20
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
to Tammuz sinking into death at the heat point and rising again. Tammuz is also, as is known, a hunter.1 In the fables of Og it
says :
“ bold and zealous, like unto the huntsman armed with his weapons, is this Abraham.” 1 2
The Arabs also recognise the Tammuz character of Abraham. The river Adonis, rising in Lebanon and having at its source sanctuaries of Ishtar and Tammuz (p. 99 f-, fig. 31), is called in Arabic Nahr-Ibrahim.
But our Biblical story also recognises the Tammuz-Ishtar motif. The journey of Abraham with his sister and wife (!) Sarah, to Egypt 3 is presented there as a descent into, and a rescue from, the Underworld. As south, Egypt is the Underworld; see p. 30, i. When Ishtar, the primeval Mother, descends into the Underworld all fertility ceases, as the well-known Babylonian text of the “ descent into hell of Ishtar ” dramatically represents. The chronicler hints this, Gen. xii. 17 : the house of Pharaoh was “ plagued ” because of Sarah. What was the plague? The duplicate passage (Gen. xx. 17 f.)4 says : sterility had come upon the women. No one could take this to be historical even in the mind of the chronicler. The story refines upon the motif. According to Gen. xx. 17, Abime- lech falls ill as punishment, not the women. Also in the unfruitfulness of Sarah, changed into fruitfulness, the Ishtar character is indicated by the stress laid upon the word mpy.5 Finally, the motif of deliverance out of the Underworld lies in the story of the rescue of Lot. Lot is in Sodom = Underworld. As he has the sun motif (with Abraham as Moon Dioscurus), his partner (Lot’s wife), has lunar character. Sun and moon desert the Underworld. The astronomical picture (fig. 15), shows the appertaining motifs. The moon rises. So soon as he turns round, he falls again into the Underworld. Lot’s wife turns round and dies. In the heavens the constellation Orion corresponds to Tammuz, rising in the
1   The moon also is hunter, in so far as he bears the Tammuz character; see
P- 35, 1*
2   Beer, loc. citp. 29.
3   That is to say, Muzri, which, however, in cosmic as also in physical geography, was reckoned as Egypt (pp. 286, i. f.).
4   It is to be noted that Abimelech wishes really to marry Sarai, Gen. xx. 2 : then Abimelech sent and took Sarah (naw np^> = Assyrian ahdzu ashshata, here in the sense of marriage). By a dream in the night Yahveh prevents him, as Asmodai does the husbands of Sarah, daughter of Reguel, Tobit iii. 8 ; see Winckler, F., iii. 414, who explains the “covering of the eyes” (Gen. xx. 16) also surely correctly as veil (chief part of the rich dowry given by Abimelech to Sarah) : an allusion to the veiled Ishtar, comp. Gen. xxiv. 65.
5   mpy is everywhere motif word in this sense : Gen. xi. 30 (Sarah), xxv. 21 (Rebekah) xxix. 31 (Leah and Rachel); Judges xiii. 2 f. (the wife of Manoah !); Ex. xxiii. 26; Deut. vii. 14; I Sam. ii. 5; Isa. liv. 1 ; Ps. cxiii. 9, in describing the blessed age ; likewise Job xxiv. 21. These are complete passages.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM
21
summer solstice and setting in the winter solstice.1 Therefore in the journey to Egypt of Abraham we may equally well see Osiris- Sirius (feminine Sothis) as the wedded brother and sister Tammuz- Ishtar. The story of Jacob (see Gen. xxxii. 10), where we find Orion motifs (see pp. 57 f.), shows that Stucken is not in error with this idea. And Jacob is a character who, as bringer of a new epoch (pp. 51 ff.), corresponds to Abraham. ^ See Appendix.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM1 2
In Gen. xiv. Abraham “the Hebrew” appears as leader and adviser of the Canaanite (Amorite) tribes against the “kings of the nations,” just as the Egyptians relate of their Sinuhe (pp. 326, i. ff.) about 2000 B.C. This story belongs to a class of writing which is unique in the range of Old Testament literature; also in the range of cuneiform writing it cannot up to the present be located, but it is found in Egyptian writings.
In 1869 Th. Noeldeke explained the chapter as being an invention with a purpose, of a later time, and Wellhausen takes this decision to be “ irrefutable and incontrovertible.” Ed. Meyer, Gesckickte des Altertums, i., holds, with Stade, that Gen. xiv. is the latest passage of the Pentateuch, and gives the following opinion: “ It seems that the Jew, w'ho introduced the story in Gen. xiv., must have learnt in Babylon very exact detail of the most ancient history of the land, and, impelled by some motive unknown to us, he put Abraham into the history of Kudurlagamar (i.e. Chedorlaomer); for the rest, he then elaborated his story according to the Jewish view of ancient times.” 3 Against this Gunkel4 has lately recognised in his Genesis that
1   The summer solstice is first of all death-point of Tammuz-Orion. But- the death and resurrection are celebrated in cult close after each other: after three days by lunar calculation (see pp. 35, i. f.). Firmicus Maternus says in de errore prof, rel., “quern paulo ante sepelierant, revixisse jactant.” The rising of Orion in the summer solstice corresponds to the new moon. In the fourfold division of the year the corresponding festival quarter is the new moon (that is to say, full moon), before the beginning of spring. The companion picture to Orion as bringer of a new age in the summer solstice (Dragon-slayer, for which reason Nimrod = Orion, see p. 290, i. ; Osiris = Orion, Hercules = Orion, see Gen. xxxii. 10) is the savage Orion, the drunken, brawling giant, whose motifs are sounded in the stories of Goliath and Nabal.
2   Comp. Clemens Alex., Adrnon. ad gent., p. 16.
3   That these pictures are “ entirely unhistoric,” as Ed. Meyer says, the author would not himself be prepared to assert, after the discovery of the Hammurabi Code (comp. pp. 34 ff., legal customs of the tribe of Abraham).
4   The remark in the first edition, A. T.A.O., that Gunkel was the first to take the monumental researches into serious consideration from the theological side,
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
the story contains ancient, certain historical facts, above all in regard to the historical setting of the story. But, on the other hand, he judges, with Noeldeke, that it contains impossibilities— as in the military achievement of Abraham, and in the supposition of the existence of the yet to come Sodom and Gomorrha. The story contains therefore, in glaring contrast, things well authenticated and utter impossibilities. H. Winckler, Geschichte Israels, ii. 26 If. (then still under strong influence of the literary critical methods), analyses the tradition given in Gen. xiv. in three parts:—
1.   An Israelite chronicler whose literary education was founded upon the cuneiform tablet writings, and who possibly had charge of the correspondence between the Israelite and Babylonian courts, learnt to know hymns upon Chedorlaomer and Tidal,1 in which historical events of campaigns towards the “ Westland,” and of a fight in the vale of Siddim, were glorified in mythological form.
2.   The Elohist took their account over on to his own ground, and identified the Habiri Sheikh, who conquered the kings, with Abram.
3.   The Yahvist added passages about Sodom and Lot and about Melchizedek, and so on, to it. In his work Abraham als Babylonier Winckler lays stress upon “ the fact of the historical background in the stories of the Patriarchs” ; it is not likely that the other orally transmitted stories would throw no light on the personal history of Abraham, but probably the intention of the tradition was to show the great world-wide political background of the age, and to place the land Abraham sought in connection with the questions which were agitating the East of that day. Winckler also holds to the opinion that from the tradition in Gen. xiv. 1 Abraham must be taken to be a contemporary of Hammurabi, and that his migration intimates an opposition to the religious upheaval by which the dominion of the first dynasty of Babylon was marked, putting the worship of Marduk, the saving spring god, in place of the ancient moon-worship. Fr. Hommel, Altis. Uberlieferung, 153, holds the entire chapter to be very old; that the probably Babylonian original composition was saved in a Hebrew translation in the archives of the temple at Jerusalem, from the archives of the pre-Israelite kings of Salem.2 Erbt, Die
has been called a “ crying injustice ” by some interested parties. Certainly Budde (from whom, however, the objection did not come) in his book Die biblische Urgeschichte shows already a decided step in this respect. Later Budde left the track here indicated.
1   Such poems have, in fact, been found in modern Babylonian transcriptions. There are names in them which correspond to Tid'al (Tudhulu), and possibly to Chedorlaomer ; see p. 23.
2   Dillmann had already expressed the view that the author of Gen. xiv. drew from a Canaanite tradition.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM
Hebraer, pp. 6l ff. combats the "analysing of the Book of Genesis into fables ” by Gunkel, and seeks to prove that there is an unbroken chain of tradition linking the stories of the Patriarchs with the later time.
Gen. xiv. 1 ff. relates:
“ And it came to pass in the days of Amraph(el)s,x when Jrioch ruled over Shinar (Babylon), king of Ellasar (Larsa), that Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim, made war
against Bera\ king of Sodom, Birshai, king of Gomorrha, Shinab, king of Admah, Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar):
all these assembled themselves in the vale of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea).
Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer; and in the thirteenth year 2 they rebelled.
But in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him.'1''
The Mahdi Abraham came to the help of his comrade Lot, who was in danger. The political statements agree with history. “In the days of Hammurabi,” whose contemporary Abraham is said to be, in the first place there reigned over Shinar ( = Sumer—South Babylonia?) a king of Larsa, whose name (Rim-Sin, or Arad Sin) might read in Sumerian as Eri-Aku. It is recorded that the tribes of Canaan paid tribute for twelve years (possibly since a triumphant Elamite campaign against the “Westland”), and in the thirteenth year they rebelled, i.e., refused to pay tribute. For this they had to be punished. The objection: “ How can the small tribal kings of the valley of Siddim be brought into connection with the powerful
1   According to Hiising, the /-at the end of the name Amraphel should belong to
the following word: li-melok; compare with it the dating on the inscription of Eshmunazar (Lidzbarski, Handbuch der nordsemit. Epigraphik, 417 ; comp. Landau, Beitr. zur Altertumskunde des A.O., ii., 5. 1, 6 1): ijta   But the
interpretation remains grammatically difficult and without analogy in the Hebrew. Possibly the / may be explained more simply from the attested reading of Hammu rabili (Johns, P.S.B.A. xxix. 177-184, Rev. 30 : Ha-m-mu-ra-bi-ih). This rabih is synonym for rapashtu, rapaltu "far off.” Possibly the Hebrew paraphrase involves the form rapaltu.
2   Upon the motif 12/13, see pp. 18 f. Another example, p. 86.
24
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
empire of the world ? ” is answered. The story also by no means requires the assumption that King Chedorlaomer and his allies went in person against them. The kings of the empire of the world did not personally mount the war chariot, when it was a question of punishing tribute-failing vassals. But it is part of the ceremonious style of annal-writing to name the king as representative of his army, even if he were not personally with it. The numbers would not be very enormous upon either side; Abraham’s 318 hanikim would not in itself give occasion for hesitation, even if this number of mythological motif (p. 18) were the round number meaning a small number. The Canaanite kings and governors in the Amama Letters beg for comparatively small bands for rescue from enemies.1
The defenders of the historical accuracy of Gen. xiv. in the last few years laid great value on the proof that the names of the Babylonian Elamite kings are identical with certain names in Babylonian cuneiform records. They are Babylonian heroic songs, which describe the wars of independence against Elam. Fr. Hommel in particular has, in his Ancient Hebrew Tradition, given much attention to it, and has also presented for the first time a translation of part of the texts discovered by Pinches. But the joy in the discovery was soon silenced. There came a doubt about the identity of the names. Proper names have always been the crux of Assyriology. They are mostly written in ideograms bearing several meanings. The uncertainty of their reading has, besides, roused in many minds the wholly unjustifiable suspicion that the deciphering of the rest of the text also is unreliable. That Amrapli(el) and Hammurabi2 are equivalent seems to us certain, and the identity of Ellasar with Larsa, the ruins of which lie hidden under the mound of Senkereh, south-east of Uruk (Erech), and probably the identification of the Biblical Arioch with Rim-Sin or Arad-Sin, whose name in “ Sumerian ” is written Eri-Aku ; see p. 321, i.
The leader is Chedorlaomer. This name is pure Elamite. It signifies servant (?) of the Elamite goddess Lagamar, of whom there are also earlier traces.
A supposed discovery by P. Scheil, who thought he had found the name again in cuneiform, in one of the letters of
1   Gunkel says : “ What can we think of a chronicler who records such things,” and quotes Noeldeke : “If that is possible, then everything is possible.” See Winckler, Hammurabi, p. xxxi. n. 2.
2   See p. 23, n. 1.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM
25
Hammurabi, in the form Kudur-Nuhgamar, led Hommel astray into taking this name as equivalent to Chedorlaomer. The reading has been proved to be erroneous by more accurate study of the letter in Constantinople, and with the reading some of Hommel’s deductions also fall.1
But even if the names were identical with those of the heroes of the above-mentioned Babylonian epic of the Elamite war, it would be of no help to those who try to prove the authenticity of Gen. xiv. upon such grounds, because the poems are only known to us in the transcripts of the age of the Achaemenidse. From the time of Nabonidus they loved bringing out the Ancient-Babylonian names and praising Ancient-Babylonian heroes. Now, since it was the Jews in exile and after the exile who were witnesses of this Babylonian antiquarianism, it was not an unlikely thing to reverse it, and to say: Gen. xiv. is a poem with a purpose, which brings the ideal character of one Abraham into connection with the greatest number possible of ancient names; the story is the work 44 of a Jew working with archives of Babylonian Palestine and of the Temple.”1 2
That a literary criticism of this kind is untenable will be allowed by everyone who has begun to look at the Old Testament in the light of the ancient East. The Biblical writers, whose works are edited in our Bible, were at least quite as well able to draw from Babylonian tradition in the time of the kings as in the post-exilic period.   Facts of
history and the knowledge of historical personalities lie at the root of Gen. xiv. Those transcripts from the age of the Achaemenidae show how vivid the remembrance was in the Near East of events in Ancient-Babylonia. And the Israelites were at all times well informed of current events in the great empires of the world. We find this illustrated in the time of
1   Erbt, Ebrder, p. 67, suggests, and Hommel had already conjectured (Gesch. Bab. u. Ass., 366), an identification of Kedorla‘omer with Kudurmabuk (founded on a wrong reading of the cuneiform original), father of Rim-Sin, ad-da of Emut- baba, who allowed his son to reign in Larsa.
2   The explanation as a “ Midrash ” (by Kautzsch amongst others) does not at all fit the peculiarity of the tale, even if we allow that a “ Midrash” need not be an entirely made-up story.
26
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
the kings. It is only a question as to whether the appearance of Abraham is historic, or whether the stories of the victory over the four kings have simply been foisted upon him. For those who abolish the existence of Abraham the question is settled. But the stories contain very weighty material for the defence of the personality of Abraham. He was also looked upon as a commander-in-chief (see pp. 5 f.). The appearance of the 44 Hebrew ” Abraham entirely corresponds to the circumstances of that age, as shown us, for instance, in the Sinuhe stories. The reason of his appearance, not taking into account the circumstances of the relationship with Lot, was that the campaign threatened a part of his people with deportation (Gen. xiv. 12), so that the religious movement was endangered.
Gen. xiv. 8: 44 Four kings against five.” Five is the number of the Dragon combat, and is for that reason specially emphasised; see pp. 78, i., 93, i., 42, n. 1. Five kings assemble in the Vale of Siddim, that is, in the Vale of Demons (shedim) ; by this mythic geographical name they are denoted as Powers of the Underworld.
Gen. xiv. 10 f.: The kings of Sodom and Gomorrha fell into pits (m»n, bor) in the vale of demons. The later tradition has, with the fate of Sodom and the character of the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea in mind, made bitumen pits (non man) of it.
Gen. xiv. 13 ff.: Abram, the Hebrew (!) comes to the rescue. Abram dwelt in Shechem by the Tree of the World Moreh,1 see p. 14 (Gen. xiii. 18: Mamre in Hebron transports the scene of the story to the south; see p. 14), with three confederates.1 2 To rescue Lot Abram 46 counted ”3
1   Gen. xii. 6 ; comp. Deut. xi. 29 f., in the neighbourhood of Gerizim and Ebal.
2   Mamre, ’Eshkol and ‘Aner (‘Enak?). In ba'ale berith lies an echo of the Ba'al berith in Shechem, Judges viii. 33 ; ix. 4 (place of worship upon Gerizim or Ebal). Isaac also allies himself with three men by an oath (berith): Abimelech, Ahuzzath, and Phicol, Gen. xxvi. ff. He entertains them as Abraham did the three men who visited him (Gen. xviii. 2 ff.), and then is granted the fulfilment of a wish : his people find water.
3   For the variants see Kittel, Bibiia ; Sept, iipldfitjae.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ABRAHAM   27
“ his 318 hanikim,1 born in his house, and pursued as far as Dan.11
“ Then he divided himself over them (against them) by night, he and his servants, and smote them.11
The division into three parts belongs to the motifs of the moon-combat,1 2 and corresponds to the three watches of the moon, for which reason the night watches are strikingly emphasised. We find the same thing in the fights, endowed with moon-combat motifs, of Jacob against Laban, Gen. xxxiii., and of Gideon against the Midianites,
Judges vii. 16; of Saul against the Amonites, 1 Sam. xi. 11 ; and in the battles at Gibeah and Michmash.3
Gen. xiv. 18: “ And Malki- zedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; he was a priest of the El^elyon.
Salem, at least in the later
conception (comp. Psi lxxvi. 3),
was the poetic name for Jerusalem;
comp. Joshua x. 1: Adonizedek, i • j? v A i IA   FIG. 121.—Letter of Abdihiba from
king of Yerushalem.   Jerusalem to Amenophis IV.
In the Amarna Letters we meet
with many letters from Urusalim (see fig. 121) which correspond
 
