The ancient pagan authorities inform us that the ancient city of Babylon was laid out in the form of a perfect square, the sides of which were oriented to the cardinal points. A massive wall enclosed the entire city and the river Euphrates divided it into halves, united by a bridge, each half being again subdivided by the main street leading to the bridge. A series of streets ran parallel to the river through the city and were crossed at right angles by others, the result being that 625 blocks or squares of building were thus formed.

There is positive evidence that the capital city of Lagash or Shir-pur-la was divided into four sections, the separate names of which were Girsu, Uru-alaga, Ninâ and Gish-Galla or Erim, the reading of the latter name being doubtful. The circumstance that each of these quarters had its “divinity” and was ruled by its earthly representative, explains the term “four-god city” or “four city” found associated with other capitals of Babylonia.

The existence of a central ruler who exercised supreme authority over the four quarters of the capital, and by extension over the “four provinces” is amply proven by the title of the Babylonian kings, i. e., the “king of the four regions.” An interesting oracle, addressed to king Esar-Haddon is found to contain the statement that “Ashur has given him the four ends of the earth” (Jastrow, op. cit. 345).

I can but briefly indicate here some facts which prove that this ancient Babylonian centre of civilization underwent precisely the same evolution as that I have traced in America and India.

Assyriologists agree in stating that, at the beginning of Babylonian history, about 4,000 B.C., Akkad and Sumer, or North and South Babylonia, already existed and were inhabited by two distinct races of people: the non-Semitic Sumerians and the Semitic Akkadians or later Babylonians. In later times we find the region embraced by the Euphrates and Tigris inhabited by descendants of both races and forming the Babylonian empire in the south, the Assyrian empire to the northeast, while in the northwestern part of Mesopotamia, was the seat of various empires that were alternately the rivals and subjects of either Babylonia or Assyria (Jastrow, op. cit. 26).

Three distinct and rival cults are indeed found associated with these three centres of government, and when examined by the light of our knowledge of a parallel process of evolution elsewhere, their origin can be traced back to elementary pole-star heaven and earth worship, and what is termed the establishment of the districts of Anu, Bel and Ea. That at one period these separate cults peacefully existed alongside of each other is indicated by the joint worship of pairs and triads of divinities who were personifications of central powers, of the upper and of the lower regions. In order to demonstrate this statement I shall briefly cite some references to such divinities from Professor Jastrow's hand-book, taking them in the order in which they are enumerated in the famous Babylonian version of the creation of the world, contained in the fragment known as the “Creation epic” which begins thus:

Tiamat was popularly pictured as a huge serpent-like monster, a fact of utmost interest when connected with the name Nakkash, i. e., crooked serpent, bestowed upon the constellation Draconis which contained the pole-star of 2170 B.C. Abstaining from comment I merely establish here the interesting point that in ancient Babylonia the serpent is found distinctly associated with Polaris as well as with the dual creative principle. The divine pairs Lakhmu and Lakhamu and Anshar and Kishar were then created. By an arbitrary division of his name into An and shar, the deity becomes the “one that embraces all that is above.” The element An is the same that we have in Anu and is the ideographic form for “high” and “heaven.” Ki is the ideographic form for earth and the natural consort to an all-embracing upper power is a power that “embraces all that is below.”

It is interesting thus to ascertain that on another tablet by the side of these personifications of heaven and earth are enumerated a series of names which certainly appear to be merely variations on the names or titles of the divine pairs. Lakhumu and Lakhamu occur on the list, and Anshar and Kishar recur as Anshar-gal, “great totality of what is on high,” and Kishar-gal, “great totality of what is below.” Then there are En-shar and Nin-shar, “lord and mistress” and a “Father-Mother of Anu,” titles which furnish an interesting comparison with the list printed on page 42 of this investigation.

