Myths of Babylonia and Assyria | Page 9

nature. Worshippers also
suggested by their ceremonies how the deities should act at various
seasons, and thus exercised, as they believed, a magical control over
them.
In Babylonia the agricultural myth regarding the Mother goddess and
the young god had many variations. In one form Tammuz, like Adonis,
was loved by two goddesses--the twin phases of nature--the Queen of
Heaven and the Queen of Hades. It was decreed that Tammuz should
spend part of the year with one goddess and part of the year with the

other. Tammuz was also a Patriarch, who reigned for a long period over
the land and had human offspring. After death his spirit appeared at
certain times and seasons as a planet, star, or constellation. He was the
ghost of the elder god, and he was also the younger god who was born
each year.
In the Gilgamesh epic we appear to have a form of the patriarch
legend--the story of the "culture hero" and teacher who discovered the
path which led to the land of ancestral spirits. The heroic Patriarch in
Egypt was Apuatu, "the opener of the ways", the earliest form of Osiris;
in India he was Yama, the first man, "who searched and found out the
path for many".
The King as Patriarch was regarded during life as an incarnation of the
culture god: after death he merged in the god. "Sargon of Akkad" posed
as an incarnation of the ancient agricultural Patriarch: he professed to
be a man of miraculous birth who was loved by the goddess Ishtar, and
was supposed to have inaugurated a New Age of the Universe.
The myth regarding the father who was superseded by his son may
account for the existence in Babylonian city pantheons of elder and
younger gods who symbolized the passive and active forces of nature.
Considering the persistent and cumulative influence exercised by
agricultural religion it is not surprising to find, as has been indicated,
that most of the Babylonian gods had Tammuz traits, as most of the
Egyptian gods had Osirian traits. Although local or imported deities
were developed and conventionalized in rival Babylonian cities, they
still retained traces of primitive conceptions. They existed in all their
forms--as the younger god who displaced the elder god and became the
elder god, and as the elder god who conciliated the younger god and
made him his active agent; and as the god who was identified at various
seasons with different heavenly bodies and natural phenomena.
Merodach, the god of Babylon, who was exalted as chief of the
National pantheon in the Hammurabi Age, was, like Tammuz, a son,
and therefore a form of Ea, a demon slayer, a war god, a god of fertility,
a corn spirit, a Patriarch, and world ruler and guardian, and, like
Tammuz, he had solar, lunar, astral, and atmospheric attributes. The

complex characters of Merodach and Tammuz were not due solely to
the monotheistic tendency: the oldest deities were of mystical character,
they represented the "Self Power" of Naturalism as well as the spirit
groups of Animism.
The theorizing priests, who speculated regarding the mysteries of life
and death and the origin of all things, had to address the people through
the medium of popular beliefs. They utilized floating myths for this
purpose. As there were in early times various centres of culture which
had rival pantheons, the adapted myths varied greatly. In the different
forms in which they survive to us they reflect, not only aspects of local
beliefs, but also grades of culture at different periods. We must not
expect, however, to find that the latest form of a myth was the highest
and most profound. The history of Babylonian religion is divided into
periods of growth and periods of decadence. The influence of domestic
religion was invariably opposed to the new and high doctrines which
emanated from the priesthood, and in times of political upheaval tended
to submerge them in the debris of immemorial beliefs and customs. The
retrogressive tendencies of the masses were invariably reinforced by
the periodic invasions of aliens who had no respect for official deities
and temple creeds.
We must avoid insisting too strongly on the application of the evolution
theory to the religious phenomena of a country like Babylonia.
The epochs in the intellectual life of an ancient people are not
comparable to geological epochs, for instance, because the forces at
work were directed by human wills, whether in the interests of progress
or otherwise. The battle of creeds has ever been a battle of minds. It
should be recognized, therefore, that the human element bulks as
prominently in the drama of Babylon's religious history as does the
prince of Denmark in the play of Hamlet. We are not concerned with
the plot alone. The characters must also receive attention.