1   Only used in this passage. It is an astral motif word which must belong to the myth of the rescue of the sun from the Underworld (Lot) by the moon : the 318 nights when the moon is visible help in the combat of the moon against the powers of the Southland (sun). We may remember the sun character of Hanok (Enoch), who was 365 years old, and the tyanfika festival of the solstice ; see p. 239, i., n. 8, and Winckler, Knt. Sc hr., iv. 64, and F., iii. 407. The hanikim was a consecrated band from amongst the Shechem allies, like the chosen youths in Judges vii. 1 ff. ; see Erbt, Ebrder, pp. 76 f.
2   Winckler, loc. cit., 407. The division belongs to the “night watches”; Kautzsch, Gunkel, and others translate this inaccurately.
3   See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., lxxxviii. 139, 157. Also in Job i. 17 we find the stratagem ; it seems to have become a standing motif in stories of battles.
28
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
to the Hebraic Yerushalem.1 The meaning as a City of Peace” is later popular etymology. The king and governor Abdihiba of Urusalim says of himself:
Behold, what concerns me (what concerns the region of this city Urusalim), not my father, not my mother established me (gave it me), but the arm of the mighty king allowed me to enter into the house of my forefathers (has given it to me). K.B., v. 102, 9 ff., 103, 25 ft.; see Hommel, Ancient Hebrew Tradition, 155.
The expression “ not my father, not my mother, but the divine call to the throne may I glory in,” belongs to the mythological necessity of the call to the king. It is the motif of the mystery of secret birth; see for detail upon this, pp. 90 ff., under “ Birth of Moses.” The king represents himself thus as the bringer of a new age, as a deliverer.
A number of examples are given in B.N.T., pp. 29 f.; others will be adduced under Exod. ii. 2. According to Deut. xxxiii. 9 ff. (see upon this passage pp. 59 and 91) Moses was endowed with the same motif: “ Who says of his father, and to his mother : I have not seen them [and who does not acknowledge his brother and who does not know his son].” 1 2 It is the same when Gudea says to the Queen of Heaven : “ I have no mother, thou art my mother ; I have no father, thou art my father. ”
The Epistle to the Hebrews applies the same motif to Melchizedek, King of Salem, Heb. vii. 3: Melchizedek was airdraip, ayeveaXoyrjTos, “ without father, without mother, without genealogy.”
The “ mighty king ” in the passage mentioned is, in the first instance, Amenophis IV. (Chuenaten), a religious reformer, who introduced a singular form of sun-worship in place of all other Egyptian cults, and built as sacred place for this cult, that city which lies under the ruins of Amarna. Whilst other Pharaohs were content to compare themselves with the Sun-god, Chuenaten wished to be exalted as incarnation of a great god. The governors of Canaan naturally obediently fell in with the requisition. They assure the king: “ Behold, the king has laid his name upon Jerusalem for ever, therefore can he never forsake the land of Jerusalem.” But behind this bending before Pharaoh there was certainly hidden a loftier insight, which may
1   “ City of Shalem”? Shalem, Assyrian Shulman, is possibly a designation of Ninib. The Amarna Letters mention a district Bit-Ninib in the neighbourhood of Urusalimmu ; see Zimmern, K.A,T.y 3rd ed., 475 f.
2   The bracketed sentence is possibly the gloss of an editor who no longer knew the motif of secret birth.
ABRAHAM AND MELCHIZEDEK
29
be at least related to the religion of Abraham. Between Abraham's religion and the religion of the priest-king Mel- chizedek there exists in any case a connection of religious history upon which the last word has not yet been said. The more or less clearly recognisable worship of “ God most High " links Abraham the Babylonian with the pious king of the Canaanites.   —
The connection with Jerusalem belongs to a later interpretation. The scene is laid, according to the original copy, in Shechem ; see p. 26. The priest bringing his benediction must come to meet Abraham out of Shechem (comp. Erbt, Ebraer, pp. 74 ff.). Salem is a variant of Shechem.1 Gen. xxxiii. 18 is an evidence of this: “ Jacob came to Shalem, the city of Shechem." 1 2 El-Elyon, the God of Melchizedek, is then identical with the El-berit worshipped (upon Ebal or Gerizim) in Shechem (thus in Judges ix. 46 instead of Ba-al-berit in Gen. ix. 4; comp. p. 27).
The blessing of Melchizedek runs (Gen. xiv. 19 f.) :
“ Blessed be Abram of El-Elyon possessor of heaven and earth.
And blessed be El-Elyon
who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand."
It recalls the blessings in the cuneiform writings; comp, p. 106, i.
Gunkel, Genesis, 26l, is inclined to hold Melchizedek as an historical personage, and draws some far-reaching conclusions from it: Jerusalem was probably in a pre-Israelite period the centre of an important confederation of cities, as indeed in Joshua x. the king of Jerusalem appears to be chief of a Canaanite confederation ; later Judaism joined itself on to this tradition much as if the German Kaiser were to appear as successor to the Roman Caesars, and Ps. cx. gives evidence of the great value laid by the court tradition at Jerusalem upon the king of Jerusalem being the
1   See now Winckler, F, iii. 441 (also upon the following) against the earlier opinion in K:A.T,3rd ed., 424.
2   The old translations were right in reading it so, not as “safe.” Gen. xxxiv. 21, the people of Jacob were received in Shechem : “they shall be shelemim with us ” ; even if that also means “ dwell with us in peace,” still the motif of the name is purposely woven into it.
30
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
successor of Melchizedek.1 The step from the recognition of the priest-king, Melchizedek of Jerusalem, as an historical character, to the recognition of the Hebrew Abraham of Hebron, as historical, is not very far.
Gen. xiv. 3, 8, 10: Instead of D^to, siddim, it should be read Shedim.2 We may compare the Rephaim (properly speaking, spirits of the dead), which appear as a mythical tribe of demons ; Deut. ii. 11, 20 ; Judges xii. 4, etc.
Gen. xiv. 20; pD is a poetic motif word for 44 give,11 as in Hosea xi. 8, which represents the full motif; comp. Eccles.
iv.   9, by this the lexicographic difficulty is explained. In the same way Gen. xv. 1 should read 441 will give thee thy reward11 (not,441 am thy shield11).3 Besides which, Abraham does not give to Melchizedek, but, contrariwise, Melchizedek gives the Temple tax (satukku) to Abraham.4
Gen. xiv. 21 ff. : The King of Sodom 5 wishes to give the whole booty to Abraham, who will only accept what the people have taken for themselves in the loot.6 Besides this he will accept
1   We interpret this “priesthood after the order of Melchizedek ” not politically but religiously. The large-hearted, priestly poet (“thou art a priest after the order of Melchizedek”) laid great value upon the tradition of the pious priest-king of the Canaanites, who blessed Abraham, and through whom all heathen people should be blessed (Ps. Ixxii. 17). Erbt’s hypothesis (.Ebr'der, 74 fif.) is very noteworthy, seeing in Ps. cx. a liturgy upon Yahveh and Zion composed anew at the enthronement of the priest-king of Shechem. Upon the change from Shechem to Jerusalem, see p. 29.
2   So already said by Renan ; see Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37. In both these
last-named passages the sacrifices are made to demons. The adoration of demons, guardian divinities of the house or temple must be criticised like the “devil- worship ” round about the Tigris at the present day. Offerings are made to them to avert evil; comp. Lev. xvii. 7. It has not been proved that “sacrifice to demons in Babylonia was only made in so far as it deals with spirits of the dead.” The word is of Babylonian origin. Babylonian demonology differentiates between an evil and a gracious shedu. Hitzig and Wellhausen also prefer in Hosea xii. 12 shedim instead of   and Hoffmann in Phoniz. Inschriften, p. 53, reads in
Job v. 21 shed instead of (see Zimmern, K.A. T., 3rd ed., p. 461).
3   Winckler, F, iii. 411.
4   The text is corrupt; see Siever’s Metrische Studien, 273.
5   According to v. 10 he is dead. Two versions of the story are run together.
6   Assyrian akdlu (Id. Fu), already upon the vulture stele of E-an-na-tum, Vorders., vi. 15 (Thureau Dangin, V.A.B., i. 13), where the Patesi of Gish-hu with his people by command of his god “devours” the beloved district of Ningirsu. That the interpretation as “what they have eaten” is impossible, Winckler has shown Fiii. 410 f. The meaning “ what they have devoured (comp. Arabian
FURTHER GLOSSES TO HISTORY OF ABRAHAM 31
nothing, 44 from a thread to the sole of the shoe.” This is one of the motif figures of speech, signifying the whole (milk and honey, vine and fig-tree, upper and under, elish and shaplish, in cosmic sense Upperworld and Underworld).
Winckler has perceived that in thread and shoe latchet there lies the same antithesis denoted by upper and under in the microcosmos, and contained in every microcosmos which reflects the whole. In fairy tales we know the opposition of tailor and cobbler, where the tailor is always good and the cobbler bad, corresponding to moon and sun in opposition, Overworld and Underworld (see p. 36, i., the Dioscuri as hostile brothers). The tailor corresponds to the thread, the cobbler to the sole of the shoe. Compare the Mohammedan legend Ibn Hisham, 765, where the antithesis is still better shown by garment and sandal.
Gen. xv. 1 and 12 ff. : (Ecstasy), see p. 12 ; under Gen. xv. 1 (pD not shield), see p. 30.
Gen. xv. 2 f.: The text is corrupt.
44 Lord Yahveh, what canst thou give me, since I am childless, and the son of Meshek of my house (ben-meshek heti, a gloss playing on the word, adds : that is, a dammeshek).1 Eliezer (and Abram said: To me thou hast given no descendants, behold a son of my house)2 will be my heir. Eliezer may 3 perhaps be therefore taken to be actually mushkenu (it must then be read []]ptt>D) as Winckler takes it, that is, according to the H.C., a 44 freed man,” a degree lower than Ishmael, whose position will be treated p. 34,4 presumably therefore a son of Abraham by a
’akal) of the plunder ” is in our opinion preferable to “have stolen,” in spite of the tempting motif. Plunder is the law of war, not theft. Gen. xxxi. 15 f , akdl has the same meaning: Laban “ devoured ” the tirhatu (see p. 37) paid for his daughters.
1   The glossator plays upon the connection of the tradition with Damascus, of which he was aware (see p. as was already conjectured in A.T.A.O., 1st ed., p. 184. Add to this, perhaps, that ben-mesheq and dam-mesheq should be looked upon as variants of a play upon words ; as ben — son, so according to II. R. 36. 57 at bottom also dam = son (II. R. 36. 57 da-mu = maru, to which Hommel has drawn our attention).
2   ben beti, the fatal mesheq is suppressed in the duplicate.
3   The writing with “q”is not absolutely against it, yet requires careful consideration.
4   Comp. Stucken, Astralmythen, 117, where in Isaac, Ishmael, and Elieser the three ranks are recognised (therefore a Semitic Rigsmal) and now Winckler, F., iii. 412. The three descendants correspond to the three prophecies of posterity. There is, then, an analogy in the three visits of Heimdal, with result of a birth from each; first the slave, then the bondsman, and last the free-born lord.
32
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
slave, and born during the sojourn of the people of Abraham in Damascus.
Gen. xv. 6: “ Abram believed, and God counted it to him for righteousness?   (amen, he'emm) and shedakak are terms
expressing expectation of a deliverer. They belong to Abraham as prophet of the new age (nabi, Gen. xx. 7; see pp. 90 f.) and bringer of the new epoch. The Mohammedan religion is the religion of Abraham, as is emphatically shown by the Koran, Sura vi. 76 (see p. 9, n. 1). Ibn Hisham, 150, names, as the three duties of Mohammed and all earlier prophets, that he must be towards Allah : dmana (in Arabic likewise the causative case), tsaddaqa and natsr.
The third motif hereafter is the nzr motif. Winckler, F., iii. 412 f., comp. Ex or. lux, ii. 2, p. 59, thinks that this, which he takes to be the motif of deliverance,” is specially Babylonian (Marduk with the Kibla to the east) and is found again amongst the Nozairians and amongst the Christians (Nazarenes). It is missing in the Old Testament religion, because Abraham stood in opposition to Babylon; comp. p. 10. This is not the place to discuss the motifs of deliverance. We will only remark that, in our opinion, the nezer motif is much more the motif of the spring of the universe, which the deliverer brings (Isa. xi. 1 ; Dan. xi. 7 ; Matt. ii. 23; comp. B.N.T. 46; it is =zemah), and that we cannot agree with Winckler’s conclusions in regard to the absence of this motif in our passage.
Gen. xv. 8-11. The symbols of the conclusion of the agreement are highly interesting : a three-year-old cow, a three-year- old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon are divided into halves, and the halves (the birds undivided) laid over against each other. A half belongs to each of the parties to the bargain. The form of the agreement between Yahveh and Abraham is one used when the two sides were men.1 In any case, the contractors passed between the pieces, as it is said the fiery appearances did (v. 17), and it is described in Jer. xxxiv. 18. As they passed the words of the treaty were spoken. There came birds of prey. Abram “ drove them away ”? Should this be read, with Winckler, as *1£Z)V),
1   What the division meant is not clear. We have cuneiform texts where the parts of the body of the sacrificial victim mean the parts of the body of the contractors of the bargain ; see pp. 49 f. upon-Gen. xxii. 13.
FURTHER GLOSSES TO HISTORY OF ABRAHAM 33
44 Abraham saw them” and the birds of omen be thought of, as in the story of Romulus, where the one who first saw the birds was the one to whom good fortune would come ?1 In the night a fiery appearance passed between, whilst Abram lay in a trance. The fiery appearance is part of the endowment of the summits deus2 (north point of the heaven = fire; see p. 31, i.). Yahveh at Horeb also appeared in a flame of fire; Exod. iii. 4. At the sacrifice of Manoah (Judges xiii. 20), the angel of Yahveh ascended in the flame of the altar.
Gen. xvii. Abimelech, see p. 20; Gen. xvii. 1, see pp. 12, 14.
Gen. xviii. 2 ; comp, xix 1: The ceremonious salutation of laying the face in the dust, is in the East used only before divinity and before royal personages; comp. 1 Sam. xx. 21 ;
xxiv.   9. It is still used in Arabian ceremonials of prayer.
In the Amarna Letters the salutation runs : “ Seven times I fall upon my back, seven times I fall upon my belly.” We may compare with this Gen. xxxiii. 3 : Jacob bows himself to the earth seven times before Esau. The Oriental of to-day ceremoniously salutes by touching with his right hand first the earth, then his heart, and his forehead.
Gen. xviii. 4 : Abraham's guests .... taking food. The verb, properly speaking, means 44 to lean against.” It does not say that to eat they 44 reclined.”3 Gunkel founds his assumption upon an error when he takes it that it is a custom of the Bedouins. Reclining upon pillows is a luxurious habit in palaces; comp. Amos vi. 4. There is evidence from the most ancient times of the custom of sitting upon chairs in the civilised lands; compare the ancient seals, for example, figs. 37, 68, 70, the reliefs from Kouyunjik in Botta, the well-known picture of Assurbanipal and his wife in the vine arbour, where the king is reclining and his wife sits.
sfc Gen. xviii. 12-15 : Upon this motif of laughter, see Appendix. As a reward for the entertainment of the celestial visitors the host is granted a wish (compare the three wishes in the fairy stories).
1   Possibly still more is veiled in it. Stucken, Astralmythen, p. 4, already recalled that an ancient divinity of Mecca (Hobal, identical with Abraham) was the “bird-feeder” : mut'im al-tair (Wellhausen, Skizzen, iii. 73, recalls in regard to it our passage, Gen. xv. II).
2   Comp. Rev. i. xiv. f.
3   The Bedouins sit upon their heels to eat,
VOL. II,   3
34
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
We have already noted the same motif, p. 26, n. 2. The antithesis is the plague as punishment for violated right of hospitality, comp, p. 40.*
LEGAL CUSTOMS OF THE ABRAHAM PERIOD
Gen. xvi. 1 ff.: Sarai, because she has no children, gives Abraham her handmaid Hagar as “ concubine. ”   This same
custom, of which there is no trace to be found in later Israel, is repeated in Gen. xxx. 1 if., where Rachel gives Jacob her maid Bilhah.
In the Code of Hammurabi, who according to Gen. xiv. 1, p. 23, appears to have been contemporary of the “ Babylonian ” Abraham, it is said i7.C., 146:
When a man takes a wife, and she gives a maid (as wife) to her husband, and she (the maid) bears him children, then if this maid makes herself equal to her mistress, because she has borne children: her mistress shall not sell her for money, she shall put the slave’s mark upon her,1 and count her amongst the servants.
This exactly corresponds to the case of Abraham with Hagar.1 2 Hagar was given as wife to Abraham.3 As soon as she had good hope of a child, “ her mistress was despised in her eyes.” Sarai spoke to Abraham, Gen. xvi. 5: 66 Yahveh be judge
1   Abuttam ishshakanshi.
2   The following deeds of contract from the time of the first (Canaanite) dynasty of Babylon serve for further illustration. Bu. 91-5-9, 374 (CM;?. Inscr., viii.), it is said : Bunini-abi and Beli-shunu (his wife !) bought Shamash-nur, daughter of Ibi-Sha-a-an, from Ibi-Sha a-an her father, as wife for Bunini-abi, as maid for Beli-shunu. If Shamash-nur should say to Beli-shunu, her mistress : “ Thou art not my mistress, then she shall shave her and sell her for money, etc. By the laws of Hammurabi.” Bu. 91-5-9, 2176 A. {Cun. Inscr., ii.) refers to the same circumstances : “ Arad-Shamash has taken Taram-Sagila and Iltani, the daughter (daughters) of Taram-Sagila as wife. If Taram-Sagila should say to Arad-Shamash, her husband : Thou art not my husband, then shall they cast her forth from the .... If Arad-Shamash should say to Taram-Sagila, his wife: Thou art not my wife, then she shall leave the house and household. Iltani shall wash the feet of Taram-Sagila and carry her in her chair to her temple, and he shall sit in the shadow of Taram-Sagila, and enjoy her peace (but) not open her seal.” See Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. 58.
3   According to a Talmudic tradition (Feuchtwang, Z.A., vi. 441), Hagar was a
nnst?, a maid whose labour belonged to the husband as usufruct. Since muldgu means “dower” in Assyrian, the Talmud therefore assumes that she was given to Abraham from the first. Therefore like the second of the examples cited in n. 3.
LEGAL CUSTOMS OF THE ABRAHAM PERIOD 35
between me and thee.11 She claimed the right sanctioned by Yahveh. In Babylonia the plaintiff would have called upon Shamash, that is to say, upon the code containing the laws for “judging disputed points,11 and in the conclusion of which it says: “ The oppressed party, who has a claim, shall come before my statue as king of justice, and my inscription shall justify his claim, he shall have his rights and his heart shall be glad.11
Sarai’s words, “ Yahveh be judge,11 correspond to the continually used expression mahar Him, “ before the Divinity,11 in the H.C. “Before the Divinity11 legal decisions are settled. Abraham acknowledged the point of law. He allowed the claim, and actually again in the sense of the law as held in the
H.C., when he said, Gen. xvi. 6: “ Thy maid is in thy power : deal with her as seems good to thee.11 Hagar had, therefore, forfeited the privileges which belonged to her and her children through her advancement to being her master’s concubine (comp. H.C., 146, 171), and her mistress could treat her as a slave. Sarah took harsh advantage of the right; thereupon Hagar fled (Gen. xvi. 6).1
The laws of Hammurabi draw a sharp distinction between the “ concubine,11 the slave who might be given to the man for the purpose of getting children, and the secondary wife, of much higher social standing, who could only be taken by the man together with the legitimate wife, if he had not already accepted a concubine.
H.C., 144 : When a man takes a wife, and that wife (because she has no children, comp. 145) gives a maid to her husband, and this maid has children, should the man, however, propose taking (besides the maid) a secondary wife, this shall not be allowed, and he shall not take a secondary wife.
H.C., 145 : When a man takes a wife, and she bears him no children, and he purposes taking a secondary wife, he may take the secondary wife, and bring her into his house ; this secondary wife, however, shall not be equal to his first wife.
1   Edm. Jeremias (student of law) directs attention to the fact that this appeal
by Sarah to the law presupposes in the mind of the chronicler that the idea of the family had developed from the social ranks amongst the people of Abraham. We must notice too that in this presupposed community the wife had a separate right. To her belongs the execution of the judgment; Gen. xvi. 6, as in H.C., 146. In this lies a confirmation of our view of the “ history of the Patriarchs,” p. 4.
36
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
So it is distinctly stated that also this secondary wife may not be equal with the chief wife. Only here there is no special punishment incurred in the event of her boasting over the other in pride of her motherhood.
The story in Gen. xxi. 9 If., which is drawn from another source, seems to say that Hagar was not a slave, but secondary wife. It says nothing about any claim made by Sarah or any degradation of Hagar. Abraham sends her away to end the quarrel. That she is looked upon here as secondary wife is perhaps shown by the mention of the rights of inheritance of Hagar’s son. After the birth of her own son Isaac, Sarah becomes jealous of Hagar’s son, because he should “ be heir with her son.”1 The secondary wife, however, according to the H.C., though not equal to the chief wife, is protected by the laws of marriage in regard to the laws of separation and property;2 comp. H.C., 137, from which it may be concluded that the secondary wife is considered as a free woman. From this it follows, as at least very probable, that the child of the second wife would be legitimate, and therefore have rights of inheritance. If, notwithstanding, we take it that Hagar, according to Gen. xxi. 9 ff also, is represented as a slave, even in that case the supposition of Sarai’s jealousy fits the sense of the laws of Hammurabi. Only it must then be presupposed that Abraham had said to Ishmael, “ Thou art my son,” i.e. that he had adopted him.
f/.C., 170: When a man has had children borne to him by his wife, and by his maid, and the father says, during his lifetime, to the children borne to him by his maid, “ My children” (this betokens the legal formula for adoption),3 and includes them amongst the children by his wife ; then when the father dies, the children of the wife and of the maid shall divide their father’s possessions equally between them. The wife’s child shall divide it and shall have the choice.
1   Gen. xxi. 9, “because he was a scoffer” has been interpolated afterwards by an interpreter who did not understand the situation, see Gunkel, Genesis, loc. cit. pnHD, “to jest,” is explained in Exod. xxxii. 6 as idolatry. It has also an obscene meaning besides.
2   See Kohler and Peiser, Der Codex Hammurabi, p. 221.
3   The proper formula was in any case fuller and more ceremonious ; possibly in Ps. ii. 7 there is again an echo of the formula : “ Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee” ; see Kohler and Peiser, loc. cit.} p. 123.
LEGAL CUSTOMS OF THE ABRAHAM PERIOD 37
It is remarkable that here there should be children by the maid together with children by the wife. Perhaps it was only in such case that adoption was necessary, whereas in the case of the maid having been given for the purpose of propagatio by the childless wife, the full rights of the son of the maid would naturally follow from the purpose of the institution; this would explain why there is no mention of an adoption of Ishmael. The maid was often included in the sale of a wife, and H.C., 170, probably bears reference to such a case.
Gen. xxix. ff. reports that Jacob, during the lifetime of his wife, married her sister also. In later law (Lev. xviii. 18) this was accounted as incest; comp. p. 2. We know from the reports upon Ancient-Babylonian civil law that the two wives of one man were sometimes called ahatu, “ sisters.” I therefore assumed earlier (A.T.A.O., 2nd German ed., p. 358) that it was dealing with a similar case of marriage law as in Gen. xxix. Br. Meissner calls to my attention that the two women who are called ahatu may in these cases also stand in the relationship of mistress and maid. A poet of later time writing legends would certainly, in the interests of the authority of the current law, have avoided reverting to such ancient rules.
At contraction of a marriage the bridegroom paid (besides the other presents) the price of a woman (mohar) to the woman’s father (Gen. xxxi. 15; xxxiv. 12; Exod. xxii. 16; Deut. xxii. 19), which in the case of Jacob and Laban was paid in service. Gen. xxiv. 53, Eliezer paid such a marriage portion to the brother and* to the mother of Rebecca. In the same way the H.C. shows a price for a woman (tirtyatu) which, according to H.C., 139, amounts to a mine and more, and this even together with a sheriktu (present, dowry to her family; for example, § 137), but which may also be omitted;1 finally, the nudunnii, the husband’s u Morgengabe,” * for example, H.C., 172a.
We add to these two cases of law, which may be taken as weighty evidence for the authenticity of the milieu of the history of Abraham, mention of other legal customs which are not especially Ancient-Babylonian but also correspond to later, that is to say, inter-tribal laws upon which, however, at least partially, an interesting light is thrown by the H.C.
1   See Kohler and Peiser, loc. cit., p. 118. Jacob pays to Laban such a tirjidtu (paid in labour) j Gen. xxxi. 15 f.
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
Gen. xx. 16: The violation of a married woman was atoned for by a fine paid to the husband (Gen. xx. 14); upon the “ covering of the eyes” (accentuation of the veil), which consists in a bridal dowry to the injured woman, see p. 20, n. 5.
Gen. xxiv. 4 : The father chooses a bride for the son. Likewise in Babylonia, according to H.C. ^155 f.: “When a man betroths a maid (hallatu) to his son.” In the H.C., the bride is bought by the man; comp. Gen. xxiv. 51 ; xxxi. 15 (Rachel and Leah: “Our father hath sold us”). H.C., 159 ff‘., presupposes that the maiden as bride (kallat; but this, de facto, has the same meaning as wife) will remain in her father’s house, and that the son-in-law may live there, as Jacob did with Laban and Moses with Jethro.1
The marriage portion was brought to the father-in-law’s house, H.C., 159-161 ; it was thus in the wooing of Rebecca, Gen. xxiv. 10, 53.
Gen. xxxi. 32 presupposes a theft of sacred things, punishable with death:
H.C,, 6 : 2 If a man steals the property of God (temple) or court (king),3 he shall be killed
Gen. xxxi. 39 presupposes that the hired shepherd was required to make good any loss to the herd only when it had occurred by his neglect:
H.C., 267 : If the shepherd neglects something, and a loss occurs to the herd, then the shepherd shall replace the loss.
THE PATRIARCHS AS POSSESSORS OF FLOCKS AND HERDS
The Bedouin theory mentioned at p. 15 held good in support of the idea that the primitive “ Patriarchs ” appear to be shepherds so long as the records of the Ancient-East were unknown. It was not taken into consideration that the part of the Near East which was the scene of the story was in those
1   Winckler, A.O., iv. 43, 26. The peculiar situations of Jacob and Moses are not sufficient explanation.
2   Upon this and the following, see J. Jeremias, Moses und Hammurabi, 2nd ed., p. 44.
3   Compare H. C., 8, and compare with this the pretended theft by Joseph’s brother from the Egyptian court; Gen. xliv. 9. Upon the death penalty for other serious theft, see p. 110.
SODOM AND GOMORRHA
39
days in a much higher state of civilisation than it is now, and that the Bedouins also of those days were in close intercourse with the great civilisations.1 The owners of flocks and herds were connected with the rulers of the lands, as is illustrated by the story of Sinuhe. They were princely rulers, who hired out their flocks and their shepherds, and ruled over their properties. The H.C. presupposes a relation between owner and tenant, and regulates the respective duties and rights.
Gen. xviii. 22 ff.: “ Abraham stood before God” The presentment of a petitioner, who stands before the Divinity, also fits with the Babylonian religion. We often find it illustrated on seal cylinders; see figs. 35 and 70.1 2
Abraham entertained celestial visitors, then he might express a wish.3 He prays for the rescue of Sodom. Abraham speaks of from fifty righteous men (zedek, one who has fulfilled his duty to the Divinity) down to ten. This motif of bargaining is found also in the Arabian legend as an intentional counterpart to this story of Abraham, in the journey of Mohammed through the seven heavens, which exactly corresponds to the Ancient-Oriental presentment of the seven stages described at p. 16, i. f. Allah requires fifty prayers from Mohammed, which, however, are lessened to five upon Abraham’s intercession.
SODOM AND GOMORRHA AND THE FIRE-FLOOD
The whole story of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrha, as we have it, presents the motifs of the fire-flood. Like the Deluge, the fire-flood intimates a return to original conditions. Therefore in Gen. xix. 31 the whole race of mankind is assumed to be annihilated, except Lot and his daughters. With the
1   See upon the following, Winckler, Altor. Geschichtsauffassung, 16 ff. {Ex or. lux, ii. 2).
2   In interviews with the king, the “ minister ” is the intercessor {nazdzu inapdni, “ stand before,” is the technical expression). The king was not addressed personally. For this reason the king praying is accompanied by a priest who takes him by the hand {sabit kdt).
3   His first wish is for the birth of a child (comp. p. 33). We would expect to find three wishes. Compare with this and the following, Winckler, M. V.A.G., 1901, 353 ^
40
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
fire-flood begins a new world.1 Biblical history endows the story of the destruction of Sodom with the motifs of the fire- flood in order to indicate the inauguration of a new age—the Canaanite period.1 2 The historian avails himself of the ages of the universe motifs. The district where the scene is laid is a universe in miniature. The source of the material appears to be from an Ammorite Moabite primitive story about Paradise, the Fall, and the Deluge (fire-flood). Gen. xviii. 25 ff., in addition, shows that Jewish historians took this view, looking upon the fire-flood of Sodom in particular as the antithesis to the Deluge, and as a tragedy of the universe. The cause of the flood is violation of the rights of hospitality.
Judges 19 f. is a counterpart to the fiery judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrha.3 In Gibeah the rights of hospitality were violated in the same way as in Sodom and Gomorrha. Violence is done to the guests (comp. Gen. xix. 8 f. with Judges
xix.   23 f.; certain forms of expression are exactly the same). The punishment for the violated guest-rights was the destruction by fire of the city of Benjamin ; Judges xx. 40, 48. Only six hundred men save themselves on the rock of Rimmon (!), like Lot with his people upon a mountain; Gen. xix. 17.
A Buddhist story shows the same motifs :4—
The Buddhist pilgrim Hiouen Thsang from China (seventh century A.D.) tells of a city Halaolokia which was rich, but heretical. Once when an Arhat came to the city they gave him no food, but pelted him with earth and sand. Only one man took pity upon him and gave him food. Then the Arhat said to him : “ Save thyself; in seven days there will fall a rain of earth and sand and will smother the city, not one man shall escape—and only because they have pelted me with earth.” The man went into the city, and told his relations, but no one would believe it, and they mocked at it. But the tempest came, the city fell, and only the man rescued himself by an undergound passage.
1   Comp. pp. 70, i. f., 268, i., 270, i. In the Jalkut Rubeni the tower was to protect from the fire-flood (IPN biff ^UD). Upon the fire-flood of Sodom, compare also Jastrow, Rel. of Bab., 507, and Z.A., xiii. 288 ff. The burning of Troy also has the motifs of the fire-flood, as the embellishing myths show.
2   Comp. Erbt, Ebraer, p. 70.
3   Compare also the fire-flood which falls upon Babylon; Rev. xviii. 8, 18 ; xix. 3.
* P. Cassel, Mischle Sindbad’ p. 1, noted the echo of the Lot story (quoted
according to Stucken, Astralmythen, 115).
SODOM AND GOMORRHA
41
The Phrygian fable of Philemon and Baucis (Ovid, Met., vi. 616 ff.) deals with a deluge. Zeus and Hermes find no hospitality. The two old people take them in. For punishment comes a deluge, from which the two are rescued. There the apotheosis1 consists in (a) their house is changed into a Temple in which they rule as priests, (b) that at the end of their lives they are changed into trees (Philemon into an oak, Baucis into a lime tree).
The following motifs are to be noted in the story of Sodom and Gomorrha.
1.   Destruction falls upon Sodom and Gomorrha, which once resembled Paradise (Gen. xiii. 10, “like a garden of God,” see p. 206, i.; “like the land of Egypt” is a gloss), because of the wickedness of men.
2.   One righteous man with his family is rescued.
3.   As place of refuge a mountain is indicated, Gen. xix. 17 ; that is to say, the city of Zoar.2
4.   Those selected for rescue are mocked; Gen. xix. 14.
5.   It is represented to the divine judge that only the wicked should be overwhelmed by the judgment; Gen. xviii. 25.
6.   The new epoch and the new generation are begun by the action of Lot’s daughters and by Lot’s drunkenness.3
Instead of the fire-flood, sometimes a rain of stones appears, which one must take to be fiery stones; comp. Rev. xvi. 21. This is also motif of re-creation of the world, and is in fact in the summer solstice of the universe. It is at the time of the solstice that meteors fall. We find such a rain of stones falling from heaven, as an event at the beginning of a new epoch, in Joshua x. 11, after the defeat of Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem by
1   Compare the apotheosis of the Babylonian Noah and his wife, pp. 240, i., 246, i., 252, i. Stucken, to whom we are indebted for the reference to the analogy,, incorrectly thinks of Lot’s wife in connection with the transformation into trees.
2   Gunkel has, in reference to this and otherwise, pointed out the wealth of play upon words which belongs to the art of Oriental story-telling. More important, however, is the recognition of their mythological meaning, as indicated by Stucken and Winckler. A dictionary of motifs is much to be desired for the future.
3   Travesties : 1. The new generation travestied as in Ham’s conduct in the
Deluge story; see p. 272, i., n. 3, and comp. B.N. T., 120. Compare with this the Nyctimene with her drunken father Nycteus ; Ovid, Met., ii. 589 ff., and Myth. Vat., ii. 39.   2. The vine as symbol of the new age by the intoxication of Lot
(comp. Noah, p. 272, i.).   3. Drunkenness as motif of the new year (compare the
epic Enuma elish and the conduct of the gods at the renewal of the world).
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ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
Joshua. According to the coherence it is treating of the defeat of the “ five kings,” who represent the combined inimical power of Canaan, in the same way as does the Dragon of Winter, and as formerly Egypt, appearing as the defeated Dragon.1 The five kings creep into the cave (“ and they are there unto this day, ” Joshua x. 27).1 2
In the campaign of Abraham against Mecca (Ibn Hisham) there comes, in the same way, a rain of stones to his help. Mighty birds bring stones in their beaks and their claws and kill the enemy.
Eire and brimstone as a means of destruction has become a stereotyped figure of speech ; comp. Job xviii. 5 : brimstone is to fall upon his dwelling; Ps. xi. 6: “ fire and brimstone”; comp, further, Luke ix. 54, Rev. xx. 9. The destruction of a district with salt (brimstone ?) agrees equally with the motif. In Judges ix. 45 the custom is found. Likewise on the Assyrian inscriptions. Tiglath-Pileser I. strewed salt over 9anusa? and Assurbanipal over Susa.3 Unfruitful land is called meleha (salt land), Job xxxix. 6; Ps. cvii. 34; Jer. xvii. 6.
THE DETAILS OF THE STORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS AND THE SCHEME OF THE TWELVE TRIBES
The story of the Patriarchs is in the form of the history of a family, from which the twelve tribes are descended, who then became known as the “ Children of Israel.” The aim of the tradition in this is to indicate that the people of Israel show an unbroken course of development. The historians found in the traditions of certain places clear landmarks showing the coherence of the ancient stories. Later, the descent from one fore-
1   Motif of the expulsion of the tyrants. Winter, which is driven away, appears in the calendar myth as concentrated in the five additional days at the end of the year (before the beginning of spring), or as a giant (fall of Orion) who is conquered, or as a water dragon. When the motif is applied to historical events, the enemy appears as five in number, or embodied as a giant, who then takes the number five, or five and a half (see the sons of Goliath). Comp. p. 93, i.
2   A variant upon this is the myth of the seven sleepers. The seven sleepers, who enter the cave in the time of Decius, wake to the new age.
3   Tigl. Pil. Pr.t vi. 14 (see Hommel, G. G, G., 602, n. l); Assurb. Pr.y vi. 79 (salt and shifylu herb).
THE TWELVE TRIBES
43
father took the form of a religious dogma: “ When he was but one, I called him,’1 Isa. li. 2 —a fatal dogma, leading to a particularism, which was energetically combated in the preaching both of John the Baptist and of Jesus.1
The family history is certainly not pure invention. The tradition was probably quite correct in looking upon Isaac and Jacob-Israel as the most prominent wandering sheikhs of the primitive epoch, who could be held to be legitimate descendants of Abraham. But this family history has become the foundation scheme for the ancient history of Israel, and it certainly does just extend over the 215 years of the patriarchal period.1 2 Jacob was also certainly an historical personage, a religious leader of past ages.3
“ Shaddai hath made of the strong (that is to say, bull) Jacob a shepherd for the foundation stone of Israel ” (Gen. xlix. 23 f.).4 He apparently also had about twelve sons,5 whose destiny brought them for the most part into Egypt, with the neighbouring Arabian districts of which country they had long had active business relations.
Isolated records and genealogies of later times are for the purpose of identifying certain tribes, or social corporations of the community,6 with the ancient families (Gen. xxx., xxxv. 25 ff.;
1   Already Isa. li. I, “ Abraham, the rock whence ye were hewn,” emphasises the religious side ; likewise Ezek. xvi. 33, comp, xxxiii. 24. Isa. lxiii. 16 is also to be understood so. Neither here nor anywhere else (Duhm upon Jer. xxxi. 15) is there any trace of a “cult of Abraham.”
2   Klostermann, p. 18.
3   There is more difficulty about Isaac. His life is filled up here and there with shadowy pictures from the story of Abraham. Gen. xxvi. 1 ff. = xii. ; with x. ff. comp. xxix. 2 ff. ; xxvi. 5 ff. comp. xxi. 25 ; xxvi. ff=xxi. 22 ff.
4   We read thus with Klostermann, p. 19 :   (“ in that he placed”).
5   The number twelve does not agree ; out of regard for the scheme it has been made to fit—the division of Joseph into Ephraim and Manasseh is clear evidence of this. There seems to have been a tradition according to which Jacob had three children (Simeon and Levi who avenge their injured sister Dinah). In itself the number twelve might also be historic. History builds a scheme thus :—the German Kaiser Wilhelm has six sons and one daughter ; the seven planets including Venus. The later speculation according to which Jacob had seventy sons is also interesting. Midrash Schem. Rabba upon Exod. i. 7 says : “They swarmed. Many say there were twelve at a birth ; many say every woman bore sixty at a birth. It would be no marvel, the scorpion bears seventy.”
6   Klostermann, p. 30.
44
ABRAHAM AS CANAANITE
Gen. xlvi. 8-27) which lived through the Exodus, or specially with Dinah,1 or with the family of Nahor (Gen. xxxv. 23 ft.). Each one of the 44 twelve tribes ”—which, however, speaking exactly, never actually existed contemporaneously—had one of the Patriarchs given as 44 forefather.'12 The traditions of isolated clans were woven into the family history of the sons of Jacob.
The numbers used in the scheme are those of the astral system, twelve and seventy, seventy-two, according to whether it is lunar or solar system. The table, Gen. xvii. 20 ; xlvi. 8-27, is constructed according to both reckonings. As there are counted twelve tribes of Israel, so according to Gen. xxv. 13 ff. there were twelve tribes of Ishmael; and in Gen. xxv. 2 ff., according to the original text, there were twelve sons of Abraham and Keturah.3 That the idea of the zodiac lies at the root of the number twelve goes without saying in the Ancient-East.
It is abundantly proved by Jacob’s blessing, which alludes to the zodiacal signs; see pp. 77 ff. Abulfaraj, Hist. Dyn., 101, says the Arabs hold themselves to be descended from twelve tribes, and each of the twelve tribes is under a zodiacal sign.4
According to traces found in the Biblical tradition, we may gather the following historical particulars :—The nucleus of the religious community grouping itself round Abraham settled in South Canaan, in Negeb, in the neighbourhood of Arabia Petraea, and from thence came repeatedly into connection with the districts which were under the rule of Egyptian viceroys (Pharaohs). The southern settlements are distinguished in the religion of later times by the (originally seven) wells of Jacob, and by the sanctuaries consecrated by Jacob at Mizpah, Gilead, Penuel, and Mahanaim. Then this community, which had gathered together under the influence of a religious idea, spread
1   Gen. xlvi. 15 ; see Klostermann, p. 30.
2   The derivation of the Moabites and Ammonites, who settled in the country to the east of Jordan and the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, likewise of the Edomites and Arabian tribes who by circumcision and other elements of worship later approached the family of Abraham, rests, like the genealogical tables, upon “ scientific investigation,” not upon tradition.
3   Klostermann. Gen. x. had originally probably also twelve sons of Joktan (Hommel, Aufs. u. Abh., 316, n. 6).
4   Jalkut Rubeni, 171, says the twelve tribes correspond to the twelve temples (that is, “ houses,” p. n) of the zodiac. Steinschneider (Z.D.M.G., iv. (1880), 145 ff. ; xxvii. (1903), 474 ff.) has collected numerous examples of the system of twelve which could be added to at pleasure ; comp, also Krauss, Z.A.T. W., xx. 38 ff. ; Kampers, Alex, der Grosse, pp. 107 f., and above, pp. 67, i. ff.
THE TWELVE TRIBES
45
further abroad. A large part of it was forced towards the Egyptian frontier by famine.1 Here also tradition links itself on to a marked personality—that of Joseph. Then the religious community received a new and mighty impulse through Moses. It moved victoriously out and collected together the scattered parts of the ancient community.
At Sinai the community represented by Jethro, which was in possession of the ancient place of worship, united itself with them ; clans came from the frontier districts of Negeb, reminded of their religious relationship by the old places of worship and by the “ Hebrew ” migration from Egypt.2
We have shown how the milieu of the stories of the Patriarchs agrees in every detail with the circumstances of Ancient-Oriental civilisation of the period in question, as borne witness to by the monuments. The actual existence of Abraham is not historically proved by them. It might be objected: it is included in the picture. In any case, it must be allowed, the tradition is ancient. It cannot possibly be a poem with a purpose of later time. In view of the situations described, we might say the story could more easily have been composed by an intellectual writer of the twentieth century after Christ, kno

1   “The Westland” is named ten times in astrological connection in the fragments of the library of Assurbanipal ; see RI.V.A.G., 1903, 48. Matt. ii. shows (he same interest in the “Westland.” The Magi read in a constellation in the East an event in the “ l Vest land” which was of importance to them also ; see B.N. T., 50 ff.
2   This oracle contains the three stations of the Abrahamic migration, for Harran belonged to the kingdom of the Kishati ; compare the article on Harran in K.P.Th., 3rd ed.
BABYLONIA AND THE “ WESTLAND
317
Naramsin, of an extension of the dominion towards the u West-
land ” and beyond,1 told in such a form as to show that it had
long belonged to the natural interests of Babylonia. Their deeds are, unfortunately, only preserved for us in fragments as “Omina" in the library of Assur- banipal, and, indeed, with each event the constellation is given under which it occurred.
In the documents recording the rebuilding of Babylon by Sargon it is said:—
Sargon, who under the omen . . . . the government [to the realms of] Babylon re[moved], took away the mounds in the neighbourhood (?) of the Tuna gate .... [after the pattern (?)] of Agade built a city, named it [Babijlu   
A further Omina document records the overthrow of Elam :
 
Fio. SS.—Stele of victory
He overthrew the sea and turned   of Naramsin.2
towards Gutium (Armenia), he overthrew Gutium and turned towards Elam, he overthrew Elam and ....
Then it is said in a document:
Sargon, who (under the omen . . . .) went up, found no foe able
1   Fig. S6, Sargon's seal. Upon the legends of the birth of Sargon, see Exod. ii. Fig. S7, Naramsin ; Fig. 88, campaign of Naramsin, strikingly related in presentment to the Mycenaean battle memorial, fig. 89. See upon this, and the following, Winckler, A.O., vii. 2, p. 12. Sargon stood for the type of Babylonian rule. The founder of the last Assyrian dynasty called himself Sargon II. He wished to open a new era; 350 (universe lunar year) kings had reigned before him. Following the example of Sargon I., he placed his statues in Chition in Cyprus.
2   It represents the triumph of the Babylonian over the Elamite. Later, this stele of victory was carried away to Elam as plunder, the Babylonian inscription was partially erased, and replaced by an inscription of the Elamite ruler Shut- ruknahunte. The astral gods upon fig. 88 may also be held to be “ regents of the world/’
318
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
 
FIG. S9.— Fragment of a silver goblet from a Mycenaean tomb. After Perrot-Chipiez, Histoire de Part.
 
FIG. go.—Ancient-Babylonian head of a goat. According to Hilprecht, from Fara near Babylon.
to withstand him, his fear over . . . ., passed over the sea of the West, [tarried] three years in the West, conquered [the country], united it, [ere]cted his statues in the West, took them prisoners in crowds over the sea.
Whence had Sargon the ships ? Did he build them himself? or did the cities of the coast supply them to him ? In any case the later Phoenician cities had long been in existence. In an in-
BABYLONIA AND THE “ WESTLAND11
319
scription which refers to Sargon or to his son Naramsin, it is said that “ kings of the sea-coastv of thirty- two cities obeyed him.
Our figs. 91-96 illustrate the civilisation of Babylonia,the influences of which, since the oldest times known to us, over-   > yy*
spread also the region
of the later Bible lands.1   .
 
A mighty monumental FIG. 91.— Ancient-Babylonian spinning-woman evidence reaching down (time of Gudea). Discovered in Susa.2
 
FIG. 92.—Vase-holder of the time of Gudea. Third millennium B.C. Discovered in Telloh.
 
FIG. 93,   FIG. 94.
Publisher’smark of an edition of Theocritus which appeared in Rome in the sixteenth century A. D.
into our own time, for the passage of the Egyptian and Babylonian armies through the “ Westland/’ is the defile of Nalir el Kelb (Dog- River) at Beirut (comp. Boscawen, sketch-map of the Nalir el Kelb, vol. vii.), where Pharaohs of Egypt and kings of Assyria have carved their pictures and inscriptions in the rock. Fig. 96 shows an early
1   Figs. 93 and 94 show a most instructive example of the centuries old “arms" motifs. The staff of ^-Esculapius and the war eagle upon vases of Gudea and Entemena (fig. 95). For another example of the migration, see p. 317, and in Hommel, G.G.G., p. 122, n. 1 (the two lions). Hommel, id., 112, n. 4, draws attention to an ancient Egyptian pendant to the arms on the Gudea vase.
2   Behind the royal (?) spinner stands a slave with a fan. The spinner sits upon a stool, with crossed legs. The picture bears out our observations on Gen. xviii. 4.
320
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
representation of the rock groups on the left bank of the Dog River. So far as we know, there is no later picture of it. A road
now leads across ; the ancient
 
military road by the carvings is almost impassable. On the right bank an inscription by Nebuchadnezzar II. was found (published in D.O.G., part v., Leipzig, Hinrichs). Fig. 97 shows two monuments, one Egyptian and one Assyrian (Esarhaddon). Unfortunately the others are not yet published. An accurate registration of the monuments treated by Benzinger is to be found in Baedeker’s Palestine, 1910, p. 248. Figs. 98 and 99 illustrate travelling on the caravan road. Judging by the date- palm tree, fig. 9S does not refer to Assyria, but to Babylonia.
Since the - Westland ” counted as an important
FIG. 95-—Silver vase of Entemena of part   of Babylonian do-
Lagash, with the arms of Lagash.   . .   .
(Gudea age.) Discovered in Telloh. million, it very soon appears
 
? ^               =^=ag8eyoroi.
FIG. Q6 —The headland at the Nahr el Kelb. After a drawing from the middle of the nineteenth century.
BABYLONIA AND THE “ WESTLAND
321
as a political factor. From the correspondence of the Hammurabi age1 we learn that the name Amurru originally signified a tribe (like the Biblical Amorites), for it speaks here of Amurru in the Syrian desert, who play the same part as later the Suti, AramaeansJ and Arabs in the same region. But at this period Amurru also denotes a certain territory, including the later Phoenicia,
Palestine, and Coele Syria.2 Arad-Sin is named before Rim-Sin.
It is doubtful whether it is a case of a double name of the same king, or whether it is a brother.
The Sumerian correspondence to Arad-Sin would be Eri-aku; possibly to be identified with the Arioch, king of Ella- sar (= Larsa ?), of Gen. xiv. He names himself
ad-ricl of the Westland.3 FIG. 97.—Monument from the Nahr el Kelt).
After Bezold, Niniveh ttnd Babylon.
 

 
1 Comp. Peiser in M. V.A.G., vi. 144 ff. 2 Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 17S. 3 It probably means king, or something of the sort, possibly veiling the idea “ guardian.” A passage in Peiser’s Urkunden, p. 37, leads me to this conjecture. VOL. I.   21
322
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
But Hammurabi, his contemporary and conqueror, who united South and North Babylonia (Sumer and Akkad) into one kingdom, calls himself, in an inscription upon a stone plate which bears his likeness (fig. 100), and which is dedicated to the West- land Ishtar (Ashratu), “ king of Mar-tu (Amurn'i),1' and one of his letters is addressed to Ahati, wife of Sin-idina, who appears as rcibian (commander) of Mar-tu.*1 And the king Ammiditana,2 3 of
 

 
FIG. 99.—A Semitic family desiring permission to dwell in Egypt. An Egyptian presentment of the middle kingdom (about 1900 B.c.)."
the same dynasty, reigning about 2000, says : “King of Babylon, king of the city of Ivish, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of Daganu,4 the hill country of Mar-tu, am L’1 It is easy to see that the “ Westland ” played a very prominent part in the growth of the Babylonian kingdom.* Nebuchadnezzar I. (about 1100) names V. R. 55, 10 the A-mur-ri-i between Lulubi and Kashshi, and in a passage, unfortunately mutilated, mentions in
1   King, No. 98. Mar-tu can only be a designation for “Westland” in the sense in which we take it. The mention of Ashrat in the inscription upon the stone slab of Hammurabi (fig. ioo) answers for this.
2   To be read thus, and not Ammisatana ; see Ranke, Personal Names, p. 65.
3   Formerly interpreted as “entry of Jacob into Egypt.” Comp. W. M. Muller, Asien tend Europa, p. 36.
4   According to Hommel, G.G.G., 10, S9, 390, n. 2, it is plainly da-ga-mu in the original ; comp. King, Letters, iii. 207.
THE HITTITES AND THE “WESTLAND” 323
a conversation with Marduk, after his victory over Elam, the land Mar-tu.* 1
Whether the specific Biblical country, the “ Land of Promise ” (Gen. xii. 1), was included, in the political sense, in Amurru in the Babylonian age is not known. It possibly lay beyond the southern boundary of the dominion of the Babylonian kings.
 
1- 1G. ioo.—-Stone tablet from the British Museum, with a likeness of Hammurabi.
During the centuries of its dominion over the “ Westland,” naturally Babylonian civilisation and thought spread throughout the land. The discoveries at Amarna offer surprising evidence of this, showing that in the middle of the fifteenth century B.C. they used Babylonian cuneiform writing in this “ West- land.” We will deal further with this later (p. 3S5). Only
1 Meissner, Berl. Ph. W'., 1902, pr. 980, takes it there was a western and an eastern Amurru. At most it could only be a matter of the shifting of a political- geographical idea, but see previously Winckler, Unters. zur altar. Gesch., p. 37, n. 2, and A. A. T., 3rd ed., 179, where, besides line 20 f., there is a confusion in the printing, and Hommel, G. G, G., p. 242, n. 2.
324
PKE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
one other civilised power could compete with the Babylonian influence in that ancient time—Egypt. That the intellectual influence of Egypt also was felt in Canaan is certain. But it is equally certain that specifically Babylonian influence predominated. In Palestine evidence of both is given by the latest discoveries at Taanak and Mutesellim (Megiddo); p. 342. That Egypt won political ascendancy over Syria and Palestine even soon after the age of Hammurabi, we already knew from the Egyptian records. The Amarna age has illustrated vividly the circumstances of Egyptian ascendancy in the middle of the fifteenth century.1
Egyptian Evidence
The kings of the first dynasties had already come in conflict with Asiatic Semites in the district of Sinai, a peninsula whose mines were worked by the Pharaohs who were buried in Abvdos Senoferu, founder of the fourth dynasty, boasts in the Annals of Palermo of his victory over the nomads. The “ princes’’ wall,” “ designed to keep off the Asiatics,” perhaps came into existence then. The kings of the mighty fifth dynasty made the rocky defiles accessible. The eastern mountains, the “ land of incense,” of Punt, was the goal of the expeditions. Under Pepi (Apopy) I. (sixth dynasty, about 2500) the first campaign against Asia is recorded. His intimate friend Une relates in his epitaph the victorious campaign against the Amu, Syrian nomads :—
This army was happy, and cut up the land of the Bedouins this army was happy, and destroyed the land of the Bedouins this army was happy, and overthrew their fortresses this army was happy, and cut down their fig-trees and vines this army was happy, and threw fire into all their villages this army was happy, and slew there many hundreds of thousands of troops
this army was happy, and brought home prisoners in great crowds.
1   Upon the Egyptian and Babylonian relations spoken of in this chapter, compare previously Fr. Hoinmel, Anc. Heb. Trad.
EGYPT AND CANAAN
325
 
If we may conclude from this that already, before the sixth dynasty, therefore in the time of the great pyramid- builders, Palestine was tributary to Egypt, so we have, on the other hand, an indirect evidence that in the following period, during the political weakness of the seventh- eleventh dynasties (2500-2000 B.C\), powerful states arose in Syria. We must conclude this from the fact that the monuments of the mighty twelfth dynasty show no trace of any influence upon Syria, and we And the fact confirmed by the respectful manner in which a story, come down to us from this age, speaks of the Syrian princes.
We have to thank an Egyptian papyrus manuscript for some detailed information about the land to which Canaan in the narrow sense belongs,
which relates the life of Sinuhe,1 a prince and VlG- .IDI- — A‘
1   monte prisoner
adherent at the court of of Rameses
Usertesen I. (about 2000 ln‘ B.C.). The poem, which the Egyptians accounted amongst their classical literature, and used for many centuries in their schools for a specimen copy, gives us a lifelike and at the same time, for
i.-,- T, j (“ the following inquiry, very welcome I-IG. 102.—Bedouin of ‘A-mar-a   °   1 y -7
(land of the Amorites) as a presentment of Bedouin life in ancient prisoner in Egypt, LD 209. Palestjue_ Sinuh(!i for sonle reas01]]
fled from the court over the Isthmus of Suez into Asia (“ over the princes’ wall”).2 He first stayed about half a year in Qedem,3 where he found Egyptians settled (as merchants ?),
 
1 P. 3022 of the Berlin Museum, last translated by Erman-Krebs, Aus den Papyrus der Kdnigl. Museum zu Berlin, pp. 14 ff. Comp, also W. M. Muller, Asieu und Europa, pp. 3S ff., and Hommel, Alt is. UberL, 48 ff.
- The historical background of the flight of Moses from the court of Egypt into Midian must have been very like this. He had become a politically unwelcome personage, perhaps upon religious grounds. The Biblical tradition shows a trace of that in the story of the murder of the Egyptian. The legends tell more about it. In fact, this was certainly only the excuse, not the reason for the exile of Moses.
That is, probably the region round about the Dead Sea; comp. Hommel, Au/s. n. Abh., 293, n. 4.
326
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
and then he came to the prince “ of Upper Tenu.111 He placed Sinuhe “ at the head of his children,11 and married him to his eldest daughter. Then it says :
He chose out for me a part of his land, from the most exquisite of his possessions, upon the borders of another country. It was the beautiful land of Yaa.- Figs grew there and grapes, and it has more wine than water; it is rich in honey and has much oil, and all kinds of fruits are upon its trees. There is barley there and wheat, and cattle innumerable. And much besides came to me . . . . when he made me into a prince of his race, of the most exquisite of his land. I made bread for daily food and wine for daily drink, cooked meat and goose for roast. In addition there was also wild venison of the desert, caught for me in traps and brought to me, besides what my hounds captured. They brought much to me .... and milk in every form. Thus I lived for many years, and my children grew strong, each one a hero of his race. The messenger who marched to the north or who journeyed southwards to the court, rested with me. 1 entertained all; I gave water to the thirsty, and put the wanderers upon their road and restrained the robbers. When the Bedouins marched abroad . ... to war against the princes of the nations, I counselled their campaign. This prince of Tenu made me for many years the commander of his army, and in every country to which I marched, I was a hero .... upon the meadows by its streams (1); I captured their herds, I carried away their people and plundered their stores; I slew the men with my sword and my bow, by my marches and by wise plans.
This pleased him and he loved me ; he knew how brave I was and set me at the head of his children. He saw the power of my arm.
There came a mighty man from Tenu and scoffed at me in my tent; he was a .... , who had no equal and who had vanquished all Tenu. He said he would fight with me ; he thought to slay me ; he thought to have my herds for his prey .... for his tribe.
Then that prince took counsel with me and I said: “ I know him not. . . . He attacks me like a raging bull in the midst of the cows, goaded by a bull of the herd .... a bull, when he loves fighting . . . ., does he fear him who would prove him ? If his heart desires battle, so let him speak his wish.” 1 2
1   Erman thinks this is very likely the same country that about 1500 E.e. was called the “ Upper Retenu,” and means Palestine. 'It is in two districts, the southern part, called Ken‘ana, and the northern, ’Ernur (Canaan and the land of the Amorites). By the “ Lower Retenu ” they meant the Syrian plains. Iveft is not Phoenician (Erman, Agyplen, p. 680), but Caphtor = Crete, as W. M. Muller has shown.
2   Cyprus was thus called by Sargon. He says : “ana Ya-’ nage sha mat Yatnana ” ; that is to say, “ towards Ya’, the island of Yatnana.”
THE STORY OF SINUHE
327
In the night I strung my bow, I made ready my arrows, I sharpened (?) my dagger, I polished my weapons.1 When the day broke, Tenu came out and its tribes were gathered together, and the neighbouring countries had joined with them. When they thought of this combat, every heart burnt for me, the men and the women shouted and every heart pitied me. They said : “ Is there no other mighty man who would fight against him ? ”
Then he seized his shield, his lance, and his armful of spears. But after I had drawn out his weapons, I let his spears fly past me and fall useless upon the earth, one after another. Then he rushed (?) upon me, and I shot him, so that my arrow stuck in his neck. He shouted and fell upon his nose, and I slew him with his lance. I struck out my shout of victory from his back (!), and all Asia shouted. I praised the god Month, but his people mourned for him. This prince Amienshi folded me in his arms. Then I took his goods and his herds, and what he had thought to do to me, that I did to him. I took what was in his tent and plundered his camp. From this I became great and rich in treasure and in my herds.
Later Sinuhe was again received into favour at the Egyptian court. After he had given over his possessions to his children, so that the eldest son became leader, the tribe and all its goods belonging to him, his servants and all his herds, his fruits and all his sweet (date) trees, he journeyed to the south (home to
Egypt)-
The Bedouin tribes of Palestine therefore stood in close relationship to the civilised land of Egypt. According to the evidence of the papyrus, their Sheikhs habitually frequented the court of the Pharaohs, and were well acquainted with all events going on in Egypt (also previously there is mention of a Bedouin who was in Egypt). Ambassadors journeyed with written messages to and fro between Egypt and the Euphrates. These Asiatic Bedouins were by no means barbarians; the barbaric nations warred against by the king of Egypt were expressly named in opposition to them. The Bedouin Sheikhs themselves gather together into armies against “ the princes of the nations,1; in our poem Sinuhe was their leader and adviser, like Abraham in Gen. xiv. in the war against the kings.
* After the expulsion of the Hyksos by Amosis (capture of the chief city, Avaris) the Egyptians pressed into Syria. We learn 1 In many of its features the story resembles that of David and Goliath.
328
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
by pictorial representations from the time of his son Amenophis I. that this king led campaigns into Asia.1 The records of his successor Thothmes I. already speak of the Euphrates and of “the reversed water, by which one travels to the north, if one goes up-stream.112 Thothmes III. (about 1600) again undertook an offensive campaign. He conquered Megiddo and pressed on as far as Naharina (Mesopotamia), and left upon the
 
FIG. 103.—Lists of Thothmes upon the wall of the temple of Amon in Karnak ; outer wall of the holy of holies.
wall of the temple of Karnak in Thebes a list of the Canaanite cities subjugated by him (see fig. 103).3 Amongst the names we find the Biblical places Akzib, Beth-anath, Gibea, Hazor, Ibleam, Laisa, Megiddo, Ophra, the seaport cities Acco, Beirut, Joppa, also Damascus and others. Also Negeb is mentioned, the “ south-country11 later belonging to Judah. The most
1   See Niebuhr in Helmolt’s IVeltgeschichte, iii. 617.
2   The opposite to the Nile.
3   Latest treated by Maspero, Sur les noms de la lisle de Thutmes III., comp. Histoire ancienne, p. 256 ; and W. H. Muller, Asie/i laid Europa, 161 f., iyi, 196.
EGYPT AND CANAAN
329
remarkable name amongst the conquered places is Ja^kob-el.1 The Egyptians also, like the Babylonians and Assyrians, brought wood, preferable from the mountains of Syria (see fig. 104).
* Sethi I. (about 1400), father of Rameses II., names on the temple wall at Karnak, amongst his conquests, Beth-anath (Joshua xix. 38 ; Judges i. 33) and Ivirjath- Anab (“ the city of grapes,” Joshua xi. 21) and Jenuhim (fig. 103),2 also the Phoenician city of Tyre.
Rameses II. (about 1240), who latterly has again been looked on as the Pharaoh of the oppression, has left us in his inscriptions a detailed description of his victory over the Hittites in the battle of Kadesh.3 We learn here that the Hittite king gathered around him the subjugated hosts “ out of all countries, those who belong to the region of Chetaland, and of the country of Naharena, and of all the land of Kedah,” and Rameses complains 14 that the overseers of the peasantry and the great ones to whom the land of the Pharaohs is committed ” have not informed him of it. The battle of Ivadesh did not bring
J W. H. Mtiller, Asien und Europa, looks for this place in Central Palestine; Shanda in V.A.G., 1902, 90 ff., tries to find it at Jabbok, and explains it as a variant of Penuel. Identification with the Jacob of the history of the Patriarchs is very uncertain, because the name Ja‘kub-ilu, that is to say, Ja‘kub, occurs also in Babylonian contracts of the Hammurabi age. The other much-debated name is Ishpar, which should be read Joseph-el. Also here it must be noted that Jashup- ilu occurs in Hammurabi contracts: comp. Hommel, Altisr. Uberl., 95, in, passim. Spiegelberg, in Der Aufenthalt Israels in A gyp ten, speaks of a Hyksos king Jacob-el and of another Hyksos prince’s name which should read as Simeon. He takes it that the migrations towards Egypt embodied in Abraham and Jacob belong to the Hyksos migrations (beginning about 1700). (Upon the Semitic origin of the Hyksos, see Spiegelberg, O.L.Z., 1904, 130 ff.)
2 Is Janfin also meant here? Comp. p. 334, n. I.
:J See Erman, Agypten, pp. 696 ff. One of the monuments at Nahr el Kelb (p. 321) belongs to him, likewise a monument in the country east of Jordan.
 
