The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. Morris Jastrow

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СКАЧАТЬ B.C.) gives an elaborate account of an old temple to Anu and Ramman in the city of Ashur that he restores to more than its former grandeur.[166] This dedication of a temple to two deities is unusual. Ramman is the god of thunder and storms, whose seat of course is in the heavens. He stands close, therefore, to Anu, the supreme god of heaven. In the religious productions, this relationship is expressed by making Ramman the son of Anu. From a passage descriptive of this temple it would appear that the old temple founded by King Samsi-Ramman, who lived several centuries before Tiglathpileser, was dedicated to Ramman. It looks, therefore, as though the association of Anu with Ramman was the work of the later king. What his motive was in thus combining Anu with Ramman it is difficult to say, but in his account of the restoration of the sanctuary, he so consistently mentions Anu and Ramman together,[167] designating them unitedly as 'the great gods my lords,' that one gains the impression that the two were inseparable in his mind, Ramman being perhaps regarded simply as a manifestation of Anu. The supposition finds some support in the closing words of the inscription, where, in hurling the usual curses upon those who should attempt to destroy his monuments, he invokes Ramman alone, whom he asks to punish the offender by his darts, by hunger, by distress of every kind, and by death.

Elsewhere Anu appears in association with Dagan, of whom we shall have occasion to speak in the chapter on the Assyrian pantheon. Suffice it to say here that Dagan in this connection is an equivalent of Bel. When, therefore, Ashurbanabal and Sargon call themselves 'the favorite of Anu and Dagan,' it is the same as though they spoke of Anu and Bel. Apart from this, Anu only appears when a part or the whole of the Assyrian pantheon is enumerated. Thus we come across Anu, Ramman, and Ishtar as the chief gods of the city of Ashur,[168] and again Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.[169] Finally, Sargon who names the eight gates of his palace after the chief gods of the land does not omit Anu, whom he describes as the 'one who blesses his handiwork.' Otherwise we have Anu only when the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea is invoked. Once Ramman-nirari I. (c. 1325 B.C.) adds Ishtar to the triad. After Sargon we no longer find Anu's name at all among the deities worshipped in Assyria. On the whole, then, Anu's claim to reverence rests in Assyria as well as in Babylonia upon his position in the triad, and while Assyria is less influenced by the ancient system devised in Babylonia whereby Anu, Bel, and Ea come to be the representatives of the three kingdoms among which the gods are distributed, still Anu as a specific deity, ruling in his own right, remains a rather shadowy figure. The only temple in his honor is the one which he shares with Ramman, and which, as noted, appears to have been originally devoted to the service of the latter. One other factor that must be taken into account to explain the disappearance of Anu is the gradual enforcement of Ashur's claim to the absolute headship of the Assyrian pantheon. Either Anu or Ashur had to be assigned to this place, and when circumstances decided the issue in favor of Ashur, there was no place worthy of Anu as a specific deity. Ashur usurps in a measure the rôle of Anu. So far as Babylonia was concerned, there was still in the twelfth century B.C. a city 'Der' which is called the 'city of Anu.' The city is probably of very ancient foundation, and its continued association with Anu forms an interesting survival of a local conception that appears to have been once current of the god.

In the religious literature, especially in that part of it which furnishes us with the scholastic recastings of the popular traditions, Anu is a much more prominent figure than in the historical texts. From being merely the personification of the heavens, he is raised to the still higher dignity of symbolizing, as Jensen puts it,[170] the abstract principle of which both the heavens and earth are emanations. All the earliest gods conceived of by popular tradition as existing from the beginning of things are viewed as manifestations of Anu, or of Anu and Anatum in combination. He gives ear to prayers, but he is not approached directly. The gods are his messengers, who come and give him report of what is going on.[171] He is a god for the gods rather than for men. When his daughter Ishtar is insulted she appeals to her father Anu; and when the gods are terrified they take refuge with Anu. Armed with a mighty weapon whose assault nothing can withstand, Anu is surrounded by a host of gods and powerful spirits who are ready to follow his lead and to do his service.

Ramman.

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      With Ramman we reach a deity whose introduction into the Babylonian pantheon and whose position therein appears to be entirely independent of Marduk.

The reading of the name as Ramman (or Rammanu) is provisional. The ideograph Im with which the name is written designates the god as the power presiding over storms; and while it is certain that, in Assyria at least, the god was known as Ramman, which means 'the thunderer,' it is possible that this was an epithet given to the god, and not his real or his oldest name. It is significant that in the El-Amarna tablets (c. 1500 B.C.), where the god Im appears as an element in proper names, the reading Addu is vouched for, and this form has been justly brought into connection with a very famous solar deity of Syria—Hadad. The worship of Hadad, we know, was widely spread in Palestine and Syria, and there is conclusive evidence that Hadad (or Adad), as a name for the god Im, was known in Babylonia. Professor Oppert is of the opinion that Adad represents the oldest name of the god. Quite recently the proposition has been made that the real name of the deity was Immeru.[172] The ideograph in this case would arise through the curtailment of the name (as is frequently the case in the cuneiform syllabary), and the association of Im with 'storm' and 'wind' would be directly dependent upon the nature of the deity in question. The material at hand is not sufficient for deciding the question. Besides Immeru, Adad, and Ramman, the deity was also known as Mer—connected apparently with Immeru.[173] So much is certain, that Ramman appears to have been the name currently used in Assyria for this god. Adad may have been employed occasionally in Babylonia, as was Mer in proper names, but that it was not the common designation is proved by a list of gods (published by Bezold[174]) in which the foreign equivalent for Im is set down as Adad. We may for the present, therefore, retain Ramman, while bearing in mind that we have only proof of its being an epithet applied to the god, not necessarily his real name and in all probabilities not the oldest name.

We meet with the god for the first time in the hymn to which reference has already been made,[175] and where the god is mentioned together with Shamash. If the suggestion above thrown out is correct, that the hymn is older than the days of Hammurabi, Ramman too would be older than his first mention in historical texts. However, it is worthy of note that in this hymn each of the other gods mentioned receives a line for himself, and that Ramman is the only one who is tacked on to another deity. It is not strange that in making copies of older texts, especially those of a religious character, the scribes should have introduced certain modifications. At all events, the god does not acquire any degree of prominence until the days of Hammurabi; so that whatever his age and origin, he belongs in a peculiar sense to the pantheon of Hammurabi rather than to that of the old Babylonian period. The successor of Hammurabi, Samsu-iluna, dedicates a fort, known as Dur-padda, to Ramman whom he addresses as his 'helper', along with several other gods. Despite this fact, his worship does not appear to have been very firmly established in Babylonia, for Agumkakrimi, who follows upon Samsu-iluna, does not make mention of Ramman. During the reign of the Cassite dynasty, however, the worship of Ramman appears to have gained a stronger foothold. Several kings of this dynasty have incorporated the name of this deity into their own names, and in an inscription dealing with events that transpired in the reign of one of these kings, СКАЧАТЬ