In connection with the cult of the Pleiades I draw attention to R. G. Haliburton's interesting investigations on this particular subject, and to his publication in the Proceedings of the A. A. A. S. 1895, on “Dwarf survivals and traditions as to pigmy races,” which contains the following statements: “We find that the Atlas dwarfs and the Nanos predict the future by watching the reflection of the ‘Seven Stars’ in a bowl. The famous cup of Nestor, supposed to have been a divining cup, had two groups of Pleiades on its handle....” On examining the archaic designs engraved in the centre of the fine collection of Phœnician and Assyrian bronze bowls, which were found in the S. E. Palace, Nimroud, and are exhibited at the British Museum, I recently ascertained that they appear to be mostly variations on the theme of the centre and four or seven-fold division, some exhibiting a marked quadruplicate division, others a seven-pointed star surrounded by seven smaller stars. In one case a face is repeated four times, in opposite positions, on the central design which is surrounded by four large and four lesser conventionally drawn mountains. The head-dress with lappets which encloses each face recalls the familiar Egyptian form, and on two bowls images of scarabs are engraved. On one of these the beetle is drawn in such a way that its four legs, two of which turn upwards and two downwards, suggest the form of a swastika.

The peculiarities of these designs and the knowledge that star-worship prevailed in Assyria and Phœnicia suggest the inference that the Nimroud Palace bowls were employed for the observation of the positions of certain stars which marked the seasons and regulated the calendar, by means of which the priest-kings controlled the working of the system of state. Doubtlessly the constellations originally and principally observed besides Polaris were the three great “seven-fold ones,” i. e. the Ursa Major which marked the Four Quarters; the Pleiades which pertained to the Above and Below and marked the division of the year into halves, and Orion which also may well have appeared to be a composite image of the sacred, equal Four, and the central triad composed of the Above, Middle and Below.

One point deserves special note: directly opposite views, not only as to the relative supremacy of the Middle, Above and Below, but also as to the relation of the sexes to the upper and lower worlds, seem to have been held at different times and in different places; and this particular division of opinion appears to have given rise to endless dissension, strife and warfare, to the separation of sectarians from the main state and the foundation of numberless minor centres of government on the old plan, but with fresh forms of cult embodying a new artificial combination of ideas.

A consort, Nin-lil, a “mistress of the lower world,” was assigned to En-lil and was known also as Belit, the feminine form of Bel, i. e. the lady par excellence. She too had her temple at Nippur, the age of which goes back, at least, to the first dynasty of Ur. She was also known as Nin-khar-sag, the “lady of the high or great mountain,” as the “mother of the gods.” The assignment by Sargon, of the northern gates of his palace to Bel, who lays foundations, and Belit, who brings fertility, affords evidence that the goddess was the feminine form of Polaris. In Assyria, Belit appears, either as the wife of Bel, as the consort of Ashur, as the consort of Ea, or simply as a designation for Ishtar, i. e. “the goddess,” the “mistress of countries, or of mountains,” in which connection it is interesting to note that the ideographs for country and mountain are identical in Assyrian.

As an interesting outcome of an adjustment of both trains of thought stands Ishtar-Belit=the lady par excellence and consequently, the feminine personification of Polaris, the supreme goddess whom Tiglath-pileser termed “the first among the gods.” She is the mild and gracious mother of creation, “loves the king and his priesthood,” but is also the mighty commanding goddess of war who clothes herself in fiery flame, appears as a violent destroyer and sends down streams of fire upon her enemies. “The distinguishing position of both the Babylonian and Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought into close contact with Ashur she is not regarded as the mere consort to any god—no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. She is coequal in rank and splendor with Ashur. Her name becomes synonymous for goddess as Marduk becomes the synonym for god. The female deities, both foreign and native, came to be regarded as so many forms of Ishtar.”

A curious fact connected with Ishtar, which proves that she had developed from an original divinity, conceived as dual or bi-sexual, is that among Semites Ishtar appears both as a male and female deity. This seems to show that at a certain stage of thought Ishtar was also a centralization of attributes, a fact which undoubtedly explains the supreme position accorded to this divinity at one time as the feminine form of Polaris. The most striking illustration of this supremacy is furnished by the famous bas-relief figured by Layard (“Ninive and its remains” i, 238), which represents Ishtar, the mother-goddess, the female form of Assur, as seated on a throne which is borne on the back of a lion in the procession formed by the seven chief divinities of the Assyrian pantheon, six of whom are figured as bearded men standing on different animals. On the fine stela of Esarhaddon, discovered by Dr. von Luschan at Sendschirli, the goddess, accompanied in this case by three standing gods, is likewise represented as seated on a throne holding a large ring or circle in her left hand.