Fit;. 104.—The princes of Lebanon felling trees for Sethi I. (Ros.
46).
330
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
the separation. The final treaty of peace which ended the war between Egyptians and Hittites on Canaanite ground was ratified by a political treaty written upon a silver tablet. (For further detail, see Chap. XXV.)
To the time of Rameses II. also belongs the satirical literary article used in the schools (!) on the Anastasi Papyrus I.,1 in which the journey through Syria of a Mahar (envoy) of Rameses II., named Nechsotep, is related. He transported monuments for the king, destroyed obelisks in Syene, and with four thousand soldiers put clown an insurrection in the quarries of Hammamat. The Mahar described his journey to his friend, “ an artist in the sacred writings, a teacher in the hall of books.” The friend did not find the letters written in good style, and repeated them in rhetorical style with satirical little side-thrusts at the adventures of his friend. We reproduce a passage of the text, as the story gives us an insight into the geographical and intellectual circumstances of Canaan about 1400 B.C.
He accompanies his friend in imagination through all the stages of the journey :
I am a writer and a Mahar, thou sayest repeatedly. Well, what thou sayest is true. Come along. Thou seest after thy teams, the horses are fast as jackals, like a tempest when they are let go. Thou seizest the bit, takest the bow,—now we shall see what thy hand doest. I will describe to thee what happens to a Mahar and will tell thee what he does.
, Art thou not come to the land of Cheta, and hast thou not seen the land of ’Eupa? ^Jaduma, knowest thou not his form? And likewise Ygadiy, what is its condition ? D’ar of the king Sesostris —which side of it lies the city of Charbu ? And what is the condition of its ford ?
Dost thou not journey to Kadash '2and Tubache?3 Dost thou not come to the help of the Bedouins with troops and soldiers ? Didst thou not pass on the road towards Magar ? where the heaven is dark by day because it is overgrown with oaks high as heaven and cedars (?) where lions are seen oftener than the jackal and hyena, and where the Bedouins surround the way.
1   Treated by Chabas, Voyage d'un Egyptien en Palestine; some passages are translated by Erman, Agypten, pp. 508 ff. ; where the polemic object of the writing is recognised, see also \V. M. Muller, Asien und Europa, pp. 54, 172 ff., 394. A new collation and complete translation of the text is in preparation.
2   The Syrian Kadesh, not the Israelite (Muller, loc. cit., 173), is probably meant.
3   Tubich of the Amarna Letters (Db^u of the Thothmes lists?).
EGYPT AND CANAAN
331
Hast thou not climbed the mountain Shana ?1 . . . . When thou returnest at night all thy members are ground to powder and thy bones are broken, and thou sleepest. When thou wakest, it is the sad night time, and thou art quite alone. Has not a thief been, to steal from thee ? . . . . The thief has escaped in the night and has stolen thy clothes. Thy stableman has waked in the night, has noted what has happened, and has taken away with him what was left over. He has then gone amongst the wicked, has mixed with the tribes of the Bedouins, and has fled to Asia. ... I will also tell thee of another mysterious city, which is called Kepuna (Gubna, Gebal). What is it like ? its goddess— another time. Hast thou not been there ?
I call: Come to Barut’e (Beirut), to D’i(du)na (Sidon) and D’arput’e (Sarepta). Where is the ford of Nat’ana ? 2 Where is ’Eutu ? 3 They lie above another city on the sea, it is called D’ar (Tyre) of the coast; water is brought to it in ships, she is richer in fishes than in sand .... whither goes the road from 'Aksapu ? 4 To what city ?
1 call : Come to the Mount User.5 6 What is its summit like ? Where is the mountain of Sakama ?,J Who will possess it? The Mahar. Where does he march towards Hud’aru ? What is his ford ? Show me, where they go to Hamat’e7 (Hamath), Degar and Degar-’ear, the place whence the Mahar issues.
It says further, after having asked in the above way where the ford of the Jordan is, where Megiddo lies, whether it also "'ill not be given to so brave a Mahar:
Pass along, along the ravine with the precipice two thousand ells deep, full of boulders and rubble. Thou makest a detour. Thou graspest the bow and showest thyself to the good princes (that is, the allies of Egypt), so their eyes are fatigued by thy splendour. “’Ebata kama, ’ear mahar lramu,” thev sav, and thou winnest for thyself the name of a Mahar, of the best officer of Egypt. Thy name is celebrated amongst them like that of Gad’ardey, prince of ’Esaru, when the hyenas found him in the jungle, in the defile which was barred bv the Bedouins; they were hidden under the bushes, and many of them measured four ells from nose to heel, they had fierce eyes, their heart was unfriendly,
1   In the annals of Tiglath-Pileser, iii. 126, is Sa-u-e.
2   Nahr el Kasimije, Leontes, in the present Upper Lithuania.
* Usu, Paketyrus ; see Winckler, Gesch. Isr., i. 201.
4   Akzib of the Thothmes list, p. 195 ; Ekdippa in Eusebius.
0   This must be the Scala Tyriorum.
6   Sichem, therefore Ebal or Gerizim? See Muller, loc. cit., 394.
7   The pass '‘where one goes towards Hamath,” the boundary of the Hittite, then of the Egyptian, then of the Assyrian power, the northernmost point of the kingdom of Israel.
332
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
 

   
r?.«.ll * A^Si f* »   

 

r«tt:aat
! ilia-y M±=sfll
^sZZtFj
Hi
:£v!5 (??•••’
..^-...:^mmmmma

mmm,
 
issssasi,
n<I^LLTi-

mMMJvmmrnm ;^=un:Mwm
FIG. 105.—The so-called Israel stele, 1250 B.C. From Spiegelberg’s Aufenthall Israels in Agypten.
EGYPT AND CANAAN
333
and they listened to no flattery. Thou art alone, no one sees thee, no army follows thee, and thou findest no one to show the way. Thou must go alone, yet thou knowest not the way. Then anxiety seizes thee, thy hair stands on end and thy soul lies in thy hand. Thy road is full of boulders and rubble, thou canst not go forward because of the ’Esbururu and Qad’a bushes, because of the Naha bushes and because of the aloes. Upon one side of thee is the precipice, upon the other the mountain-wall, and so thou climbest.
The end of this bad journey is that the horses shy, and their traces break ; the poor Mahar has to go on foot in the heat of the sun, oppressed with thirst and fear of ambushed foes. He is followed by misfortune upon his journey.
“When thou enterest Joppa,” records the mocking author, ffthou findest the garden blooming in its season. Then thou pressest in, to eat, and findest there the lovely maiden who guards the vineyard ; she joins thee as thy companion and bestows her charms upon thee.”
A thief takes advantage of the hour to cut the horses from the chariot of the Mahar and to steal his weapons. Finally it says:
Look kindly upon this, so thou shalt not say I have made thy name of bad odour with other people. Behold, I have only described to thee how it fares with a Mahar; I have run through Syria for thee, I have brought before thee the countries and the cities with their customs. Be gracious to us and look upon it calmly.
From Egyptian material1 2 a specially important inscription, discovered by Flinders Petrie, dating about 1250,* should also be laid stress on, which names ‘•Israel” as inhabitants of the country, belonging to Canaan, and in which Merneptah is glorified as a king, who has conquered and “ pacified ” countries (fig. 105):
The princes are thrown to the ground
and say shalomf
none amongst the stranger people raises his head.
Libya is desolated,
Cheta is pacified,
Canaan is conquered in all evil (?),
1   Figs, ioi f. represent prisoners from the land of the Amorites.
2   A foreign Semitic word in the Egyptian text (Spiegelberg). The well-known greeting, here = a prayer for peace ; Assyrian, sha'alu shulmi.
334
PRE-ISRAELITE CANAAN
Ascalon is led away,
Gezer is overpowered,
Y-nu-bn1 is annihilated,
Y-si-r-’-l2 is wasted (?) without fruit;3 all lands together are at peace ;
everyone that wavered has by King Merneptah .... been chastised.
It cannot be decided Avith certainty in what relationship the
 
FIG. 106.—Amenophis III. Relief from a Theban tomb, Berlin.
Israel named here stands to the tribes which migrated out of Egypt under Moses and Joshua. According to some, Merneptah is the Pharaoh of the oppression, see p. 90, ii. If that is true, then the Israelites mentioned here are Hebrews in the sense indicated at p. 339, with whom the tribes who migrated from
1 This is probably the Janoah of Joshua xvi. 6 f., the present Janun, south-east of Sichem. Can it be the same city whose conquest by Sethi is glorified upon the outer wall of the Hall of Statues in Karnak ; see fig. 109, to the left, at the top.
2   “ Israel ” with the determinative for men.
3   The last lines are according to SteindorfPs translation. Spiegelberg, loc. cit., p. 39, says : “ Palestine is become a widow (comp. Lam., i. 1) for Egypt.”

264 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF THE DELUGE
Make thee an ark of gopher-wood, and pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is how thou shalt make it: The length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits; to a cubit shalt thou finish it..1 A roof shalt thou make to the ark above, and a door shalt thou set in the side thereof In stories2 shalt thou build the ark, with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou build it.
The new Hilprecht fragment from Nippur, referred to p. 252, should be considered in connection with the command to build the ark; the relationship to the Biblical story, Gen. vi. 13-20,
vii.   5-11, is striking.
In the Babylonian story Ut-napishtim is mocked by the people for building the ark. This feature is also found in the Koran, Sura 11, and in the story of the rescue of Lot from the deluge of fire, Gen. xix. 14. Also the extra-Biblical Jewish traditions tell how Noah was mocked, as is shown by the Talmud Tractate Sanhedrim 323, fol. 1086. In this the people ask Noah whether a deluge of water or of fire is to come.
5.   In the Bible (Gen. vi. 18) the number rescued from amongst mankind is limited to Noah’s family—most likely in the interests of the unity of the human race, which should descend from one, as antediluvian mankind did from Adam. In the Babylonian record Ut-napishtim is translated, and mankind is descended from the others who were rescued, amongst whom were a steward and a skilled artisan.3 The Yahvist gives preference to the clean beasts, Gen. vii. 2 f. The division between clean and unclean beasts is common to the whole East, especially in the case of sacrifice (comp. Gen. viii. 20). The Babylonian Noah took all his possessions in with him, especially gold and silver; the provisions in P have been contracted to eatables.
7. Ut-napishtim closes the door. The Bible (Yahvist)
1   Similarly in the Assyrian measurements, for example, AWX ina ishten ammat, thirty to one cubit (measured by a cubit) (Winchler).
2   |p, “dwelling-place.” The ark corresponds to the terrestrial and celestial universe divided into three; see p. S.
3   They were counted after the animals ; they are part of property, as it is with the presents given by Pharaoh to Abraham, Gen. xii. 16 : sheep and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants and maid-servants.
THE DELUGE
265
emphasises, Gen. vii. 16, the care of God:   Yahveh shut
the door.1
8.   This description of the breaking out of the Deluge differs essentially from the otherwise poetic and wonderful Babylonian record, which presents the natural phenomena mythologically as gods: together with Adad, god of storm and tempest, the four planet-gods work, Nebo, Marduk, Nergal, and Ninib: and the Anunnaki, who belong to the Underworld, light the scene with their torches. The source utilised in the Priestly Document also described the breaking out of the Deluge poetically in its way. V. 116 is one verse (Gunkel, 131 f.), and names the great Tehom (the ocean is meant, but the poetic expression recalls Primeval Chaos) as one of the sources of the Deluge.
9.   The Babylonian Deluge includes the whole created universe, even to the heaven of Anu. In the form in which we have it, the Biblical record only refers to the earth. But there are traces to be found that its transcriber had in mind the flooding of the whole cosmos. The slow sinking of the waters, Gen. viii. 3-5, is brought about by the ruak, who in Gen. i. broods over Tehom of the deep. The resting-place (manoah) from whence the dove takes the olive leaf is, in point of fact, the summit of the Mountain of the World; see p. 271, and comp. p. 256.
10.   For the sun number 365 in P, see p. 239, n. 8.
The numbers with the Yahvist are 40 and 3x7.   40 is the
number of the Pleiades, and indicates rain and winter-time; see p. 68. Winckler, F., iii. 96, counts besides, instead of the 3x7 of the “ancient sources,11 2 x 7; that would be 2x7 + 40 = 54 days, the time of a sidereal double month, that is, as long as the sun is in one of the six divisions of the heavens. The 2x7 would then correspond to the Babylonian duration of the Deluge ; the flood lasts seven days, and seven days it recedes.
12.   The moving lament over the destruction by the Deluge (Babylonian record, line 133 ff.) is omitted in the Bible.
13.   The waters sink. The length of time points to the
1   Or is Yahveh to be taken as a gloss, as Klostermann thinks, Pentateuch, p. 40, so that here also Noah shuts the door?
266 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF THE DELUGE
original meaning being the Mountain of the World ; see p. 271. The cause of the shakak, the stilling (not sinking) of the waters, is the mail, that is, the same Spirit which in Gen. i. 3 “was brooding upon111 the face of the waters. In the Bible P says, “ upon one of the summits of Ararat.'’'' The scene of the story of Noah (the neighbourhood of Urartu in Armenia) is therefore approximately the same as that given by the Babylonian chronicler. The Yahvist also means the same neighbourhood ; comp. Gen. xi. 2. The Babylonian record gives the name of the highest peak of the mountains—Nisir. In the present day the peak Gudi, in the neighbourhood of Ararat, is held to be the mountain of the Deluge. The ark rested there seven days, as in the Babylonian record.
14.   According to Gen. viii. 6, it almost seems as though there had been a source which only tells of the raven. The sending out of the raven disturbs the coherence.2 “ Flew to and fro11 possibly means: it went repeatedly out and came repeatedly back until the waters were dried up, then the raven stayed out. This would coincide with the role of the raven in the cuneiform record, line 154 f. There remain, then, three despatches of birds.
The chronicler of the Babylonian record gives the order: dove, swallow, raven. The Biblical chronicler has the more significant: raven, swallow (the first dove has taken the place of this), dove. The climax is reached with the bringing of the olive leaf. The renewed sending out of the dove, which does not return, Gen. viii. 12. disturbs the sense. As a domesticated bird, the dove would come back in any case. Neither the Biblical nor the Babylonian chronicler has any longer understood the cosmic motif in the recension before us. The dove3 brings the olive leaf from the Tree of Life which stands upon the summit of the Mountain of the World, near the Tree of Death, the Tree of Knowledge; see p. 271, comp. p. 208 ff.
1   Winckler, F., iii. 399. In a mythologised story there came a messenger from God.
2   Wellhausen, /composition, p. 15 ; comp. Winckler, F., iii. 93 f.
0   Gunkel therefore is right when, in his Genesis, 60, he looks for traces of mythology in the dove. According to Plutarch, de sol. anim., 13, the dove is also to be found in the myth of Deucalion.
THE END OF THE DELUGE
267
If the last sending out of the dove is done away with, it also does away with the second seven days in the time reckoning. The Deluge lasts forty days (Pleiades number, time of want and during which no claim can be made to a relief fund ; see p. 6S). According to the Oriental calendar symbolism, we should now expect a term of three or ten days 1 to bring deliverance. Winckler, F., iii. 401, reckons the ten days thus : the raven is sent out on the forty-first day (viii. 7). It does not come back. Then follows the sending out of the swallow (dove), since the raven brings no message. It would certainly be done very soon—in the evening or the next morning, in any case on the following, therefore on the forty-second day. Now Noah waits seven days (Gen. viii. 10, “yet other” seven days; according to what we have said above, “yet other” is done away with). On the forty-ninth day he sends out the dove ; on the fiftieth day she brings the olive leaf.2
16.   Berossus: Xisu threw kissed the earth, built an altar, and offered to the gods.3 More in detail in the cuneiform record: “ The gods smelled the savour, the gods smelled the fragrance, they gathered themselves together like flies round the sacrifice.'” The Yahvist says (Gen. viii. 21): “Yahveh smelled the sweet savour.” That this is here simply a figure of speech, meaning “ God was well pleased,” is shown by Amos
v.   21 ; Lev. xxvi. 31. In more drastic form, 1 Sam. xxvi. 19 f. (David speaks to Saul): “ If it be Yahveh that hath stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering of fragrance to smell.” Ezek. viii. 17 says of the heathen cult in Jerusalem : “ Surely they let the stink [of their offering] rise to my nose.” Equally bv this presentment of the sacrifice the “sweet savour of Christ” is explained, 2 Cor. ii. 15: comp. Phil. iv. 18.
1   The ten days is the motif in fixing the yom kippor as the day of liberation on the tenth day after New Year, which is held as judgment time ; see B.N. T., 70 f. Further, Rev. ii. 10.
2   The fifty here has the same calendar signification as the fifty between Passover and Whitsuntide, and which, on the ground of events in the life of Jesus, also divide the Christian festival of Easter and Whitsuntide. The division into 40 (Ascension) + 10 is perhaps brought into the right position on account of the calendar motif. The Ascension in reality did not fall upon the 40th, but upon the 42nd day, therefore upon a Sabbath, which is perhaps what the “ sabbath day’s journey,” Acts i. 12, indicates. Jesus appeared for the first time to his disciples at Easter evening, therefore at the beginning of the day following the resurrection, Luke xxiv. 29, 36; then “he let himself be seen for forty days,” Acts i. 3; the farewell would therefore fall upon the 42nd day, therefore upon one Saturday before Exaudi (see Lichtenstein in Saat auf Hofftmng, 1906, pp. 11S ff.).
! Compare also the Indian fable, pp. 256 f.
268 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF THE DELUGE
Rabbinical theology speaks of three odours pleasing to God (the odour of sacrifice, of prayer, and of virtuous acts, the last being the most acceptable), Yalkut Rubeni, 806. Another poetic figure of speech of the “savour’1 is given by the presentment of the plant of life, which is smelled; see p. 215. And even if it were to be understood in an anthropomorphic sense (in the same sense as the repentance and grief of God in Gen. vi. 6), how far removed even that would be from the satirical description in the Babylonian story !
17.   With the decision of God in the Yahvist compare the
Babylonian record, line 180 ff. The words of Gen. viii. 22, pNrr   Ti?, have been translated, reading it as iod: “ hence
forth, all the days of the earth .... shall not cease.” The grammatical sequence requires the reading icicl, “till” (Septua- gint): 7retort? ra? tj/mepas yi/v- u Till all1 the days of the earth [are finished], seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” That corresponds to the System of the Ages of the World. When the days of the earth are finished, the fire-flood will come; comp. 2 Pet. iii. 7, “ the former world was destroyed by a water flood .... but the present heaven and earth are set apart for fire.”
18.   With this blessing of the rescued compare the Babylonian record, line 200 ff. In Gen. ix. 2 animals are permitted for food, as, till then, were vegetables. Slaying and killing is allowed. The animals were included in the fall and in the judgment of the Deluge ; see p. 261, n. 2. Now begins what St Paul, in Rom. viii. 19 ff., calls the “ groaning of all creation,” which in like manner awaits redemption. Only the eating of flesh with blood in it is forbidden, Gen. ix. 4 (P). For such blood of the beast God will bring man into judgment. The meaning of Gen. ix. 5 is: God will avenge the blood of man upon every living thing (the beast also which kills man, pays the death penalty). If a man kills a man, God requires yet more; he requires of the murderer the life (the soul, nephesh) of his brother.2 Gen. ix. 6 adds to this a command, and
1   Winckler corrects to ivta i>\
2   The disentanglement of the text which proves this meaning is given by Winckler, F., iii. 402 f.
THE BOW AS SYMBOL
269
a theological foundation for it: man, made in the image of God, stands higher than the beast.
19.   The bow, which was naturally also already obvious to the mind of the Biblical chronicler, is to be the sign of remembrance for mankind. Gen. ix. 16: “ And the bow shall be in the cloud, and thou shalt see it to remember1 the covenant.” We find a sign given at Babylonian investitures. Compare, for example, the giving of symbols in the investiture documents of Merodaeh-Baladan; see fig. 189, p. 281, ii. (fruit? In German law an ear of corn is given).
What is the meaning of the bow ? Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 3rd ed., 327, concludes from the word qeshet (otherwise, bow to shoot with) that the weapon of war is symbolised by it, which the arrow-shooting god lays aside as sign of his wrath put away. The Arabs also take the rainbow to be the weapon of God : Gnzah shoots arrows from his bow and then hangs it in the clouds. In India the rainbow is called lndraijudha, the weapon of Indra,” as being the bow from which he hurls lightning arrows against the rebellious Asurs.
The following may be added as Babylonian material :—
1.   In the Babylonian record of the Deluge, Ifid ff'., Ishtar raises an object called Nim, which Anu had made by her wish, and swears she will remember this day to the furthest future.
2.   The Babylonian epic of creation (Table V. ?) speaks of the placing in the heavens of the weapon with which Marduk has conquered Tiamat:2
The net that he had made, the gods [his fathers] saw, they saw the bow, that it [was made] ingeniously, and the work that he had ended, they praised ....
Anu arose in the assembly of the gods .... he praised (?) the bow : “it is . . . .”
[The names] of the bow he called as follows :
“ Longwood ” is the one, the other . . . ., its third name “ Bowstar in the heavens . . . .” he made firm its place (?) ....
According to that, the “bow,” qeshet, has nothing to do with the rainbow. Qeshet is a weapon ; and the bow to shoot with, which is thin at the ends, does not really answer to the rainbow. Since the bow is in the heavens, we must look for an astral motif. And the crescent of the new moon does, in fact, coincide admirably. Boeklen,
1   To be read thus .HJVXI, in agreement with Winckler. Josephus seems to have already read it thus. Ant., i. 3, S : “The bow shall serve thee as a token of my mercy.” God does not require the reminder.
2   K.T., xii. 3.
270 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF THE DELUGE
l.c., 123 ft'., has made the explanation very probable. Besides this, in Isa. xxvii. 1 (p. 195) the new moon, which proclaims the victory over the power of darkness, appears as the sickle-sword in the hand of Yahveh.1 The bow of the new moon, which was hailed with joy (Hilal!), is the sign of remembrance of the covenant of God with Noah.
But the tradition which makes the bow' the rainbow may also be proved correct. The original meaning may refer to a divine weapon, but certainly already the editor of the text in question was thinking of the rainbow. Also the late Jewish interpretation sees in the rainbo\v the divine comforter. Curiously, it appears thus in the Slav legends of the Deluge (Hanusch, SI a wise he Marchen, p. 23-1):—The Lord of the Universe saw from the window of heaven war and murder upon earth. So he let the earth be destroyed for twenty days and nights by water and wind. Only one old pair remained alive. To them he sent the rainbow as comforter (Liuxmine), which advised them to spring over the earth’s bones (stones). Thus arose new pairs of mankind, the primeval ancestors of the Lithuanian tribes.
Did the rainbow pass besides for the celestial bridge ? We found this celestial bridge in the Japanese cosmology, p. 167- In the Ed da, Heimdal guards the mythical bridge by which the Asa ascend to heaven, and which will be broken at the Twilight of the gods. And in the German fables souls are conducted to heaven over the rainbow.
That these bridges are of Oriental origin is showm by the conception of them as stairs (naturally with the seven-coloured steps). The rainbow with its seven colours “ corresponds to ” (comp. pp. 8 f.) the zodiac with the same seven planet colours, by the steps of w-hich the astral gods ascend to the heaven of Ann ; see pp. 15 f.
THE COSMIC AND ASTRAL MOTIFS OF THE STORY OF THE DELUGE
The Biblical chronicler clearly accepts the Deluge as corresponding to some historical event of primeval ages — an “ event, the most ancient and the most tremendous which has ever happened to man.'" 2 Also the Babylonian tradition, with its distinction between kings before or after the Flood (pp. 71, 238), seems to have an historical event in view. The Babylonian
1   Rev. xiv. 14 ft*., it becomes the sickle of the harvest of judgment.
2   Riem, Die Siiiflut: Eine ethnographisch-naturwissenschaflliche Untersuchung, Stuttgart, Kielmann, 1906. The fact cannot be established by means of historical criticism. In the critical examination of the Biblical story other issues will determine the decision for or against ; see pp. 80 f.
COSMIC AND ASTRAL MOTIFS
271
Deluge storv borrows its imagery from natural events which may be observed from time to time in the stormy floods in the plains of the Euphrates.1
But the presentment gives an echo of cosmic and astral motifs. The Teaching of the Ages of the Universe reckons with a deluge and with a fire-flood in the course of the moms, which will include the whole cosmos. When the precession of the spring point passes through the water region of the zodiac the deluge happens ; when the precession passes through the fire region of the zodiac the fire-flood happens; see pp. 70 f.2
The Babylonian record refers to the cosmic flood. The gods flee to the heaven of Anu, line 115, and cower under the kamati of that heaven. Therefore the tubnrjath the heavens of the seven planets, are overflowed. LR-napishtim is called hasisatra like Adapa ( = Marduk as hero ; see p. 107); he is the “ new Adapa,” the Bringer of the New Age.
But the Biblical chronicler also is aware of the cosmic flood. He lets echoes from the nature-mvth and the Teaching of the Ages of the Universe sound in his storv; together they form the 44 scientific ” background to his record of the Deluge (see pp. 80, 175). We may indicate the following points:—
1.   The inclusion in the Ages ; see pp. 26J f. and 267 f. Noah is one of the Bearers of revelation who inaugurate the Ages.3
2.   The 44 chest,” Hebrew tebah. The same word designates the basket in which Moses was exposed. This chest is inevitable in the myth of the New Age. The Bringer of the New Age is always rescued in a chest; see Exod. ii.4
3.   The resting-place of the dove, Gen. viii. 9, Manoah, upon which the olive tree grows, is the summit of the Mountain
1   The mode of expression used by the historical documents, which announce an annihilating destruction “ like a flood ” {abubn) falling upon the enemy, no doubt also refers to such cyclones.
2   The Biblical conception protests against the iron fate of the teaching of the seons. There shall be no return of the Deluge, Gen. ix. 15 ; comp. Isa. liv. 9 : “ I have sworn that the waters of Noah should go no more over the earth.” But comp. 2 Pet. iii. 6 f., p. 26S, above, and B.N. T, 116.
3   See Gunkel, Genesis, p. 130. Further, see point 4, p. 272.
4   Compare also B.N.T., p. 9 f., 30 ff. Egyptian: the ship of Isis and Osiris.
272 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF THE DELUGE
of the World.1 The slow sinking of the waters, viii. 3b-5, shows it was talking of a gigantic height.
4.   Noah is endowed with the motifs of the Bringer of the New Age. This is shown in the name and in the motive in giving the name, Gen. v. 29, which correspond to the motifs2 of the Expectation of the Redeemer; see p. ISO. For this reason the discovery of wine by Noah is emphasised, the vine being the symbol of the New Age.3 4
5.   The Deluge corresponds to the great deep, to Tehom, in the earlier aeon (comp. Gen. vii. 11 : the fountains of the great deep were broken up ; see p. 265, and compare the ruah who causes the sinking, p. 265). After the Deluge a new world is built. Perhaps a faint hint of the new creation lies in the words of Gen. viii. 22 and ix. 1 IF.
6.   The late Jewish conception places the Deluge together with the fire-flood. The passage before referred to in the Sanhedrin says that the people asked Noah whether the water or fire-flood would come. According to 4 Ezra vii., the “ path of the present aeon” lies “ between fire and water.1’1 The Christian Sibvll, vii. 9 (Hennecke, Xeut. Apukr., p. 323) says : “The earth shall be flooded, the mountains shall be flooded, the air also shall be flooded. All shall be water, by water shall all come to destruction. Then the winds shall be calmed and there shall arise a new age.” Line 25 ft‘.: “ God, who will work by many stars, .... will measure (?) a column
1   Comp. p. 265, and see Winckler, F., iii. 6S. Play of words on the redeemer motif mj ; see n. 2.
2   Play of words on the motif nu and cm. Compare p. 132, the consolation in the Attis cult; compare also p. 130 with Gen. iii. 17.
3   “Vine and fig tree” = rulership of the world, Overworld and Underworld ; see p. 209 and B.N.T., 33. Myth of Dionysus, Bacchus. The New Year motif of drunkenness belongs to this. The drunken Lot after the fire-flood corresponds to the drunken Noah. A fuither motif is generation. The motif is travestied. The behaviour of Ham corresponds to the behaviour of the daughters of Lot.
4   Kautzsch, Pseudepigr., 36S. Not water and fire ! and that is correct. The precession (Gemini-Taurus-Aries-Pisces) moves towards the water region and comes from the fire region. The incongruity in the Babylonian reckoning agrees with the reversal Marduk = Nebo. The passages in the Sanhedrin speak of “hot water” like the Deluge in the Koran, mixing therefore water and fire-flood. The Kabbalists (Yalkut Rubeni, 32b) know the fire-flood which is to follow the water- flood ; see p. 303.
COSMIC AND ASTRAL MOTIFS
273
of mighty fire, the sparks from which shall destroy the generations of man, which have done evil." And in the Vita Adam et Eva (Kautzsch, Pseudepigr., 506 ft“.) it is said that God will twice bring wrathful judgment upon man, fust with water, then with fire.
7.   Noah’s cultivation of the vine, and drunkenness, are motifs of the new age. In the fire-flood story of Sodom and Gomorrha, Lot’s drunkenness corresponds. The sexual stories, which indicate the new life (Ham, Lot’s daughters), belong to this class of motif.
The modern interpretations of the story of the Deluge as a solar mvth (Usener), or a lunar myth (Boeklen),1 are to be corrected according to this. To find a solution in myths is, in my opinion, going too far; so are also the interpretations by Stricken and by AVinckler, who see in the Deluge only a “ celestial occurrence.” Since it is dealing with cosmic motifs, solar as well as lunar motifs are to be expected. The cycles of the sun and of the moon correspond to the cycle of the aeons. In the duration of the Deluge, 365 days in P, and in the numbers 40 and 10 (see p. 267) in the Yahvist, lie solar motifs (p. 265).2
Concluding Words on the Deluge
The story in both the Biblical recensions shows a relationship to the Babylonian tradition, and certainly by far a closer relationship than does the story of creation. In the same way, here also one must be careful of the acceptance of the idea of a borrowed literature. The material has travelled. Inspection of the Babylonian cuneiform tables would not then be needed by a Biblical chronicler; besides which, he would have rejected a literary dependence upon religious grounds.3
In any case, here also the religious value does not lie in
1   Usener, Sintflutsagen ; Boeklen in the Archiv jiir Relig. IViss., vi. i and 2.
2   Boeklen has shown numerous lunar motifs.
;t Gunkel judges likewise in Genesis, 67 f., only that he credits ancient Israel with too little civilisation of its own. He holds that they adopted the primeval myths “ when they became incorporated in the Canaanite civilisation.” But sue know of no uncivilised time of Israel. See p. 314.
VOL. I.
18
274 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF THE DELUGE
what is common to the Bible and to Babylon, but in that wherein they differ.
In place of the mythological world of gods, who deceive and outwit each other, and capriciously abuse mankind; who appear in childish fright of the flood, and then again reappear in greedy curiosity at the sacrifice of Noah, we find in the Bible the wrathful God who judges the world, and who has mercy upon the righteous. The Biblical story of the Deluge possesses an intrinsic power, even to the present day, to awaken the conscience of the world, and the Biblical chronicler wrote it with this educational and moral end in view. Of this end there is no trace in the extra-Biblical records of the Deluge.
CHAPTER XI
THE NATIONS
GENESIS, 10th chapter, mirrors in its fundamental basis the geographical and ethnological picture of the world as it presented itself to the Israelites in the eighth century B.C. It has been considered an “ impossible task to reconstruct a map of the world according to the statements of the tables of the nations (Socin, in Guthe’s Bibelw'orterbiich). We hope to be able to set aside this prejudice, and to show that the Biblical writers were well informed in the political geography of their time. The tables of nations from P sources, 10. la, 2-7, 20, 22-23, 31-32, correspond, like the relation of the districts of the country, drawn from other sources, 10. 15-18% to the state of political geography in the eighth century B.C.
Dillmann, Genesis (see p. 165), thinks that the Israelites had close relations with only a very few of the nations placed together in Gen. x. This is due to the point of view that Canaan was a land relatively much cut off from tribal intercourse. The monuments of the Near East have disclosed to us that the states of the Mediterranean stood in active communication with each other and with the surrounding world.1
A map (No. I.), most kindly drawn, from the following reading of Gen. x., by Oberst. a D. Billerbeck, will make the review easier.
Gen. x. 2 : u The soils of Japhetli were: Gomer, and Magog, and Madal, and Javan, and Tubal, and Mesech, and Tiras."
GOMER.—That is, the Cimmerians, as in Ezek. xxxviii. 6, where
1 Wellhausen says in Israelitische und jiidische Geschichte, 1901 {thirteen years after the discovery of the Amarna Letters) : “Till then ^about 750] there existed in Palestine and Syria a number of small tribes and kingdoms bickering and quarrelling amongst themselves, with no wider outlook than their nearest neighbours, and unconcerned with the outer world, each revolving on its own axis ”
275
276
THE NATIONS
thev are also named tog-ether with the house of Tog-arm ah—the Gamir or Gimirrai of the Assyrian inscriptions. They belong to the Indo-Germanic tribes (Medes, Ashkuza, Cimmerians), who in the Assyrian inscriptions are often named by the collective noun Man da, and whom Herodotus calls Scythians. Homer, in the Odyssey, xi. 14, looks for the Cimmerians in Northern Europe. In Assyrian territories they appeared first in the time of Sargon. They then overthrew the kingdom of Uradhu1 and settled themselves there.2 The letters to his father written by the young Sennacherib during the time of his supreme command of the northern provinces on the borders of Uradhu. and the letters from one of his generals, tell of these wars; further, the questions addressed to the Oracle of the Sun-god in the time of Esarhaddon. Upon pressure by Esarhaddon, they were driven away from the Assyrian border by the Ashkuza, who were in alliance with Assyria, and pressed towards the west. The Asianic tradition which records this is confirmed by statements of Assurbanipal. In Asia Minor they overthrew the kingdom of the Phrygians under Midas, likewise of Lydia, under Gyges. Gradually they were overpowered by the newly reinforced civilised people of Asia Minor.
Poets of Asia Minor have sung of the horrors of this time. For a while the Cimmerian ascendancy was so strong that the greater part of Asia Minor was called Gomel- Also the wars in Uradhu have left their traces. The Crims (of the Cimmerian Bosphorus) owe their name to the Gimirrai, and the Armenians call Cappadocia, the scene of the above-mentioned battles between the Ashkuza and the Gimirrai, Gamir.3 Compare now, Hommel, G.G.G., 210 ff.
1   Armenia of to-clay ; the name is preserved in that of the mountain Ararat.
2   They did not therefore first break in from Europe in the beginning of the seventh century, as Ed. Meyer supposes. Holzinger, in his Genesis, p. 95, holds firmly to that supposition, although the material of the inscriptions has in the meantime been brought forward. For the history of the Cimmerians, as for that of the Ashkuza, comp. H. Winckler, F., i. 484 ff., and Helmolt’s IVeltgeschichte, iii. 1, p. 132.
3   This Armenian designation must surely be a supplement taken from the Bible, from the passages in Genesis and Ezekiel. The Armenians are proud of the mention of their country in the Bible. Thus they have given a Christian colour, to the story of the sons of Sennacherib, who murdered their father and “ escaped to the land of Ararat” (2 Kings xix. 37), and honour them as a sort of national heroes; see Chalatianz, “Die armenische Heldensage,” in the Zeitschrift des Vereins fiir Volkskunde in Berlin, 1902, vol. ii. ff
MAGOG—MADAI
277
MAGOG.—In Ezek. xxxviii. f. King Gog of the land of Magog appears as the uncanny- foe of popular expectation. That Gog is an old name for the barbarian of the farthest North, like the Cimmerians, in Homer’s Odyssey, as mentioned above, is shown by the letter from Nimmuria to Ivadashman-Bel in the fifteenth century B.C., found in Tel Amarna (K.B., v. 5). The writer of the letter is suspicious as to whether the wife being sent to him from afar will be a real princess. He says:—
Who is to know, then, whether she is not the daughter of a slave, or of an (inhabitant) of the land of Ga-ga (Ga-ga-ai, a Gagaean), or a daughter of the land of Hanigalbat, or who knows that she does not come from Ugarit, she whom my messengers succeed in seeing?
He falls back therefore in his suspicions from Gaga, which is certainly Gog, upon Hanigalbat, and from thence upon the probably still nearer Ugarit. Gog means here also a fabulous land, like the land of the Scythians in the classics.
MADAI (Assyrian, likewise Greek, Mi/oot or M«<Sot) is the name of a race which from the middle of the ninth century appears in Western Asia in the territory of Anzan. The Assyrians call them “the far Medes of the East” (Madai rmjuti sha ?sit shamshi), “ the never vanquished Medes ” (la Arinsuti).1 They are first reckoned amongst the Umman-Manda, that is, the collective noun for the people of the north-east, who somewhat correspond to the (eastern) “Scythians” of the classics, and who throng against Assyria and Babylonia “like locusts.” What Assur- banipal says of the related Cimmerians applies equally to the Manda: “ No interpreter understands their language.” Their tribes are under the leadership of hazandti, they dwell “like robbers in the desert.” They are the first of the advancing Indo-Germanic people.2 In Genesis the Madai belonging to the Manda are counted to Japheth. They come, like the Hittites, from Europe and move back again behind the Hittite migrations.
The foundation of the kingdom of the Medes took place in the latest Assyrian period. Herodotus places it in an earlier age.
1   K.B., ii. 39, 41, 43, 55 ; comp. p. 67.
2   Herodotus, vii. 62 : “from days of old they were named Apioi.
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THE NATIONS
But in the founder of the State., Deioces, and in the chief city, Ecbatana in Herodotus, we have traces of historical treasure. Ecbatana was probably a centre of unification ; the name of the city, Bit-Daiakku, answers for a popular hero Daiakku. We cannot yet judge of his successor Phraortes. We must look upon Cyaxares as the true founder. He was the Uvakshatara of the Inscription of Darius at Behistun, who appears as legitimate representative of the kingdom, whilst a pretender to the throne sets aside his name. Cyaxares was followed by Astyages, then came Cyrus, founder of the kingdom of Persia. In 2 Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11, Israelites were deported to the mountains (Septuagint iv opois) of the Medes. In Isa. xiii. 17 ff. ; Jer. xxv. 25, li. 11, 28, it appears as a kingdom. In the Books of Daniel, of Esther, and of Judith men were aware of Jews descended from these banished people. The First Book of Maccabees shows Media first under Syrian (vi. 56), then under Parthian (xiv. 2 ; comp. Josephus, Ant., xx. 3, 3), rule. The Whitsun legends name it amongst the Diaspora lands ; Acts ii. 9- Further detail of the legends in the article on Nineveh in Hauck, R.Pr.Th,, 3rd ed.
JAVAN.—These are the Greeks (Greek, Jaon, Jaones, with Digamma) who are here called by the Israelites, as they were by the Assyrians and later by the Persians, by the name they bore on the coasts of Asia Minor. Here and at Cyprus they learnt to know them; to Western Asia, Greece proper was a dim hinterland of very secondary consideration.1 Whether Gen. x. 2 also includes European Greece cannot be proved owing to the misty nature of the geographical ideas, nor from “ the sons of Javan,” v. 4. In the Assyrian inscriptions we meet with Ionians (Jamania, Jamnai) first under Sargon. We learn that they made inroads upon the Cilician coasts. Sargon says:2 “ The brave warrior, who in the midst of the sea caught the Ionian with the net (?) like a fish and to Que and Tyrus brought peace.” He defeated them, therefore, in a sea fight, in any case with the help of ships of Tyre, since Tyre itself, or much more probably Tyrian colonies in Cyprus, were threatened by the Ionians. Here it is a case of Ionian kings in Cyprus.3 From thenceforward Cyprus became tributary to Assyria. Later,4 Sargon
1   In just the same way the Greeks call Canaan and its hinterland after the nearest coast region : Palaestina, that is, Philistineland.
2   K.B., ii. 43-
3   ButKittim, Gen. x. 4, is not Chition, contrary toSchrader, K.A.T., 2nd ed.,Sl.
4   K.B., ii. 75-
EXCURSUS ON LIST OF NATIONS OF DARIUS 279
mentions in this sense seven kings of “ Ja,‘” a district of the land of Jatnana (which is a name for Cyprus); Assurbanipal names ten such kings by name.1 The Greeks proper, even with the special differentiation of those of Asia Minor and the European Greek—both under the name of Jamania—were named in the Inscriptions of Darius.
EXCURSUS ON THE LISTS OF NATIONS OF DARIUS 2
The tomb of Darius at Naqsh-i-Rustem represents the thirty nations conquered by him and counts them in the Inscription. The
 
