Part 24 (1/2)

Merodach, like Osiris-Sokar, was a ”lord of many existences”, and likewise ”the mysterious one, he who is unknown to mankind[313]”. It was impossible for the human mind ”a greater than itself to know”.

Evidence has not yet been forthcoming to enable us to determine the period at which the chief Babylonian deities were identified with the planets, but it is clear that Merodach's ascendancy in astral form could not have occurred prior to the rise of that city G.o.d of Babylon as chief of the pantheon by displacing Enlil. At the same time it must be recognized that long before the Hammurabi age the star-gazers of the Tigro-Euphrates valley must have been acquainted with the movements of the chief planets and stars, and, no doubt, they connected them with seasonal changes as in Egypt, where Isis was identified with Sirius long before the Ptolemaic age, when Babylonian astronomy was imported. Horus was identified not only with the sun but also with Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.[314] Even the primitive Australians, as has been indicated, have their star myths; they refer to the stars Castor and Pollux as two young men, like the ancient Greeks, while the African Bushmen a.s.sert that these stars are two girls. It would be a mistake, however, to a.s.sume that the prehistoric Sumerians were exact astronomers. Probably they were, like the Aryo-Indians of the Vedic period, ”not very accurate observers”.[315]

It is of special interest to find that the stars were grouped by the Babylonians at the earliest period in companies of seven. The importance of this magical number is emphasized by the group of seven demons which rose from the deep to rage over the land (p. 71). Perhaps the sanct.i.ty of Seven was suggested by Orion, the Bears, and the Pleiad, one of which constellations may have been the ”Sevenfold”

deity addressed as ”one”. At any rate arbitrary groupings of other stars into companies of seven took place, for references are made to the seven Tiks.h.i.+, the seven Lumas.h.i.+, and the seven Mas.h.i.+, which are older than the signs of the Zodiac; so far as can be ascertained these groups were selected from various constellations. When the five planets were identified, they were a.s.sociated with the sun and moon and connected with the chief G.o.ds of the Hammurabi pantheon. A bilingual list in the British Museum arranges the sevenfold planetary group in the following order:--

The moon, Sin.

The sun, Shamash.

Jupiter, Merodach.

Venus, Ishtar.

Saturn, Ninip (Nirig).

Mercury, Nebo.

Mars, Nergal.

An ancient name of the moon was Aa, a, or Ai, which recalls the Egyptian Aah or Ah. The Sumerian moon was Aku, ”the measurer”, like Thoth of Egypt, who in his lunar character as a Fate measured out the lives of men, and was a G.o.d of architects, mathematicians, and scribes. The moon was the parent of the sun or its spouse; and might be male, or female, or both as a bis.e.xual deity.

As the ”bull of light” Jupiter had solar a.s.sociations; he was also the shepherd of the stars, a t.i.tle shared by Tammuz as Orion; Nin-Girsu, a developed form of Tammuz, was identified with both Orion and Jupiter.

Ishtar's identification with Venus is of special interest. When that planet was at its brightest phase, its rays were referred to as ”the beard” of the G.o.ddess; she was the ”bearded Aphrodite”--a bis.e.xual deity evidently. The astrologers regarded the bright Venus as lucky and the rayless Venus as unlucky.

Saturn was Nirig, who is best known as Ninip, a deity who was displaced by Enlil, the elder Bel, and afterwards regarded as his son.

His story has not been recovered, but from the references made to it there is little doubt that it was a version of the widespread myth about the elder deity who was slain by his son, as Saturn was by Jupiter and Dyaus by Indra. It may have resembled the lost Egyptian myth which explained the existence of the two Horuses--Horus the elder, and Horus, the posthumous son of Osiris. At any rate, it is of interest to find in this connection that in Egypt the planet Saturn was Her-Ka, ”Horus the Bull”. Ninip was also identified with the bull.

Both deities were also connected with the spring sun, like Tammuz, and were terrible slayers of their enemies. Ninip raged through Babylonia like a storm flood, and Horus swept down the Nile, slaying the followers of Set. As the divine sower of seed, Ninip may have developed from Tammuz as Horus did from Osiris. Each were at once the father and the son, different forms of the same deity at various seasons of the year. The elder G.o.d was displaced by the son (spring), and when the son grew old his son slew him in turn. As the planet Saturn, Ninip was the ghost of the elder G.o.d, and as the son of Bel he was the solar war G.o.d of spring, the great wild bull, the G.o.d of fertility. He was also as Ber ”lord of the wild boar”, an animal a.s.sociated with Rimmon[316].

Nebo (Nabu), who was identified with Mercury, was a G.o.d of Borsippa.