Indications that, as in China at the present day, a combined heaven and earth cult was practised in Babylonia-Assyria by male and female representatives of heaven and earth, are furnished by various detached pieces of information gleaned from Professor Jastrow's work. The priest-king was the “child” of Bel, and his living representative. As such he bore the divine titles of supreme lord, ruled the four regions of the earth, and became the representative of earth. Pagan authorities state that a virgin priestess officiated at times in the sanctuary of Bel and that there were three classes of priestesses devoted to the cult of Ishtar. They were called “the sacred ones” and carried out a mysterious ritual which had, however, originated “from naïve conceptions connected with the worship of the goddess of fertility.”

The use of sacred water and of fermented intoxicating wine entered into the cult of the life-giving principle and Babylonia ultimately becomes associated with “Mystery” and “the golden cup full of abominations” (Revelations xvii). Large terra cotta vases or jars have been found at Nippur and elsewhere, standing in front of the altar, and “the depth at which they were found is an indication of the antiquity and stability of the forms of worship in Babylonian temples. It may be proper to recall that, in the Solomonic temple likewise, there were a series of jars that stood near the great altar in the court” (Jastrow, p. 653). One of the oldest sacred basins found in the ruins of a Babylonian temple “has a frieze of female figures in it, holding in their outstretched hands flagons from which they pour water,” a fact which establishes the ritualistic association of female priestesses with water.

A critical examination of the accounts preserved of the Phœnician or Canaanite religion reveals that it consisted of an idealistic development of the Ishtar cult of Assyria. The fact that, ultimately, in Phœnicia, the cult of the female Astarte almost superseded that of the male Baal and that their joint cult, introduced into Palestine, seriously rivalled the monotheism of the Israelites, furnishes another indication that we have to deal here with the same marked divergence of cults which we have seen to result from a common basis in ancient America. In studying the Phœnician conception of Astarte as recorded by various authors, one is struck by its comparative refinement and ideality although, as in ancient America, the cult of the female principle of nature was also accompanied by secret licentious ceremonials.

Under Semiramis, Babylonia was a nation under a single female ruler and this usurpation of power by a woman, accompanied as it was by the predominance of the originally naïve cult which had unconsciously fostered and ministered to perversion and depravity, preceded the decadence, disintegration and ultimate downfall of the empire. Many centuries previous, the instalment of a female sovereign preceded the ruin of another empire in what we may assume to have been precisely the same way.

Professor Sayce informs us that, “about 3800 B.C., in northern Babylonia and in the city of Agadê or Akkad, arose the empire of Sargani-sarali=Sargon, and that Sargon's son, Naram-Sin, succeeded him in 3750 B.C. and continued the conquests of his grandfather.... Naram-Sin's son was Bingam-sar-ali. A queen, Ellat-gula, seems to have sat upon the throne not much later, and with her the dynasty may have come to an end. At any rate the empire of Akkad is heard of no more. But it left behind it a profound impression in western Asia, whose art and culture became Babylonian” (op. cit.).

The process of disintegration, which caused the Babylonian empire to crumble away, was doubtlessly hastened by its division into four regions, each of which in latter times possessed its capital and became the centre of various independent forms of rival cults. During many centuries Babylonia was closely associated with the cult of Marduk-Bel, the “lord of rest;” while Shamash, another form of the central supreme lord, was the deity of Larsa and Sippar.

