Part 13 (2/2)

The haughty, the hostile land thou dost humiliate ...

With thee who ventureth to make war?

He was also ”the bull of goring horns ... Enlil the bull”, the G.o.d of fertility as well as of battle.[188]

Asari, one of Merodach's names, links him with Osiris, the Egyptian Tammuz, who was supplanted by his son Horus. As the dragon slayer, he recalls, among others, Perseus, the Grecian hero, of whom it was prophesied that he would slay his grandfather. Perseus, like Tammuz and Osiris, was enclosed in a chest which was cast into the sea, to be rescued, however, by a fisherman on the island of Seriphos. This hero afterwards slew Medusa, one of the three terrible sisters, the Gorgons--a demon group which links with Tiamat. In time, Perseus returned home, and while an athletic contest was in progress, he killed his grandfather with a quoit. There is no evidence, however, to show that the displacement of Enlil by Merodach had any legendary sanction of like character. The G.o.d of Babylon absorbed all other deities, apparently for political purposes, and in accordance with the tendency of the thought of the times, when raised to supreme rank in the national pantheon; and he was depicted fighting the winged dragon, flapping his own storm wings, and carrying the thunder weapon a.s.sociated with Ramman.

Merodach's spouse Zer-panitu? was significantly called ”the lady of the Abyss”, a t.i.tle which connects her with Damkina, the mother, and Belit-sheri, the sister of Tammuz. Damkina was also a sky G.o.ddess like Ishtar.

Zer-panitu? was no pale reflection of her Celestial husband, but a G.o.ddess of sharply defined character with independent powers.

Apparently she was identical with Aruru, creatrix of the seed of mankind, who was a.s.sociated with Merodach when the first man and the first woman were brought into being. Originally she was one of the mothers in the primitive spirit group, and so identical with Ishtar and the other prominent G.o.ddesses.

As all G.o.ddesses became forms of Ishtar, so did all G.o.ds become forms of Merodach. Sin was ”Merodach as illuminator of night”, Nergal was ”Merodach of war”, Addu (Ramman) was ”Merodach of rain”, and so on. A colophon which contains a text in which these identifications are detailed, appears to be ”a copy”, says Professor Pinches, ”of an old inscription”, which, he thinks, ”may go back as far as 2000 B.C. This is the period at which the name _Yau?-ilu_, 'Jah is G.o.d', is found, together with references to _ilu_ as the name for the one great G.o.d, and is also, roughly, the date of Abraham, who, it may be noted, was a Babylonian of Ur of the Chaldees.”[189]

In one of the hymns Merodach is addressed as follows:--

Who shall escape from before thy power?

Thy will is an eternal mystery!

Thou makest it plain in heaven And in the earth, Command the sea And the sea obeyeth thee.

Command the tempest And the tempest becometh a calm.

Command the winding course Of the Euphrates, And the will of Merodach Shall arrest the floods.

Lord, thou art holy!

Who is like unto thee?

Merodach thou art honoured Among the G.o.ds that bear a name.

The monotheistic tendency, which was a marked feature of Merodach wors.h.i.+p, had previously become p.r.o.nounced in the wors.h.i.+p of Bel Enlil of Nippur. Although it did not affect the religion of the ma.s.ses, it serves to show that among the ancient scholars and thinkers of Babylonia religious thought had, at an early period, risen far above the crude polytheism of those who bargained with their deities and propitiated them with offerings and extravagant flattery, or exercised over them a magical influence by the performance of seasonal ceremonies, like the backsliders in Jerusalem, censured so severely by Jeremiah, who baked cakes to reward the Queen of Heaven for an abundant harvest, and wept with her for the slain Tammuz when he departed to Hades.

Perhaps it was due to the monotheistic tendency, if not to the fusion of father-wors.h.i.+pping and mother-wors.h.i.+pping peoples, that bi-s.e.xual deities were conceived of. Nannar, the moon G.o.d, was sometimes addressed as father and mother in one, and Ishtar as a G.o.d as well as a G.o.ddess. In Egypt Isis is referred to in a temple chant as ”the woman who was made a male by her father Osiris”, and the Nile G.o.d Hapi was depicted as a man with female b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

CHAPTER VIII.

