RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Babylonia
take different names was almost as inevitable. So of sun-gods there were, e.g., Utu in Larsa, Shamash in Sippar, Nergal in Cutha, Za-mal-mal in Kish. Marduk was originally solar. That the sun's activity should be viewed in different ways is also natural, hence some of the deities
4. Solar mentioned remained distinct. But
Sheitiesh that gods of di^61-611* cities having similar aspects should be identified was to be expected in accordance with the laws of religious evolution. So Shamash came to be worshiped in different centers, the sun-deities of those places being identified with him, while others like Ninib and Nergal were differentiated and given special functions as sun-gods of the morning and springtime or of noon and summer. The powers attributed to Shamash in his two principal seats of Sippar and Larsa were such as belonged to the kindly god of light, — powers of healing and revelation, as well as of protection by detection and punishment of crime. He was given as consort Nin-A, a Sumerian deity originally male, who under Semitic misunderstanding was made to change his sex. Another explanation, less probable, is that the change of sex is a sign of subordination of the Sumerian to the Semitic god.
If the worship of sun-deities was notable, not less so was that of moon-gods. Both Semites and Sumerians encouraged the cult, but there are many signs that among the latter it was a favorite. So En-zu, " Lord of Wisdom," and Nan-nar, " Giver of Light," were names the Sumerians
5. Lunar bestowed on this deity. Nan-nar's ei les. principal seat was at Tjr; connected
with Abraham in the Biblical narrative. As Sin, a Semitic deity, he was located at Harran, also associated with Abraham, and he gave its name to the mountain and peninsula of Sinai. It is noteworthy that at Harran the god's image took the form of a conical pillar, and this suggests another phase of animism, that of the phallic cult. With Nannar-Sin also was connected the attribute of imparting wisdom, giving knowledge, particularly of measures.
The third member of this triad was Adad (also read Ramman, the Rimmon of Syria), god of
storms. This is the one deity whose
6. Adad or localization never seems to have been
Ramman. effected. He seems to have developed
out of the storm-spirits. His nature led him to be regarded both as beneficent and malevolent. The rains brought destruction, and also fertilization, to the fields. So he was invoked to bring blessing to friends and misfortune to foes. Perhaps this led to his association with Shamash in the function of punishing evil-doers. His consort was Shala, never an important deity, and her ideograph could represent also a milch-goat.
A deity sometimes displacing Adad as third member of this triad was the great Ishtar. In Arabia and Moab Athtar was male. In one case m Babylonia a male god was identified with her, and androgyny is there in sight. She was patroness of Erech, and had shrines in many towns. She was too strong a personality to be the mere consort °f a deity. The attempt was made to wed her;
but it involved either that her consort should be subordinate because of her greatness, a thing unthinkable for Semites, or that she should
7. Ishtar. be reduced to passivity, which that
same greatness forbade. She is noted for the absorption and comprehension in her being of all the noted goddesses of old Babylonia. Ninharsag of Erech (the great mother), the war-deity Nana of Erech, Nina of Shirpurla, Anunit (Sumerian Anuna) of Sippar, all yielded up their personalities to Ishtar as she grew in greatness, and her name came to be a synonym for " goddess." She even disdained the feminine termination ah in her name, and she was the Belit, " Mistress," as Marduk was Bel, " Lord," of the land. At her principal temple at Erech impure worship was a part of her ritual.
Nergal, already mentioned as personifying the sun's destructive action, was worshiped at Cutha in the temple E-shidlam, " House of Shade," at least from the time of Dungi till c. 700 B.C. He was a god of the dead in conjunction with Allatu,
this flowing naturally from his office
8. Nergal. as destroyer. He, too, absorbed other
deities (e.g., Ira, a fire-god) and took others as his servitors (e.g., Namtar, the plaguegod). His consort as god of the dead was Eresh- Kigal, as a god of the living Laz. The pantheon of the dead was a late scholastic development.
Ninib and Girru (Assyrian Nusku) were two deities who had absorbed a number of earlier gods.
ON* b ^k*3 f°rmer was connected with agri- Girru and cmture and war> the latter with the Tammuz. sun an<i with fire. Girru was also a victor over demons, and as such was much invoked in incantations. Tammuz (Sumerian Dumu-zi) was originally a sun-god, son of Ea and bridegroom of Ishtar, a culture god of Eridu, of note chiefly because of his being the cause of Ishtar's descent into Hades which is the theme of one of the epics. In Syria he was Adonai, " my lord," and gave the Greeks their Adonis (cf. on the name Ninib, J. D. Prince, in JBL, xxiv, 1905, part 1, p. 54).
Marduk, the youngest of Babylonian deities, supreme in Bablyonia from c. 2250 till the fall of the Semitic power, owed his position first to the political preeminence of Babylon, secondly to priestly ingenuity which connected him with En- 111 and then manufactured the fiction that because of Marduk's victory over Tiamat En- 10. Marduk. HI resigned to him his supremacy. To clear the way, Marduk was identified with Asari, son of En-lil. He was probably a sun-god, though his name seems to come from A marduggu, " good heifer," a title of Asari. Hammurabi seems to have been the first to declare his supremacy. Nabonidus appears to have attempted to carry this supremacy a step further and to have been thwarted by the priesthood. As it was, Marduk was never to Babylonia what Zeus was to Greece.
Nebo (from the same root as Hebrew nabhi, "prophet"; Sumerian Dim-sar, "Wise Scribe"), god of Borsippa, originally superior to Marduk, was subjected to the latter by being made his son. He was god of utterance, wisdom, revelation, writing, and culture. There appears to have been
Babylonia Bacher