figures on the tomb have suffered very much from the disintegration of the rock, and have become partially unrecognisable. Happily, the other Achaemenid tombs found in the same place are an exact copy of the tomb of Darius. Fig. 77 shows the tomb of Xerxes, which is the best preserved. The nations counted in the Inscription can be verified by the figures, so that the interpretation of the list may be held as fully assured, and at the same time the great
1   ii. 173.
According to the debates at the International Congress of Orientalists, 1902, in Hamburg, lecture by Professor Dr F. C. Andreas; compare also Hommel, G.G.G., 199, n. 3. (See Appendix.)
280
THE NATIONS
reliability of the descriptions of the nations by Herodotus is proved.
In the Inscription on the tomb thirty nations are counted, in the following groups:
1.   The people between the mountain range bordering the plain of Mesopotamia on the one side, and the chain of the Pamir and the Indus on the other side : (l) Medes, (2) Chuzians, (3) Parthians, (4) Areiens, (5; Bactrians, (6) Sogdianians, (7) Chorasmians, ( Zar- angians, (9) Arachosians, (10) Sattagydens, (11) Gandaritae, (12) Indians, (13) Sacians, (14) Haumavarken (’ApYpyioi of Herodotus, up to now wrongly taken to be an epithet for Sacians), (15) pointed-hatted Sacians.
2.   The natives of South-Western Asia: (16) Babj'lonians, (17) Assyrians. (IS) Arabians, (19) Egyptians.
3.   The nations of the north of Western Asia: (20) Armenians, (21) Cappadocians, (22) Lydians, (23) Greeks of Asia Minor.
4.   The nations of Europe : (24) Scythians or Scolotans of Pontus, (25) Thracians, (26) the Greeks who bear the Petasos (Persian, Yauna Takabara), that is to say, Macedonians (possibly this designation includes the European Greeks).
5.   The tribes of Africa; (A) in the south: (27; Putans, that is, the Biblical Put, Punt of the Egyptians, the Ethiopians of Herodotus; (28) Cush, that is, the Negro races; (B) in the west: (29) Maxyer, and (30) Carthagenians (these two figures stand outside the panoply of the throne on the right hand and on the left).
The dominating race of the Persians is naturally not to be found amongst the figures representing the conquered nations supporting the throne of Darius, it is represented by the figure of the king himself, as also by the six side figures, which show us the heads of the six races of Parsa, standing alongside the kingls family, the Achsemenids. There must originally have been an inscription over each of these figures, noting the name and rank of the person ; only two of these are known up to the present, the remainder have been perhaps destroyed. By these we know that the top figure on the left is Gobryas, lance-bearer of Darius, and the under figure bearing shield and battle-axe is Aspathines, his shield-bearer (Persian Vursawara). From the record of a Byzantine historian (Petrus Patricius, fragment 14) we learn that amongst the Persians the king’s shield-bearer was also Captain of the Bodyguard.
TUBAL.—This means the Tabal of the cuneiform Inscriptions. They belong to the last batch of the “ Hi Hites,” of whom we find first the Kummukh (from whom later Commagene is named), then the Muski, Tabaheans and Ivaski, making an inroad into Northern Mesopotamia under Tiglath-Pileser I. We first meet with Tabal as a country under Shalmaneser II. Sargon (Annals,
TUBAL—MESECH
281
170 ff.) gives his daughter as wife to the king Ambaridi, of Tabal, with Hilakki as her dower.1 Later the Tabalaeans were forced into Lesser Armenia. The Tibarenes of Herodotus (iii. 94, vii. 78), named here together with the Mosher, that is, the Muski-Mesech, who dwelt in the hill country to the southeast of the Black Sea, were remnants of the Tabalaeans. Since these hill tribes were celebrated in ancient times (compare for example Ezek. xxvii. 13), as they are still celebrated, for their brass and copper work, we may conjecture that the monstrous un-Hebraic form of name of the patriarch Tubal - Cain is connected with it. To the name of Cain, which signifies “smith,11 “instructor of eveiy artificer in copper and iron11 (Gen. iv. 22), they added, as a pendant to Jubal, the name of the celebrated copper-worker Tubal.
MESECH.—These are the Muski of the Assyrian royal Inscriptions. They belong, like Tabal, to the batches of Hittites who appeared under Tiglath-Pileser I. After the Kummukh, who had settled themselves in Northern Mesopotamia in the territory of the sometime kingdom of Mitanni, had been subjugated by Tiglath-Pileser I., the laud was threatened by the Muski, about 1100, and behind them pressed the Tabalaeans, just spoken of above, and the Kaski. Later the Muski established themselves in Phrygia; they aspired to enter into possession of the ancient kingdom of Hatti. We find appearing as an opponent of Sargon, Mita of Muski in the list of former kings of the Hatti. This Mita is Midas of Phrygia.2
In the later prophets the same groups of nations repeatedly appear as in Gen. x. 2. In Ezek. xxvii. 13, Javan, Tubal, and Mesech are named as traders in slaves and copper ware. In Ezek. xxxii. 26 and elsewhere Mesech and Tubal are named as warlike people. In Isa. lxvi. 19, according to the Septuagint, Mesech, Tubal, and Javan are likewise named together.
Ezek. xxxviii. 2 ft’., comp, xxxix. I ff., “Son of man, set thy face
1   This is, however, not Cilicia, but a part of Cappadocia, southward, on the Halys.
2   See H. Winckler, K.A.T., 3rd ed., lxviii. 74. Therefore also the last king of Karkemish, which province was the last remnant still left of the ancient Hittite glory, sought help from this conqueror of the ancient lands of the Hatti. The Indo-Germanic Cimmerians were overthrown by Midas. In place of Phrygia, Lydia became the chief power in Asia Minor.
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THE NATIONS
towards Gog, in the land of Magog, the prince of [gloss : RoshJ Mesech and Tubal, prophecy against him and say: Thus saith the Lord Yahveh: Verily, against thee will I, Prince of (Rosh) Mesech and Tubal . . . .1 Gomer and all his hordes, the house of Togarmah, the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes—many people [are] with thee.”
This march of Gog described by Ezekiel is usually looked upon as a prophetic vision of the Scythian invasion which broke over Asia in the time of Josiah; Herodotus, i. 103.
The historic geographical picture at the root of this eschatological description is the same which in Gen. x. 2 and 3 floats before the mind of the compiler of the tables of the nations. As may be seen from the previous and the following notes on Gen. x. 2 and 3, only the eighth century fits to this description. This gives a fixed point for the literary-historical criticism of the tables of the nations.
Till AS lies between the Muski-Phrygians and the west coast of Asia Minor. There, somewhere about the territory of Lydia and Troas, remnants of a seafaring people, the Tyrseni, settled, who were reported in ancient times to be pirates, and of whose connection with the Italian Tyrseni there is no reasonable ground for doubt. Egyptian inscriptions of the time of Mernephta name them as Turusha.2 The name in the table of nations is therefore a later witness to the movement of the seafaring people, which in ante-Greek times played a like role as did the Greeks later. Though we as yet have no fuller details of the course of this movement, it is worth noting.3
Gen. x. 3: “ And the softs of Gomer, Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.^
1   The ethnological supplement, “ Paras, Cush, and Put are with them,’’ and so on, is obviously inserted later, probably also taken from the table of nations, Gen. x. 6.
2   In his Atifs. u. Abh., pp. 317 {., Hommel draws the conclusion that the mention of the seafaring people points to the main root of Gen. x. being in the Mosaic epoch. In this conclusion he overshoots the mark ; it can only be vindicated by the (loc. cit.) following observations of Hommel himself, according to which parts of the main root show the Abraham and ante-Abraham epochs. When Elam appears amongst the sons of Shem (v. 22), that does not point to the time “when Elam still possessed a preponderating Semitic population” (third millennium), but only reflects the fact that Elam belonged politically and intellectually to the mighty Babylonian empire This connection, however, lasted through all ages, and perhaps still is shown in the division of the spoil after the fall of Nineveh ; see pp. 293 and 301. According to texts made accessible by P. Scheil, Susa seems to have fallen to Babylon.
:1 An Etruscan inscription found at Lemnos (!) is an important witness.
ASHKENAZ—TOG ARMAH
283
ASHKENAZ is the Indo-Germanic population of the Ashkuza,1 which in the time of Esarhaddon was situated to the south-east of the lake Urumiya, to the east of the Cimmerians. The Hebrew name is mutilated bv an error.2 Bartatua, king of the Ashkuza, who appears in Herodotus as the Scythian king Protothyes, became son-in-law to the Assyrian royal house through Esarhaddon. One of the inquiries made by Esarhaddon of the Sun-god3 is whether Protothyes will remain a loyal friend to Assyria if he is given the daughter. The king of Assyria made use of the Ashkuza in the war against the remaining hordes of the Manda—first against the Cimmerians (see above), then against the Medes. Madyes, son of Bartatua, tried to come to the help of Nineveh at the last moment; and together with the Assyrians, the Ashkuza were subdued by the Medes. The oracle in Jer. li. 27 names the kingdom of Ashkuza together with the kingdoms of Ararat (Urardhu), Minni (Assyrian Mannai), and the Medes, and calls upon them all against the hated land. Here all the Indo-Germanic hordes are taken together, who since the time of Sargon stormed against the Assyrian kingdom. The oracle must therefore have its source in Assyrian times; after the fall of Nineveh the summons would be groundless.
TOGARMAH4 are the inhabitants of Tilgarimmu, which by Sargon is named together with Kammanu, in northerly Taurus,5 6 and by Sennacherib together with the people of fiilakkiin both passages Tilgarimmu is conquered by the Assyrian king. The country of the Taurus, in the neighbourhood of which Kammanu and Togarmah are to be looked for, is called Muzri7 by Shalmaneser I. and by Tiglath-Pileser I.
1   Assyrian Ash-gu-za-ai in Esarhaddon’s inscriptions and Ish-ku-za-ai in the Inquiries to the Sun-god oracle of the same time.
2   Knudtzon, Gebete an dem Sonnengott, p. 131.
3   No. 29 in Knudtzon’s publication. Comp. Winclcler, F., i. 484 ff.
4   Septuagint, Thergama, Thorgama, Thorgoma. The placing of the small Togarmah together with the mighty Cimmerians and Ashkuza remains remarkable.
3   K.B., ii. 63.
6   Not Cilicia, but a district on the Halys ; comp. pp. 2S1 f.
7   Named by Shalmaneser II. together with Que, lying to the south of it, our Cilicia.
284
THE NATIONS
From hence Solomon imported his horses. It is said in 1 Kings x. 28 = 2 Chron. i. l6 f.: “The horses which Solomon had [were brought] out of Muzri and Que, the king’s merchants bought them out of Que at a price.” 1 Ezek. xxvii. 14 agrees with this. Here we find Togarmah named as the special market for horses : “they of the house of Togarmah brought spans and war-horses and mules from thy mart.” In the Persian time Cilieia was still the neighbourhood for horse trade.
Gen. x. 4: “ A nd the sons of Javan ; Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanini”
ELISHAH.—According to the Septuagint, the neighbourhood of Carthage is meant. This agrees with the historical- geographical situation of the passage. In any case, we know Carthage bore a more ancient name, and we may call to mind the legends of its founding by Dido-Elissa.2 Elissa is, then, here meant as representative of the Phoenician colonies on the coast and in the islands of North Africa.3
When Ezek. xxvii. 7 says that Tyre brought its people stuffs from the isles of Elishah, it is very remarkable, since Tyre is the primeval home of purple, and with Tyre also the fables of the discovery of the Tyrian purple dye are connected. It must have been referring to some particular stuff’, such as is found in the island Meninx, south-east from Carthage. The Elishah in the passage in Ezekiel may be explained as meaning another district which is also celebrated for purple, and tvhich equally fits the situation— Southern Italy. In fact, the Targum does understand by Elishah in Ezek. xxvii. 7 a city of Italy. But this idea may also rest upon later interpretation, as in 1 Macc. i. 1 and viii. 5, where it speaks of Chittim-Macedonia as the starting-point of Alexander, that is to say, as the kingdom of Perseus.4
TARSHISH is the name of the mountainous district in the south of Spain. It denotes the extremest west,5 as Gog denotes the extremest north. The “Ancient East” has at present nothing to bring to the elucidation of the question of Tarshish.
1   The passage was later referred to Egypt, which was quite unsuitable for horsetrading (see Winckier, Altt. Untersuchungen, pp. 172 ff., the starting-point of his search for Muzri; p. 172, ibid., it would surely be better to put the position of Muzri to the north instead of to the south of the Taurus).
2   See Ed. Meyer, Geschichte, i. 2S2 n.
3   According to H. Grimnte, in Lit. Rundschau, 1904, p. 346 = Alashia of the Amarna Letters = Cyprus. Against this see under Kittim, p. 285.
4   See for this and for the following, “ Kittim,” H. Winckier, F., ii. 422, 564 ff.
5   Comp. Jonah i. 3, iv. 2, according to which it is arrived at in a ship.
TARSHISH—KITTIM—DODANIM
285
P. Haupt, in a lecture at the Hamburg Oriental Congress, 1902, has asserted that the stones of Tarshish mentioned in the Old Testament are cinnabar crystals from Almada, in Spain, from which colours for tattooing are manufactured, and that the passage, Song of Songs, v. 14, says the brown, bronze-coloured arms were tattooed with vermilion, and the ivory body, which was protected from the sun, with azure colour. Tattooing had already been conjectured by Winckler, F., i. 293. In Isa. lx. 9, and Ps. lxxii. 10 Tarshish appears as it does here grouped with the “ Isles.”
KITTLM.—That the name points to Cyprus1 must be given up. The Greek name of the chief city, Chition, is no strong argument. The city is called Qarthadasht (Carthage) on the Assyrian inscriptions ; it is only in the Phoenician inscriptions originating in the Persian age that it is called Chiti. The Amarna Letters name the island itself Alashia, Egyptian Alas or Asi; under Sargon it is called Ja and Jatnana. In Isa. xxiii. 1 and 12 Kittim is the goal of the ships of Tarshish. In Dan. xi. 30 Kittim specially means Rome. Therefore Southern Italy is meant by Kittim, especially Sicily, which then passed as chief representative of the western islands, and with Elishah-Africa represents the principal territories of the Phoenician colonies.
DODANIM.—In 1 Chron. i. 7 (transcript from Gen. x. 4) it is Rodanim. Since it at the same time belongs to the children of Javan, therefore to the western lands and islands, we may think of Rhodes, which in ancient times was of great importance. Another conjecture left unnoticed in 1 Chron. is: Doranim = Doria. Greece proper would then be named as a son of Javan, which would correspond to the naive geographical idea, to which the Ionians, the Greeks of Asia Minor, were closer at hand.
Gen. x. 5 : “ Of these (of Elishah-Carthage, Tarshish-Spain, Kittim-Southern Italy, Rodanim-Rhodes [?]) were the isles of the heathen divided,” that is, the islands and colonies of the Mediterranean. That gives a clear geographical picture.
Gen. x. 6 : “ And the sons of Ham were: Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan.”
CUSH corresponds to the old idea of Ethiopia, the Nubia of
Thus still, according to Kautzsch in Isa. xxiii. i, and l Macc. i. i.
286
THE NATIONS
to-day, and a portion of the Soudan, about including Khartoum.1 First in the time of Sennacherib this territory comes into clear view on the Israelite horizon with the appearance of Tirhakah (Isa. xxxvii. 9), king of Cush. The people of Western Asia, however, named thus that tract of Arabia which had to be passed on the way through to the dark hinterland of Africa, just as they named the northern region of Arabia, where it goes “ through ” to Egypt, Muzri, because they thought of Arabia in connection with those parts of Africa opposite it.2 The nomenclature corresponds to the misty geographical ideas of antiquity, when, it is to be kept in mind, Egypt at least was reckoned as belonging to Western Asia; the dark parts of the earth began first on the far side of the desert. That Cush is here thought of as part of Arabia, as Glaser first announced, is shown by the sons descended from Cush, of whom some of the names can be identified as Arabian local names. Also, the wife of Moses, spoken of in Numb. xii. 1, is in this Arabian sense a woman of Cush ; the Cushite Zerah, 2 Chron. xiv. 9, is an Arabian captain. Particularly significant is the meaning of the name Cush in Isa. xlv. 14, where, along with the merchandise of Cush, the “ Sabeans, men of stature/’ are named. Possibly in Hab. iii. 7 also Cushan may be taken as a slip of the pen for Cush;3 it stands here as parallel to the tent-curtains of the Midianites.4
MIZRAIM is Egypt. It is the same here as with Cush- Nubia. Mizraim is a geographical collective noun, which, as H. Winckler has recognised, also includes a part of Arabia, and even just that region where it leads “through” to Egypt. Since by Cush, as shown by the Arabian sons, Arabian country is certainly thought of, and since the kingdom Punt (Pudh ; see below) is included, it might have seemed to go without saying
1   See Spiegelberg, Agyptologische Randglossen, p. io.
In like manner the distinction is still made in connection with the nomenclature of the classic age, between the right bank of the Nile as “ Arabian Desert ” in opposition to the ‘‘ Libyan Desert.”
3   Or South Arabian formation — ancient article ? Comp. Midian ; further, Muzran from Muzur.
4   See upon this, H. Winckler, K.A.T., 3rded., 144, who presents material from the inscriptions on the subject; and comp. Hommel, Au/s. u. Abk., 208 ff.
MIZRAIM—PUT
287
that here also Arabia is meant. But the author of verse 13 was thinking, as the “ sons11 show, of Egypt proper. The geographical-political situation answers for the correctness of Muzri- Arabia. The Arabian country concerned is called in the cuneiform inscriptions Muzri (Hebrew, therefore perhaps Mozar), in the Minaean inscriptions Muzran (always with article). Here there was a trading colony of the kingdom Ma4in (Minaeans), whose chief articles of merchandise were incense and myrrh. It is the Biblical Midian.1 The “Midianite” merchants of the history of Joseph are Minaeans, and the Midianite father-in-law of Moses, Jethro, is a Minaean. At the time of the fall of the Minaean kingdom the colonies in Muzri became independent.2 When in the eighth century—therefore at the time in which the author of our passage was writing —the Assyrian kings came to North Arabia, Muzri was still independent. To this period (according to Hommel, about 1000 B.C.) belongs, according to Winckler and others, the celebrated Glaser inscription 1155 = Halevy 535,3 4 which speaks of the governor of Muzran and of the Minaeans of Muzran, who undertook a commercial journey to Egypt, A’shur (Edom, according to Hommel) and Ibr naharan, and which shows us the Sabaeans (see p. 289) on the march towards the south.
PUT.—The Septuagint gives Put in Ezekiel and Jeremiah together with “Libya.” It means the kingdom of Punt (Egyptian, Pwnt), which included the country on both sides of the Red SeaJ It had already had intimate commercial dealings with Egypt, and in the eighth and seventh centuries stood, like Cush, in close relation to Egypt. This Punt stretched far into Arabia, and on the African side far northwards across the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb; here again it is to be kept in mind that this part of Africa, inclusive of Egypt, was accounted as Asia by the ancients. Ed. Glaser, M.V.A.G., 1899, 3, 51 ff.,
1   According to Grimme in Lit. Rundschau, 1904, 346, Midian is much more likely the M-d-j of the Glaser inscription 1155 mentioned. Latest upon the question of Muzri, see M.V.A.G., 1906, 102 ff.
2   It was dissolved in the seventh century by the Sabaeans out of the north ; see under Saba, p. 2S9.
3   M. F.A.G., 1898, table on p. 56, comp. p. 20; A.O., iii. 1.
4   See W. M. Muller, Asien itnd Europa, 106 ff.
288
THE NATIONS
thinks that, from the Egyptian standpoint, the nations of South Arabia and of the east coast of Africa are to be understood as included under Punt, and on account of this he thinks that in the Bible Cush, rather than Put, reproduces this collective idea. In any case there lies a dim geographical, not ethnological, idea as foundation of the Put of the Tables of the Nations; which also explains why the Tables omit any subdivision.
CANAAN.—Canaan stands here, as also elsewhere, for Ham. The Ham population is the world of slaves which is to serve the Shem population (Gen. ix. 26 f.). The author of our passage puts Canaan for this, that is, the population that in its own country, as a primitive subjugated people, plays the part of slaves. From this political point of view it is here perhaps spitefully interpolated amongst the “ southern lands.11
Gen. x. 7: '?'Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabteca: and the sons of Ram ah; Sheba and Dedan.”
The names Seba, Havilah, and Dedan suffice to show that we find ourselves here in Arabia, not on Egyptian ground, as Hol- zinger in Genesis thinks in regard to Seba. That districts of Arabia appear as “sons of Cush” is explained by what has been said on Mizraim, Cush, and Put (see also under x. 8 f.). HAVILAH represents the region of Central and North-East Arabia; see Glaser, Skizze, ii. 323 ff‘. In SABTAH (Sabteha as variant ?) we think of Sabota, chief town of Hadramaut, the South Arabian region eastward of Yemen, where the country and ruins are latterly being much travelled over and examined (writings by Guthe, Bibekobrterbuch, p. 244). Glaser, Skizze, ii. 252, thinks Sabtah is the district mentioned by Ptolemaeus, on the Persian Gulf.1 HADRAMAUT (Hazarmaveth) is, it is true, specially mentioned in verse 26, but it does not belong there, for there it is no longer counting people and races, but (with exception of the twelve sons of Joktan; see pp. 301 f.) heroes ; it has possibly gone astray from its place here to verse 26. RAAMAH (1 Chron. i. 9, Raama, Septuagint Regina) is named as here, together with Saba. On the Minaean inscription mentioned above (Glaser, 1155) it is recorded at line 2 that the gods showed themselves grateful to the 1 Otherwise in Hommel, Aufs. u. Abh., 315.
SABA—DEDAN
289
governors of Muzr and of Main (Minsean colony in Muzr; see p. 287) for building a terraced tower, and they “ protected it from the assaults with which they assaulted Saba and Haulan upon the way (?) between Ma‘in and Ragmat (chief town of Nedjran), and from the war which took place between the .... of the south and those of the north." Consistency of sound apparently forbids a connection with the Biblical Ramah.
SABA.—-The Sabmans are meant, who later inherited the Minsean kingdom (see the convincing deductions by Glaser, Skizze, i.). The a kingdom of Saba” did not yet exist when Gen. x. was written. In the Assyrian Inscriptions of Tiglath- Pileser III. and Sargon the Sabseans appear as allies of the Aribi,1 and are not yet in possession of Yemen, but are in the North Arabian Jowf. The Minsean Inscription mentioned above speaks of the Sabaeans as a threatening enemy. Since at the time of writing of our passage the Sabaeans were not yet in possession of any settled domain, SHEBA perhaps may be explained as variant: the writer vaguely meant some part of the Sabaeans.
DF.DAX must equally be looked for in North Arabia. In the time of Ezekiel (Ezek. xxv. 13; comp. Jer. xxv. 23, xlix. their territory bordered upon Edom. Glaser, ii. 329 IF., probably rightly, looks for them in the districts stretching northwards from Medina to the borders of Edom. Possibly they are also mentioned in the 31st line of the Mesa Inscription.
Gen. x. 8 f. : “ And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He Teas a mighty hunter before Yahveh, wherefore it is said, Like Nimroda mighty hunter before Yahveh."
Since, according to the foregoing conclusions, we are in Arabia in verse 7, so, at any rate in the mind of the editor of our passage, which is drawn from another source, the nationality of NIMROD is decided: he is the eponymous hero of the Semitic
1 There is no connection with Jareb, Hosea v. 13 ; Hommel, Aufs. u. Abh., 230 ft'. The later chief city of the Sabteans was called Marjab, but see upon Jareb, p. 302. See upon the Sabseans also "VVinckler, M. V.A.G., 1898, xS. 22 f,, and Weber, A. 0., iii. 1.
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290
THE NATIONS
people rising up from amongst the nations of Arabia. It would agree with this that, according to verse 8, he is proverbially upon Canaanite ground.1
On Babylonian ground we meet with the mighty hunter in the person of Gilgamesh (Izdubar). Gilgamesh is hero of Light.2 Baby- lonianised, the name may be called Namir-uddu, that is, “glittering light.'”3 The figure frequent upon seal cylinders (with seven ringlets!), who playfully strangles a lion (figs. 78-80), most probably represents Gilgamesh-Nimrod.
 
Gunkel, 146, translates it: “a mighty hunter in spite of Yahveh,” and sees in it a myth of Orion, who, “in spite of Yahveh ” that is, dares to hunt in the heavens, and in consequence is bound to the heavens, Job xxxviii. 31b. In fact, Nimrod is identified with Orion amongst the Persians according to Chron. pasch., n. ' 11\ .   64, and according to Cedremus, xxvii. 28,
<£rr^' : ~Ey,,'' T~~J   amongst the Assyrians; see Stucken,
F,c, 7S.-Gilgamesh, the ^ralmylhen, p 27 f. It may equally be lion-slayer. Relief from said : °rlon 1S the hunter Osins (amongst Sargows palace.   the Egyptians Osiris is often thought of
as the ruler of Orion; see Gen. xxxii. 11) or the hunter Tammuz. The rising and setting of Orion falls together with the critical Tammuz points, the solstitial points (compare with this pp. 96 ff., 125 ff.). The double meaning may well be intentional in our passage ; but the proverb which glorifies a hero does not fit the exclusive rendering, “in spite of Yahveh.”
1   We may venture to conjecture besides that the still extant Arabian tradition of Nimrod is not connected only with Gen. x., but is, at least partially, of extra- Biblical origin, just as is the tradition of Nimrod of the Talmud.
2   Sun or moon or Tammuz according to the form of the myth, comp. pp. S6 f. ; in any case Zajjad, “hunter,” that is to say, “hunting tyrant” (gibbor = gabbdr). See upon this Winckler, Gesch. Isr., ii. p. 2S6, n. 3; F., iii. 403 f. ; and also previously Izdubar-Nimrod, Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1S91, pp. 1 fif.
3   See Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 5. We must also support the conjecture that the same name reversed is to be found in Uddushu-namir, that is, “his light shines,” name of the messenger of the gods in the descent of Ishtar into Hades. Compare with this Hommel, Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr., 394, n. 4, who now points to the flmu- namri Gudama of the first Kassite king Gaddash,
SHINAR
291
Gen. x. 10: “ And the beginning of his (Nimrod's) kingdom teas Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.'"’
The name SHINAR is possibly identical with Sumer, the
 
Fio. 79.—Gilgamesh fighting the lion. Babylonian seal cylinder, British Museum.
cuneiform designation of the most ancient Babylonian civilisa- tion in the southern Euphrates territory. It is certainly not Shanhar of the Amarna letter (letter from Alashia-Cvprus),
 
FIG. 80.—Gilgamesh fighting the lion. Assyrian seal cylinder, British Museum. Wax impression in the author’s possession.
the Sanqara of the Egyptians, by which they mean much more the territory between Taurus and Antitaurus — what the Assyrians name Muzri.1 In any case Shinar designates the
1 See Winckler, F., ii. 107, and K.A.T., 3rd ed., 238 ; and comp. pp. 285 f., above.
THE NATIONS
292
whole Babylonian territory, therefore Sumer (South Babylonia) and Akkad (North Babylonia). Josephus, Ant., i. 4, says (but very likely speaking according to Gen. xi. 2) “ Plains of Shinar.” L
BABEL.—The North Babylonian city of Babylon (upon the name, see p. 205) was from the time of Hammurabi metropolis of the Babylonian kingdom, and later, after the fall of Nineveh, it was metropolis of the Babylonian-Chaldean empire extended over the greater part of the world (“ Mother of the Chaldseans,” Jer. 1. 12 ; “ Chaldaicarum gentium caput,” in Pliny, Hist. Nat.,
vi.   30). But also during the intervening period of Assyrian ascendancy, Babylon was recognised as a political and intellectual centre. The Assyrian kings grasp “the hands of Bel” (Marcluk) in Babylon, and proclaim themselves by this solemn ceremony as lords of the empire of the world. “ King of Babylon ” was, from the time of the Hammurabi dynasty onwards, the most important title of the kings of Western Asia. Its most ancient history is still A ery dim. The founder of the city was possibly that Sargon of Agade whose seal (fig. 86) shows by the goats the Gemini motif which pr