When it is borne in mind how, as the empire spread, new cities were founded on the plan of the metropolis, that each of these must therefore have been, in turn, governed by a pair of minor rulers, and had its own minor zikkurat, we can understand the various indications that exist showing how the ancient sacred capital of the state became the place of reunion for the minor “gods,” who assembled there annually in the main sanctuary, and the fact that each minor chief necessarily required his dwelling place and tribal council-chamber, would account for the “references to zikkurats ... or special sanctuaries of some kind, which were erected within the sacred precinct of the main capital ...” (Jastrow, p. 637).

When it is realized that each zikkurat was an artificial “mountain” the description of Babylon in Revelations xviii becomes clearly intelligible and is seen to apply to the seven-fold organization of the ancient empire which had become the centre of the debasing earth-worship ultimately identified with a female goddess. “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.... I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast ... having seven heads.... The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth ... and there are seven kings”....

Inevitable as was the disintegration of the original state and religion, continual efforts appear to have been made even in Babylonia itself, to check the growth of a debasing ritual and the constant increase of the gods and goddesses which were installed as the rulers of each new town that was founded on the plan of the metropolis. Professor Jastrow tells us that “whenever the kings in their inscriptions mention the regular sacrifices, it is in almost all cases with reference to their re-institution of an old custom that had been allowed to fall into neglect (owing to the political disturbances which always affected the temples) and not as an innovation” ... (op. cit. p. 667). The tablet of Sippara, on which the image of Shamash is restored by the king on an ancient model, has already been described and on it appears the four-spoked wheel, the expressive symbol of a “primitive Sun.” The primeval conception of a single, stable, changeless and central celestial power was evidently adhered to in ancient Babylonia by a small but faithful minority, and the constant growth of debasing practices and the manufacture of symbolical images to which reverence was paid and which were ultimately worshipped, awakened its constant disapproval and abhorrence. At a remote period we find the adherents to a stern monotheism establishing the Babylonian province of

CANAAN.

The following account of the Hebrew religion, translated from Spamer's work (p. 297) already cited, will be found instructive:

“Originally there was no difference between the religion of the Hebrews and that of the neighboring tribes. The lord=Baal of Moab was named Kamosh, that of the Hebrews Yahwe. Yahwe was the national god, above all the god of battle.... Altars made of earth or unhewn stone were erected for him on mountains, hills or under green trees; next to the altar stood either a stone column (Masseba) or a sacred tree (Ashera). In the temple the image of Yahwe represented him in human form or, as in Dan or Bethel, in that of a bull. Next to Yahwe were other gods: first, Baal, the supreme lord of the world, who had a special temple in Jerusalem; secondly, Astarte, to whom Solomon built an altar near Jerusalem.

“Solomon had also built altars to Kamosh, the god of the Moabites, to Milkom, the god of the Ammonites and in his temple other gods beside Yahwe were worshipped; amongst them a demi-god and a serpent of brass (Neshushtan) which was abolished later on by Hiskia. All of these gods, who were also worshipped by the neighbors of the enemies of Israel, became secondary to the tribal god to whom Israel owed its greatness.

“Yahwe becomes the first and mightiest, and is identified with El, the supreme god of the Semites, whose individuality is vague. On the other hand ‘the Baal,’ the principal god of all neighboring people, especially of the Phœnicians, possesses a marked individuality which excludes his identification with other gods. He is worshipped in separate centres of cult and becomes the rival of Yahwe....” The rivalry and the struggle for religious and political supremacy between the priests, prophets and followers of Yahwe, the god of heaven, and Baal, the lord of earth, culminated in about B.C. 837, when the temple of the latter was destroyed and his priesthood killed.

“It was not until about 750 B.C., however, that the national god Yahwe became the acknowledged sole god of the universe next to whom all other gods were as mere phantoms.... A remarkable transformation took place about this time in the conception of a divinity and of morality; the moral precepts of religion were developed and clearly formulated and the ten commandments promulgated. As time progressed the voices of prophets and priesthood became more and more loud in condemnation of the use of idols and symbols of divinity. Hosea especially denounced the cult of Yahwe under the form of a bull; Jeremias went so far as to disapprove of the holy ark itself which stood in the temple of Jerusalem.

“Thus this little nation cultivated and perfected the religious capabilities of the human race and laid the foundation for Christianity and the Islam.”