He was a messenger and ”announcer” of the G.o.ds, as the Egyptian Horus in his connection with Jupiter was Her-ap-sheta, ”Horus the opener of that which is secret[317]”. Nebo's original character is obscure. He appears to have been a highly developed deity of a people well advanced in civilization when he was exalted as the divine patron of Borsippa. Although Hammurabi ignored him, he was subsequently invoked with Merodach, and had probably much in common with Merodach. Indeed, Merodach was also identified with the planet Mercury. Like the Greek Hermes, Nebo was a messenger of the G.o.ds and an instructor of mankind.

Jastrow regards him as ”a counterpart of Ea”, and says: ”Like Ea, he is the embodiment and source of wisdom. The art of writing--and therefore of all literature--is more particularly a.s.sociated with him.

A common form of his name designates him as the 'G.o.d of the stylus'.”[318] He appears also to have been a developed form of Tammuz, who was an incarnation of Ea. Professor Pinches shows that one of his names, Mermer, was also a non-Semitic name of Ramman.[319]

Tammuz resembled Ramman in his character as a spring G.o.d of war. It would seem that Merodach as Jupiter displaced at Babylon Nebo as Saturn, the elder G.o.d, as Bel Enlil displaced the elder Ninip at Nippur.

The G.o.d of Mars was Nergal, the patron deity of Cuthah,[320] who descended into the Underworld and forced into submission Eresh-ki-gal (Persephone), with whom he was afterwards a.s.sociated. His ”name”, says Professor Pinches, ”is supposed to mean 'lord of the great habitation', which would be a parallel to that of his spouse, Eresh-ki-gal”.[321] At Erech he symbolized the destroying influence of the sun, and was accompanied by the demons of pestilence. Mars was a planet of evil, plague, and death; its animal form was the wolf. In Egypt it was called Herdesher, ”the Red Horus”, and in Greece it was a.s.sociated with Ares (the Roman Mars), the war G.o.d, who a.s.sumed his boar form to slay Adonis (Tammuz).

Nergal was also a fire G.o.d like the Aryo-Indian Agni, who, as has been shown, links with Tammuz as a demon slayer and a G.o.d of fertility. It may be that Nergal was a specialized form of Tammuz, who, in a version of the myth, was reputed to have entered the Underworld as a conqueror when claimed by Eresh-ki-gal, and to have become, like Osiris, the lord of the dead. If so, Nergal was at once the slayer and the slain.

The various Babylonian deities who were identified with the planets had their characters sharply defined as members of an organized pantheon. But before this development took place certain of the prominent heavenly bodies, perhaps all the planets, were evidently regarded as manifestations of one deity, the primeval Tammuz, who was a form of Ea, or of the twin deities Ea and Anu. Tammuz may have been the ”sevenfold one” of the hymns. At a still earlier period the stars were manifestations of the Power whom the jungle dwellers of Chota Nagpur attempt to propitiate--the ”world soul” of the cultured Brahmans of the post-Vedic Indian Age. As much is suggested by the resemblances which the conventionalized planetary deities bear to Tammuz, whose attributes they symbolized, and by the Egyptian conception that the sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars were manifestations of Horus. Tammuz and Horus may have been personifications of the Power or World Soul vaguely recognized in the stage of Naturalism.

The influence of animistic modes of thought may be traced in the idea that the planets and stars were the ghosts of G.o.ds who were superseded by their sons. These sons were identical with their fathers; they became, as in Egypt, ”husbands of their mothers”. This idea was perpetuated in the Aryo-Indian _Laws of Manu_, in which it is set forth that ”the husband, after conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her[322]”. The deities died every year, but death was simply change. Yet they remained in the separate forms they a.s.sumed in their progress round ”the wide circle of necessity”.

Horus was remembered as various planets--as the falcon, as the elder sun G.o.d, and as the son of Osiris; and Tammuz was the spring sun, the child, youth, warrior, the deity of fertility, and the lord of death (Orion-Nergal), and, as has been suggested, all the planets.

The stars were also the ghosts of deities who died daily. When the sun perished as an old man at evening, it rose in the heavens as Orion, or went out and in among the stars as the shepherd of the flock, Jupiter, the planet of Merodach in Babylonia, and Attis in Asia Minor. The flock was the group of heavenly spirits invisible by day, the ”host of heaven”--manifestations or ghosts of the emissaries of the controlling power or powers.

The planets presided over various months of the year. Sin (the moon) was a.s.sociated with the third month; it also controlled the calendar; Ninip (Saturn) was a.s.sociated with the fourth month, Ishtar (Venus) with the sixth, Shamash (the sun) with the seventh, Merodach (Jupiter) with the eighth, Nergal (Mars) with the ninth, and a messenger of the G.o.ds, probably Nebo (Mercury), with the tenth.

Each month was also controlled by a zodiacal constellation. In the Creation myth of Babylon it is stated that when Merodach engaged in the work of setting the Universe in order he ”set all the great G.o.ds in their several stations”, and ”also created their images, the stars of the Zodiac,[323] and fixed them all” (p. 147).