LISTS OF THE PATRIARCHS
Cuneiform Parallels, j Biblical Parallels. ^ Planets.
! = Aruru   '   ^
= Adapa4   j   Seth i
I
= amelu (man) i Enos (man)
= unnnanu,   1   Cain = Kenan   j
I “ master-crafts- (smith)6 man"   !
?   1   Mahalalel   ;
?   1   ? (Jared)
, = Enmeduranki 7 8 1 Enoch   Shamashs
240
THE PATRIARCHS
Berossus.
Cuneiform Parallels.
Biblical Parallels
Planets.
Amempsinos ,
Otiartes Ardatos, father of Xisuthros, > see p. 245.   |
Xisuthros, Sisu- thros,Sisithrosj
= Amel-Sin, man of the gocl Sin 1 = Ubara-Tutu 2
= Atrahasis3 (Ha- sis-atra)
Methusalah ? Lamech
Noah
Sin
Marduk
Nergal ?
(In the sense of Under- world=realm of Ea ?)
“ Enoch walked with God" Gen. v. 22 and 24 ; comp. chap, xvii. 1 in regard to Abraham : walk before the face of God. Union with God is meant, as in the case of Enmeduranki, p. 51, who received the heavenly secrets. “ Because he walked -with Elohim, he disappeared: God took him ”; Gen. v. 24. The translation of the Babylonian Noah with his wife and steersman may be compared with that of Enoch. Berossus explicitly says they were “ taken away ” {yeveoBai a<pav>j). The Babvlonian storv says they came into the “ company (puhru) of the gods ^ and attained to “ life ” : “ Then they took
Chadasch, fol. 35, col. 3 (quoted according to Nork, Rabb. Quellen, 272 ; “ Zur charakteristik der Sohar-Literatur,” see B.N.T., 65), he wrote his observations in a book ; according to the legend this was the cabbalistic book of Jezirah. The three hundred and sixty-five years of the life of Enoch is clearly the solar number. The Jewish Feast of Hanfika (Enoch) is the festival of the winter solstice (24th December), later it was connected with an event of history (the dedication of the Temple). Jubilaen, iv. 21 : “ Enoch was with the angels of god for six jubilees, and they showed him all that is in heaven and upon earth, the dominion of the sun, and he wrote it all down.” That is to say, they introduced him into all the secrets of the Ancient-Oriental conception of the universe, as is done in the Mysteries of Mithra. In the Liturgy of Mithra published by Dieterich the mystic shall fly over the heaven like an eagle (in Deut. xxxii. 11) and gaze upon all things. He shall himself be like a wandering star and shall behold the way of God.
*A “sage of Ur” was so called whose “secrets” (uitsirtu—the same expression used by the Babylonian Noah before the story of the Deluge) are communicated in a still unpublished text, K 80S0, K.A. 71, 3rd ed., 537.
2   Father of the Babylonian Noah. Tutu is Marduk as Lord of Exorcisms. Otiartes should be corrected to Opartes.
3   “The chief in prudence.” Pseudonym for the Babylonian Noah (Ut- napishtim). Xisuthros is the reversal. He prays to the gods in an epic (see p. 262) for the deliverance of mankind from the severe tribulation which their iniquity has caused.
LIST OF THE PATRIARCHS
241
me, and far away at the mouth of the rivers they made me to dwell.” 1 Here the same expression is used (lequ) as in the case of Enoch and of Elijah (2 Kings ii. 3 ff.), to which Zimmern draws attention, and also in Isa. liii. 8, in the case of the suffering redeemer.
Gen. v. 29 (Noah as saviour), see p. 271, and comp. p. 132.
Gen. vi. 3 : “ His days shall he an hundred and twenty years.1’' This was a judgment of punishment; comp. 1 Sam. ii. 31 f. Life possibly lasted longer in early ages. The dynasty of Hammurabi in Babylon, for example, records gigantic length of reigns with corresponding length of life.
Gen. vi. 4: From the intercourse of the bene ha-elohim with mankind arose “ giants, which were of renown in days of old.” This indicates the heroic age, which in the myth lies between the race of gods and of men (for example, Marduk as the hero Adapa, see p. 106), like the heroes mentioned in the epic of Gilgamesh, who dwell in the Underworld, and like the Titans of the Greeks, who were cast down to Tartarus by Zeus. Jos., Ant., i. 3, 1, compares the giants with these Titans.2 Bar. iii. 26 ff. : “ There (in the house of God, that is, in the world) the giants were born, that were famous of old, great of stature.”
In traditions outside the Bible the “giants” are connected with the story of the building of the Tower ; see Chap. XII.
1   We may add yet two classical analogies to the translation to the divine state. Ganymede, third son of Troas, was on account of his beauty carried away in storm and thunder to serve Jupiter as cupbearer. Comp, further also II., xx. 233.
2   The heroic age is here connected with the later developed fall of the angels. The angels fall from heaven to the material world. The Jewish Targum in the passage quoted gives their names. The Rabbinical fable makes Eve have intercourse with Sammael.
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CHAPTER VIII
BIBLICAL GENERATIONS
THE evolution of the world is conceived of as the cycles of a universe year, corresponding to the lunar or solar year, according to the emphasis laid upon moon or sun in the particular astrological system. That gives for the generations a division either into four seasons, or into twelve according to the months,1 or into seventy-two (relatively seventy, according to the lunar system) weeks of five days. The theory would also allow a possible division into fifty-two (fifty according to the lunar system) weeks of seven days. The calculation as to when an aeon begins is a matter of speculation. We spoke of the ages at pp. 69 ff. The Biblical scribes would, for the most part, have nothing to do with the system. In its place appears the rule of God. But they knew the theory, and, amongst those chroniclers who may be credited with “scientific knowledge,” we find speculative attempts to make the seons dependent upon the whole evolution of the world (a), or to place them in connection with some special historical or apocalyptical period of the course of the world (b, c).
(«) The sacerdotal writings with their seven (?) Toledoth :2
1   Thus the twelve ages of the Etruscans (p. 16S) bear upon the decimal system, like the 12,000 years of the world’s duration in Zoroaster’s teaching. Compare for example 4 Esr. xiv. n; Ape. Ba. liii. Compare also the 12,000 years of the Indians (the Deluge occurs when Brahma sleeps), see F. Schlegel, Weisheit der Inder, 230 ; 12,000 years as the age of the gods in the Book of Laws of Manu (i. 72). Also the cycle of Berossus (36,000 years) may well be taken as twelve times three thousand according to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The decimal system is secondary. The “false Orpheus,” Orph., Argon., 1100, gives twelve myriads of years as the duration of the universe year.
2   SeeGunkel, Genesis, 241 ff., and Zimmern, K.A. T., 3ided., 542. Gunkelhad already seen that the Toledoth of Adam, Noah, Terah, and Moses correspond to the ages. But it is in nowise dealing here with the quaternary number. See also p. 243, n. 1.
212
BIBLICAL GENERATIONS
243
1.   The generation “of the creation of heaven and the earth”
with the seven “ days ” of Creation ;1 Gen. ii. 4.
2.   The generations of Adam; Gen. v. 1. The Patriarchs
with the gigantic length of life.2
3.   The generations of Noah after the Deluge; Gen. vi. 9.
4.   The generations of Terah (Abraham) ; Gen. xi. 27.
5.   The generations of Moses.
6.   The generations of David ; see Ruth iv. IS.
7.   The generations glorified by the priestly editor as “ the
new age ”—Ezra.
(b)   The four “ historic ” ages in Dan. vii.
(c)   Specially connected with periods of the last days: seventy weeks (shabidim)3 in Dan. ix. 24 f.; the twelve last “ shepherds,” Enoch xc. 17 (Kautzsch, Pseudepigrctm, 296); the twelve periods of the oppression, Apoc. Baruch xxvii. (i&., p. 421); the four stages of the last days, Rev. vi. 1 ff., viii. 6 ff., belong to this.4
Later Jewish literature had a special preference for the old teaching. In the Book of the Jubilees, lately placed in the time of the Maccabees, which is closely related to the Priestly Code, they reckon by weeks of years and by universe years, i. 29 speaks of tables (!) upon which the universe years down to the renewal of the world are inscribed. In the Book of Enoch 5 there appear to be seven periods from Adam onwards. How far these speculations penetrated into late Christian ages is shown by the Saclisenspiegel0 where the controversial point as
1   That here Toledoth, Gen. ii. 4. signifies nothing different to the other passages, Hommel (differing from Kautzsch) has rightly made prominent in his G.G.G.. p. 1S2, n. 3.
2   If the numbers are a cloak for “universe months” (see Zimmern, A'.A.T., 3rd ed., 541) it is certainly not to be understood in the sense of 10/12 of the whole cycle (see Zimmern, loc. cit., 541, 556). Each aeon again mirrors in itself the cycle of the universe.
“ Compare the seventy years of Jer. xxv. IJ, and for the conversion of the years into days, see Winckler, A'A. 71, 3rd ed., 334 ; see also n. 4. below.
4   The ten weeks of the last days in Enoch xciii., like the ten “ days ’’ of Rev. ii. 10, belong to the same motif as yom kippor, as the tenth day (day of deliverance), according to the Jewish autumn new year, signifying the Judgment Day ; comp. B.N.T., 70 f.
5   93 ff. (Kautzsch, Pseudepigrctm, 289 ff.).
0   Edited by Homeyer, 3rd ed., 1S61.
244
BIBLICAL GENERATIONS
to whether there are six or seven shields (classes of knights of equal rank) is to be settled in this way : it is the same as the seven ages of the world. It is not known for certain whether there are seven or six.   But the author himself inclines to
seven shields and ages, and refers to “ Origins,”1 where six ages are counted to the time when God becomes incarnate; the seventh is the one in which the knight Eike von Repgau wrote the Sachsempiegelr
At the beginning of each age appears a “ teacher.” Thus with the fathers of Berossus there appears to be a revelation at the turning-point of each of the four seasons.3 The divine revelation in the sacerdotal stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses corresponds to this speculation ;i see p. 50.
Later Jewish speculations name as teachers (1) Seth, under whom they first called upon the name of Yahveh; (2) Noah, who taught the seven commandments ; (3) Moses, the lawgiver; the expected David was counted as the fourth.
With this teaching there was connected a sort of transmigration theory (Gilgul): the soul of Seth passed into Noah and the soul of Noah into Moses. Also the division into Present and Future (njn and N27T) is ultimately connected with the astral conception of the universe. But here an essential difference shows between the Babylonian and the Biblical conception. The Babylonian “scientific” ideas know nothing of a blessed time beyond the destruction of the world. We find an apoka- tastasis and palingenesia only in the theology of Zoroaster, whose theological use of the “ teaching ” forms a parallel to Biblical theology.
1   “Sources,” Isidore of Seville is meant, in his work Etymologiarum sen origin nm libri XX. (v. 38, see Migne, S.L., lxxxiii. 1017 ff.). But it is not quite in accordance with Isidore, who names Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, the emigration into Babylon, and the incarnation as beginnings of the six ages; the Sachsenspiegel names : Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the incarnation.
2   Oriental presentments of stories have a tendency to emphasise the beginning of a new era. Berossus shows that the Seleucids (Alexander) brought the new era ; see K.A.T., 3rd ed., 317.
3   Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 542.
4   Gunkel, Genesis, 241 ff.
CHAPTER IX
EXTRA - BIBLICAL TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE 1 BABYLONIAN
LONG before the discovery of the cuneiform records it was known that the Biblical account of the Deluge was related to a Babylonian tradition. Abydenus and Alexander Polyhistor had transmitted the story of the great Hood {/j.eya<; /cara/cXucr/xoV) told by the Babylonian priest Berossus.
The Tradition according to Beros.sus'2
Alexander (Polyhistor) relates further, according to the Chaldean writings, the following: After the death of Ardatos his son Xisuthros reigned eighteen saren. Under him a great flood occuiTed. The story of it runs as follows : Kronos3 appeared to him in a dream and said to him that on the loth Daisios4 mankind would be destroyed by a flood. He therefore commanded him to inscribe in writing the beginning, middle, and end of
1   It can be proved that almost in every part of the world there has been a tradition of a great deluge. Andree has collected sixty fables of the Flood in Die Flutsagen ethnographisch betrachtet (iSg i). He comes to the conclusion that forty of them are genuine, whilst twenty are dependent upon the Babylonian fable either as additions or copies. This is nowise correct (comp. p. 259). Literary dependence is not a chief feature here. As with the cosmogony, it is a case of a tradition spreading throughout the world, the original source of which is perhaps the valley of the Euphrates. But the cosmic myth which presents the Flood as a return to primeval chaos, from which a new world, a new ?eon, proceeds, must be distinguished from the tradition of an historical event.
2   Syncellus, liii. 19-56, 3rd ed.; Eusebius, Chron., i. 19 ff. ; Fragm. hist. Grcec., ii. 501 f. Comp. Abydenus, Fragm. hist. Grcec., iv. 281. The record differs in many respects from the cuneiform criticism known to us. The true inscription of Berossus which was cut in Babylon has not yet been found.
3   Probably = Inlil (Bel.)
4   The night of full moon in the month Sivan.
245
246
TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE
everything, and to bury the record in the city of Sippar.1 Then to build a boat and to get into it with his relations and connections. They should also take in stores, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and set sail when all was ready. If, however, they should ask him whither he journeyed, he should reply : “ To the gods, to pray for the good of man.” Xisuthros obeyed and built a vessel five (variation by Armenius: fifteen) ells long and two ells wide. Then he carried out all that was commanded, and brought in wife and child
"*V-S- ; r.{~ X
r L\«4r’
and all connected with him.
When the flood had come to pass, directly it ceased he let loose one of the birds. This, however, could find no place where it
could alight, and therefore it returned to the ship. After a few days he again let it loose, and it came back Avitli mud upon its feet. When he let it go for the third time, it returned no more to the ship. By this Xisuthros knew that the earth had again appeared. So he took apart some of the planks of the ship and saw that the ship Avas driven upon a mountain. Thereupon he and his wife and daughter and the steersman came out and threAv them-
 

 
FIG. 74.—Ancient-Babylonian seal cylinder. Referring to the Deluge?
 
FIG. 75.—Ancient-Babylonian seal cylinder.
selves in prayer upon the earth, and erected an altar. After he had sacrificed to the gods upon this, he and all Avho had gone out of the ship disappeared. Those AVIIO remained in the ship, finding he did not return, came out also and searched for him, calling his name. He himself did not again become visible to them, but there came a voice from heaven, Avhich called to them to live in the fear of God, for he himself had attained, through fearing God, to dAvell Avith
1   P. 52. In Sippar lies a play of words on sepher (s/iipnt), Book of Revelation (comp, the Biblical Kirjat-sepher) ; see p. 48, and comp. p. 262, n. 1.
THE DELUGE IN CUNEIFORM
247
the gods. The same honour was partly accorded to his wife and daughter and the steersman. He commanded them also that they should return again to Babylon, and that they should take the writings from Sippar and spread them abroad amongst mankind. The place where they were was in Armenia.
When they heard this they sacrificed to the gods, and went on foot (by land) to Babylon (!). Of the vessel, which was left there, something remains still in the Kurdish Mountains in Armenia, and many cut asphalt from it and use it as a preventive against sickness.
So they came to Babylon, took the writings from Sippar, and founded many cities, sanctuaries, and colonies.
The Record of the Deluge in Cuneiform Writing1 2
Ut-napishtim - said to him, to Gilgamesh :
I will unfold to thee, O Gilgamesh, the hidden matter,
10 and a secret of the gods will I tell to thee.
I. Shurippak, the city, which thou knowest,
which lies [upon the banks] of the Euphrates, this city has existed from of old, the gods in it— the heart of the great gods drove them to make a stormy flood.
(There were) their father in the midst Anu, their counsellor the hero Bel, their herald Ninib, their leader En-nu-gi.
“ The Lord of Wisdom,” Ea, .... (?) with them 20 and related their counsel to a kikkishu (reed fence ?):3 “0 kikkishu, kikkishu, O igaru, igaru (wall), kikkishu, hearken, igaru observe ! 4 O man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu, demolish (?) the house, build a ship,
1   Included in the Xlth tablet of the epic of Gilgamesh (library of Assurbanipal ; so far traces are to be found in the literature down to the epoch of Hammurabi ; we find a related fragment of the time of Ammizaduga, about 2100). The fragment from Nippur, reproduced p. 269, is possibly still older. The whole has been latest translated by Winckler, K.T., 3rd ed. ; previously by Jensen, K.B., vi. 230 ff., and by A. Jeremias, Izdubar-Nimrod, and Nikel, Genesis und Keilschrifi, f. 176.
2   Certainly to be read so ; an Ancient-Babylon fragment of the epic M. V.A.G., 1902, 1 ff., writes U-ta-na-pi-ish-tim ; the name probably means “he saw life” (Jensen). The two figs. 74 and 75 are only added here as possible material. They have always been put in connection with the Ancient-Babylonian myths of Gilgamesh.
According to line 196, he sends a vision in a dream.
4 According to line 195 the puzzling passage agrees with a dream vision, which is given by Ea to the Babylonian Noah. Berossus says : Kronos appeared to him in sleep, and revealed the coming Deluge to him.
248
TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE
leave property and goods, look to thy life—
give up possessions, save thy life ;
bring into the ship living creatures of every kind.
The ship which thou shalt build,
.... ells (?) shall be the measure of its size,
30 ... . ells (?) shall be designed (?) its breadth and its length. .... place it (?) upon the ocean.3 I understood it and spake to Ea, to my Lord:
" demolish (?) my Lord; what thou commandedst,
I observed and I will carry it out.
But what (?) shall I say to the city, to the people and to the elders ? ”
Ea opened his mouth, when he spake, and said unto me, his servant:
"Thus shalt thou say to them : f Because Inlil hateth me,
40 I will not dwell in your city,
will not tarry (longer) upon Inlil’s earth,
to the ocean will I descend, with Ea, my Lord, to dwell.
Upon you shall they [the gods] let fall rain.
   ] birds, prey to the fish,
   ] harvest
A point of time hath Ea (Shamash ?) established2] " they who rule the kukku
[one evening shall let rain] over you a . . . . rain.’ ” I 2 3
[So soon as something of the dawn] appeared [About seven lines are mutilated.]
the strong one   brought what was needed for building.
Upon the fifth day I designed its form.
II.   After the design (??) 120 ells high were its walls the edge of its roof reached 140 ells, eo I designed (drew) its .... (the ship) I drew it myself.
I built it in 6 stories (?),   -
divided it into 7 divisions.
Its interior I divided into 9 divisions.
I sprinkled the shikkat (?) with water in its interior.
I made (?) me a rudder and placed the furniture in it.
3   (variant 6) saren of dust I poured out upon the furnace,3 3 saren asphalt poured 1 into it.
Whilst 3 saren in addition brought the bearers of its (the ship’s) sussulu in oil:
1   According to Berossus he was also commanded to bury in Sippar tablets inscribed with the beginning, middle, and end of all things ; see pp. 246, 262.
2   According to Berossus, night of the full moon in Sivan ; see p. 246.
3   Kiru, comp. Hebrew Kir', see C. T., xvii. 4, line 5 (Zimmern).
THE DELUGE IN CUNEIFORM
249
Besides one sar of oil_, which was to he used at the sacrifice (?),x 70 required 2 saren of oil the shipbuilder.
For the [people] I slew beef,
I killed [lambs] daily,
with must (?) .... (?) oil and wine
[I gave drink] to the people like as with river water,
a festival [did I institute] like unto the New Year festival (Anitu).
   in (?) ointment did I take in my hand.
   [befojre sun[set] .... the ship was ready.
   was heavy
   above and below
so   three thirds of it.
[With all that I had], I filled it (the ship),
with all that I had of silver, I filled it,
with all that I had of gold, I filled it,
with all that I had of living creatures, I filled it.
I brought up into the ship my male and female household.2 Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, artisans, all did 1 bring into it.
The appointed time hath Shamash established.
“ When the regents of the kukku in the evening a . . . . rain let rain,
90 then enter into the ship and close thy door (variant the ship).” That appointed time arrived,
the regents of the kukku in the evening let .... a rain rain The dawning of the day I feared,
The day to see I was afraid.
I entered into the ship, and shut my door.
For governing the ship I gave over to Puzur-Bel, the navigator, the building together with its contents. * 1 2 3
So soon as something of the dawn appeared,
there arose from the depths of the heaven black clouds.
Adad thundered within them, aoo Whilst Nebo and "the King” (Marduk) went before
(both) as throne-bearers (?) marched over mountain and valley, Nergal tore loose the targallu,
Ninib3 drew nigh, he (Adad) let a flood of water stream down.
The Anunnaki raised the torches,
by their (the torches’) flame illuminating the land.
Adad’s storm marched over the heaven, changed all light into [darkness].
1   The solemnities described lines 71-76 are meant.
2   In Berossus: wife, daughter, and steersman and other people; see p. 247. Compare the cuneiform text, p. 253.
3   See p. 141. The four planetary gods of the four corners of the earth ; comp. pp. 2S ff.
250
TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE
III.   He [flooded] the land like . . . ., one day long . . . . ed the storm, no raged stormily, [the waters rose above] the mountain, like a battle storm they broke loose upon mankind . . ., so that brother could not see brother, mankind was not known in heaven.
The gods were fearful of the stormy flood, they retired, mounted up to the heaven of Anu.
The gods cowered like a dog, encamped by the surrounding wall.1
Ishtar wailed like a travailing woman,
the "mistress of the gods,” with the beautiful voice, cried :
" The Past is become earth.
120 Because I ordered evil before (variant, in the assembly of) the gods,
as I ordered evil before (variant, in the assembly of) the gods, the strife was ordered for the destruction of my mankind,
(but now ask) I : ‘ Have I borne my mankind so that (?) they should fill the sea like fishes ? ’
The gods of the Anunnaki wept with her, the gods sat upon the ashru 2 amidst tears, closed were their lips ....
Six days and [six] nights
drew nigh (lasted) the wind, the storm flood and the hurricane swept the land.
130 When the seventh day came, ceased the hurricane, the storm flood,
which had fought like an army (?).3
The sea calmed itself, the storm quieted itself, the storm flood ceased.
I looked upon the sea, whilst I let lamentations resound, and all mankind were again become earth, like uri spread out before me the plains (?).1 2 3 4 I opened the hatchway, the light fell upon my face,
I kneeled down, sat me down and wept, over my face ran the tears.
I looked upon the parts of the earth, as I looked (?) upon the sea.
uo After 12 (double hours?) land arose, upon the Mount Nizir the ship laid itself.
The Mount Nizir held the ship fast, let it not move (away).
1   Comp. p. 271, and see n. 2 in connection with line 126.
2   Ashru, usually translated "were bowed down.” I conjecture it means a cosmic place, like line 116; see pp. 118, 143, 180.
3   "Like a woman in travail”? Jensen, A'.B., vi. 530.
4   Thus Winckler. Very uncertain. Jensen, A'.B., vi. 239, conjectures: "Then when the daylight was come, I prayed.”
THE DELUGE IN CUNEIFORM
251
One day, a second day held the Mount Nizir, etc. the third day, the fourth day the Mount Nizir, etc. the fifth, the sixth the Mount Nizir, etc.
When the seventh day came.
I let out a dove and set her free.
The dove flew away and returned again, since no place to sit was there, she returned.
150 I let out a swallow and set her free.
The swallow flew away, and returned again,
I let a raven out and set him free.
The raven flew away, saw the lessening (?) of the water, flew nearer to it (?), .... croaked (?) and returned not. (Then) let I out (all) to the four winds, offered a sacrifice, made a libation on the summit of the mountain, twice seven sacrificial vessels set I up, beneath them I poured calamus, cedar wood, and myrtle, loo The gods smelled the odour, the gods smelled the fragrance,
the gods assembled themselves like flies above the sacrifice!-.
IV.   As soon as the f mistress of the gods ’ was come there,
they lifted the noble eluti (?) .... which Anu had prepared according to their wishes :
These days (?) — by the ornament of my neck — will I not forget,
I will think upon these days, I will not forget them for ever. The gods may draw nigh to the libation,
Inlil (however) may not go to the libation, because he did not remember, he stirx-ed up the storm flood iro and delivered up my mankind to destruction.”
Now when at last Inlil came hither, saw the ship, Inlil was angry, was angry with the gods, the Igigi:
“ Who has escaped of living creatures ?
No man shall remain alive in the judgment (?).”
Ninib opened his mouth, in that he spake, he said to the hero Bel :
“ Who besides Ea arranges things ?
Ea knoweth every doing.” iSo Ea opened his mouth, in that he spake, he said to the hero Bel:
“Thou wise amongst the gods, hero Bel,
how, hast thou not considered, when thou didst stir up the storm flood ?
Upon the sinner lay his sins,
upon the blasphemer lay his blasphemy,
but .... shall not be exterminated ....
Why hast thou stirred up a storm flood ?
252
TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE
If a lion had come and had lessened mankind !
Why hast thou stirred Tip a storm flood ?
19,j If a panther had come and had lessened mankind !
Why hast thou stirred up a storm flood ?
Famine might have entered and [devastated] the land !
Why hast thou stirred up a storm flood ?
Nergal (pestilence) might come and [strike] the land.
I have not betrayed the secret of the great gods.
Atra-hasis did I let see dreams (and so) perceived he the secret of the gods.”
When he came to his senses,
Inlil ascended upon the ship.
He grasped my hand, led me off (upon the shore).
200 He led my wife off, and made her kneel by my side,
he took hold of us (?) while he stepped between us and blessed us :
<fFormerly was Ut-napishtim a man,
for evermore shall Ut-napishtim and his wife be esteemed, like unto us gods ourselves.
Far away shall Ut-napishtim dwell at the mouth of the river.” Then they brought me far away, at the mouth of the river did they let me dwell.1
Besides this there were other fixed literary forms of the story. {a) Hilprecht fragment,2 found at Nippur, dating from the beginning of the third millennium :
    thee ....
   I will unloose.
   all mankind shall be washed away,
   all life, before the Flood breaks forth,
   upon all that may be there, will I bring destruction
and annihilation,
   build a great ship and
   full high shall it be builded.
   it shall be a house boat, that bears all that shall be
rescued of the living.
   and it shall have a strong roof.
   [The boat] which thou shalt make ....
hide therein the beast of the field, the bird of heaven .... in place of a great multitude ....
.... and the family   
1   In Berossus, Xisuthros, his wife, his daughter, and the steersman live with the gods, the others return to Babylon.
2   The Babylonian Expedition, Series D, vol. v., text i. The Earliest Version of the Babylonian Deluge Story, Philadelphia, 1910.
THE DELUGE IN CUNEIFORM
253
(b) The text D.T., 42,1 from the library of Assurbanipal, in which Ut-napishtim bears the name Atrahasis, “ chief in prudence'"' (which on table xi. of the epic of Gilgamesh is a pseudonym), as a proper name :
[when arrived] the time, which I will describe to thee, go into the ship, close again the doors of the ship.
Bring in hither thy corn, thy possessions and goods, thy [wife], thy male and female family, the artisans, cattle of the field, beasts of the field, so many as eat green food,
I will send to thee, they shall guard thy door.
Atra-hasis opened his mouth, in that he spake, and he said unto Ea his Lord :
[“Never”] have I built a ship ....
Draw for me upon the earth a sketch (of it).
(Then) will I look at the sketch and [build] a ship.
.... draw upon the earth ....
   that thou commandedst ....
(c)   The mythological fragment of the time of Ammizaduga (about 2100 B.C.), which also tells of Atrahasis and which makes the Deluge (abubit) happen earlier. This text is closely related to another one dealing with Ea and Atrahasis, which tells of temptations which come because of the iniquity of man and which seems to culminate in the Deluge.'2
(d)   The text of the “ Babylonian map of the world ” (see fig. 9), which mentions Ut-napishtim as king, predecessor of Dagan (?) .... and where it seems to tell of the “ Year of the raging serpent” (mushrushshu); comp. p. 238 above, and pp. 18 f.
A remnant of the tradition lies also in the designation of the mounds (now called “Tel”) as til nbubi. Hammurabi says that he will make the land of those who do not obey his laws like til cibnbi, that is, “mounds of the Deluge” (H.C., xxvii. 79 f.). They looked upon the ruinous hills as results of the great flood.3
O
1   Latest translation, K.T., 94 f.
2   Both texts and translations in K.B., iv. 1, 2S8 ff., 274 ff. ; see Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 552 ff. Further, upon the subject, 261 f., comp. 227.
s Winckler, Die Geseize Hammurabis, pp. 80 f.

CHAPTER V
PARADISE
GEN. ii. 8: “ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in Qedcm [properly speaking, from Qedem], and there he put the man whom he had formed.”
A garden is planted by God in the wilderness.1 Eden is the land where the garden 2 lay. It was only later (for example, Ezek. xxviii. IS) that Eden itself was spoken of as the garden of God, and by popular etymology the word eden, “ wonder,11 is in the name.
The chronicler thinks of the garden as in Babylon. This is distinctly shown by the names of the rivers. “ In Qedem 11 is a celestial direction point, “ eastward11 lies Shinar, Babylonia. But according to the scientific teaching of the idea of the universe and of its development (see pp. 78 and 175), Paradise is a cosmic place, and Eden and Qedem have at bottom cosmic meaning.3 In this sense cdinu, “ the wilderness,1' corresponds
1   Edina appears in one of the so-called Syllabaries of cuneiform literature (Sb) as synonym for tscra, “desert.” Cuneiform sources seem also to supply a geographical conception of “ Eden ” in the name Gu-edin-na. Even if Hommel’s far- reaching hypothesis that Gu-edin-na is the ancient name for Chaldea does not hold, still the hint is very important, as to where Paradise was located, in the mind of the Biblical chronicler. In II. R. 53, 4 Gu-edin-na is named between Nippur and Erech. In IV. R. 21*, No. 2, Rev. xix., the goddess of the Western lands Gu-bar- na ( = Ashrat) is mistress of Gu-edin-na (II. R. 59, Rev. xliii., Nin-gu-edin-na, the wife of Martu). In the lists of the kings of Ur we meet with a river Nar-edin-na, and in the inscriptions of Telloh there is a river Kish-edin-na (complete material in Hommel, Geogr. a. Gesch., 241 ff.).
2   The corresponding Babylonian word for the Hebrew word gan, “garden,” occurs in the plural gannCiti in the subscription of a “garden tablet” which numbers sixty-two garden plants (and the names of six tools) and bears the subscription : Gardens of the (Babylonian) king Merodach-baladan ; see Delitzsch, Hand- worterbach, p. 202.
3   Comp. Winckler, F., iii. 311 ff.
201
PARADISE
205
to the terrestrial universe, the Underworld, from out of which the worlds arise; that is to say, ocean, in which the Underworld is a topos, in a narrow sense (see p. .1 Qedem is the further side, therefore by the Kibla answering to the south, the point whence the worlds arise (p. 32), the under half of the world. Adam dwelling in Eden and mankind proceeding thence, corresponds to the Babylonian teaching, according to which Adapa is made in Eridu at the mouth of the rivers (this also cosmic). That the chronicler knew the cosmic meaning2 3 is shown at chap. xi. 2: 44 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from Qedem, they found a plain in the land of Shinar; ” possibly also chap. ii. 8 : “ He planted the garden in Eden, from Qedem.” 3 And the Biblical garden is the dwelling-place of Yahveh, corresponding to the Mountain of God, the throne of the divinity. Therefore it is to be thought of also as a sacred mountain, as may clearly be seen in Ezekiel’s description of Paradise.
Chap. iii. 8: 41 Vahveh ivalked in the garden in the cool of the evening.”
Later, in treating of the Tree of Life, etc., we shall meet with many Babylonian presentments of a Paradise in which the divinity dwells, also man, who stands in close relation to the divinity.
Since every 44 land ” is a microcosmos it follows that we find countless repetitions of Paradise. Eridu 4 in South Babylonia is an earthly picture of Paradise (see pp. 105, 214); also Babylon. The popular etymological meaning of the name as Bab-ilu, u Gate of God ” (“ High door ”), denotes the city as an earthly copy of the celestial throne of God (see Gen. xxviii., Jacob’s dream). The sacred cedar mountain and cedar wood,
1   The Paradise where Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Noah, finds his ancestor, is beyond the month of the rivers, after passing over the River of Death. “ Eden ” is a play of words; “in Eden” never once quite answers to Babylon, it lies beyond the desert to the east.
2   The time corresponds to the place; qedem, “past ages,” also betrays in Hebrew the knowledge of the cosmic meaning contained in the idea.
3   The interpretation “eastwards” (Ges.-Buhl) or “far in the east ” (Gunkel) is forced. In a purely geographical sense tniqqedem is ‘from eastward,” Isa. ix. 12 ; that has no meaning in this passage. Also in Gen. iii. 24 Qedem bears the meaning “in front of” = southward, not eastward ; see p. 218, n. 5.
i The rivers Euphrates and Tigris formerly flowed into the sea divided by Eridu.
206
PARADISE
with the “ throne of the gods, the holy of holies of the Irnini,1' where the Elamite hero Humbaba “ moves with pleasant steps upon smooth ways ” is, according to the meaning of the epic, possibly Babylon, which was once under Elamite dominion.1 In the Biblical range of vision Damascus is a microcosmic Paradise with its sacred rivers (2 Kings v. 12), also Tyre (Ezek. xxviii. 2 ff.); and in ancient Canaanite time the district of Sodom and Gomorrha (Gen. xiii. 10, where “ like the land of Egypt” is a commentary). The Biblical chronicler in Gen. iii. describes the Paradise of a more ancient age, in days before the Israelite era. In the ancient Israelite era Bethel was held as central point of the universe; in historic times Zion-Moriah is the Throne of God; see Ezek. xlvii. 1 ft. Ezekiel also knew of the cosmic Paradise (Eridu), Ezek. xxviii. 13 (p. 216); it is even possible to read Eridu instead of Eden.
We have a description of the cosmic Paradise in the Underworld—that is to say, in the Ocean—in the epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero finds a garden of the gods with miraculous trees bearing precious stones, and beyond the flood of Death the dwelling of Ut-napishtim, who with his wives has “entered into the assembly of the gods ” since the Deluge, and now lives “ afar at the mouth of the rivers.” Here is the “bathing-place” where the leprous (?) hero becomes “ pure as snow ” after the two inhabitants have through magic arts given him “ life.” Here may be found the plant which makes the old man young again 2 (see p. 215). We hear of no other inhabitants, but we may take it for granted the Babylonians would think of this Elysium as peopled with many more. It is said of Enmeduranki in the same way that he was “ called to the company of the gods” (p. 51).
1   See Izdubar-Nimrod, p. 23. According to Arrian and Strabo, Alexander the Great felled cypress trees in the sacred groves of Babylon for his navy.
2   Jensen, II. B., vi., has taken some pains to make the story more intelligible. But I may refer to my interpretation which appeared in 1886, Assyrisch-baby- lonische Vorstelliuigen vom Leben nach dem Tode, where, for the first time, I gave an interpretation of the continuation of the story of the Deluge, revised later in 1892 in Izdubar-Nimrod, I had here specially already interpreted the meaning of the miraculous plant, and I can only partly accept Jensen’s interpretation. Zimmern also, K, A, T,, 3rd ed., 577 ff., reverts in some points to the old meaning suggested by me.
THE TREES OF PARADISE
207
There is a surprising parallel in the fables of Enoch. Like Gilgamesh, Enoch reaches Paradise beyond the Erythrasian Sea. Enoch lxv. 2 relates how the hero goes to the end of the world, and meets with his grandfather Enoch: he does not wish to go below with him (just as Gilgamesh bewails his lot to his ancestor and fights against death); lxv. 9 it says: “ Thereupon my grandfather Enoch seized me with his hands, raised me up, and said to me,” etc. It would be worth while studying the cosmic journey in Lucian’s satirical Vera; Histories for its acquaintance with the Ancient-Oriental conception of the universe. In it also a paradise is described, also a city with seven gates.
Of those outside the Bible we may also mention here the Persian presentment of Paradise. The traditional “ Paradise ” (Neh. ii. takes its name from the Zend Parideza, place of the blessed in the Persian heroic age. Fifteen heroes dwell there, who once fought the monsters, and who will again take part in the last combat.1
THE TREES OF PARADISE (Gen. ii. 9)
In so far as Paradise is considered from a cosmic point of view, it represents the entire universe in miniature. The two trees represent the Upper- and Under-worlds. The Biblical chronicle also takes over the cosmic trees. The “ tree of life ” and the “ tree of knowledge11 (of good and evil), according to chap. iii. ver. 3, grow in the midst of the garden. Supernatural qualities belong to both : it is said of the “ tree of life” in chap. iii. ver. 22, “who eats thereof shall live for ever11; and of the tree of knowledge it is stated at ver. 5, “ who eats thereof shall be as God.” It is no longer tenable that one of the trees is a later addition, since we learn the meaning of both trees from the Babylonian cosmos.
The corollary “ of good and evil ” and the corresponding amplification in chap. iii. ver. 5 (“ye shall be as gods”) “ knowing; good and evil,” seems to us to be an Israelite theo- logumenon. But precisely this corollary contains the ethical idea which raises the story in the third chapter of Genesis so far above the popular cosmic myth. The idea in ver. 22 is also theologumenon, where the reason for the expulsion is given : 1 See G. Husing in Goll, llythologie, Sth ed., p. 312.
208
PARADISE
“lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live for ever.” Does the story mean that before this, man might eat, unforbidden, of the tree of life ?
The “ tree of life ” is a universal idea.1 In the Bible vve
find it in Prov. iii. 18, xi. 30, xiii. 12, xv. 4; Ezek. xxviii. 13; Rev. ii. 7, xxii. 2. The passages in Ezekiel show that the Biblical
scribe knew of the cosmic Paradise as well as its earthly replica. The reliefs upon an altar found by Sellin at Ta'annek, in the plains of Jezreel, represent the Tree of Life with two ibex and a boy wrestling with a serpent.2
In this also the Biblical story shows the influence of the “ Babylonian cosmos,” and the underlying teaching is made use of. In the cosmic myth the two trees represent life and death, Overworld and Underworld. Consequently they appear in the cosmic legends as sun and moon, the former representing death and the latter life,3 or vice versa} In the Adapa myth they are both personified as Tammuz and Gishzida at the gate of the heaven of Anu; comp. p. 126, n. 1. According to the Gudea Cyl. B, ix. 1, Ningishzida is “ Lord of the tree to the right ”;
 
FIG. 64.—Sabsean votive tablet. Offering in thanksgiving for a good harvest.
1   Compare the valuable studies by Wunsche, “Die Sagen vom Lebensbaum und Lebenswasser,” in the series Ex oriente lux, Band I., Hefte 2 and 3.
2   Even if the altar itself is of later date (eighth century), the bridge stone is certainly old (Sellin). A Sabsean sacrificial table of Amran (British Museum) also shows the tree of life with animals ; see fig. 64. The Western religious world uses the tree of life as symbol of life triumphing over death.
3   According to G. Hilsing, loc. cit., 313, Homa is the moon as blossom of the tree of life (see p. 210), the divine power of the drink of immortality.
4   P. no. Ephrem the Syrian calls the tree of life “the sun of Paradise” (Wunsche, loc. cit,, p. 7). For Helios and Selene as trees of Paradise and highest point of the zodiac, see p. 24. In the cosmic cult of the high priest Uriin and Thummim in the midst of the twelve precious stones (signs of the zodiac) correspond to life and death, yea and nay, light and darkness.
THE TREES OF PARADISE
209
by this, therefore, Taiiirauz would be “ Lord of the tree to the left ” (tree of death); in fact, he is called “ Lord of kinnuri,” i.e. the Underworld, and “ true son of apsu.”
For the interpretation we should also consider the kind of trees. Mythically, the vine and the fig tree stand for Overworld and Underworld, life and death. The intrinsically unsuitable “ fig leaves,” from which the first garments were made, possibly owe their origin to the fig tree being the tree of knowledge.1 The vine is tree of life (the ideogram being “wood of life,'11 as wine is “drink of life”; see p. 216). The
 
FIG. 65.—Assyrian seal cylinder, with the sacred tree. Brit. Museum.
“ apple tree ” also corresponds to the myth ; here there is a connection with the “ apple of love.”2 In Judaic legends the olive is the Tree of Life.3
1   See Winckler, F., iii. 3S9. By “ knowing,” death enters. The lunar cycle presents the cosmic phenomenon which the “knowing” (at the full moon), “the marriage,” and the following “fall into the power of the Underworld ” illustrate ; see p. 36, fig. 15.
2   Pomegranate, “apple of Paradise” (tomato?) is meant. In Gen. xxx. 14 ff. Rachel gives Jacob to her sister Leah for one night for the price of some mandrakes, love-apples, or the magic love charm (Septuagint, (irj\a pavSpayopwv ; Vulgate, mandragorre ; comp. Stuclcen, Astralmythen, p. 5), and Leah conceives Issachar. Comp. Song of Songs, vii. 14, where the scent of the apple impels to love. Note further the apple in the riddle at the festival of Adonis at Samos.
3   For vine, see B.N.T., 33; for olive, see Wiinsche, loc. cit. The mythic Pythios, son of Atys (!), in Herodotus, vii. 27, meets Xerxes, gives him presents, and tells him it is he who gave to his father “ the golden palm branch and the
VOI.. I,   14
210
PARADISE
Both terrestrial and celestial worlds arise from the ocean. Therefore we find a Paradise in the water realm and in the celestial universe, which there is reflected in the microcosmos of the earth, where each “ land ” has its Paradise. The two trees, then, in the new world which has arisen from out the primeval ocean, represent the two halves of the world—that is to say, of the cycle: Overworld and Underworld, life and death, the power of light and the power of darkness.
The tree, however, also appears as Tree of the World, representing the whole world itself, arising out of the Underworld
 