Jerusalem, the ancient capital, occupied almost the centre of Canaan and was founded on Mount Zion, the highest elevation in the district. From time immemorial Jerusalem has indeed contained a spot reputed to mark the centre of the world and a sacred stone is also venerated there to this day and is now associated, in a curious way, with the biblical account of Jacob's dream of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven.

As in Peru, it appears to have been the policy of the kings of Assyria, who had before them the results of an opposite course pursued at Babylonia, to discountenance the manufacture of symbolical images and the establishment of minor centres of government, the leading motive being to maintain the ideal of an absolute centralization of temporal and spiritual government and power. It is the opinion of leading Assyriologists that Assyria was a colony founded by Semitic Babylonians and this conclusion is corroborated by the view I have advanced, namely, that, as Babylonia degenerated and abandoned the primeval ideas which nourished the germ of monotheism, those who adhered to this ideal after prolonged struggles separated themselves from their ancient mother, and founded new colonies, the administration and religion of which they established according to their wider experience and more advanced intellectual and moral development. A characteristic of Assyria seems to have been the institution of two male rulers, the high-priest and the king and the cult of the diurnal and nocturnal heaven, of day and night. As these features are in marked contrast to the Babylonian male and female rulers and the cult of heaven and earth and the reproductive principles, it would seem as though they had developed themselves from a prolonged cult of heaven alone by the inhabitants of Northern Babylonia, or that they were the result of a reform led about by the abuses to which the Babylonian cult had led. A curious development worth mentioning, even out of its chronological order, was when the Assyrian king Esarhaddon placed his two sons as single rulers upon the thrones of Babylonia and Assyria. It is known that these two brothers ruled in peace during twenty years and that then a great rebellion against the Assyrian rule took place, which ended in the conquest and destruction of Babylonia and the death of its king, whose half-brother, the Assyrian ruler Asurbanipal, thus became the sole ruler of Assyria and Babylonia.

The above data suffice to show that the tendency of the Assyrian monarchs was to indulge in self-glorification and to forget what some of his subjects never could: that his position had originally been that of an earthly representative only of a higher central, celestial power. As among some branches of the Semitic race, the conception of a divinity became more and more elevated until it reached the ideal of the Yahwe, “the only true god who was jealous of other gods and could brook none beside him.” To these uncompromising adherents of pure monotheism the royal titles of the Assyrian kings who styled themselves the rulers of the centre, of the four quarters of the earth and of the heavens, must indeed have appeared as a sacrilege.

The existence of such opposite views clearly explains the ultimate outbreak of hatred and war between monotheistic Israel and Juda and the ancient empires of Western Asia which shared, with them, a remote but common origin.

Returning to Assyria we find that this empire also, as it extended its four-fold capital Assur into four provinces and developed the cult of the high central power and the Heaven and Earth, gradually prepared in turn its own downfall by an inevitable process of disintegration. In time two great capitals grew up, situated to the northeast and northwest of the ancient metropolis of Assur, the original seat of the “kings of the four regions.” These capitals were Ninive, divided into four cities, and Arbela, also a “four-city.” The fact that the latter capital was the seat of Ishtar worship, further proves that, at one time, a definite separation of cults had also supervened in Assyria and that Assur and Ninive may at one time have been respectively centres of Polaris and sun worship. It is well known that when about B.C. 606 the great Assyrian empire was destroyed, it had four royal residences: Ninive, Dûr-Sarrukîn, Kalash and Assur, which were then burnt and levelled to the ground, never to be rebuilt.

Let us now examine the emblems of “divine royalty” exhibited on the famous portrait stelæ of Assyrian kings preserved at the British Museum which strikingly confirm the view I advanced that the four-spoked wheel of Shamash on the Sippara tablet was the ancient restored image of the “primitive sun” Polaris and of circumpolar rotation.

