Social life among the Assyrians and Babylonians

The religion of Assyria and Babylonia was substantially the same. In both countries it was derived in the first instance from the beliefs of the early Accadian or Sumerian population. Every object and force of Nature was supposed to possess a ‘spirit’ or ‘life,’ corresponding to the ‘spirit’ or ‘life’ of man. It was because they were thus endowed with a spirit of their own that the stars journeyed through the sky, that the arrow sped through the air, or that the fire consumed the victim. Even the earth and the heaven were possessed of ‘spirits’ of their own through which they were able to act. All Nature, in fact, was alive, but the life was like that of the individual man, and manifested itself in the same way. To the primitive inhabitant of Chaldea, life and motion were synonymous terms.

Gradually the spirits became separated in thought from the objects or forces to which they belonged. The whole world became filled with demons, supernatural agencies whose power and scope of action were as limited as that of the objects of Nature out of which they had been formed. Like the objects of Nature too, they were in no sense moral agents. The same spirit or demon could be at once harmful and beneficent. The fire that slays also warms and supports mankind. At the same time the demons were more usually harmful than beneficent, because in an early condition of society man has not yet learned to subdue Nature to his own use and benefit. Evil rather than good seems to him to predominate in the world.

The aid of the sorcerer was invoked to ward off the attacks of hostile demons or to compel them to become the friends of man. It was only the sorcerer, the medicine-man as he would be called in America, who was imagined to know the magic spells and incantations by means of which the multitudinous spirits that surrounded the Accadian could be driven away. Disease was believed to be due to possession by an ‘evil spirit,’ and its cure was sought in various magical ceremonies and words.

In course of time, however, certain of the spirits, whose action was regarded as more uniformly beneficent than the reverse, and who represented the larger units of Nature, came to assume a sort of supremacy over the rest. The spirit of the earth or under-world, the spirit of the water, the spirit of the sky, began to rank above the spirits of the individual objects that are to be found in the earth, or water, or sky. Certain of the spirits of the old Accadian creed thus began to pass into gods.

The change was assisted by the existence of totemism in ancient Babylonia. Certain animals—or rather the ‘spirits’ of these animals—were regarded as peculiarly sacred; their flesh was forbidden to be eaten, and tribes and individuals called themselves after their names. There were tribes and individuals, for instance, of the name of ‘dog,’ to whom the dog was specially an object of veneration. These sacred animals came to be associated with the higher spirits who were tending to become gods.

With the transformation of some of the spirits or demons into gods went the transformation of the sorcerer into a priest. He did not, indeed, cease to be a sorcerer; his chief duty was still to attract or repel the spirits by charms and incantations, which he and other members of his class alone knew; but he now added to this duty the further duty of performing a fixed ritual and of offering prayer and praise to the new gods.

In this early epoch of history Babylonia contained two centres of religion and culture. One of these was Nipur, now Niffer, in the interior of the country, the other was Eridu, now Abu-Shahrein, on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Nipur was the seat of the worship of Mul-lil, ‘the lord of the ghost-world,’ who had originally been the spirit of the earth, and it continued to be the chief home of Babylonian sorcery. Eridu, on the contrary, was influenced by a foreign culture which had probably come from Egypt. It was from Eridu that a purer and more exalted form of faith emanated than that which was practised at Nipur; its god, who had primarily been the spirit of the water, gathered about him attributes more worthy to be called divine; and his son Merodach became the ‘culture hero’ of Chaldea, the god who had introduced, as it was believed, the elements of civilization among his people, and was continually occupied in looking after their good. Babylon, it would appear, was a colony of Eridu; at all events Merodach of Eridu became the patron-deity of Babylon.

By conquest or peaceful colonization, or a mixture of both, the Semitic tribes of Northern Arabia entered Babylonia, and established their dominion there. They adopted the civilization of their Accadian predecessors, at the same time modifying and improving it. But their conception of religion was totally different from that of the older inhabitants of the land. To the Semite the primary object of worship was the supreme Baal or ‘Lord,’ who manifested himself in the sun. By the side of Baal stood his wife and son, since the divine family was likened to the human family. In the Semitic household the wife was but the shadow and slave of the husband, in contrast to the Accadian household, where the woman was almost on a footing of equality with the man, and the wife of Baal accordingly assumed the same subordinate position in the divine family that was occupied by the wife of his worshipper. The Semitic goddess was thus essentially different from the Accadian goddess, where she had developed out of an earlier ‘spirit,’ as the Accadian goddess was in all respects the equal of the god.