(water realm).1 It seems that Ezekiel was familiar with the presentment of the Tree of the World, whose roots are in Tehom and whose summit grows up into the heavens, and he compares Egypt, the Underworld land, with it.
Ezek. xxxi. 3 ff. : “ Behold ... a cedar [stood] in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature ; and his top was among the thick clouds . . . cedars in the
golden vine,” that is to say, the rulership of the world ; see Mticke, Vom Enphrat znm Tiber, p. 92. To this cycle of ideas belong further the olive trees (Sach iv.), cedar and vine, beneath which flowed a fountain which became a devastating flood, syr. Baruch xxxvi. ; and the miraculous tree of the seven fire mountains, Enoch xxiv.
1 Winckler, F., iii. 312. In the heavens the Milky Way corresponds to the tree of the world, apparently stretching four wide branches over the water-region ; see Stucken, Asiralmythen, p. 72, and Hommel, G, G, G., p. 366.
THE TREES OF PARADISE
211
garden of God could not hide him, the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane trees were not as his branches, nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him in his beauty. I made him fair by the multitude of his branches; so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him. ”
The Persian cosmos 1 2 places primeval man in a place which appears later as the Mountain of God (Haraburzati, localised on earth in Damavand). Haraburzati (“high mountain”) is in the Worukasham Sea, and upon it grows the Tree of the World, named Homa because of its golden blossom. The roots of the tree drink from the spring from whence the rivers flow out over the earth.
In connection with the Babylonian “ Tree of Life,” that is to say, “ Tree of the World,” we may also consider the following material:—
1. The sacred tree as portrayed on Babylonian seal cylinders and on the reliefs of Assyrian palaces; a sort of mixture of a date tree and conifer. It bears a fruit? which is frequently being grasped at by eagles oi* by genii with men’s heads. Also the cylinder called “ the Fall ” shows the fruit upon the tree (see fig. 69, and comp. figs. 65-67). In other representations the genii carry the same fruit in one hand (therefore, probably, bringing it to mankind), whilst in the other they have a basket-like vessel upon the front of which the same picture is repeated. Since the fruit undoubtedly has its source in the Tree of Life, we may conjecture that the vessel (see pp. 216 ft“.) contains “Water of Life,” like the karpat egubbft, “vessel for consecrated water,” from out of which, according to IV. R. 57. 166, Marduk distributes grace, and in which, according to IV. R. 60. 21 a, water is drawn from the stream of the temple of Marduk. There is a description of such a Tree of Life in the mutilated passage of Ezek. xli. 17 f. (Ezek. xxiii. 14 shows that the imagination of the prophet is filled with pictures from Babylonian palaces):
1   The following is according to G. Htising, loc. at., 312.
2   Comp. Eb. Schrader, Berl. Ai. der Wiss. Monatsbericht, 1881, 413 ff. The fruit is probably the date panicle. It is also to be found as decoration on the accurate drawings of the brick enamel reliefs in Babylon. Doubtless the gigantic panicle of the Damasus court of the Vatican is related.
212
PARADISE
“ And it was made (round about the wall) with cherubim and palm trees; and a palm tree was between cherub and cherub.”1 Also the carved walls of the Temple (1 Kings vii. 29) representing “cherubim and palm trees and open flowers/’ and the “lions, oxen, and cherubim,” are after the Babylonian pattern.
2.   The sacred cedar in the cedar wood, that is to say, upon the cedar mountain, in the sanctuary of the Irnini. The com-
 
FIG. 67.—Relief from Sargon’s palace at Ivhorsabad.
panions Gilgamesh and Eabani wander to the cedar wood where Hutnbaba guards the sacred cedar :2
To keep the cedar unharmed (shullumu),
Bel placed him to make men fear;
and whosoever entered his wood swooned away.
It is said that when they came near (tablet w, col. i. of the epic):
They stand gazing at the wood, gazing at the height of the cedars,
1   Comparison with the pictures shows that the Hebrew kerub denotes the various figures round the tree of life. Exod. xxxvi. 8, they are worked on the carpets; Exod. xxxvi. 35, in the curtains; 1 Kings vi. 23 ff., cherubim in the temple.
2   K.B., vi. 156 ff. ; previously Izdnbar-Nimrod, p. 23.
THE TREES OF PARADISE
213
gazing at the entrance of the wood,
Avhere Humbaba paced with great strides.
Paths are made, smooth is the road,
they gaze at the cedar mountain, the dwelling- place of the gods, the holy of holies of Irnini.
A cedar rears its stateliness before the mountain,
Pleasant is its shade, filling with joy ....
According to the foregoing account a river seems to spring, that is to say, to flow in the neighbourhood of this Paradise (sacred tree and holy water). The Elamite name Humbaba may lead to a localisation in Choaspes, the river of Susa, from which, according to Herodotus, i. 108, only the kings of Persia might drink.1 But it must always be remembered that it is a cosmic idea which may, in fact, be localised everywhere.
We spoke at pp. 210 f. of the “garden of God11 of Ezekiel, where a wonderful cedar is the chief ornament.
3.   The garden in the sea with miraculous trees on tablet ix. of the epic of Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh comes to where the maiden Siduri Sabitu dwells upon the “ throne of the sea,” - where grow “ trees of the gods.” Of it is said :
Samtu-stones it bears as fruit,
the branches are hung therewith, lovely to behold,
Lapis lazuli is the crown (?).
It bears fruit precious to the sight.3
As the cedar in the sanctuary of the Irnini is suggestive of the cedar in the “garden of God,” Ezek. xxxi. 3 ft*., so this park of “trees of the gods” is suggestive of Ezek. xxviii. 13 (address to the king of Tyre):
Thou wast in Eden 4 the garden of God; every precious stone
1   See Jensen, A~.B., vi 437, 441 f.
u Jensen, K.B.. vii. 469, recalls the Queen of Sheba, rich in diamonds, but at pp. 575 ff. abandons the comparison. For the sense in which Siduri may be taken as Sabsean, see Winckler, Kritische Sc hr if ten, ii. 110.
3   See Izdnbar-Nimrod, p. 30 ; at variance with Jensen, K. B., vii. 20S f. In the story of Abu Muhammed (Thousand and One Nights) the hero has little trees with emerald leaves and pearl fruit; they come from the copper city, where a maiden sits upon a golden chair, in the midst of a garden of golden trees, bearing fruit of costly precious stones, pearls and corals. One sees how the material of the fables spreads and becomes disjointed, without being able to speak more definitely of borrowed literature.
4   We may almost take it that it should be read as in Gen. ii. 10 (p. 217) Eridu.
214
PARADISE
was thy covering, the cornelian, topaz, jasper, chrysolite, shoham, onyx, sapphire, ruby,1 “and of gold” was the workmanship of thy . . . .; in the day that thou wast created they were prepared. I
set thee as the . . . . ; thou wast upon the holy mountain of God, thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
4.   At Eridu, the sanctuary of Ea, therefore at the place where Adapa was made (see p. 183), there is a paradisaical sacred grove.
At the conclusion of one of the Incantations of Eridu (IV. R. 15 = Cun. Texts, xvi. 42 flf.), in which the Fire-god prays to Ea for mediation, through Marduk, the son of Eridu, it is said :
In Eridu there grows a dusky palm (?), it springs in a clear place ; it sparkles like the uknu stone, it overshadows the ocean; the path of Ea is in Eridu, full to overflowing, his dwelling is in the place of the Underworld ; his habitation is the resting-place of Gur (Bau ?) ;
Into the glittering house, which is shady as the wood, dare no man enter;
there (dwell) Shamash (and) Tannnuz between the mouths of the two streams,
the gods have .... the cherubim (ilu gud-dub) of Eridu, planted this kishkanu-tree and laid upon sick men the exorcism of apsu,
and brought it upon the head of erring men.2 The often-mentioned cult of water at Eridu is a proof in itself that the Water of Life was in this Paradise of Eridu. The Assyrian exorcisms of the Maqlu series (vii. 115 f.) explicitly declare this:
I have washed my hands, cleansed my body in the water of the pure spring which is made in Eridu.
1   According to the Septuagint exactly twelve precious stones ; comp. Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 629. The crown of Apollo occasionally has twelve gems. Upon the twelve precious stones of the high priest, see p. 138, ii.
a Hommel, G.G.G., 276.   “The guardians of Paradise plucked a branch from
the tree at Eridu and healed sick men ” ; see Thompson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, i. p. liii. ff. (the Garden of Eden).
 
FIG. 68.—Tree of life, with genii. Phoenician (?), certainly not a Babylonian cylinder. After a wax impression in the author’s possession.
THE TREES OF PARADISE
215
5.   The magic plant sh'ibu itstsahir amelu, “ though old, the man shall become young,11 of the place where the Babylonian Noah resides (see p. 205, n. 1). Gilgamesh desires to bring it to Erech, to eat thereof and to renew his youth, but on the journey homewards a ncshu-sha qaqqari (serpent ?) at a fountain takes the plant from him.
6.   Nearly related to this “ magic plant11 of the holy island is the “ plant of life,11 which is the gift of the gods. In one hymn to Marduk (Craig, Rel. Texts, i. 59) he is regarded as the possessor of the “ plant of life.11 In another hymn 1 he is himself called shammu baldti, “ plant of life.11
Assyrian kings were fond of comparing their rule with the health-bringing qualities of this plant. Thus Adad-nirari says that God has made his “ shepherd rule11 beneficent to the Assyrians as “ the plant of life.'1 And Esarhaddon wishes that his rule may be as tolerant as “the plant of life11 to mankind. In one of the Assyrian letters2 3 it is shown besides that not only the eating, but also the smell of the plant is of account: “ We were as dead dogs, then the king made us again alive (i.e. pardoned), in that he laid the plant of life to our noses.113
7.   Finally, we may mention the Babylonian ambrosia of the gods. There is an ancient Babylonian name Lugal-kurum-zigum, “ the king is heavenly food.11 In the Adapa myth “ bread11 and “ water of life 11 are given in the heaven of Anu 4 (in the earthly sanctuary of Eridu Adapa bakes the bread and prepares the water of Eridu). At the banquet of the gods in the epic Enuma elish5the gods eat bread (asluiati) and drink wine. Also the “water11 which Adapa “prepares,11 and the water of life which
1   K 8961, Z 5, Hehn (B.A. V., 360 f.).
2   Harper Assyrian Letters, 771.
3   In Yoma 72b the Thora is a 0”n DD (Assyrian sammat, “pleasant scent”), “ plant of life” for the good, a njva DO, “ plant of death ” for the evil. Here also it may refer to smelling. Comp. 2 Cor. ii. 16 : a savour of death, a savour of life. In the Targum in Cant. vii. 8 the prayer of Daniel and his friends smells pleasant as fruit of Paradise. Further, in Gen. viii. 21 (“ God smelled the sweet savour”), p. 267, and B.N. 71, p. 73.
4   Further heavenly gifts, see water of life (wine ?), garment, and oil ; comp. Ps. xxiii. (“thou anointest my head with oil”) and the parable of the “wedding garment,” Matt. xxii. 11 f.
3   A". 7’., 115.
216
PARADISE
is set before him in heaven, may be taken as a special drink of the gods. Wine, which in the Old Testament is a gift of God to “ make glad the heart of man,11 is, in Babylon, denoted ideo- graphically as “ drink of life11 or “ wood of life.11
WATER OF LIFE AND THE RIVERS OF PARADISE
In the Biblical description of Paradise nothing is apparently said about the “ water of life.11 But the conception is latent:
1.   In the “mist111 (Gen. ii. 6), so far as it originally belongs to the description of the garden.
2.   In the river of Paradise ; Gen. ii. 10.
Ezek. xlvii. ff. shows that the Israelites knew of a paradise with a Tree of Life and Water of Life. There it speaks of the waters which flow' out from the Temple, the representation of the throne of God (pp. 57 f.), by whose streams the Dead Sea v'as healed:
Upon the bank shall grow every tree with healing fruit; - the leaf shall not wither, neither shall the fruit thereof fail; it shall bring forth new fruit every month, because the waters thereof issue out of the sanctuary : and the fruit thereof shall l^e for meat and the leaf thereof for healing.
Also Zach. xiv. 8 is to be noted, where in the age of Paradise “ living waters11 are to flow out from Jerusalem.
Compare further Rev. xxii. 1 :
He show'ed me a river of water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God .... on this side of the river, and on that was the tree of life.
Without being directly connected with the throne of God, water of life is often spoken of. In the Babylonian texts it appears especially in the cult of Ea. Eridu, the place of worship of Ea, at the mouth of the rivers, corresponds to the cosmic Paradise in the ocean;3 comp. Maqlu, vii. 115 fl, and p. 214, above; further, IV. R. 25, col. iv. :4
1   P. 187, “river” ; better, according to Holzinger, Genesis, p. 24, to translate ix as in the Septuagint, etc., as “ fountain.”
2   R.V. “ every tree for meat.”
3   P. 214.
4   According to Zimmern, Beitrdge, 139, the text refers to ceremonies (opening of the mouth, and washing the mouth) at the dedication of a statue of a god; see also Zimmern’s Orient. Studien, p. 962.
WATER OF LIFE AND RIVERS OF PARADISE 217
He brought in clear water;
Ninzadim, Anu’s jeweller, has made thee ready with his clean hands;
Ea took thee at the place of cleansing,
at the place of cleansing he took thee,
with his clean hands he took thee,
in (?) milk and honey he took thee,
with w'ater of exorcism he sprinkled thy mouth,
he opened thy mouth by enchantment:
“Be clean as heaven, be clean as earth, shine like the innermost heaven.”
In the “descent of Ishtar to Hades'” we find a spring of water of life in the Underworld, and in the epic of Gilgamesh there is a washing-place, which cleanses from leprosy, upon the Holv Island beyond the River of Death.1
Jewish theology and New Testament phraseology both make use of the “ water of life.'” In a fragment of an apocryphal gospel2 Jesus says, He and His disciples are cleansed by “ water of life ”; and also there is mention made of a hagneuterion (cleansing-place) as part of the Temple. The Rabbis speak of “ water of life” and “ spring of health ” (o^n '*D, nifitim The drawing of water from the Pool of Siloam (Tractat Succa,
iv.   7, with reference to Isa. xii. 3 in the Babylonian Gemara Succa, 486) ascribes magical power to the water.3 John iv. 10 ff., vii. 37 f., is connected with the conception of water of life; and in Rev. vii. 17, xxi. 6, xxii. 17, the risen Christ leads them that overcome to the water of life.1
The Rivers of Paradise
Gen. ii. 10: “And a river went out of Eden5 to water the garden, from thence it parted into four river courses ” (properly
1   See “ Holle und Paradies,” A.O., i. 3, 2nd ed.
2   Discovered by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus in South Egypt; not yet published.
3   Also Jordan had healing power. 2 Kings v., Naaman was healed of his leprosy by dipping seven times in Jordan, and he marvels that Jordan should be better than the rivers of Damascus, Abana and Pharpar, which were equally held to be rivers of Paradise. Comp. Boissier, Documents, 33, where, as cure for the sting 01 scorpions, “he shall go down to the river (Euphrates?) and dip himself seven times.”
4   Comp.   73 ff.
5   Eridu? Seep. 213, 11. 4.
218
PARADISE
speaking, fountains).1 The cosmic Paradise is surrounded by ocean. The river is the celestial water realm. From the cosmic Paradise spring four fountains, which upon entering the terrestrial world appear as rivers. The earthly Paradise of the pre-Israelite era (for the chronicles of the primeval stories refer to eras before the Israelite age; it was later that Canaan came into prominence as a microcosmos of the celestial world) is designated as four countries, surrounded by four rivers :
1.   Pishon, -which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold .... and bdellium {rubber) and shoham stones.
By this, Arabia, that is to say a part of it, is certainly meant.2
2.   Gihon, that compasseth the whole land of Cush.
That is, the valley of the Nile, Upper Egypt. Gihon is the upper part of the Nile. Egypt is included in it, perhaps purposely suppressed.3
8.   Hiddekel,4 which flow's south 5 from Asshur.
4.   Perat, without comment, that is, Euphrates,6 the river of Babylon.
The two first-named countries with their rivers correspond to the Underworld, the two last to the Upperworld.
1   Rosh cannot be called “ arm of a river,” it is much more river head, fountain ; Greek, x-tyrod nora/Mov ; Latin, caput aquce; Old German, Brunnenhaupt, everywhere the ceremonious expression for the fabulous source of the waters that spring from the depths of the earth ; see for this and the following, Winckler, F., iii. 313.
2   See Siegfried in Guthe, Bibelwortcrbuch, under Havila.
3   When the chronicle was written were the Cushites perhaps rulers in Egypt ? Esarhaddon, conqueror of Arabia and Egypt, calls himself King of the Kings of Muser and Cush. In this designation Egypt and Ethiopia must equally have been included in Cush.
4   Only in Dan. x. 4 again. That the Israelites meant the Tigris is shown by Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 25-26 (Tigris named together with Pishon and Euphrates in this passage). Assyrian, Idiqlat, II. R. 50, 7 ; according to the Behistun inscription the river of Assyria was called Diqlat (comp. Targum-Talmud Diglat). Our word Tigris reproduces the Persian pronunciation.
5   “ Qidtnat ashur, that is to say, before = southward from Assur, not ‘eastward,’ for the Tigris never flowed eastward of Assyria, it forms the southern boundary of the country” ; Winckler, F., iii. 314. Comp, above, p. 205.
6   Babylonian purattu, Ancient Persian ufratus, Arabic fur At. Isa. viii. 7 ; Gen. xv. 18, “the river,” as the Babylonians themselves ideographically designated it, “the water.”
THE RIVERS OF PARADISE   219
Many efforts have been made to localise the Biblical Paradise according to the ancient maps.1
Various solutions may be suggested, each one of them relatively coiTect, for in every country the cosmic Paradise was localised. The Biblical chronicler is thinking of the neighbourhood of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the cosmic qedem (south, celestial water region)2 presents itself to him in the “eastward” situated Babylonia. In this there is strong evidence, in mv opinion, that Israel was fully aware of the original Babylonian homeland. According to Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 25, Pishon was considered in later ages as a principal river, together with Euphrates and Tigris.3
1 Comp, chiefly Delitzsch, IVo lag das Paradics
3 Pp. 204 f.
3   To my mind there is no solution of the question “where was Paradise situated?” in the identification of the four rivers of Paradise with the four rivers which in primeval ages flowed apart into the Persian Gulf (Jensen, Kosmol., 507 ff.), making the Ulai (now Karun) = Pishon, and the Uknu (now Kercha) = Gihon. According to Hommel, Aufs. und Abh., 326 ff., and G.G.G., 272, 2S9 f., it is shown that the Babylonians localised terrestrially the four sacred rivers by the naming four divine rivers : II. R. 56, 26-29, comp. V. R. 22, 27 ff. According to Jensen, as the “ wife ” and “ son ” of the River-god follows, it is not here a case of four names of the llu Naru, the River-god. Hommel has drawn attention to, and believes it can be proved, that in the South Arabian inscriptions the same presentment of four rivers is met with ; see Aufs. u. Abh., 273 ff, and G.G.G., 145 and 298, n. 1. If this is correct, it is a proof of a Paradise localised in the Arabian country in question ; Hommel finds this significant in regard to the Biblical Paradise, as he takes it that the Babylonian and Arabian lists, as also Gen. ii., are dealing with the same territory, south-west of Eridu.
CHAPTER VI
THE FALL
(Gen. iii.)
No Babylonian text corresponding to the story of the Fall has yet been found. The notable seal cylinder, fig. 69,1 is
not explicable with any certainty. The tree with its two fruits is certainly the tree of life, but the two seated and clothed (!) figures are not reaching to take the fruit. One of them wears the horned head-dress exclusively used for the gods. The line behind the figure sitting on the left is obviously a serpent,2 but its position does not correspond with the place it would
 
FIG. 69.—Tree of life, with divine beings and serpent. Babylonian seal cylinder, Brit. Museum.
hold in a drawing of the Fall. On the other hand, the picture is reminiscent of the scene at the end of tablet ii. of the epic of Gilgamesh. The Babylonian Noah and his wife (deified figures) have the disposal of the plant of life. Gilgamesh takes away with hint a bushel of it, but a serpent at the fountain (Underworld!) robs him of the precious possession. One picture represents the tree of life and the serpent in the background as its guardian. A relationship
1   British Museum, No. 89, 326.
2   The view put forward by Oppert, Halevy, and others, that it is only an ornamentation, is not tenable. Our reproduction of the picture leaves no doubt that it is a serpent.
220
THE FALL
221
between the fable and the Biblical tale is, broadly speaking, very possible.1
Traces of acquaintance with the story of the Fall can be identified in individual points. The name of the river An - mush - tin-tir-dub, II. R. 51, 44a, may be translated “ River of the serpent-god, who destroys the dwelling of life,11 but the name is found in an enumeration where the connection tells nothing. That from the beginning the woman is the tempter seems to be presupposed in text D.T., 67,2 which speaks of a maiden, “ the mother of sins,11 who breaks forth in tears and who later, according to the yet fragmentary and difficult texts, lies in the dust, stricken by the deadly glance of the deity.
 
The supposition of a Fall is a definite divine revelation to mankind. There is no Babylonian parallel to it. Certainly the Babylonian ideal world corresponds to the derivation of all laws from the divinity. Hammurabi places his laws in connection with the Sun-god, he even takes upon himself the character of law-giving Sun-god. The stone of the law found in Susa3 declares how Hammurabi received the divine inspiration. But upon the concluding tablet of the epic Enuma
1   Fig. 70 shows a Babylonian seal cylinder in the author’s possession upon which between the seated divinity and the figure approaching in prayer there appears to be an upright serpent; compare with this the serpent in fig. 27. The genuineness of the seal cylinder is doubtful. Notwithstanding this, we give a reproduction because it may be an imitation of an antique.
2   See Delitzsch, B.B., i., 4th ed., 70.
3   See Exod. xx.

o the other civilisations along the Mediterranean Sea. Here only the discoveries in Knossos and Ilion are referred to, in regard to which fig. 21 (pole of the world) and figs. 62 and 63 suggest questions to which we shall recur in another passage. The “ Babylonian11 character of these presentments has been treated by Milani, Bibbici prebabelica (Studi religiosi, vol. vi., 1906).
NORTHERN COSMOGONY
From the songs of the Edda, and the Edda drawn from these by Snorre Sturluson, we gather the following presentment:
In the Vbluspa the Volve teach mankind, Heiradal’s consecrated race, about primeval ages: In the beginning there was neither sand nor sea, nor cold wave, neither earth nor heaven, only Ginnungagap (“the yawning chasm,11 primeval chaos), nowhere any grass, till the sons of Bur raised the crust of the earth out of the sea and made Midgard, the world inhabited by man.
I require obedience from the sacred races, from Heimdal’s children, high and low ;
Father Odin wishes it, so I will relate
the stories of the old time, from earliest remembrance.
To the ancestral giants my memory goes back, who before the ages begot me ;
nine worlds do I know, nine spaces of the tree of the world, which is rooted deep in the midst of the earth.
It was in past ages, when Ymir lived :
There was then no gravel, nor sea, nor cold wave; no earth was there, nor heaven above, only yawning abyss, but grass nowhere.
1 Comp. fig. 63 with Ezek. xxi. 21 ; and Zimmern, Bcitr , S4, K.A.T., 3rded., 605; upon the Etruscan liver, see Boissier, Note sur ttn document babyl., Geneve, 1901 ; according to Boissier the first syllable of the word haruspex has for root the Babylonian Har, liver. Hittite clay livers inscribed with cuneiform characters were discovered by H. Winckler in Bazhazkoi. For full particulars upon this subject, see Religion Babyloniens mid Assyrien, Jastrow.
NORTHERN COSMOGONY
171
Then lifted up Bur’s sons the land and created the beautiful Midgard. from the south the sun lighted the ground, then grew green plants upon the ground.
The sun from the south, accompanied by the moon, touched with right hand the edge of heaven ; the sun knew not where she dwelt, the moon knew not what power he had, the stars knew not what places they had.
Then went all the gods to seats, the sacred rulers, and took counsel : they named the night, new moon and full moon, morning and evening, mid-day and vesper, all the times for the counting of the years.
In the north of Ginnungagap it was icy cold, in the south it was hot. In the north was Niflheim and the spring Hvergelmir, from which flowed twelve rivers of water and mist. In the south was Muspellsheim, the bright, warm place. By the intermingling of the two arose the giant Ymir. From Ymir comes the race of giants (those of the heroic age preceding the flood!) From the sweat under his left arm there arose a pair of giants, and his feet generated the six-headed giant Thrudgelmir. From the dripping frost there arose also the cow Adumbla.1 Four streams of milk from her udders nourished Ymir. She herself was nourished by licking the salt blocks of ice.2 As she licked, there began to appear the hair of a man, the second day the head appeared, and the third day the whole man. His name was Buri; he was the father of Bur, who took for his wife Bestla, daughter of the giants, and by her had three sons—Odin, Wili, and We.
This triad of Bur’s sons killed Ymir, drowning the Frost- giants in his blood. Only Bergelmir, son of the six-headed Thrudgelmir, escaped3 in a boat.
The sons of Bur made the world out of Ymir’s flesh :
1   Compare with this the Mother-goddess, p. 117 : the interpretation as cloud, spreading moisture and fertility, corresponds to a later poetic construction, it is not the original meaning of the myth.
2   According to the Northern conception salt is the source of all spiritual life.
3   Compare the Hathor myth in the Egyptian Cozu-Book, Chap. IX.
172
NON-BIBLICAL COSMOGONIES
From Ymir’s flesh was the world created, from the blood the surging sea,
the mountains from the bones, the trees from the hair, from the skull the shimmering roof of heaven.
But from his eyelashes the wise gods made Midgard for the race of man ;
from the brains finally are all the cruel storm-clouds made.
In this cosmogony and the teaching connected with it in regard to the ages of the world, the dragon-fight, and the renewal of the world, we have the Ancient-Oriental doctrine feature for feature in a peculiarly nationalised form. E. H. Meyer, 434 ff., assumes the influence of antique scholarship: he sees in the Wala the Sophia of Alexandrian Judaism; the giant Thrudgelmir as coming from the Orphite teaching; and Plato’s Timet;us as also having an influence. Mogk, in Gemumische Mytliologie, 147 ff., rightly rejects this opinion. It might also be assumed that the above-mentioned sources go back to the Ancient-Oriental teaching. Golther, p. 518, prefers an independent, unconnected origin, but he reverts to the old theory when (p. 531) he asserts the Tree of the world Yggdrasil is an imitation of the Christian Tree of the Cross. In another passage Golther is upon the right track when he inclines to the idea of “ borrowing ” (more correctly, migration of the teaching). He says, p. 502 : “ When likenesses are established in a connected succession of acts of creation, rich in material and full of meaning, when details springing from an artistic, arbitrary line of thought agree, then the acceptance of the idea of borrowing easily suggests itself.” From Golther’s very instructive introduction one may see that Germanic mythology, antecedent to Jacob Grimm, was on the right track even before Ancient-Oriental material was open to study. The assumption of Biblical influence must be taken with much greater caution. That could only account for isolated features. According to Meyer, 434 ff., the whole cosmogony is a new poem of the Biblical story of Creation.1 We find the Ancient- Oriental teaching also in Frankish-Gennanic mythology. We have already alluded to the divine triad (pp. S6 f.) about which Caesar and Tacitus are not opposed to each other, and we shall bring forward further evidence under Creation of man and Tree of the world (see index).
The Wessobrunner prayer (eighth or ninth century A.D.) begins in Sibylline form with the fragment of a cosmogony:
1   For the sources and for a German translation, see Golther, Handb. der germ. Myth., 517. It is therefore the post-diluvian world. It corresponds to the doctrine that the Flood is a parallel to Primeval Chaos, and from it a new world arises. For further detail, see chapter on Flood. In the description of Creation above, from the Voluspa, the ceons are confused.
NORTHERN COSMOGONY
178
I perceived this as the highest wisdom of the living. When there was neither earth, nor heaven above, when there was neither tree nor mountain, when the sun shone not, neither the moon gave light, when there was no sea, neither any boundary nor limit, there was already the one Almighty God, gentlest of men, there was with him already the host of divine spirits.
After the evidence given here of a doctrine of the evolution of the world migrating throughout the world, one can scarcely feel inclined to agree with Wackernagel, who holds that the prayer is the beginning of a translation of the first chapter of Genesis, though it certainly is christianised in the sense of belief in the one Almighty God and in its agreement with the Biblical story. Also it is not impossible that medieval pictures of the stories of Creation, influenced in their turn from the East, lent material. Lucas, l.c., rightly includes the prayer in the Edda cosmogonies, and MtillenhofF, Deutsche Altertumskunde, p. 68, is probably right in his conjecture that the lost continuation of the poem described the destruction of the world.
CHAPTER IV
THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF CREATION
(Gen. i. 2, 3)
THE stories of creation having their source in the so-called Priestly Documents include the following passages :
1.   In the beginning the world was Tehom (Tohu and Bohu),
i.e. Primeval Water.
2.   Over Tehom was darkness, over Mayim “ brooded 11 the spirit of God.
3.   The Cosmos proceeded out of the Waters bv the Word of God.
4.   The Cosmos accomplished itself not as a result of this “ brooding,11 but in seven or in eight distinct acts of creation by the Word of God, divided into six days1 work. Seven times God said of it, that it was good, three times it is said “he blessed it11:
(a)   There was Light.
(b)   There is a Raqia‘ made which divides the “Waters1'1
(Tehom) into the “upper Waters11 and the “under Waters.11
(c)   In the “ under Waters11 dry land appeared and was
covered with grass, plants, and trees.
(cl) In the Raqia‘ of the heavens sun, moon, and stars were made, serving as tokens to mark the times, that is, “ festivals,11 days, and years.
(e)   Water and Air were inhabited by live creatures.
(f)   The dry land was peopled with domestic animals, creeping
things, and wild beasts.
(g)   Mankind was created in the image of God—male and
female.
174
CREATION
175
5.   God rested upon the seventh day and hallowed it.
The author of the first chapter of Genesis teas a religious reformer.1 He was acquainted with the Ancient-Oriental conception of the Universe. This conception corresponded to the science of that age just as our present science talks of the Tertiary Age, or the Alluvial Age, etc., only that science was simpler and firmer than ours, and their cosmic speculations gave them a wider outlook than does the present-day purely telluric view of the universe. But the Biblical chronicler does not trouble himself about the speculations, indeed he rather despises them and secretly controverts the mythological forms of the teaching, though being child of his own age he cannot quite escape them. His effort is to present religious thoughts, and he fills the old forms zeith new meaning.2
The following material may be considered in regard to special points:
1.   In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was tohu zca bohu. This “ earth” spoken of in Gen. i. 2 cannot be our “earth,” as the further development of the idea shows. From the earth ( = Tohu and Bohu) arises the tripartite earthly Universe: air, earth, and sea. Therefore in the word “the heavens” (in the beginning God created heaven and earth) the three-part Celestial Universe is hidden, though later the division has not been kept clear. Words have failed the chronicler, just as, for example, in the case of the Greeks, who said “ Uranos ” and “ Gaia ” and in them included the whole of the Over- and Under-worlds. The Oriental cosmogonies used artificial mythological personifications for them which the simplified presentment could not reproduce.
The earthly Universe is therefore chaotic Primeval Flood. This doctrine of Chaotic Water we have found in every Ancient-
1   See p. 8i.
2   This is the fundamental idea of the A.T.A.O. ; Winckler, F., iii. 3S6 f., now also expresses the same opinion. The chroniclers of the traditions hold to the science of their time, just as a modern theologian, convinced of the Darwinian theory, would make evolution the foundation of a sermon on creation. A lyric religious conception, which is contained in the first chapter of Genesis, is clearly seen in Ps. civ.
1T6 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF CREATION
Oriental cosmogony. The worlds arise from Primeval Ocean ; see p. 6.
The word Tehom, name of the elemental Waters (without article, therefore thought of as personified), corresponds on the one hand to the Babylonian word tamtu, “ sea” (in the Babylonian Record of Creation spoken of on pp. 142 ff.), designating the elemental Waters wherein were contained (comp. 2 Pet. iii. 5) the later heavenly and earthly world : and on the other hand it corresponds to the mythological idea of Tiamat. the clragon-like monster, whose defeat by Marduk, God of Light, precedes the new creation of the world in the Babylonian epic Enuma elish. There is a trace in the word of the mythological lore, which is well known to the author but which he would fain avoid. Still more clearly is the mythology shown in the designation Tohu and Bohu. As Tohu corresponds to Ti(h)amat, so Bohu is reminiscent of Behemoth (behemat), the name of another monster of chaos, comp. Job xl. 19 In Marduk’s combat chaos is represented by two monsters. Ivingu and Tiamat, see p. 146. The dragons in the north heaven and the south heaven of the star- chart correspond to them.1
Tohu and Bohu belong to the primeval world. The Phoenician Bau, according to Philo, mother of Primeval Man. and the Babylonian Mother-goddess Bau,2 "correspond” to Bohu, but they belong to the present feon.
2.   In the idea "the spirit of God brooded” a fragment of Ancient-Oriental teaching in mythological form is hidden. The creatiye "spirit of God” is, in the higher sense, what Mummu (according to Damascius Mc-A/ya?, "the intelligible world”) is in the Babylonian teaching : see pp. 6 f., 91. It is the Sophia which, according to Prov. viii. 22 ft', (p. 188), dwelt in the waters and was operative in creation. The “brooding” is plainly a remnant of a mythological expression. According to an
1   See Lepsius, Reich Christi, 1903, 227, who shows Bohu = behemoth, p-ehe- mait on the Egyptian celestial globe, which shows the crocodile in place of the northern dragon of our globe. A proof that the author of the first chapter of Genesis knew the monsters of chaos is given by the inclusion of the Tanninim amongst the creatures of the sea ; see p. 1S1.
2   If Hommel’s equation of the goddess Gur = Bau in his Semiten holds good, then II. R. 54, No. 3, 18, is significant, where we find ilu Gur = Am-utu-an-ki
mother who bore heaven and earth” (see Stucken, Astralmythen, p. 71).
CHAOS
177
Egvptian mvth (see Brugsch, Religion. 161) Ehnum, the architect. modelled an Egg*1 which contained the light, upon a potters wheel.
(x In a invthological piesentment the world would be said to result from the ;; brooding of the spirit.” But the religious thought breaks free from this form. The world arises from the Word of God. who is independent of the world and rules with might over it. Here there is no theogony to be found. The certainty with which " God" is here spoken of raises the Biblical teaching of creation high above every Oriental cosmogony.
That the idea of creation by the Word of God could arise in Babylonia also may be taken as proof of the high spiritual level of the Babylonian religion.
When Marduk is ordained to be avenger against Tiamat and Lord of Heaven. ” to whom the lordship over the whole Universe shall be given." he is to inaugurate his lordship by a miracle:
They placed a garment ” in their midst.
Spoke to Marduk, their Firstborn:
Thy decrees of) Fate. O Lord, stand before those of the Gods !
Command destruction and creation, so shall it be !
When thou openest thy mouth the garment shall disappear!
Command it again, so shall the garment (again be unhurt !v
Then he commanded with his mouth, and the garment was destroyed.
He commanded again, and the garment was again created.
When the Gods, his fathers, saw what proceeded from his mouth,
they rejoiced, they did homage : Marduk is king !
The incident sound* childish, but a deep meaning underlies it. The passage belongs to those in which the reciter onlv hints at things which are well known to the hearers, or. contrariwise. are held as my Meries. The " garment " can scarcely be simply a cloak. The expression following t;be unhurt" would not suit that. It must be dealing with a cosmic cloak, which has to do with the ruling of destinies. Alarduk's cloak
1   Comp. p. I Sr. For the Egg of the world in Phoenician cosmogony, see p. 156, above. For same in India and China, etc., p. 165. The pictures in Xiklas Muller's G'zube/t. U'issirz zotd K:ins: dir Hindu, Mainz. iScc, are specially interesting.
VOL. I.
12
178 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF CREATION
(fig. 32) shows cosmic designs which in any case represent his lordship over the world’s destiny. In the Biblical Ephod and the High Priest’s robe with its cosmic ornamentation (see Exod. xxviii. 31 ff.) we find the same presentment. The coronation mantle made in Byzantium for one of the medieval German emperors, “ with representations from the Apocalypse” upon it, signified in the same way the rulership of the world.
4a. In terse words the Biblical writer records: “And God said: Let there he light! And there teas light/” Pagan cosmogonies speak in the mythological form transmitted to us of a fantastic victory of the God of Light over dark Primeval Chaos. For the world proceeded from Chaos, as the New World arises in springtime out of the winter flood, after the defeat of the Dragon of Winter. The appearance of Marduk as Light- giver gains peculiar significance when we remember that in Babylonian teaching Marduk, Bringer of Light, is made, as son of Ea, equal to Adapa, zer ameluti, “ Seed of Mankind,” who also brings the new age; see pp. 106 and 89. Certain speculations as to an intermediary creator also arose concerning the Biblical creation of light, which precedes the sun, even if they were not originally included in it. In the 104th Psalm, which mirrors the seven acts of creation in lyric form, the first act is indicated in the words, “ who covers himself with light, as with a garment,” and in the prologue to St John’s Gospel, which purposely connects itself with the first chapter of Genesis (“ in the beginning”) the life of the Word is characterised as Light, which from all ages has permeated the Divine creation ; the exalted Christus of the Apocalypse, who conquers the dragon and creates the new world, is called (Rev. iii. 14) “ the beginning of the creation of God.”1 With good reason, therefore, light precedes sun and moon (comp. Isa. lx. 20; Rev. xxii. 5 and xxi. 23) where the light proceeds from apilov?
1   As son of Ea, Marduk therefore corresponds to the Logos as mediator. When on the other hand Mummu ( = Ea, see p. 9) as vorjrbs K6<TIXOS corresponds to the Logos, it is no contradiction. The son in the new age corresponds to the father ; see pp. S9 f., n. I.
2   “ Ram” = Christ, see p. 76; B.N.T., 16. I cannot agree with Winckler’s interpretation, B., iii. 282.
RAQIA‘
179
For the numbers seven and three, see pp. 63 ff From the " epic Enrnna elish, -written upon seven tablets, it is not possible to prove the number of the works of creation, owing to the fragmentary character of the tablets. By the recital in the song of praise to Marduk upon the last tablet the order seems to agree fairly with the Biblical six days’ work. The works of creation in the Babylonian Record of Creation (pp. 142 ff.) ; also are suggestive of the order in Gen. i., only that in the Babylonian record mankind precedes the others; this, on the other hand, agrees with Gen. ii. The Etruscan teaching (pp. 168 ff.) corresponds, as do also the Indian records, and the Persian in the Bundehesh ; see pp. 161 ff. and 165 f.; compare' also the Wessobrunner prayer, p. 173.
4b. Formation of the raqkr to divide the upper from the under waters. There is a trace of the division into three of the i Celestial Universe, which we mentioned p. 175, to be found in * the idea raqia\ It is the same word that in Ezek. i. 22 ff'., x.
1,   designates the body of the chariot of God supported by four Cherubim, representative of the four ends of the Earth. When the writer says, Gen. i. 8, 44 God called the raqia\ which should divide the upper from the under waters, 4 Heaven,”’ it is not possible that it means 44 Heaven ” in the sense in wliich we mean it.1 Raquk is called the “firmly grounded,” the built-up, corresponding to the Babylonian shupuk. It is expressly said 44 raqkk of the heaven ” (that is, the Babylonian shupuk shame),
v.   14, 17, 20, and v. 14 ff, arise in the rciqkk sun and moon and kokabim (“stars,” the planets were specially meant) as 44 tokens.” The expression ragict4 ha shamahn proves that the author of Gen. i. knew of the double raqia‘.2 Raqiai as j Celestial Earth is therefore the zodiac; for it is in the zodiac 1 that the rulers of time move. In the ancient picture of the universe the zodiac is so important as place of manifestation for the stars that the other realms of the celestial world were set in the background, Raqkk, therefore, was simply used for
1   See p. 149, n. 1.
2   Chagiga, I2b: “There are two raqia‘ according to Deut. x. 14.” Ibid., I2a: “Sun, moon, planets and signs of the zodiac are sunk in the raqia'” Comp, also the Hebrew text of Sirach, 41.
180 THE BIBLICAL RECORD OF CREATION
“ heaven.”1 Gen. i. completely gives up the mythological Celestial Universe ancl in its place appears the living God, who, as Creator, stands majestically opposed to Heaven and Earth.2 For raquC as zodiac in the Bible, comp, further p. 189.
4c. Dry land, our Earth, appears out of the waters still surrounding the terrestrial Earth (Hebrew, tebel; Assyrian, nabcilu or tannhiu). Just in the same way Earth is built upon the waters in the Babylonian Record of Creation (pp. 142 ff.). And in Ps. xxiv. 2 Earth is founded upon the seas and established upon the floods, as in the Babylonian record it is built of reeds and mud upon the waters; see p. 143. In an Assyrian version of the Marduk myth, in which Asshur, chief god of the Assyrians, plays the part of Creator of the world,3 the rainbow (<qaqqaru) is stretched “over the ocean and over against Eshara.” That something like this was related in the missing fragments of the epic Enuma elish is shown by the closing hymn, which says of Marduk that he made the ashru (here “ Celestial Earth ”)4 and (over against the ashru) built the clannhiu, that is to say, the tannhiu, i.e. the terrestrial land:5
Because he made the ashru, and built the Earth, Father Bel called him 11 Lord of the Lands” (Tablet VII., 115 f.).
The Creation of Plants as well was described in the Babylonian record spoken of pp. 142 ff*.
1   In Gen. i. 20 the birds (Ps. civ. 12, “fowls of the heaven”) “fly in the raqia‘ of heaven,” that is to say, the side turned towards us of the celestial world represented by the zodiac. The commentator added “above the earth.”
2   Winckler, F., iii. 3S7 f. (commentary upon Genesis), thinks that in verse 6, where the raqia'' is made in the midst of the waters, to divide the waters from the waters, the terrestrial earth, the terrestrial raqia', is meant. The author of the first chapter of Genesis has not kept the ideas clearly apart, and has placed the terrestrial raqia' in the heaven. The very clear-sighted deductions of J. Lepsius, in his Reich Christi, 1903, must be corrected accordingly. Lepsius further concludes that verses 14 to 18 originally came before verse 8.
3   K. 3445 + Rm. 396, Cuneiform Texts, xiii. 24 f., interpreted by Delitzsch, the Babylonian epic of Creation, under No. 20 is tentatively included in the Enuma elish. Asshur is here made equal by the priests of Nineveh (though probably artificially) with Anshar, who belonged to the gods of the primeval world (see p. 147), in order to make his r61e plausible. On the Assyrian claim, see also pp. 154 f. above, and comp. Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., pp. 351, 496.
4   For the Deluge, see Chap. IX. ; ashru (ashratum) as “terrestrial earth.”
5   See p. 149, n. 7.
STARS
181
That also the epic Enunia elish described this act of creation is shown by a recently discovered fragment of the closing hymn of Tablet VII., which praises Marduk as creator of the world of plants.1
4d. The conception of the stars as spiritual beings is almost , eliminated. It glimmers still in the expression “rulership of i sun and moon,’'' Gen. i. 16 and Gen. ii. 1, “the heavens and the earth and all the host of them.”
Comp. J udges v. 20 : The stars fought from the heavens, the people of Sisera fought from their places. Also in passages which conceive of the stars as mighty rulers, as Isa. xl. 26 ; Job xxxviii. 7 ; Deut. i-j. 19; and in the likening of the king to a star, as in Numb. xxiv. 17. In Isa. xiv. 12 the conception may be hidden. Upon the whole subject, see B.N.T., S3 ft. The mythological presentment of the Sun coming out of the bridal chamber in the • morning as a youthful hero is treated poetically in Ps. xix. 6; ! see p. 117.
Though the mythological meaning of the stars has vanished, the astrological meaning by which, as we have seen, the whole Babylonian conception is governed, is, at least in v. 14 f., recognisable (“ they shall he for signs ”). The othoth are astral signs, against the misuse of which Jeremiah (x. 2) gives warning. At v. 17 the last trace has vanished, as in the hymn to Sun, Moon, and Stars, Ecclesiasticus xliii. 1 ff.
For the Babylonian creation of the stars, see pp. 31 f. and 142 f.
4e. Amongst rcater creatures appear the Tanninim, the “ sea- serpents.” The Ancient-East thought of the sea as peopled with monsters, because of its Underworld character (pp. 8, 15 f.), as the reliefs of Nineveh show. Ps. lxxiv. 13 (see p. 194) shows that w'e may expect to find here an echo of the monsters of chaos. Ps. civ. 26 (founded upon Gen. i.) names Leviathan as a sea monster.2
-A
1
1   K.T., 125 ; the fragment V. R. 21, No. 4 (Delitzsch, IVeltschopfungsepos, p. 152) “comments” upon these four lines of the hymn to Marduk. The observation by Zimmern, A7.A.T., 3rd ed., 510, regarding the creation of the fruitful earth in the Babylonian, is weak, since eshara does not denote the earth, but
“ Olympus.”
2   Apparently added later. The passage makes an awkward impression in the Massora text.