The Assyrian kings on the British Museum stelæ are represented as wearing the cross, between the signs for the moon and planet Venus, that occurs on the Sippara tablet. The four-spoked wheel thus explains itself as a “wheel-cross” and is found to have been employed in Assyria alternately with the plain cross; for the portrait statue of Asurnasirpal (about B.C. 880) represents the king wearing a chain about his neck from which hangs a cross between the Ishtar and moon emblems, and next to a symbol representing the lightning bolt of Ramman. In the background, next to the king's head, five emblems are sculptured, three of which are identical with those hanging from the chain, i. e. the eight-rayed “sun” of Ishtar, the moon Sin and the lightning bolt of Ramman. The fifth emblem consists of the royal conical cap with four horns and is represented separately to the right while the other four symbols form a compact group.

In the text Assur, Ramman, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar are invoked. As the symbols of Ishtar and Sin can be identified by the Sippara tablet, and the winged disk unquestionably pertains to Assur and the lightning bolt to Ramman, we find that the cap, simulating the central “holy mound” with four horns, must be the symbol of the remaining god Shamash. This inference appears to be corroborated by the circumstance that the seventh month was sacred to Shamash and that it was in this month that the lord of the holy mound built the seven-staged tower of Babylon. These facts authorize us to formulate the conclusion that the four-spoked wheel of the Sippara tablet, the cross hanging to the king's chain and the four-horned cap which, like the “square altar with four horns,” simulated the “holy mound,” were alike symbols of Shamash, the “primitive Sun.”

From Professor Jastrow (p. 107), we learn that it was customary for the early rulers of Babylon, at the beginning or the close of their dedicatory inscriptions, to parade a list of the divinities associated with the districts that they controlled. Gudea, for instance, enumerates eighteen deities, and these may be taken as indicative of the territorial extent of Gudea's jurisdiction. This custom affords an interesting explanation of the sculptured emblems of divinities and the invocations of their names on the above stelæ and shows that Asurnasirpal and his grandson ruled four districts from a fifth situated in the centre, whose emblem was the mound with four horns or the cross, both emblems of the royal “lord of the four regions.”

Bearing this custom in mind, we next note that, on his stela at the British Museum, Shalmaneser II, the son of Asurnasirpal, invokes not only three different divinities, but also one more than his father or son. His invocation is to Ashur, Shamash and Ishtar and to the Babylonian triad Anu, Bel and Ea. The emblems of the first three divinities are the same as on the stelæ of his father and son, i. e. the winged disk, the mound-shaped, horned cap and the eight-rayed star. To Anu, Bel and Ea pertain the emblematic lightning bolt and moon which are clearly visible; and a third, almost effaced, group which, upon examination by Mr. Pinches, revealed the presence of six stars or circles. Dr. von Luschan infers that originally the group consisted of seven circles and was the same as that sculptured on the stelæ of Sargon (at Berlin), the bas-reliefs at Nahr-el-Kelb and at Bavian. On each of these the circles are grouped in two horizontal rows of three circles while the seventh circle stands to the right, in front and midway between both rows.

If we assume that the lightning bolt pertained to Anu, the upper, and the moon, the emblem of Night, to Ea, the lower firmament, we find that the seven-fold group falls to the lot of Bel and seems to coincide exactly with the recorded fact that the famous zikkurat of Bel at Babylon, for instance, consisted of seven stories; and that it was known as “the house of the seven divisions [regions] of the world,” and that Babylon actually was at one time a seven-fold state, with seven “mountains”=gods=earthly rulers.

A fresh examination of the bas-relief of Maltaya, described by Layard and already alluded to, reveals a suggestive differentiation in the representations of the seven divinities in a row, at each end of which, facing the procession, stands a king. Considering that in Assyria there were governors, the limmi, who held offices of limited duration and gave their names to their years of office, the query naturally suggests itself whether the two “kings” may not also have ruled for fixed periods of seven years, each one of which bore the name of one of the seven divisions.

It being an accepted fact that the institution of the Sabbath was of Chaldean and Babylonian origin, it is permissible to assign to the same source the institution of the seven-year period described in Leviticus xxv: “But the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land.... And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty-nine years.... And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year”....