributes of Asshnr were sovereignty and power, and he was regard- ed as the especial patron of the Assyrians and their kino-s. It is the Shemitic equivalent of the Hamitic or Scythic Ka, which suggests a connection with Egypt, although it is to be noticed that the same root may perhaps be traced in the probably Canaanitish Heres. Next to Asshur or II was a triad, consisting of Ann, ■who appears to have corresponded to Pluto, a divmity whose name is doubtful, corresponding to Jupiter, and Hea or Hoa, corresponding in position and partly in character to Neptune. The supreme goddess Mulita or Bilta (Mylitta or Beltis) was the wife of the Babylonian Jupiter. This triad was followed by another, consisting of j-Ether (Iva?), the sun, and the moon. Next in or- der are " the five minor gods, who, if not of astronomical origin, were at any rate identified with the five planets of the Chaldcean system." In addition. Sir H. Pawlin- son enumerates several other divinities of less impor- tance, and mentions that there are " a vast number of other names," adding this remarkable observation : " Every town and village, indeed, throughout Babylo- nia and Assyria appears to have had its own particular deity, many of these no doubt being the great gods of the Pantheon disguised under rustic names, but others being distinct local divinities." Sir H. Eawlinson con- tents himself with stating the facts discoverable from the inscriptions, and does not theorize upon the subject further than to point out the strong resemblances be- tween this Oriental system and that of Greece and Rome, not indeed in the Aryan ground-work of the lat- ter, but in its general superstructure. If we analyze the Babylonian and Assyrian system, we discover that in its present form it is mainly cosmic, or a system of high nature-worship. The supreme divinity appears to have been regarded as the ruler of the universe, the first triad was of powers of nature, the second triad and the re- maining chief divinities were distinctly cusniic. But beneath this system were two others. r\ iiUiiily distinct in origin, and too deep-seated to be olilitcratcd. the wor- ship of ancestors and low nature-worship. Asshur, at the very head of the Pantheon, is the deified ancestor of the Assyrian race ; and, notwithstanding a system of great gods, each city had its own special idolatry, either openly reverencing its primitive idol, or concealing a deviation from the fixed belief by making that idol an- other form of one of the national divinities. lit lliis separation into its first elements of this ancient rcli-inn. we discover the superstitions of those races which, ini.K- ed, but never completely fused, formed the population of Babylonia and Assyria, three races whose three lan- guages were yet distinct in the inscribed records as late as the time of Darius Hy.staspis. These races -were the primitive ChakUeans, called Hamites by Sir H. Eawlin- son, who undoubtedly had strong affinities with the an- cient lilgyptians, the Shemitic Assyrians, and the Aryan Persians. It is not difficult to assign to these races their respective shares in the composition of the mj-- thology of the countries in >vhich they successively ruled. The ancestral worship is here distinctly She- mitic : the name of Asshur proves this. It may be ob- jected that such worship never characterized any other Shemitic stock ; that Ave find it among Turanians and Aryans : but we reply tliat the Shemites borrowed their idolatry, and a Turanian or Aryan influence may have given it this peculiar form. The low nature-worsliip must be due to the Turanians. It is never discerned except where there is a strong Turanian or Nigritian element, and when once established it seems always to have been very hard to remove. The high nature-
worship, as the last element, remains for the Arj'an race. The primitive Aryan belief in its different forms was a reverence for tlie sun, moon, and stars, and the powers of nature, combined with a belief in one supreme being, a religion which, though varying at ditferent times, and deeply influenced by ethnic causes, v.'as never deprived of its essentiall}' cosmic characteristics. See Assykia,
2. Egyptian. — The strongest and most remarkable pe- cidiarity of the Egyptian religion is the worship of ani- mals (see Zickler, De religione hestiarum ab u:Ef/ypiiis comecratarum, Lips. 1745; Schumacker, De culiii ani- malium inter ^Egyptios et J^mcZceos, Wolfenb. 1773), trees, and like objects, which was universal in the country, and was even connected with the belief in the future state. No theory of the usefulness of certain animals can explain the worship of others that were utterly use- less, nor can a theory of some strange anomaly find even as wide an application. The explanation is to be dis- covered in every town, every village, everj' hut of the negroes, whose fetishism corresponds perfectly with this low nature-worship of the ancient Egyptians.