116
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
Shamash, when thou enterest into the innermost Heavens : The glittering,- bars of Heaven shout to thee in greeting; the wings of the gates of Heaven (see fig. 11) bless thee.
May Aja, thy beloved wife, joyfully appear before thee,
may she quiet thy heart,
thy banquet shall be set before thee ....
 
FIG. 37.—Sanctuary of the Sun-god of Sippar. Dedicatory inscription S82 B.C. by Nabubalbaladan.
The course of the sun over the heavens is thought of as a drive. “ None save Shamash hath crossed over the sea 11 is said in the epic of Gilgamesh. And in the great hymn quoted above it is said: “ Thou dost cross over the great wide sea.'1 This must be the meaning; for V. R. 65, 33b ff. is plainly speaking of his charioteer Bunene, who guides the chariot upon which sits the god, and whose horses he harnesses.1 According
1 See 2 Kings xxiii. 11, “ removal of the horses and chariot given to the sun.” The first hymn of Yasna gives evidence of the chariot of the sun with hurrying horses in ancient Persia. In the Rigveda Indra wrenches a wheel from the chariot of the sun and so checks his course during the fight with the dragon ; comp. Joshua x. 12 f. In the Mithra cult the sun bears the same character. In the morning he cleanses the world and passes over the ocean in his chariot ; see Curnont, jHysterieu des 3/ilhra, pp. 88, 101. The chariot of the sun belongs to the cults which passed over into Europe from the East. In Sofus Muller, Urgeschichte Europas, 116, there is a picture of a sun chariot from the bronze age found in Zeeland. In the Edda (Voluspa) the horses of the sun are mentioned. Also Rabbi Elieser says, “ The sun travels in a chariot.” A Hittite chariot of the sun may be seen in the imagery in Joshua i.
THE PANTHEON—SHAMASH—ISHTAR 117
to another presentment he leaves the bridal chamber as a hero in the morning and runs his course.1
The places of worship of Shamash are Larsa in South Babylonia (Senkerah, south-east from Nippur, probably the Ellasar of Gen. xiv. 1) and Sippar in North Babylonia (Abu Plabba). In both places the temple was called E-babbara, “ the white house.” In Sippar A-a (Ai) is named as his •‘bride,”'2 and f Kettu and Mesharu, Right and Justice, as his children.3 Fig. 37 shows the sanctuary of Shamash in Sippar.
Together with pure sun-worship, of which we know little up to the present, the Babylonian religion emphasises the phenomena dependent upon the sun, of the four (or two) seasons of the year (in a manner four phases of the sun), and sees in the four planets the four chief points of the zodiacal solar phenomena, i.c. (in the epoch which takes Marduk as spring point) Marduk = spring and morning sun, Nebo = autumn sun, Ninib = summer sun, and Nergal = winter sun; see p. 32. We have already spoken of the triad Shamash, Sin, and Ishtar.
IsHTAll
According to her place in the System she is the daughter of Anu, or of Bel, or of Sin. She is the goddess, and her name denotes the idea of universal “goddess.” Every feminine phenomenon of the Babylonian Pantheon is fundamentally embodied in her. She is simply the feminine analogy of the divinity. For this reason h?rtn. “ wife,” is written with the ideogram ATvidingh'-ra, that is, Bdit Uani. As such she is:
1.   The mother of the gods and Mother-goddess, and therefore she is prayed to in the hymns as “helper”; as banat tenishcti, mmhtesherat girnir nabnttn, heavenly midwife. After
1   Comp. Ps. xix. 6 scq. In the hymn quoted above Shamash returns home in the evening to his bride Aja.
2   Llommel explains A-a as moon (“feminine” in contradiction to a “Chaldean,” that is, West Semitic, masculine Moon-god Ai), and draws from it the most far-reaching conclusions. Even when it is said in the time of Sargon (B.A., ii. 37), “Since the days of Shamash and of Ai ” ; and K. 669, 11, “So long as Shamash and Ai endure,” it does not necessarily mean the moon. If Ai is the moon it can only be in the sense described at p. 14.
3   Nisor and Sydyk of the Phoenicians. Sec pp. 137 and 157.
118
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
the flood the gods sit with her on the ashru (zodiac?)1 and weep over “their men” who fill the sea like fishes. And in the description in C.T., ix. 121, of the types of the various gods it is said of her: “ Her bosom is bare, upon her left arm she carries a child, which feeds at her breast, whilst she blesses (?) with her right.”2 In the liturgy of Nebo from the time of
 
FIG. 38.—Ishtar and child. Berl. Mus. V. A. 2408.
 
FIG. 39.—Hathor, suckling the boy Osiris.
Assurbanipal, translated by Roscher, Lexikon cler Mythologic,
iii.   sp. 61, it is said:
Little wast thou, Assurbanipal, when 1 left thee with the heavenly Queen of Nineveh,
weak wast thou, Assurbanipal, when thou satest upon the lap of the heavenly Queen of Nineveh,
from the four breasts placed in thy mouth, thou hast sucked from two, and hast buried thy face in the other two.3
2.   She is Queen of Heaven (sharrat shamami u kakkabe),
1   See Chap, on the Flood.
2   See fig. 38.
3   She is therefore represented as a cow, like llathor-Isis in Egypt, and indeed every goddess; see p, 109, n. 1. But this is not totemism, any more than the sacred cow in the Persian religion (Jackson in his Handbook of Persian 1'hilology explains the cow and the hound as the deification of the nomadic ideal). E. Naville has lately discovered a sanctuary in Thebes, the roof representing the starry heavens, and in it is a cow suckling Osiris ; comp. p. 119, n. 2, and see fig. 39.
THE PANTHEON—ISHTAR
119
who takes the place at Anu’s side, whilst sun and moon fight their battle. 44 Queen of Heaven the heights and deeps shall be informed, that is my fame11 is said in an Ishtar psalm.1
As such Ishtar is connected with Venus (sharrat kakkabc, Queen of the Stars), and, following the law of analogy, with the zodiacal sign of Virgo. As Virgo she bears the child'2 or carries the ear of corn in her hand. Spica, 44 ear ’’
(of corn) is the brightest star in Virgo. In a text from the age of the Ar- sacidse the whole sign is called sheni, i.e. “ear,11 Aramaic   Ishtar is
the Sybil ( = shibboleth).3 4
3.   Since Ishtar-Venus * is closely connected with sun and moon, it may be conjectured that with her also in the myth there would be
1   Sm. 954 ; see Izdubar-Nimrod, 61, and Zimmern, .4.0., vii. 3, 22. Upon the “Queen of Heaven" compare the Malkat sham aim of the Bible, see p. 99 ; Athtar shemaim (feminine) amongst the people of Kedar: see Winckler, Gcsc/i. 1st-., ii. 90.
2   Comp. B.N.T., 36S, and see the Indian picture, fig. 40, where the Queen of Heaven with the divinity corresponding to Tammuz is surrounded by the zodiac, with the lion and eagle beneath it as upon the coats-of-arms in the Gudea age. The picture (the original is a carved bas-relief, the copy is from the portfolio of a Brahmin) may be much modernised, but the foundation of the design must be taken from old sources, and also fig. 39 has its source outside Egypt. The Hathor sanctuary mentioned above in n. 3, p. 118, also shows Osiris at a more advanced age. The child has become a blooming youth and is then the lover of the Queen of Heaven (perhaps the Indian picture, fig. 40, represents this). The stages of age correspond to the seasons. In the calendar there are at most six (old age is the Death of the Sun), for example, on the zodiacal relief in Notre Dame mentioned in B.N.T., 498.
3   The countersign shibboleth of Judges xii. 6 has therefore a deep signification.
4   Explicitly attested in III. R. 53, 34^, and drawn on the monuments as eight- or six-pointed star along with moon and sun ; comp. fig. 43. The analogy in the fixed-star heaven is Sirius, the star of Ishtar.
 
120
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
reference to four or two astral phase-phenomena; the deep astral knowledge of the Babylonians and the clearness of the Oriental skies makes it very probable that they knew of the phases of Venus. This division into two is naturally
 
FIG. 41.—The Veiled Islitar (Ashera), marble found at Ras-el-‘ain in Mesopotamia.
also here brought into connection with the revelation of physical life.1 According to her telluric characteristics she is on the one hand the life-destroying (comp. Ishtar, in the Vlth table of the Gilgamesh epic, who brings destruction upon her lovers, Ivore and Persephone), on the other hand the life-bringing goddess, rescuing from the Underworld ( = Ceres)
1   We have repeatedly remarked that the accentuation of this “antagonism in nature” seems to be “ Canaanile.” Hence the prominence of Astarte in Canaanite worship.
THE PANTHEON—ISHTAR
121
—summer and winter, dav and night. Hammurabi says in H.C., ii. 26 ff., see pp. 96, 110, that he “bedecked the grave of Malkat [hr. Ishtar of Sippar as wife of the Sun-god] with green,1’ the colour of resurrection. Or is this analogous to the Venus myth, according to which the evening star which has gone down is brought back as morning star by Shamash? Ishtar in the grave is identical with Tanimuz in the Underworld, and with Marduk in the grave. It is a question everywhere of the cycle of death and life. The “ journey to hell of Ishtar1' describes her descent into the Underworld (winter), when all life dies. She brings back her consort, the sunken Year-god, as in the reversed myth the sunken Ishtar is brought back by the husband ; for example, Erishkigal bv Nergal, Euridice by Orpheus. The one side represents nature, the other the sun, or vice verm. As life-bringing goddess she is veiled (see fig. 41); the unveiled Ishtar brings death.1
Also in her double character of morning and evening star Ishtar reveals the dissension in physical nature. Only in the mythology there is a division into two stars. As Hat shereti she proclaims the new life (morning star, Greek Phosphoros), as evening star (Helal ben Shahar, Isa. xiv. 12 ff., Lucifer) she falls from heaven into the Underworld, like the sun (Tammuz) in winter, and like the moon in the last phase. It is certain that from very early times a cult which was connected with prostitution had been joined to this idea. In the so-called Dibarra legends (K.B., vi. 56 ff.) there are already the shamhdti and lmrimdti, “ whose hands Ishtar restores to the man and gives to him for his own possession.112 The names
1   See YVinckler in HI. V.A. G., 1901, 304 ff. and Gen. xxxviii. 14. Compare further the essay “ Saleiermythus,’’ Beitrag. zur Angr., Bd. vi. We often meet with the veil motif. Fi^j. 41 represents a veiled Ishtar ; see M. Oppenheim, Zeitsch. dcr Berl. Gesellsch. and Erdit., Bd. xxvi. Friedrich holds there is another upon the seal, Clercq, ii. 229, B.A., v. 476. Also in the text cited above, the veil of Ishtar is mentioned, and the sea maiden in the Gilgamesh epic is veiled. Sellin discovered a veiled Ishtar in Taannek. We may recall the veiled picture in Sais, and Demeter “with shining veil”; see in addition, Maass, Orpheus, a book which presents most valuable material, but misses the Oriental character of the Mysteries.
2   From the means we possess at present we cannot arrive at the roots of this Astarte cult either in civil or religious history (the woman is freed from the family ties of marriage and through dedication to the Divinity). It must be emphasised
122
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
shamhatl and hurimatl are both the usual designation for the
O
courtesans in Assyrian and Babylonian cities.
4.   The virgin Ishtar was also goddess of war and of
 
FIG. 42.—Ishtar as Goddess of War. Persian period.
 
FIG. 43.—Ishtar as Goddess of the Chase. Brit. Mus. (From Cyprus.)
that, together with the cult of prostitution, which is possibly a decadence, the worship of sexual things (in particular Phallic worship) must have arisen out of a purely religious point of view. The phallus planted by Bacchus at the gate of Hades is a symbol of the Resurrection. In the Old Testament they swore by the sexual organs (comp. p. 77, ii.). Compare Jacob Grimm, Myth., ii. 1200: “ Phallic worship, which a later age, conscious of its shame, carefully avoided, must be the outcome of a blameless veneration for the generative principle.”
THE PANTHEON—ISHTAR
123
hunting (Moon-goddess), even in ancient Babylonian times, as is shown by fig. 42. With Hammurabi, but more especially with the Assyrians, she was “ Mistress of War and of Battle,”1 and with Nabonidus, Xshtar (Anunit) was War-goddess with quiver and bow.2 She is represented as ‘’'clothed with flame,”3 with quiver and bow, and standing upon a leopard; see fig. 43. “I fly to the battle like a swallow” is said in a hymn,4—the Ancient-Oriental Walkyre ! It is not to be wondered at, with the androdyogynous character of every divinity, and specially of Islitar, that we should find a bearded Ishtar in the records;
 
FIG. 44.—Ishtar with Shamash (Rising Sun? see p. 23, fig. 11) and other gods. Brit. Museum.
for example, in Craig's Relig. Texts, i. 7 : “ Like Assur she is bearded” (compare the bearded Venus of the Romans and the beai’ded Aphrodite of Cyprus).5 She is then nothing else than a manifestation of her counterpart. Tam muz, the Arabian Attar.6
The special places of worship of Ishtar are Uruk in South Babylonia, Akkad in North Babylonia, and in Assyria, Nineveh, and Arbela.
1   An Ancient-Babylonian monument with Ishtar as goddess of battle ; see Exod. xiv. 24.
~ K.B., iii. 1, 113 ; 2, 105.
3   Comp. fig. 43.
4   Reisner, Hymn, 108, 44 ; see Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 4315.
5   See rreller-Robert, i. 509. Further, compare the androgynous Cybele as Agdestis ; the priests in women’s robes. On the other hand, Adonis serves as wife to Apollo.
6   See above, p. S7. He is evening and morning star (Phosphor-Lucifer) ; see p. 121,
124
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
RAMMAN-ADAD1
Ramman or Adad (there is evidence in the cuneiform writings of both readings for the divine ideogram IM)2 represents the
 
FIG. 45. —Picture of a god found in Babylon (Adad-Ramman).
 
FIG. 46.—The god Teshup. From a Hittite plaque at Zenjirli.
divine revelation in storm phenomena, especially in storm with thunder and lightning.3 One of the dominating tribes of Babylonia must have given him the role of summus dens. He
1   Compare the detailed presentment in article on Ramman by A. Jeremias in Roscher’s Lcxikon dcr ftfythologie.
2   On a pre-Armenian inscription discovered by Belck-Lehman it is written A-da-di-nirari (Ramman-nirari). This is the usual Assyrian reading. Other readings are Addu and Dada. There is also evidence for the reading Bir.
3   This god was called Teshup by the Hittites ; see figs. 45 and 46. Jupiter Dolichenus, whose emblems are the same, is Ramman-Teshup imported into Rome and Germania by Syrian traders. In Europe we meet with him as Thor with the double hammer; according to Sofus Miiller, Urgcschichte Europas, 59, the idea passed into Europe from pre-Mycenaean Crete, where Zeus appears with the double hammer.
THE PANTHEON—RAMMAN-ADAD—TAMMUZ 125
is represented as GAL, god of heaven and earth, and as the son of Anu, who fights for the stolen Tables of Fate. Representing storm phenomena in the cjcle, he brings both destruction and blessing. His symbol is a thunderbolt and double hammer.1 Together with Shamasli he is represented in the texts of the oracle as “ Lord of revelations.'” He was referred to upon questions of tempest and of birth. In K 2370 the priest makes inquiry on behalf of his clients wife “ who has long dwelt beneath the shadow of Ramman.'’
She has been safely delivered, but it is not a boy, and the father’s heart is filled with grief. A hymn to Adad-Rannnan says:2
 
FIG. 47.—The god Adad, found in Babylon.
The heavens tremble before the Lord when he is angry,
The earth quakes before Adad when his thunders roll;
The high mountains are cast down before him,
At the sound of his anger.
At the voice of his thunders,
The gods of Heaven ascend into the heights,
The gods of the Lhidenvorld descend into the depths, The sun sinks into the deeps of heaven,
The moon rises in the heights of heaven.
TAMMUZ 3
We have already spoken of this figure in earlier chapters. He represents the recurrent sinking into the Underworld and
1   Friedrich, B.A., v. 45S fif., speaks of some other representations of Adad ; and comp. Joshua i. ff. for corresponding Syrian representations of Teshup.
2   IV. R. 2S, No. 2; see Zimmern, A.O., vii. 3, 12. Many features in the
poetical pictures of the judgments of Yahveh are reminiscent of Adad : 1 Sam. vii. io, comp. xii. 17 ff. ; Isa. xxix. 6; Jer. xxiii. 19; Ez. xiii. 13; comp. Friedrich, B.A.. v. 466.   C.T., xv. 15 f. is a Sumerian hymn to
Ramman.
3   Upon the characteristics of Tammuz, compare “ Holle u. Paradies,” A. 0., i 3"> 9 f-i 32; Vellay, Le ctil/e ifAdonis-Ta/n/nuz; and comp. p. 130, n. 2.
126
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
rising again to new life, and may bear solar or lunar—or Venus (Attar, Lucifer, Phosphor)—character; he also includes the phenomena of Marduk (light half) and Nebo (dark half), that is, of Ninib and Nergal;1 but above all he represents the life and death of vegetation which runs parallel with the cycle.2 At the summer solstice Tammuz descends into the Underworld (the month in question bears his name). His mother, Ishtar, or his sister (both in fact identical), descend to bring him back. The descent signifies the death of natural life, the cessation of generation. At the winter solstice he ascends to bring new life. Tammuz (Damuzi) is the god of the Babylonian Mysteries. In the cults of the cities he has no prominent position, in the rituals of sorcery he seldom appears, but he appears in the theopboric names, and that only in the most ancient time, before Hammurabi. But at all times one of the twelve months was dedicated to the festival of Tammuz and bore his name—that is, the month of the summer solstice.
In the Babylonian period the sixth month was called “ the month of the festival of Tammuz,’'1 and in the hymns from the Greek period the month of Tammuz is called “month of the conquest by Tammuz.” The litanies and hymns which celebrate Tammuz dying at the summer solstice and his resurrection at the winter solstice, preserved out of all periods of Babylonian religion, are discussed at pp. 96 ff. In the genealogies of the gods, Tammuz, corresponding to his character as representation of the cycle, belongs on the one hand to Ea (C.T., xxiv. 1 fi‘. ; the first of the six sons of Ea), god of the ocean from which the
1   Tammuz and Gishzida at Anu’s gate, as in IV. R.2 30, No. 2, where it is certainly speaking of Tammuz as son of Ningishzida in the opposing realm, the Underworld. They represent the two halves of the year, at north and south points (comp. p. 157, n. 2 ; pp. 24 and 208), asjachin and Boaz represent the east and west points : the north point being summer solstice is the critical point of all Telluric phenomena. Compare further Zimmern in Abh. der Kgl. Sachs. Ges. der Wissenschaft, 1909, vol. xxvii. (jubilee volume), pp. 70 ff.
2   Myths of vegetation on the one hand, and cosmic and cycle myths on the other hand, correspond to each other. For this reason myths of vegetation are always myths of the Underworld. The new aeon arises out of the Underworld. Journeys to hell always bear an astral character corresponding to the solar or lunar cycles, or to the phenomena of Venus (morning and evening star). Whether the myths of vegetation or the astral myths are the more ancient we cannot as yet decide from the records. Emphasis of the phenomena of vegetation (seed-time and harvest, summer and winter) appears to be characteristic of the Canaanite race.
THE PANTHEON—TAMMUZ
127
reons arise, on the other hand he belongs to Shamash, but, above all, to Ishtar, whose child, brother, and husband he is, (Geshtin-anna, “ the sister,"1 is a differentiation of the mother- wife) according to the phenomenon of the cycle represented by the respective myths. In like manner his identification with Ninib explains itself by the mythology of the cycle. Ninib represents the summer solstice point; according to IV. R. 38 he is god of the month of Tammuz. As such he may, on the other hand, be the destroyer of Tammuz (Ninib as boar).
The calendar is the source of the myths of Tammuz. According to one of the dirges 1 the child Tammuz lies “ as a child in a sinking ship"’ (“as a great one he plunges into the grain and lies there1' ). This is, in our opinion, a play upon the myth of the sacred chest, or ship, in which the youthful Year-god, persecuted by the hostile power, is exposed (see Exod. ii. upon the birth of Moses). Representing natural life endangered by death he is “ the shepherd,11 “ Lord of herds of cattle,11 Lord of the grains and of “ tree and plant11 growth. When Tammuz sinks at the solstice, “ the shepherd sits in desolation,11 and upon earth the death of vegetation, the cessation of generation, is mourned. But the depth of destruction is only reached when his mother (or sister) descends (winter season) to raise him up again. The Adapa text upon the journey to hell of Ishtar, with the conclusion of rituals, which describes the reawakening of Tammuz, gives a variant of the disappearance of Tammuz.
The Nabataean books of El-Maqrisi (Chwolsolni, ii. 604 if.) contain a version of this myth : Tammuz was the first to require a certain king to give divine honour to the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac. This king killed him, but he came to life again after his execution. Then the king had him executed three times in a gruesome fashion, but he came to life after each execution, till the last, when he remained dead.2 . . . The Mandseans of Babylonia and Harran weep and lament 3 over Tammuz to the present day (i.e. tenth century A.D.) in the month of the same name, at one of their festivals which has reference to Tammuz, and they celebrate a great festival, which is specially kept by the women, who assemble themselves together, and weep and lament.
1 Zimmern, Sum. babyl. Tammuzliedcr, p. 20S.
- Therefore celebrated with or without Resurrection festival.
3   Upon the first day of Tammuz, the end of the text says. It also says there that they did not understand the meaning, but continued the same celebrations as their forefathers.
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BABYLONIAN RELIGION
Attar amongst the Arabs, Dusares in the cult of Petra,1 Tammun-Adonis amongst the Phoenicians, Greeks,2 and Attls amongst the Phrygians3 correspond to Tammuz. We will add a few particulars in regard to this group of myths. We learn more detail about the Tammuz cult amongst the Phoenicians through Lucian, cle Dea sijra, and by monuments at the source of the river of Adonis in Lebanon. We have reproduced in fig. 31, p. 99, the rock-relief at the source of the Adonis river,4 which annually turns red, described also by Macrobius, Saturn., i. 21. Renan, who in his Expedition m Phenicie, fig. 36, reproduces the relief from an inaccurate drawing, shows also another rock-relief in the neighbourhood representing the hunter Adonis-Tammuz with two hounds.
Macrobius, Sat., i. 21 : “Amongst the Assyrians or Phoenicians the goddess Venus (the upper hemisphere, whilst they call the lower half Proserpine) becomes a mourning goddess, because the sun, passing in the course of the year through the trwelve zodiacal signs, comes also into the lower hemisphere; for they consider six of the signs to be under and six to be above the world. When the sun is in the lower signs, and so the days are shortened, they say the goddess mourns, as though the sun were for a time dead and imprisoned by Proserpine,5 who represents the divinity of the under half of the circle, and of the antipodes,6 and they believe that Adonis is given back to Venus when the sun rises into the upper signs with increasing light and length of days But they say Adonis was killed by a boar because this beast represents winter.
. . . The mourning goddess is pictured at Lebanon with veiled head and an expression of grief; her left hand holds her cloak to her face so that she appears to be weeping.”
Lucian, de Dea syra, 9 • “ A stream rising in Mount Lebanon flows into the sea, and is called Adonis. Every year the Avaters
3   For Attar and Dusares, see p. S7, n. 1.
2   In Hellenic mythology the musical instruments were personified. Ababas takes his name from the flute used at funerals, abfibu ; Kinyras, father of Adonis, from the kinm'tr. The journey to hell of Eneas, like the fable of Orpheus and Eurydice, contains the oriental motif of the journey into the Underworld.
3   Macrobius, Saturnal., i. 21, knew the identity of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, and Homs as representative of the cycle.
4   The Arabians recognise the Tammuz motif in the traditions of Abraham. The river which at certain seasons turns to a red colour, and at the source of which in Lebanon is the sanctuary of the Mother-goddess mourning for Adonis, is called the Nahr Ibrahim.
5   Compare above, journey to hell of Ishtar, pp. 38, 121.
6   Note that Macrobius knew the earth to be a globe.
THE PANTHEON—TAMMUZ
129
turn blood-red at a certain season, and the sea far around is dyed red and gives the symbol of mourning to the people. They relate that at this season Adonis lies wounded upon Lebanon, and his blood flowing into the stream changes the colour of the water, hence its name.” Ib. 6: “ I saw in Byblos a great sanctuary of Aphrodite, in which mysteries in honour of Adonis were celebrated,
 
FIG. 48.—Death of Tammuz-Adonis (not an antique, see text).
 
FIG. 49.—Lamentation for Tammuz-Adonis (not an antique, see text).
with which I made myself acquainted. They relate that the misfortune with the boar happened in this neighbourhood, and they celebrate mysteries once every year in memory of Adonis, with general lamentation, smiting themselves upon the breast, and they bring offerings to the body and veil their heads. . , . Amongst the inhabitants of Byblos there are some who say that the Egyptian Osiris is buried in their land, and that the mysteries VOL. I.   9
130   BABYLONIAN RELIGION
and the lamentations are not for Adonis, but all in honour of Osiris.” 1
Figs. 48 and 40 represent the death of Adonis-Tammuz and the grief of Ishtar-Aphrodite. Vellay has brought forward these pictures as evidence of the ancient cult. They are taken from Montfaiujon’s Antiquite illusiree, and Vellay has reproduced them in all good faith as antique pictures.2 Montfaucon, who took them from Berger’s Thesaurus Brandenburgicus (1696), i. p. 202, states of fig. 48 that the original is in the collection of Brandenburg. The administration of the Royal Museums, in reply to my inquiry, state that there is nothing known of the whereabouts of the two specimens. Undoubtedly they are neither of them antique ; nevertheless we give the pictures because the artist has presented the myth very finely, as has the artist of the late Greek sarcophagus, fig. 29, p. 9?- Fig. 50 is of an Etruscan mirror; the second figure on the left represents, according to the marginal note, “ Atnnis ” ; alongside of him, Aphrodite.
The Phrygian and Lydian Attis is the variation of the Tammuz myth in Asia Minor. His complement here is “ the great Mother11 (Ivybele, fxeyaXq /uqnjp). Zeus, who takes the place of Mars-Ninib under Hellenistic influence (see fig. 13, p. 28), sends a boar, according to the Lydian myth, to kill Attis because he initiated the Lydians into the orgies of the great Mother.3 “ Therefore the Galatians of Lower Pessinus touch no pork.” The great Mother mourns for him and buries him, and there is a grave of Attis shown in Pessinus (comp, the graves of the gods, p. 96). The “ Orgies ” show that in Phrygia the reawakening of nature and the corresponding resurrection of Attis was celebrated as in the worship of Ishtar- Tannnuz. In Phrygia the fading away of physical life is intentionally emphasised. This is the signification of castration, which was here connected with the Attis celebrations; and the amputation of one breast amongst the Amazons, who were companions of the great Mother, is probably a counterpart.4
The cult migrated to Greece, as is shown by inscriptions
1   Comp. Landau, Beitrage, iv. 18 ff.
2   Vellay’s book must be used with great caution, but it offers a good collection of classical material.
3   So we are told by Pausanias, vii. 17,9.
4   Herodotus, iv. 76, mentions customs of Attis-worship, and Plutarch, de Is. et Osir., 69 ; also the astronomer Julius Firmicus Maternus, de errore profan. relig. (comp. B.N.T., 19).
THE PANTHEON—TAMMUZ
131
from the beginning of the second century B.C. (see Hepding,
l.c., 134:), and was introduced at the Palatine, Rome, in the year 201: B.C. by direction of the Sybilline Books (!); after the time of Claudius the festival was publicly celebrated in the second half of the month of March. In the time of mourning cnstus
 