DEIFIED HEROES: ETANA AND GILGAMESH

G.o.d and Heroes and the ”Seven Sleepers”--Quests of Etana, Gilgamesh, Hercules, &c.--The Plant of Birth--Eagle carries Etana to Heaven--Indian Parallel--Flights of Nimrod, Alexander the Great, and a Gaelic Hero--Eagle as a G.o.d--Indian Eagle identified with G.o.ds of Creation, Fire, Fertility, and Death--Eagle carries Roman Emperor's Soul to Heaven--Fire and Agricultural Ceremonies--Nimrod of the _Koran_ and John Barleycorn--Gilgamesh and the Eagle--Sargon-Tammuz Garden Myth--Ea-bani compared to Pan, Bast, and Nebuchadnezzar--Exploits of Gilgamesh and Ea-bani--Ishtar's Vengeance--Gilgamesh journeys to Otherworld--Song of Sea Maiden and ”Lay of the Harper”--Babylonian Noah and the Plant of Life--Teutonic Parallels--Alexander the Great as Gilgamesh--Water of Life in the _Koran_--The Indian Gilgamesh and Hercules--The Mountain Tunnel in various Mythologies--Widespread Cultural Influences.

One of the oldest forms of folk stories relates to the wanderings of a hero in distant regions. He may set forth in search of a fair lady who has been taken captive, or to obtain a magic herb or stone to relieve a sufferer, to cure diseases, and to prolong life. Invariably he is a slayer of dragons and other monsters. A friendly spirit, or a group of spirits, may a.s.sist the hero, who acts according to the advice given him by a ”wise woman”, a magician, or a G.o.d. The spirits are usually wild beasts or birds--the ”fates” of immemorial folk belief--and they may either carry the hero on their backs, instruct him from time to time, or come to his aid when called upon.

When a great national hero appealed by reason of his achievements to the imagination of a people, all the floating legends of antiquity were attached to his memory, and he became identified with G.o.ds and giants and knight-errants ”old in story”. In Scotland, for instance, the boulder-throwing giant of Eildon hills bears the name of Wallace, the Edinburgh giant of Arthur's Seat is called after an ancient Celtic king,[190] and Thomas the Rhymer takes the place, in an Inverness fairy mound called Tom-na-hurich, of Finn (Fingal) as chief of the ”Seven Sleepers”. Similarly Napoleon sleeps in France and Skobeleff in Russia, as do also other heroes elsewhere. In Germany the myths of Thunor (Thor) were mingled with hazy traditions of Theodoric the Goth (Dietrich), while in Greece, Egypt, and Arabia, Alexander the Great absorbed a ma.s.s of legendary matter of great antiquity, and displaced in the memories of the people the heroes of other Ages, as those heroes had previously displaced the humanized spirits of fertility and growth who alternately battled fiercely against the demons of spring, made love, gorged and drank deep and went to sleep--the sleep of winter. Certain folk tales, and the folk beliefs on which they were based, seem to have been of h.o.a.ry antiquity before the close of the Late Stone Age.

There are two great heroes of Babylonian fame who link with Perseus and Hercules, Sigurd and Siegfried, Dietrich and Finn-mac-Coul. These are Etana and Gilgamesh, two legendary kings who resemble Tammuz the Patriarch referred to by Berosus, a form of Tammuz the Sleeper of the Sumerian psalms. One journeys to the Nether World to obtain the Plant of Birth and the other to obtain the Plant of Life. The floating legends with which they were a.s.sociated were utilized and developed by the priests, when engaged in the process of systematizing and symbolizing religious beliefs, with purpose to unfold the secrets of creation and the Otherworld. Etana secures the a.s.sistance or a giant eagle who is an enemy of serpents like the Indian Garuda, half giant, half eagle. As Vishnu, the Indian G.o.d, rides on the back of Garuda, so does Etana ride on the back of the Babylonian Eagle. In one fragmentary legend which was preserved in the tablet-library of Ashur-banipal, the a.s.syrian monarch, Etana obtained the a.s.sistance of the Eagle to go in quest of the Plant of Birth. His wife was about to become a mother, and was accordingly in need of magical aid. A similar belief caused birth girdles of straw or serpent skins, and eagle stones found in eagles' nests, to be used in ancient Britain and elsewhere throughout Europe apparently from the earliest times.[191]

On this or another occasion Etana desired to ascend to highest heaven.

He asked the Eagle to a.s.sist him, and the bird a.s.sented, saying: ”Be glad, my friend. Let me bear thee to the highest heaven. Lay thy breast on mine and thine arms on my wings, and let my body be as thy body.” Etana did as the great bird requested him, and together they ascended towards the firmament. After a flight which extended over two hours, the Eagle asked Etana to gaze downwards. He did so, and beheld the ocean surrounding the earth, and the earth seemed like a mountainous island. The Eagle resumed its flight, and when another two hours had elapsed, it again asked Etana to look downwards. Then the hero saw that the sea resembled a girdle which clasped the land. Two hours later Etana found that he had been raised to a height from which the sea appeared to be no larger than a pond. By this time he had reached the heaven of Anu, Bel, and Ea, and found there rest and shelter.

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