The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. Morris Jastrow

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СКАЧАТЬ is, that in the various places over which this ruler spread his building activity, he is careful in each case to preserve the status of the presiding deity. So at Nippur, he engages in work at the temples of En-lil and of Nin-lil; while at Uruk he devotes himself to the temple of Nanâ. In thus connecting their names with the various sacred edifices of Babylonia, the rulers emphasized, on the one hand, their control of the territory in which the building lay, and on the other, their allegiance to the deity of the place, whose protection and favor they sought to gain.

The mention of a temple to Shamash at Sippar reverts to a still earlier period than that of its rival. Nabonnedos tells us that it was founded by Naram-Sin. Sargon has put his name on some object[53] that he dedicates to the sun-god at Sippar. That there was an historical connection between the two temples may be concluded from the fact that the name of the sacred edifices was the same in both—E-babbara, signifying the 'house of lustre.' Such a similarity points to a dependence of one upon the other, and the transfer or extension of the worship directly from one place to the other; but, as intimated, we have no certain means of determining which of the two is the older. In view of the general observation to be made in what pertains to the religion of the Babylonians, that fame and age go hand in hand, the balance is in favor of Sippar, which became by far the more famous of the two, received a greater share of popular affection, and retained its prominence to the closing days of the neo-Babylonian monarchy. We shall have occasion in a succeeding chapter to trace the history of the sun-temple at Sippar so far as known. It is interesting to note that Nabonnedos, feeling the end of his power to be near, undertakes, as one of the last resorts, the restoration of this edifice, in the hope that by thus turning once more to the powerful Shamash, he might secure his protection, in addition to that of Marduk, the head of the later Babylonian pantheon.

      In Ur itself, Shamash was also worshipped in early days by the side of the moon-god. Eannatum, of the dynasty of Isin (c. 2800 B.C.), tells of two temples erected to him at that place; and still a third edifice, sacred to both Nannar (the moon god) and Shamash at Ur, is referred to by a king of the Larsa dynasty, Rim-Sin (c. 2300 B.C.). The titles given to Shamash by the early rulers are sufficiently definite to show in what relation he stood to his worshippers, and what the conceptions were that were formed of him. He is, alternately, the king and the shepherd. Since the kings also called themselves shepherds, no especial endearment is conveyed by this designation. In the incantations, Shamash is frequently appealed to, either alone, or when an entire group of spirits and deities are enumerated. He is called upon to give life to the sick man. To him the body of the one who is smitten with disease is confided. As the god of light, he is appropriately called upon to banish 'darkness' from the house, darkness being synonymous with misfortune; and the appeal is made to him more particularly as the 'king of judgment.' From this, it is evident that the beneficent action of the sun, was the phase associated with Shamash. He was hailed as the god that gives light and life to all things, upon whose favor the prosperity of the fields and the well-being of man depend. He creates the light and secures its blessings for mankind. His favor produces order and stability; his wrath brings discomfiture and ruin to the state and the individual. But his power was, perhaps, best expressed by the title of "judge"—the favorite one in the numerous hymns that were composed in his honor. He was represented as seated on a throne in the chamber of judgment, receiving the supplications of men, and according as he manifested his favor or withdrew it, enacting the part of the decider of fates. He loosens the bonds of the imprisoned, grants health to the sick, and even revivifies the dead. On the other hand, he puts an end to wickedness and destroys enemies. He makes the weak strong, and prevents the strong from crushing the weak. From being the judge, and, moreover, the supreme judge of the world, it was but natural that the conception of justice was bound up with him. His light became symbolical of righteousness, and the absence of it, or darkness, was viewed as wickedness. Men and gods look expectantly for his light. He is the guide of the gods, as well as the ruler of men.

      While there are no direct indications in the historical texts known at present, that this conception of the sun-god existed in all its details before the days of Hammurabi, there is every reason to believe that this was the case; the more so, in that it does not at all transcend the range of religious ideas that we have met with in the case of the other gods of this period. Nor does this conception in any way betray itself, as being due to the changed political conditions that set in, with the union of the states under Hammurabi. Still, the age of the religious texts not being fixed, it is thus necessary to exercise some caution before using them without the basis of an allusion in the historical texts.

Utu.

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It but remains, before passing on, to note that the same deity appears under various names. Among these are Utu[54] and apparently also Babbar[55] in the old Babylonian inscriptions. For the latter, a Semitic etymology is forthcoming, and we may therefore regard it as representing a real pronunciation, and not an ideographic writing. Babbar, a contracted form from Barbar, is the reduplication of the same stem bar[56] that we have already met with, in the name of the temple sacred to Shamash. Like E-babbara, therefore, Babbar is the "brilliantly shining one,"—a most appropriate name for the sun, and one frequently applied to him in the religious texts. As to Utu, there is some doubt whether it represents a real pronunciation or not. My own opinion is that it does, and that the underlying stem is atû, which in Babylonian has almost the same meaning as bar or barû, viz., 'to see.' 'Utu' would thus again designate the sun as 'that which shines forth.'

      It will be recalled, that other instances have been noted of the same god appearing under different names. The most natural explanation for this phenomenon is, that the variation corresponds to the different localities where the god was worshipped. The identification would not be made until the union of the various Babylonian states had been achieved. Such a union would be a potent factor in systematizing the pantheon. When once it was recognized that the various names represented, in reality, one and the same deity, it would not be long before the name, peculiar to the place where the worship was most prominent, would set the others aside or reduce them to mere epithets.

      It may well be that Shamash was the name given to the god at Sippar, whereas at Ur he may have been known as Utu. Ur-Bau (of the first Ur dynasty) calls him Utu also, when speaking of the temple at Larsa, but it would be natural for the kings of Ur to call the sun-god of Larsa by the same name that he had in Ur. That Hammurabi, however, calls the sun-god of Larsa, Utu, may be taken as an indication that, as such he was known at that place, for since we have no record of a sun-temple at Babylon in these days, there would be no motive that might induce him to transfer a name, otherwise known to him, to another place. The testimony of Hammurabi is therefore as direct as that of Sargon, who calls the sun-god of Sippar, Shamash. It is not always possible to determine, with as much show of probability, as in the case of the sun-god, the distribution of the various names, but the general conclusion, for all that, is warranted in every instance, that a variety of names refers, originally, to an equal variety of places over which the worship was spread—only that care must be exercised to distinguish between distinctive names and mere epithets.

Â.

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A consort of the sun-deity, appearing frequently at his side in the incantation texts, is Â. It is more particularly with the Shamash of Sippar, that  is associated. She is simply the 'beloved one' of the sun-deity, with no special character of her own. In the historical texts, her rôle is quite insignificant, and for the period with which we are at present concerned she is only mentioned once by a North СКАЧАТЬ