FIG. 50.—Etruscan mirror. Aphrodite and Adonis, after Vellay, p. 68.
(abstinence) was required, and on the third day they shaved and cut themselves with knives. Then came the Parousia (Epiphany) of the god. On the 25th March the high priest, “full of the divinity,” announced Attis has returned, rejoice in his Parousia. Firmicus gives fuller detail of the ceremonies.1
1   Hepding is doubtful whether it refers to Attis or Osiris. They are consub- stantial. The relation of Daniascius in the Vita Isidori shows that the resurrection was celebrated, where it is said of the Hilary festival of the Mother of the Gods : 'iirep tSyAov ri]v t£"Ai8ov yzyovviav r)n<av <rwTt)pia.v.
132
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
The priest murmurs in a low voice:
dappeire pvarrai TOV 6eov (Ttcroxrpevov €<7T(U yap yp.LV iK TTOl'ODV (TOJTTjpLa.
Comfort ye, ye Initiates, in the deliverance of the God, for it shall be for you a deliverance from your distress.1
Since we have already repeatedly expressed the opinion that the Ancient-Oriental doctrine is the foundation of the Germanic myths also, and since we purpose in Chap. III. to deal with northern, that is, Germanic cosmogony, it may be allowed us to refer here to the myth of Bahlur. Fr. KaufFmann, Bahlur in My thus and Sage, Strasburg, 1902, presents the Baldur myth as a reflection of a celestial occurrence: life and death in the course of the year and in the cycle of the ages. “ The ancients speak of a universe or great year (mahayngam ; annus mcuvi- 7)ius; annus mujidanus), by the end of which the stars will have returned into the constellations where they were in the beginning of the ages. The great year begins with a deluge and ends with a conflagration of the universe.”2 This cosmic speculation passed early into Scandinavia also in the form of a prophecy in which the Baldur myth was made the central point. KaufFmann connects religious speculation with it: “ Baldur is the sacrifice which was to prevent the destruction of the present system, but the sacrifice of Baldur is in vain, and all life will be destroyed in one great sacrifice for sin at the twilight of the gods. Then comes the Golden Age, sacrificial death creates new life, and Baldur will return again.” Eminent Germanists have proved these conclusions to be wrong.3 Nevertheless, I believe that KaufFmann towards the end of his book is right in referring back the Baldur myth to the Ancient-Oriental doctrine.4 KaufFmann must also allow that Rudbeck, 1689, was not altogether wrong in connecting the Baldur myth with the result, ad soils circuit am
1   The same figure of speech is used in regard to the Redeemer in Gen. v. 29.
2   Compare the evidence of Berossus, pp. 70 f.
3   Heusler in D. Lit. Ztg., 1903, No. 8. Mogk in Literatnrblatt fur german, tt. roman. Philologie, 1905, No. 6.
4   Kaufifmann holds, “ It is not unlikely that the whole idea of a great company assembled round Odin in heaven sinking away in the great conflagration, as the stars fall from heaven, was brought to the Germans in a prehistoric age (!) from the East (!) and adopted by them.”
THE PANTHEON—TAMMUZ
133
annuwn luce omnia referenda esse, and that the “long forgotten ” Finn Magnusen. together with his followers E. G. Geijer and N. M. Petersen, were in the right direction giving a cosmic perspective to Rudbeck’s view and seeing in Baldur a prototvpe of the great universe year fulfilling its end in a universal conflagration. German mythology must be founded in certain points upon the wrongfully neglected researches of Jacob Grimm.
The Volve tell of ancient things in the Voluspa saga: Six Valkyries ride from heaven to earth. In the branches of a mighty tree grows the mistletoe, which becomes an arrow in the hand of Loki. F.-iog laments over her slain son. But Baldur will some day return to Walhalla. Then “ the land will bear fruit unsown ;1 all evil will cease.”
The fragments of Ulfr’s poem Husdrapa (about 975) relate to mythological pictures painted upon the walls of a new house built for a great man in Iceland, and which represent the combat of Heimdallr with Loki, the funeral celebrations of Baldur, etc. Ulfr was an adherent of the old faith. On the fragments relating to Baldur his funeral pile is prepared upon a ship. Odin himself appears accompanied by Valkyries and ravens. Freyr rides near upon a boar with golden bristles (!), Heimdallr upon a horse. The scenes may be completed out of the Edda of Snorres: Nanna, daughter of Nefr,'2 dies of grief and is laid upon the funeral pile. The giantess Hyrokin pushes the ship from the land, then Thor consecrates the funeral pile with his hammer. The gods, however, send a messenger to rescue Baldur out of the house of Hel.3
In a half strophe of the Rafns saga, dating about 1220, it is said : “Everything wept — then have I, wonderful as it may seem, undertaken to rescue Baldur from the Underworld ” ; and in a collection of sayings of the twelfth century we find:   . . . the
Underworld had swallowed up Baldur; all wept for him, mourning was made ready for him ; his story is so well known, why should I say much about it ? ”
Snorres’ Edda tells how Baldur, the good son of Odin, was slain on the wrestling ground, through Loki’s treachery, by the blind Hodur 4 with a branch from the mistletoe, which alone of all things in nature had sworn no oath to Frigg. All the gods wept bitterly.5
1   Comp. Zimmern, IC.A.T., 3rd ed., 330 ff., and B.N. 71, 31 ff., with this motif of the Golden Age.
- In Snorres’ Edda, Forseti is called the son of Baldur and Nanna.
3   For selections from Snorres’ account, see Kauffmann, pp. 30 ff.
4   In the Icelandic version, by Loki, is Hodur put in by Snorres?
5   Kauffmann was struck, and with reason, by the non-Germanic characteristic of the sacredness of tears in the northern myth. It is the lamentation for Tammuz.
134
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
Frigg asks who amongst them will ride into the Underworld to rescue Baldur. Hermodr, a brother of Baldur, rides nine nights through dark valleys to the Golden Bridge, guarded by a maiden. Northwards the way leads to the Underworld, the gate of which Hermodr’s horse leaps over. Baldur shall be released if with the Asa everything, living and dead, weeps for him. Hermodr returns home. Baldur gives him the ring Draupnir to carry to Odin, Nanna gives her kerchief for Frigg. The Asa send messengers to everything in existence calling upon them to weep for Baldur.1 “ Man and beast, earth and rock, all wood and metals wept for Baldur, as thou mayest have seen how all these things weep in frost and in heat” (!). Only one giantess refused: “He! keeps what she has.”
MARDUK OF BABYLON
The figure of Marduk of Babylon, fig. 33, as we find it expressed from the Hammurabi age onwards, is a creation of the priesthood, to give a religious sanction to Babylon’s claims to universal rulership. The complete system is personified in this figure. He seems originally to have been identical with Marduk of Eridu, but in historical times the two are represented by different ideograms and must not be confounded. Marduk of Eridu seems to have always borne solar characteristics, whilst Marduk of Babylon seems especially connected with Jupiter,2 as partner of Nabu (Borsippa), with Nergal (Ivutha), and with Ninib (see p. 102). A hymn says: “In the shining heavens (burummi ellfiti) is his glorious path.” We think it may be proved that the following characteristics were transferred to the Babylonian Marduk :—
1.   The functions of King of the gods. The epic Enuma elish gives him the most distinguished place amongst the gods. Fifty names were conferred upon him—that is, he embodies the complete cycle of nature throughout the year and the teon.
2.   From Inlil, Lord of the Zodiac, he takes the role of mushim shumdti, “ Decider of Fate,” and of bel matdti, “ Lord of Lands ”; these are titles given to Inlil, for example, in the con-
1   All life is dead, hence the mourning ; compare the journey to hell of Ishtar. The motif is not “ the redeeming power of the mother’s tears,” as Kauffmann puts k, pp. 53. 63.
2   For Marduk-Jupiter see Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 134 f.
THE PANTHEON—MARDUK OF BABYLON 1S5
eluding paragraphs of the Hammurabi stele. In the epic of Creation in particular the place of Bel is given to him.1 Therefore he is also given the name Bel, which was originally only an epithet of Inlil, but then became a surname. IV. R. 40, No. 1 says of Marduk :
Bel, thy dwelling-place is Babylon,
Thy throne is Borsippa,
The wide Heaven is thy heart,
With thine eyes, Bel, beholdest thou all.
3.   He succeeds Ea in the role of Abkal ilcini (for example, Shurpu, IV. 77, VIII. 71), Wisest amongst the Gods. This is shown by the descriptive words in the code of Hammurabi. The cult of Marduk was then only in process of being established, and we find epithets applied to Ea which later distinguished Marduk of Babylon.
4.   The qualities of Marduk of Eridu, son of Ea (p. 106), are transferred to him, and the name of the temple Esagila is transferred from Eridu to Babylon. The decrees of destiny likewise originally lay in the control of the son of Ea. An invocation hymn to Marduk says :2
A god without whom the Fate of man is not decreed in the deeps of Ocean.
The exalted position of Demiurgos for Marduk of Babylon, as described in the epic Enuma elish, also has its foundation in Eridu, not, as commonly, but without grounds, accepted, being transferred to him from Inlil of Nippur. In the story of creation (see pp. 142 ff.) Marduk of Eridu is creator of the world and of mankind. Many of the hymns which glorify Marduk as son of Ea seem to have been transferred bodily to the tutelary god of Babylon, especially those referring to the merciful open-eared (p. 106) god who went about doing good, the saviour of mankind.
5.   Nebo (Nabu) of Borsippa also had to abdicate his ancient fame to Marduk of Babylon. In ages before the first dynasty Nebo played the part later given to Marduk. The Tables of Destiny, which after the combat with Tiamat were given to
1   So also in Isa. xlvi. I, and in the apocryphal book of Bel in Babylon.
2   See Hehn, No. 3, A.B., v.
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BABYLONIAN RELIGION
Marduk, were earlier apportioned to Nebo, as they were to Anu and Bel. After the time of Hammurabi, Nebo however takes the lower rank of “ Writer of Destinies” in the Du-azag, the Dwelling of Fate. The foundation of this change lies perhaps in the calendar reform ; by the retrogression of the precession of the equinoxes (see p. 73) the sun has moved into Taurus, which belongs to Marduk-Jupiter,1 and Marduk takes the place of “prophet” and deliverer originally belonging to Nebo.2
Thus Marduk of Babylon became finally “ God of the Universe,” “ King of the Gods,” “King of Heaven and Earth,” “ Lord of Lords,” “ King of Kings.” In one of the hymns glorifying this Marduk the poet-priest rises to the thought:3
I will tell of thy greatness to the people
^   ^   from afar.
FIG. 51. — Quetzalcuatl.
After Seler, Cod. Vatic. The seven-storied temple of Marduk
0 J’   in Babylon was called E-temen-an-ki,
“ House of the Foundations of Heaven and Earth.” It is repeatedly said of it, “ Its summit shall reach to the heavens,” and it is the prototype of the Biblical “Tower of Babel”; see chapter on Tower.
On New Year’s festival, see p. 94 seq.
An improved naturalistic doctrine of deliverance connected itself with the figure of Marduk. He is “ the merciful one, who loves to awaken from death, the open-eared,” who hears the prayers of men. This doctrine of deliverance has developed in Babylonia right on into the Christian era, and still lives in
1   Marduk corresponds to Quetzalcuatl, God of the East, in the Mexican Tonalamatl; see fig. 51.
2   Comp. pp. 90, 137 f. In the article “ Nebo” in Roscher I have referred to the original precedence of Nebo, without having recognised the connections, as they have now been clearly stated by Winckler, for example, in B.F., iii. 277 ff. See also Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., p. 402, and comp. 399; he, however, erroneously takes Marduk and Nabu to be “possibly identical originally.”
3   King, Bab. Magic, 18.
 
THE PANTHEON—NEBO
137
the religion of the Mandaeans who exist to the present day in the swampy districts of the Euphrates and Tigris and on the frontiers of Persia, whose Redeemer-god, Man-da-de hajje or Hibil Ziwa, is identical with Marduk, Conqueror of the Monsters of Darkness.
To conclude, we give an extract from another hymn to Marduk of Babylon which surely belongs originally to Eridu and contains interesting religious thoughts :1
Marduk, thy name brings prosperity to man !
Marduk, great Lord, by thy supreme command,
May I be whole and well and so praise thy Godhead; As I desire, so may 1 attain it!
Put truth into my mouth !
Let good thoughts reign in my heart !
Satellite and guardian,2 inspire good ! my God, walk at my right hand, and at my left hand ; my shield, stand by my side !
MEBO
In the astral system Nebo represents the west, or winter half of the year, in the age of Taurus.3 His star is Mercury, which rules the west point of the zodiac according to the doctrine of Babylon, in opposition to Marduk-Jupiter.4 As we have already remarked, he played the part in earlier ages which, after the supremacy of Babylon, was taken by Marduk. Nebo-Mercury is the morning star which announces the new age; see p. 74. In poems of the wars with the Elamites preceding the age of Hammurabi, Nebo is called “ Guardian of
1   Hehn, Hymnen an Marduk, No. 13, A.B., v. ; see Zimmern, A.O., vii.
3, 16.
2   Probably two children of the gods, like Kettu and Mesharu, Right and Justice, who stand by the side of Shamash.
3   Therefore it is said of him, for instance, upon the sacred statue in Kelach, “The devastating, sublime child of Esazil (Temple corresponding to the Overworld, or summer half of the cycle), dweller in Ezida (Temple corresponding to the Underworld, or winter half of the cycle ; also called ‘ House of Night ’)?”
4   Comp. p. 29.
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BABYLONIAN RELIGION
the World.1’1 In times when the Assyrians had reason to emphasise a political opposition to the Marduk hierarchy of
raised Nebo into prominence. So Adadnirari III. says:   “ Trust in
Nebo, trust not in another god ”; see fig. 52. Assurbanipal also very willingly favoured him unduly.2 And in modern Babylonia (Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nabonidus), when they loved archaisms and wished to mark a new age, they always said “ Nabu and Marduk,” instead of the earlier “ Marduk and Nabu.”
The records also show that originally Nebo bore the Tables of Destiny, but in the age of Marduk he becomes only the Scribe of Destinies3 — the art of writing, transmitted to mankind, is ascribed to him (“ the wisdom of Nebo”), so making him nearly related to Ea-Oannes. As god of the winter half Nebo is also God of the Underworld and Guide of the Dead—the Babylonian Hermes. Bor- sippa, sister city to Babylon, is the
FIG. 52.—The so-called Nebo p}ace Gf worship of Nebo (see Isa. statue of Adadnirari III.   r   r   v
xlvi. 1). His temple was called
Ezida, also “House of Night” (see pp. 29, 137, n. 3), and the
temple tower E-ur-imin-an-ki, that is, “Temple of the seven
Mediators of Heaven and Earth,” the ruins of which are called
Birs by the natives, and Birs Nimrud by “Franks.”
Upon Nebo in cults other than Babylonian, see article on Nebo in R.P.Tk., 3rd ed.
1   Nabtipa-kid kish-skat is written in the text, Sp. 158 + Sp. ii. 962, Rev. Z. 25, translated by Pinches (Transact. of the Victoria lust., 1897, p. 89) ; comp. Hommel, Altisr. Uberl., 183. The time of the wars is very uncertain.
2   See the “ Liturgie auf Nebo ” in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie, iii., Sp. 16 ff., before mentioned.
3   P. 136. Pesikta, r. 96a, calls him “ Scribe of the Sun ” (E. Bischoff).
Babylon they willingly
 
THE PANTHEON—NEBO-NERGAL
139
In the Old Testament we meet with Nebo, besides in Isa. xlvi. 1, as the divine scribe, Ezek. ix. 2 f., in the name of the mountain Nebo in Dent, xxxii. 49 f., xxxiv. 1 and 5, and in the sacred city Nob. Probably a city of Nebo is also referred to in Numb, xxxii. 3, 38; Isa. xv. 2 ; Jer. xlviii. 1, 22 is Moabitish ; another (ins ’'ll!)), Ezr. ii. 29, x. 43; Neh. vii. 33.
NERGAL
According to the Babylonian theory of the manifestation of the divine power in cosmos and cycle, Nergal represents the Underworld, or lowest part of the cycle. In so far as he bears solar character he manifests himself in the winter sun, and in so far as he bears lunar character, in the waning moon. In so far as sun and moon in opposition represent Overworld and Underworld, he is identical with the sun (winter sun in the Underworld, winter solstice). His name signifies Ne-uru-gal, “ Lord of the great Dwelling-place,’' that is, of the realm of Death. He is also Lord of Plague and Pestilence. In the Amarna Letters, for example, the plague is called “ the hand of Nergal.” His place of worship was Kutha, which was perhaps the Babylonian city of the dead. The locality of the city is unknown ;1 it is always spoken of together with Babylon and Borsippa. The Underworld is directly spoken of as Kutha, and the Erish- kigal legends relate how Nergal is King of the Underworld.2 In the texts from the age of the Arsacidse, which have been repeatedly mentioned (pp. 29 f.), it is said:
On 18th Tammuz Nergal descends into the Underworld, on 28th Kislew he ascends again. Shamash and Nergal are one.
In an exorcism it is said :3
Thou shinest in the heavens, thy place is high;
Great art thou in the realm of Death, there is none that is like unto thee.
When Nergal becomes god of the summer sun it is because
1   It is usually taken to be Tel Ibrahim ; see Hommel, G.G.G., pp. 340 f.
2   Comp. “ Holle u. Paradies,” A.O., i. 3, 2nd ed.
3   Bdllenrucher, Gebete an Nergal, No. 1.
140
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
of his change with Ninib, who, when in opposition at the summer solstice, is at the place in the universe belonging to Nergal.1 V. R. 48 says that in the Western lands Nergal is called “ Sarrapu,” burner, scorcher. This certainly relates chiefly to the sun, secondarily to fever. IV. R. 24, 54a he is clearly named Gibil, the “ Fire-god with Glowing Mouth.” Also his “ visage of fear ” is often spoken of. As god of the glowing sun Nergal appears represented by the lion, as Marduk is by the bull. In the description of the gods 2 Nergal may be meant by the following :
Horns of a bull, a hairy mane falls down his back (?); the face of a man and letu of a ... . wings .... his forefeet and body of a lion, which [rests] upon four feet.
This agrees with the colossal lions, placed upon door intrados, and which are called mr-(?)gallu in the time of Sargon and Sennacherib. Also one sees from the so-called Dibarra legends, in which the God of Pestilence, i.e. Nergal, changes himself into a lion, that the lion is Nergal’s beast. Amongst the four planets which are connected in the Babylonian system with the four corners of the world, Nergal is equivalent to Saturn, or, in the exchange of oppositions, to Mars.3
NINIB
According to Babylonian teaching, Ninib is the counterpart of Nergal. In so far as he bears solar character, he manifests divinity in the summer half of the cycle, especially in the summer solstice; in so far as he bears lunar character, in the growing moon. In so far as sun and moon in opposition represent Underworld and Overworld, he is identical with the moon (full moon at summer solstice). In the zodiac the fire-realm is his, through which all must pass (fire of purgatory !) in ascending
1   Also because Nergal, like Ninib, is God of War and of the Chase.
2   C. T., ix. I2i.
3   Later Saturn changes with Mars, see p. 26 ; the Mandaean lists of planets indicate Mars with and ‘vm; see article upon Nergal in R.P.Th., 3rd ed., where also are mentioned instances of Nergal spoken of outside Babylonia.
THE PANTHEON—NINIB
141
to the heaven of Anil.1 The phenomenon of meteoric showers2 probably aided their imagination in this. When the sun comes into Ninib’s realm (now August, formerly summer solstice) is the time of meteors. K. 128 says; “lighted fire, which burns the [. . . .].”
As qurad Han't, “ Hero-god ” and Celestial Huntsman (moon motif), Ninib is God of War and of Hunting. But just as Nergal changes place with Ninib, so does Ninib with Nergal. When it is said, “Thou speakest from the Arallu,” it may mean either the summit of the mountain of the world or the Underworld.3
In the story of the Flood there appear with Ann and Bel “their herald Ninib, and their guide Ennugi,” therefore the two planetary gods of misfortune : here Ennugi, contrary to Jensen’s opinion, may well be Nergal, notwithstanding Shurpu, iv. 82.

94
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
winter ;1 the Orion motif in the Expulsion of the Tyrants shows the same idea in connection with the rising and setting of Orion (comp, p. 42, n. 1, ii.). But the Pleiades in particular represented the power of winter. The "forty days” which precede the rising of the Pleiades in Taurus is the time of equinoctial gales (see pp. 68, 110). The priestesses of the temple of Nebo solemnly passing over to the temple of Marduk at the beginning of summer, and the reverse at the beginning of winter, expressed pantomimically in the festival the change of the two halves of the year (comp. p. 29).
In so far as concerns the death and resurrection of the god of the year, New Year’s festival is the feast of the Resurrection. It is therefore also called the feast of the Resurrection {tabu) of Marduk. It then forms the contrast to the death feast of the dying god of the year. Perhaps the designation of Marduk, u He who overthrows the Lofty House of the Shadow of Death,11 is in agreement with this.2
The conqueror of the power of winter received as reward the guidance of the world’s destiny, and therefore the spring- festival of New Year was also the festival of Destiny,3 and Marduk was mushim shimate. At the feast of the New Year the gods passed through Babylon and assembled in the Hall of Destiny (Duazag in the Ubshugina), and Nebo, originally Lord of Destiny, became in the Babylonian age the scribe, and there they fixed the decrees of fate. The corresponding representative action of the king, who appeared in the temple of Marduk on New Year’s day “to grasp the hands of Marduk,” is attested by the Assyrian puru ahrur, “ I cast the lot ” (?), where in the act of redemption the limn is certainly meant.4 A chief feature
1   Comp. p. 42, n. I, ii., and p. 65. In Egypt there is evidence on the Pyramids of Pepi II. : "When the gods were born on the fifth Epagomene” ; comp. p. 31, n. 3. The Sakaen festival (Berossus in Athenseus, Fragm. hist. gr., ii. 495) is the Tammuz festival of the solstice, not the spring New Year’s festival. It lasted five days, therefore was Epagomene festival. The (wyavys (Zoganes) is Lord of Misrule.
2   Sallutum K. 3351 (B.A., V. 330).
3   There is a trace of this retained in the fateful dreams of Twelfth-night. 12 is Epagomenen, like 5, when it is a question of equalisation of 354 and 366. The feast of the New Year is characterised by drinking, and the origin is the drinking bout of the gods after the victory over Tiamat, as it is described in the epic Enuma elish. Whether it is a question here of "intoxication” (eg(l) is not certain.
4   Origin of the Purim feast; see Peiser, K.B. iv. 106, and comp. Winckler, F.y ii. 334 f., and Zimmern, K.A. T.y 3rd ed., 514 ff.
THE CALENDAR FESTIVALS
95
of the feast is the procession of Marduk. Along the processional street, decorated on both sides by figures of animals in brick reliefs (see figs. 28 and 58), the sacred ship was carried
 
FlO. 23.—Bull {rSmu) in brick relief. From the intrados of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon.
(upon wheels) in solemn procession. The following hymn relates to this:1
Arise, set forth, O Bel, the king awaits thee ; arise, set forth, our Belit, the king awaits thee.
Bel of Babylon sets forth, the peoples bow before him ; Tsarpanit sets forth, sweet herbs are kindled ;
Tashmet sets forth, incense basins full of cypress are kindled. Side by side with Ishtar of Babel (Tsarpanit),
Upon flutes play the priests, the assinu and the kvgaru.
Yea, they play.
And the following song relates to the returning procession : -
O Lord, at thine entrance to the house, thy house [rejoices] [over thee]; honoured Lord Marduk, . . .
Rest, Lord, rest, Lord, thy house [rejoices over theel;
Rest, Lord of Babylon, thy house [rejoices over thee].
Finally the festival of Marduk was considered as a ice tiding
1   According to Zimmern, A.O., vii. 3, 9, K 9S76 (Bezold, Cat., iii. 1046).
2   lb., p. 10; Weissbach, Miszellen, No. 13.
96
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
feast.1 It is said in one place of this festival: this rota liaxlashshhtu, “ He hasted to the bridal.” 2 As far back as the time of Gudea New Year’s feast was the weddino1 feast of
O
the god Ningirsu with Bau.3 Nothing is known of the wedding of Marduk with Tsarpanitu.4
The celebration of the death of the god of the year, the funeral feast of dying nature, corresponds to the feast of the Resurrection of Marduk. Up to the present it is not proved that such a funeral feast preceded that of new year in Babylon, unless one takes the record of Herodotus of the “ Grave of Bel,” which bears the same resemblance to it as the “Grave of Osiris,”5 and the green-bedecked grave of Malkat-Ishtar in Sippar.0 One knows from the above clearly proved doctrine that the corresponding funeral feast was celebrated in autumn (according to solar reckoning), but also three days before the Resurrection feast according to lunar reckoning (comp, pp. 35 ff.).
The festivals of death and resurrection in autumn and spring correspond to the quarters of the year.7 When divided into two they celebrated the
Feast of the Solstices
The winter solstice is then the birthday of the god of the year {dies solis invicta in the Roman calendar), and the summer solstice the festival of the death of Tammuz, which is brought about by a boar, the beast of Ninib-Mars, to whom the sun
1   Upon the astral mythological connection of the wedding motif with the new age, comp. pp. 35 ff., 87, and see also B.N. T., 45.
- Reisner, Hymnen No. VIII. ; see Zimmern, K.A.T., 3rd ed., 371.
3   Gudea C., ii. 1-7 ; see Zimmern, as above.
4   Wife of Marduk, identical with Ishtar, see Dt. 109, A.B., v. 375 f. ; comp. P. 95-
5   Herod., i. 183 ; Herod., ii. 170 f.; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 359 ; see B.N. T., ix. 19, and the works quoted there. Upon the grave of Set see Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. 617. According to the Nabataean writings of El Asojuthi the Copts held the two great Pyramids to be the graves of kings ; the Mandreans held them to be the graves of Set and of Hermes, and sacrificed there.
6   Code of Hammurabi, ii. 26 seq. The myth of Venus sunk into the depths has, however, nothing to do with the New Year, see p. 121.
7   Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, chap. Ixix : the Phrygians celebrated a festival in autumn, when Attis falls asleep, and another in spring, when he awakes.
THE CALENDAR FESTIVALS
97
 
FIG. 29.—Greek sarcophagus representing the farewell and death and the lamentation for Adonis. After Roscher, Lex. d. Myth , s.v. Adonis.
point of the solar orbit then belongs. The Boar motif is old,1 the Vlth tablet of the Gilgamesh epic already recording the tears of Ishtar (mother-goddess, and at the same time de- stro}ri n g w i fe) sh ed every year for Tammuz, and the motif must have been taken from a still older age.
Evidence is given of the funeral feast itself in Babylon by some hymns on the journey to hell of Ishtar which will be mentioned later, and which certainly were recited at the festival:
 
FIG.
30. — Little garden of Adonis, with phallus. Fresco in Pompeii. After Annates da Musee Guimet, xvi. (Vellay).
Shepherd, Lord, Tammuz, husband of Ishtar,
Lord of the kingdom of death, Lord of the water realm,
1 Stucken, A si rat my then, iS seq. The month of Tammuz belongs to Ninib (IV. R. 33, No. 2, 6), and the ibex (kumsiru) is sacred to him. According to a Syrian tradition Tammuz is a hunter and poacher-, see Stricken, Astralmythen, p. 89. Variations on this are the lion (zodiacal sign of the summer solstice in the age of Taurus, as in Hygin ; see Winckler, Krit. Sehriften, iii. 108, and Landau, Beitr., iv. 24 j^.)and the bear (corresponding to the constellation of the Bear at the north point of the heavens, looked upon by the Arabs as the bier, that is, as the death-place of the dying god of the year) ; comp. Slucken, as above, 34 seq., and see fig. 31.
VOL. I.
7
98
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
A Tamarind which drank no water in the furrow,
Whose branch brought forth no blossom in the wilderness,
A little tree, not planted in its water channel,
A little tree, torn up by the roots.1
Another song2 is clearly a dirge of the day when Taminuz fell, in great tribulation (summer solstice), in the month which cut short the year of his life: “ Shamash [here = Ninib], let him sink into the Underworld, since it is all over with mankind11; or, as the writer of the tablet adds resignedly, “ The children of men are brought to rest.” The end of the journey to hell of Ishtar gives evidence of such a funeral and resurrection festival. We are more accurately informed about the festival celebrations in the worship of Ba’alat of By bios, and later by the pseudo-Lucian, de Dea Syra, and in Asia Minor and Rome by the records of the Cybele-Attis festival, but above all in the letters of the astronomer Firmicus Maternus to the sons of Constantine upon the errors of heathen religions.3 The rock- reliefs of el-Ghine in Lebanon, in the district of the river of Adonis (nahr Ibrahim), which represent the Tam muz myth (fig. 31), will be spoken of later. The festival seems to have been a favourite one with the Jen's, particularly in the times when they feared “ Yahveh hath forsaken the land ” (Ezek. ix. 9), and thev looked elsewhere for comfort. In Ezek. viii. 14 the
J
women weep for Taminuz at the gate of the city (the opposition is the festival of resurrection).
The festival of the Queen of Heaven, which according to Jer. xliv. 17 ff. was in all ages celebrated in Israel, is identical
1   IV. R. 27; comp. “Holle u. Paradies,” A.O., i. 32, 10, and see now also Zimmern, vii. 3, 10 scq. Compare the little gardens of Adonis, KT}TTOI ’Addan5os, whose flowers without roots, or sown in shallow earth and exposed to the sun, quickly fade. Fig. 30 represents such an Adonis garden from a Pompeian wall picture. In the Anthosphoria the return of Persephone was celebrated with flute-playing and by maidens with baskets of flowers.
2   See “Holle und Paradies,” A.O., i. 32. Some new songs to Tammuz have been found in Nippur ; see Radau in the Anniversary Volume by Hilprecht.
3   For further detail on the Babylonian, Phoenician, and Phrygian-Lydian forms of worship, see pp. 125 ff. In the valuable work by Hepding, Attis seine Mythcn u. scin Knit, the coherence with the System is not recognised, otherwise the author would not, for example, find it possible to separate the worship of the great Mother from that of Attis (p. 12 seq.); also the relationship to corresponding Greek cults is undervalued.
THE CALENDAR FESTIVALS
with this death and resurrection festival;1 it is the feast when (Jer. vii. 18 ; comp. xliv. ff“.) fire was kindled by the youths (solstice festival) and cakes baked for the Queen of Heaven ; comp, also 3 Macc. vi. 32. The lamentations of Jephthah are
 
FIG. 31.—Death of Tammuz by the bear (comp- p. 97, n- 0 and lamentation for Tammuz. Rock-relief at Lebanon, After Landau, Bcifr., iv. : comp. Renan, Expedition en Phdnieic, fig. 36.
treated in the manner of the same myth ; see upon the Book of Judges, p. 168, ii. When Josiah came to his tragic end they mourned for him, according to Zech. xii. 11 (comp. 2 Chr. xxxv. 25), with Adad-Rimmon, it'. Tammuz songs, which perhaps at
1   In the myth of physical life Tammuz is the dying and then germinating seed ; see B.N.T., 23 seq. t: Because the bones of Tammuz have been ground in the mill, at certain times the Mandceans might not eat anything ground (Chwolsohn, ii. 204). Baking of cakes in the festivities was the antithesis.
100
BABYLONIAN RELIGION
the same time promised the hope of his return.1 The chronicler of the history of Joseph lets a strain of the Tam muz motif appear in the story of the popular hero sinking into misfortune and rising again to be benefactor of his people; see chapter on Joseph’s history.
What appears in the stories of Joseph, etc., to be a poetic adaptation of mythological motifs, becomes a relapse into heathenism in the Jewish Tammuz cult so much blamed by Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The dividing line is a narrow one, and we may see in our own day how German hymns to Wotan may refer back to worship of the summer solstice. But with Israel another point comes into question. Perhaps nowhere more plainly than here can we see the close relationship of the Israelitish and also the Christian religion with the Ancient-Oriental mystical wisdom, and at the same time how far above it they stand, in that they confer new meaning upon these parables from nature. The passages in the Prophets of intensest expectation of the Redeemer, especially Isa. liii. of the reawakening of the Lamb sunk in death, are closely related to the motifs of the dying and returning to life of the god of the year, and the Apocalypse makes use of the same motifs for the glorification of the victorious Christ, as we have endeavoured to show in B N.T., 13 ff.
THE PANTHEON
The Babylonian Pantheon appears to a superficial view to be an inextricable tangle, of gods and demons, but the theory of the universe as described above offers a guiding thread through the labyrinth. Each divinity corresponds either to an astral phenomenon or to some circumstance or occurrence in nature which is connected with the course of the stars. The divine forces ruling in nature appear in it in human form ; for as, according to the Ancient-Oriental conception, man is made in the image of God, so their conception of the divinity must of necessity be anthropomorphic.2 There is no question in the Ancient-Oriental world, as known to history, of the lower conception which finds godhead itself in the animal world, or in
1   As in Egypt they said to the mummy: “ Thou art Osiris,” i.e. “ Thou shalt live again,” so here the equivalent is “Thou art Tammuz.” According to Pausanias, vi. 23, 1, the same ceremony was observed by women at the grave of Achilles in Elis.
2   In the myth of the bird Zii, the bird purposes stealing the Tables of Destiny, and he waits till the dawn of day, till Bel has bathed himself in pure water, and ascended his throne and placed the crown upon his head.
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plants and trees (totemism and fetishism). When the gods appear as animals in Egypt (as in Mexico) we see a correspondence to the Babylonian representations where the gods stand upon animals (see, for example, figs. 7 and 43). This may be taken as evidence of, though it does not prove, a prehistoric stage of worship absorbed by the “teaching.” We take the animals to be the image of the zodiacal figures in which the divine powers revealed themselves.1
In ancient Babylonia we find sacred cities, and the place of worship on earth has its corresponding place in heaven ; see pp. •57 f. and 62. Every religion is in truth a universal religion reflecting the cosmos or the cycle, but inasmuch as the part and the whole correspond, so groups of sacred cities reflect the whole celestial picture.'2 The king is shar kahuna, shar kishati, shar kibrat arba'im, therefore lord of the universe. Each individual district is a cosmos.
The oldest state we know was the South Babylonian Sumer (probably identical with Kingi). The towns comprised by this state 3 early lost their political status, like Ur in historical times, if indeed they ever possessed any (Eridu. Nippur). But their religious status was never forgotten. These chief places are :
Erech with the temple of Ann (E-Ana) and of Ishtar.
A'ippur :   Bel.
Eridu :   Ea.
Ur:   Sin.
Larsa :   Shamash.
La gash :   Ningirsu and Nina (Ishtar).
One sees that in these five chief towns of Sumer the two principal triads are successively represented.4
The next oldest political structure that we know is the North Babylonian Akkad. Before this came into being there must have
1   How it came about that the heavens were mapped out in pictures of animals is a prehistoric question. We can only establish the phenomena. Upon so- called totemism, compare Im Kcunpf urn den alten Orient, i. i.
- Whether in this case the already existing divinities of the System of the universe were divided amongst the chief places of the states in the sense described on p. 54, or whether, as is more likely, the chief places of worship with their divinities influenced the formation of the System, can naturally, in the dimness of ancient history, not be finally decided.
3   We can speak positively of a state of Sumer as early as the time of Lugalzaggisi.
4   Lagash with Ninib-worship played a part for a very brief period in the Gudea age.
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been great political upheavals of which we know nothing. This is shown by the vanished cities spoken of, for example, in the temple lists of Telloh, and by the mysterious disappearance of Borsippa, sister city of Babylon, which with its Nebo-worship must have surpassed Babylon in former times. The ascendancy of Akkad possibly arose through the first Semitic migration. Unfortunately there have been few' excavations in this area as yet; the most important being those of Sippar. It seems that here too the places of worship mirror the astral System, and even the System of the planetary divinities.
?   :   Sin.
Sippar:   Shamash.
Akkad :   lslitar.
Babel:   Marduk-Jupiter.
Borsippa :   Nebo-Mercury.
Kutha:   Nergal-Saturn.
Kish (?) Harsagkalama : Ninib-Mars (Zamama).1
It is remarkable that Sin is missing.
Perhaps the Mesopotamian districts with lunar-worship (Harran) may have been included here. The worship of the Moon-god in Haran and in Ur repeatedly appears connected.
In North Babylonia there is as yet no certain evidence of any place of worship of Ninib, partner of Nergal (in South Babylonia lie predominates in Nippur). In the North Babylonian places of worship as yet known to us, we find of the principal divine triad, only Anu, god of Durilu, boundary fortress towards Elam (see p. 103 set).).
An entirely new period of Babylonian theology is introduced with the “exaltation of Marduk” under the Hammurabi dynasty. Babylon became metropolis of the united Babylonian kingdom and at the same time the intellectual centre of the whole of Western Asia, and the synchronous figure of Marduk of Babylon, placed in relationship to all the chief gods and cults and so glorified, gives the religious counterpart to this political fact.
We will now give briefly some characteristics of the chief figures of the Babylonian Pantheon, especially in their relationship to the astral system.
ANU
Anu is the father, or king, in the family of gods (aim shar Haiti), and in a special sense summits deus. In the legends of Zu, for instance, he speaks to the “ gods, his children.” The opening of the epic Enuma clish describes the assembly of the 1 There was a sanctuary of Ninib in Babylon also ; see H. C., ii. 56 ff.
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gods as a family gathering, where the father, who is here not Anu, bat Anshar, an older (before this universe) emanation of the godhead, somehow abdicates the government to his wisest son (Marduk).
Anil’s dignity was also recognised in the places where the god of the city was held to be king of the gods, and so Hammurabi says in the introduction to his collection of laws:
“ When Anu,1 the Sublime, king of the Anunnaki, and Inlil, Lord of Heaven and Earth, who determine the fate of nations, had given the lordship over mankind upon earth to Marduk, victorious son of Ea,” etc.
The seat of Anu (An = *‘heaven ”) is the north heaven. His throne is at the celestial North Pole, from whence he rises, as, for example, in the myth of Adapa.2
By the law of analogy the north point of the world also belonged to him, and therefore he appears in the System as Sin and Ninib.3 When on the Vlth table of the epic of Gilgamesh Ishtar ascends in anger to the heaven of Anu, and when the gods in fear of the flood climb “ up to the heaven of Anu” and crouch under the hamati (this is probably the wall of the topmost stage of steps leading up into the zodiac), we may take it to mean an ascent by the zodiac.4
The Canaanite designation of this chief divinity is iln {i.e. ^), for example, in Dur-ilu, the City of Anu, and from this come the Hebrew names for god, ruS^X, Dvtax. The word certainly does not mean the “aim” (“goal”), Kafavoc/ien, as Delitzsch, B.B.I., like de Lagarde. takes it; we agree much more with Zimmern that “il,” like “An,” are designations of the celestial North Pole ; see p. 50, n. 1, and Monotheistischen Stromungen, p. 19-5
1   The sign an should probably originally be read tin, i.e. “ Canaanite” el\ but this ilu-el corresponds to the Babylonian Anu ; see below, Hit mbit of Der = Anu.
2   The popular presentment in Israel is the same; comp. Isa. xl. 22 : God enthroned upon the Mg of the earth, the inhabitants whereof appear as grasshoppers.
3   For this mythological identification see pp. 30 and 10S, and for the Mountain of God in the North see Ps. xlviii. 3, where “north” undoubtedly belongs to “mountain,” and Job. xxxvii. 22.
4   In the twilight of the gods of northern mythology the gods ascei d by the seven steps of the rainbow, corresponding to the zodiac ; see Gen. ix. 13. Jacob sees in his dream the steps which lead to the palace of God ; see Gen. xxviii.
5   It is not certain whether the name of the god of the Sepharvites (Anammelech, Aojl', 2 Kings xvii 31), contains the name of the god Anu ; see the passages cited above.
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In South Babylonia we know of Erecli, 44 dwelling-place of Anu and Ishtar,11 mentioned in the so called legends of Dibarra (temple of E-ana) and in North Babylonia of Durilu = Der,1 as places of worship of Anu.
INLIL
In-lit,2 who is also called by his epithet Bel, that is, 44 Lord 11 in the superlative sense, is 44 Lord of Lands,1'1 i.e. of the earth, of the Celestial Earth, that is, of the zodiac, as well as of the Terrestrial Earth.3 In the latter as in the former sense he is called shad it mbit, for the celestial as well as the terrestrial kingdom is thought of as a mountain (harsag-kurktira), or bel matdti, 44 Lord of Lands11 (namely, of the celestial as of the terrestrial inhabited lands in contradistinction to air and sea).4
His special place of worship was Nippur in South Babylonia, in the temple of E-kur.5 This E-kur corresponds to the cosmic seat of the divinity, which this Babylonian Olympus represents.
EA
Ea, or reversed, A-e (’Ao? in Damascius), 44 Sumerian ” En-ki. The name E-a expresses his relation to water, and En-ki perhaps his (indirect) relation to the Underworld ; see p. 14. As complement to Anu and Inlil he is Lord of Apsu, the
1   Nebuchadnezzar I. calls Der “the City of Anu ” (A ~.B.. iii. I. 165), and in the Lists of Eponyms for 834, S15, and 7S6 (A'. T., 2nd ed., 76), it is said : Hit rabit, the great god, journeyed forth from Der.
2   We do not know what the name means. If Hommel’s explanation, “Lord of the Air,” is correct, still Bel is not by any means Lord of the Air in opposition to En-ki as “Lord of the Earth”; see p. 104. Zimmern’s deductions (K.A.T., 3rd ed., p. 355) combine in a not very happy way the theories set up by Hommel, Jensen, and Winckler. Especially it is not correct that a great deal of the Bel- worship in Nippur was transferred to Marduk. That In-lil was so pronounced and therefore was not only an ideogram, is shown by the translation “'IAMvos in Damascius; in old epic texts from the Hammurabi age (C.T., xv. 1-6) he is called Lillu and Lellu ; comp. IV. R. 27, 56 f.
3   Comp. Siniflnt, 36 fif. : “Since Bel hates me, I will tarry no longer upon Bel’s earth (kakkar)into the ocean will I descend, to dwell with Ea, my Lord,”
4   As “Lord of Lands,” that is, of the zodiac, he also possesses occasionally the Tables of Fate ; see p. 50.
5   Comp. Hilprecht, Die Ausgrabtmgcn im Bel- Tcmpel von Nippur.
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Celestial Ocean, as well as of the terrestrial ocean which surrounds and flows underneath the earth. Apsu itself is therefore indicated as ZU-AB, “ House of Wisdom,” for out of it the wisdom of Ea rises.1 As the creator god from whose kingdom the present aeon of the world arose (see p. , he also was “ Father of the Gods.”2 His special place of worship is Eridu,3 4 i.c. Abu Shahrein, south (!) of Ur.