The meeting of two systems of religious belief, so unlike one another, one of which was closely bound up with the older culture and literature of the country, could not have been other than a shock. But in course of time a union took place between them. A compromise was effected, and that official system of religion arose which lasted through the whole remaining history of Babylonia. It was carried to Assyria by the Semitic colonists, who founded there the Assyrian kingdom, though in Assyria its character was more genuinely Semitic than in Babylonia, in consequence of the purer Semitic blood of the Assyrian people.

In official Babylonian religion the older Accadian gods had been recognized, and placed at the head of the hierarchy of heaven, the multitudinous spirits of the ancient cult becoming the three hundred spirits of heaven, and the six hundred spirits of earth, who formed the ‘hosts’ of the supreme deities and acted as their ministers. Wherever it was possible the older gods assumed a solar character; not only Merodach of Babylon, but even Mul-lil of Nipur, became a Baal. The worship of the ‘older Bel,’ however, Mul-lil of Nipur, faded more and more out of sight, and after Babylon had become the capital of the country (about B.C. 2280) it was practically superseded by that of the younger Bel, Merodach of Babylon. The Bel or Baal addressed in the later inscriptions always means Merodach.

Under Semitic influence the Accadian goddesses either became the colourless companions of the gods, or else were changed into male divinities. One goddess only resisted the general tendency; this was Istar, or Ashtoreth, originally the spirit of the evening star. Her worship at Erech was too firmly fixed to be uprooted, and she remained to the last an independent goddess who took equal rank with a god. Her cult was even carried by the Semites to foreign lands along with the Babylonian civilization with which she was associated. But in Arabia and Moab she was transformed into a god; in Canaan she was assimilated to the other goddesses in the Semitic pantheon; she lost her independent position, and added to her name the final th, which denotes the feminine gender. It was only in Babylonia and Assyria, in the country of her origin, that her primitive character remained unchanged.

Another result of the Semitic occupation of Chaldea was the compilation of sacred books. The ancient Accadian magical charms and hymns to the gods were translated into Semitic Babylonian, and published in two great works. The hymns became a sacred book, and the Accadian, in which they were written, a sacred language. Any mistake in the recitation of them came to be considered an impiety, which might bring down upon it the anger of the gods. New hymns were composed, chiefly in honour of the Sun-god, but though they were written by Semitic priests, the language of them was Accadian. Accadian, in fact, now assumed the same place in the religious services of the temples that Latin has in the Roman Catholic Church, or Coptic in the Coptic Church. It was only the rubric of the Liturgy which was permitted to be in Semitic Babylonian; the hymns and most of the prayers were in the extinct language of Sumer and Accad.

But the mass of the people, at all events in the country, could not have been much affected by the official system of religion. They brought their sacrifices to the temples, they attended the services that were held in them, they paid their tithes to the priests, but they also retained a large part of their old beliefs and superstitions. The sorcerer still practised his arts among them, like the wise woman in the remote parts of our own island. The countless spirits of the old Accadian creed still existed in the popular belief, though they had become demons, mostly of a malevolent character. In fact, a large part of the life of the Babylonian was occupied in devising charms and amulets, or uttering spells which should keep at a distance from him the evil spirits. They might enter into him through the water he drank, or the food he ate, if due precautions were not taken that the water was pure, and the food clean. It was at night, and during the hours of darkness, that the evil spirits were specially dangerous; nightmare was a demon that sought to strangle its victim, and vampires were ever on the watch to suck his blood. Among the means employed for warding off these dreaded visitants were magical threads twisted seven times round the limbs, to which phylacteries were bound, consisting of ‘sentences from a holy book.’

At the head of the evil spirits of the night was Lilat, the wife of Lilu, a name which the Semites had borrowed from the old Accadian lil, ‘a ghost.’ In Hebrew, Lilat became Lilith, who occupies a prominent place in Talmudic legend, and is once mentioned in the Old Testament⁠[30] among the creatures of popular Babylonian mythology whom the prophet cites in illustration of the approaching desolation of Chaldea.

But, besides the malevolent spirits which peopled the air and the under-world, there were also good spirits, who acted as the ministers of the gods, who ‘bowed themselves’ in the courts of heaven, and formed the ‘hosts’ of which Bel, the supreme god of Babylon, and Assur, the supreme god of Assyria, were entitled the ‘Lords.’ Among them were the sedi, or guardian spirits, who were symbolized by the huge winged bulls at the entrance to an Assyrian palace. Here they were supposed to protect the house from the assaults of evil. We learn from Deuteronomy⁠[31] that the Israelites also fell away to the worship of these sedi or shedim (translated ‘devils’ in the Authorized Version) and offered sacrifices to them. Along with the sedi were associated the kirubi, or ‘cherubs,’ who are sometimes depicted in the Assyrian sculptures as standing or kneeling on either side of the tree of life. They are winged, with the heads of eagles, or more rarely of men.

The heaven of popular Babylonian belief was not ‘the land of the silver sky,’ to which Assyrian poets declared that the souls of the great and good would ascend, nor even that highest of the heavens, far above the firmament, which is referred to in the Chaldean account of the Deluge. It was, like the Greek Olympos, the summit of a mountain, hidden in perpetual cloud, called sometimes ‘the mountain of the East,’ sometimes ‘the mountain of the world,’ and often identified with Mount Rowandiz, east of Assyria. This was the mountain to which the Babylonian king is described in Isaiah⁠[32] as saying in his heart that he would ascend and exalt his ‘throne above the stars of God.’ It was imagined that the apex of the firmament rested, like that of an extinguisher, upon the peak of the mountain, the stars which hung as lamps from the firmament being below it.

The world of the dead, it was believed, lay under the ground. Here the spirits of the dead flitted in gloom and darkness, like bats, with dust alone for their food. Here, too, the shades of the ancient heroes sat on their thrones, rising only to welcome the spirit of a Babylonian king who should come to join them. In the midst of this dark land of forgetfulness, which was barred in by seven gates, sat the rulers of Hades, on a golden throne, beneath which bubbled up the waters of life. It was only through the aid of Merodach, ‘the pitiful god who raises the dead to life,’ that any could drink of the waters and rise once more to the world of light.

It is difficult to say how far these popular beliefs were shared in by the educated. In later times, at all events, purer and more spiritual ideas prevailed among the upper classes, and found their expression in literature. A school even arose at Erech which endeavoured to resolve the manifold deities of the pantheon into one supreme God, and in Assyria, Asshur tended more and more to become ‘God of gods’ and ‘Lord of lords.’ How nearly, for instance, do the words of Nebuchadnezzar approach the language of monotheism in two of the prayers which he has bequeathed to us. Here is one:—

‘To Merodach, my lord, I prayed: I began to him my petition: the word of my heart sought him, and I said: “O prince, thou art from everlasting, lord of all that exists, for the king whom thou lovest, whom thou callest by name, as it seems good unto thee, thou guidest his name aright, thou watchest over him in the path of righteousness! I, the prince who obeys thee, am the work of thy hands; thou hast created me and hast entrusted to me the sovereignty over multitudes of men, according to thy goodness, O lord, which thou hast made to pass over them all. Let me love thy supreme lordship, let the fear of thy divinity exist in my heart, and give what seemest good unto thee, since thou maintainest my life.”’

Centuries before Nebuchadnezzar, however, language almost equally lofty had been used of the Moon-god in a hymn which had been composed before the age of Abraham in the city of his birth, Ur of the Chaldees. Here are some of the lines of the hymn:—

The temples of Assyria and Babylonia resembled that of Jerusalem in general appearance, excepting only that a tower was attached to them, from the top of which astronomical observations could be made. The temple itself stood within a large court, and the public library was established in one of its chambers. The court was surrounded with the rooms in which the priests lived, and in it was a ‘sea’ or large basin of water for purificatory purposes, supported, like that of Solomon, on the heads of bronze bulls. At the extreme end of the temple was the ‘holy of holies,’ which took its name from the curtain that concealed it from the eyes of the profane. Here, according to Nebuchadnezzar, was ‘the holy seat, the place of the gods who determine destiny, the spot where they assemble together, the shrine of fate, wherein on the festival of first-fruits at the beginning of the year, on the eighth and the eleventh days, the divine king of heaven and earth, the lord of the heavens (Bel Merodach) seats himself, while the gods of heaven and earth listen to him in fear and stand bowing down before him.’ Here, too, was the image of the god, and the golden table of offerings in front of it.

The shrine further contained a coffer in which two written tables of stone were placed. Those found by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, in a chapel near Nineveh, record the victories of the king and the account of the erection of the building. In front of the coffer, or ark, was an altar approached by steps. At times, instead of a temple or chapel, a ‘beth-el,’ or ‘house of god,’ was built, which originally consisted of a stone consecrated by a libation of oil, and supposed to have thus been turned into a habitation of the deity.

The temples were served by a large body of priests. At the head of them was the high priest, whose office could be held by the king, and in Assyria was usually held by him. Besides the supreme high priest, or pontiff, as we might term him, there were also subordinate high priests, reminding us of the ‘high priests’ of the Jewish Sanhedrim. The lower ranks of the hierarchy consisted of ‘the anointers,’ whose duty it was to cleanse the vessels of the temple, the priests of the goddess Istar, and the ‘elders.’ Connected with the temple, but separate from the regular priesthood, were the ‘prophets’ and their servants, at the head of whom was ‘the chief of the prophets.’ The prophet predicted the future, and was consulted on most matters of state. He accompanied an army on the march, and as, like the Roman augur, he claimed to know the will of heaven, its action depended upon his decision. The general ventured to engage in battle only when the prophet promised him victory. When the Assyrian king had suppressed a revolt in the Babylonian cities, he tells us that ‘by the command of the prophets,’ he ‘purified their shrines and cleansed their chief places of prayer. Their angry gods and wrathful goddesses he soothed with supplications and penitential psalms. He restored and established in peace their daily sacrifices, which they had discontinued, as they had been in former days.’

The offerings to the gods were divided into sacrifices of animals, such as oxen, sheep, goats, and doves, and offerings of meal, dates, oil, and wine. The animals were slaughtered by a servant who does not seem to have belonged to the priestly caste, and certain portions of them only, such as the caul of the heart, the chine, and the legs, were offered to the gods. One of the Babylonian temples received as a yearly gift from Nabonidos about six bushels of dates.

In addition to the ‘daily sacrifice’ there were constant services in the temples both by day and at night. On the great festivals of the year there were, moreover, services of a special character. Each temple, furthermore, had its commemoration festival, and from time to time extraordinary days of thanksgiving or humiliation were ordained. Thus when the Assyrian Empire was in danger from an invasion of Scythians from the north, Esar-haddon prescribed a fast with particular prayers and ceremonies that should last for ‘a hundred days and a hundred nights.’ The ‘new moons’ also were observed with special solemnity, and, like the Israelites, the Babylonians and Assyrians kept a sabattu or ‘sabbath,’ which a Babylonian writer describes as ‘a day of rest for the heart.’ It was observed on the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth day of each month, and on it all kinds of work were disallowed. No food was to be cooked, no new garments put on, no medicine taken. The king was forbidden to ride in his chariot, and even the prophet was forbidden to prophesy. In the night a ‘free-will offering’ was made to the gods.

The temple and priests were supported by the contributions of the people, which were partly obligatory and partly voluntary. The most important among them were the ‘tithes’ paid upon all produce. The tithes were contributed by all classes of the population, from the king to the peasant, and lists exist which record the amounts severally due from the tenants of an estate. The tithes were paid for the most part in corn; thus we find a Babylonian paying about eleven bushels of corn to the temple of the Sun-god as the ‘tithes’ required from him for the year. The ‘tithes’ paid to the same temple by Nabonidos just after his accession amounted to as much as six manehs of gold, or £840. Nabonidos, however, had just usurped the throne, and he may therefore have wished to gain the favour of the priests by an unusually large gift.

Voluntary gifts were common, and were often made in pursuance of a vow or in gratitude for recovery from sickness. Among such gifts various articles of dress were included, with which the images of the gods were adorned. Both the gods and their ministers were distinguished by their vestments, and special vestments were required to be worn on the various festivals of the year.

It might indeed have been said of the Babylonians that in all things they were ‘too superstitious.’ Their lives were passed in perpetual fear of the multitudinous demons by which they believed themselves to be surrounded, or in a constant round of religious services. The priest was supreme in the State. The king received his power from Bel, who was in theory the true ruler of the community, and his highest title was that of ‘pontiff.’

It was different in Assyria. Here the military element was dominant, and the king, as general of the army, exercised his tyranny over priests and laity alike. Not but that the Assyrians also were deeply imbued with the religious spirit. Asshur, their chief deity, was, like the Assyrian monarch, ‘king of kings’ and ‘lord of lords.’ It was he who gave victory to his worshippers, and took vengeance on their foes; in his name they subdued ‘the unbelieving,’ and compelled them to acknowledge the supremacy of Asshur. Asshur, in fact, was a national god, who brooked no rivalry or companionship, not even that of a wife. But he was stern and unforgiving, unlike Bel Merodach of Babylon, ‘the merciful one who sends help to those that trust in him.’

Both deities reflected the character of the populations who adored them. Their attributes were human, untouched by the light that cometh from above. When we compare the noblest gods of Assyria and Babylonia with the God revealed to a kindred people, inferior in numbers and political power, in wealth and culture, we may see as in a glass the unfathomable gulf which divides them. There was much in Babylonian religion that commands our respect, there was much that shows how there were men on the banks of the Euphrates who were seeking ‘the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him,’ but it lacked the one thing needful, the revelation of Himself that was made alone to the chosen people of Israel.