Excerpts from Durant's OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE See below for Tammuz, Tiamat, Marduk and the original Immaculate Conception Virgin – (not Mary) Ishtar - Isis The Story of Civilization PART ONE OUR ORIENTAL HERITAGE THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION i. Our Oriental Heritage Being a history of civilization in Egypt and the Near East to the death of Alexander, and in India, China and ] front the beginning to our own day; 'with an introdution on the nature and foundations of civilization.
II. THE SUMERIANS, 118
1. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The exhuming of Sumeria Geography Race Appearance The Sumerian Flood The kings An ancient reformer Sargon of Akkad The Golden Age of Ur 2. ECONOMIC LIFE The soil-Industry Trade Classes Science 3. GOVERNMENT The kings- Ways of war The feudal barons Law 4. RELIGION AND MORALITY The Sumerian Pantheon The food of the gods Mythology Education A Sume- rian prayer Temple prostitutes The rights of woman-Sumerian cosmetics IV. THE GODS OF BABYLON, 232 Religion and the state The functions and powers of the clergy The lesser gods Marduk Ishtar The Babylonian stories of the Creation and the Flood The love of Ishtar and Tammuz The descent of Ishtar into Hell The death and resurrection of Tammuz Ritual and prayer Penitential psalms Sin Magic Superstition V. THE MORALS OF BABYLON, 244 Religion divorced from morals Sacred prostitution Free love Marriage Adultery Divorce The position of woman The relaxation of morals
120 THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION ( CHAP. VII )
Euphrates, which lingered in later memory as the Flood. Beneath that layer were the remains of a prediluvian culture that would later be pictured by the poets as a Golden Age. Meanwhile the priest-historians sought to create a past spacious enough for the development of all the marvels of Sumerian civilization. They formu- lated lists of their ancient kings, extending the dynasties before the Flood to 432,000 years-," and told such impressive stories of two of these rulers, Tammuz and Gilgamesh, that the latter became the hero of the greatest poem in Babylonian literature, and Tammuz passed down into the pantheon of Babylon and became the Adonis of the Greeks. Perhaps the priests ex- aggerated a little the antiquity of their civilization. We may vaguely judge the age of Sumerian culture by observing that the ruins of Nippur are found to a depth of sixty-six feet, of which almost as many feet extend below the remains of Sargon of Akkad as rise above it to the topmost stratum (ca. i A.D.);" on this basis Nippur would go back to 5262 B.C. Ten- acious dynasties of city-kings seem to have flourished at Kish ca. 4500 B.C., and at Ur ca. 3500 B.C. In the competition of these two primeval centers we have the first form of that opposition between Semite and non-Semite which was to be one bloody theme of Near-Eastern history from the Semitic ascendancy of Kish and the conquests of the Semitic kings Sargon I and Hammurabi, through the capture of Babylon by the "Aryan" generals Cyrus and Alexander in the sixth and fourth centuries before Christ, and the conflicts of Crusaders and Saracens for the Holy Sepulchre and the emolu- ments of trade, down to the efforts of the British Government to dominate and pacify the divided Semites of the Near East today. From 3000 B.C. onward the clay-tablet records kept by the priests, and found in the ruins of Ur, present a reasonably accurate account of the ac- cessions and coronations, uninterrupted victories and sublime deaths of the petty kings who ruled the city-states of Ur, Lagash, Uruk, and the rest; the writing of history and the partiality of historians are very ancient things. One king, Urukagina of Lagash, was a royal reformer, an enlightened despot who issued decrees aimed at the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and of everybody by the priests. The high priest, says one edict, must no longer "come into the garden of a poor mother and take wood there- from, nor gather tax in fruit therefrom"; burial-fees were to be cut to one-fifth of what they had been; and the clergy and high officials were forbidden to share among themselves the revenues and cattle offered to the gods. It was the King's boast that he "gave liberty to his people"; 144. Religion and Morality
The Sumerian Pantheon The food of the gods Mythology Education A Sumerian prayer Temple prostitutes The rights of woman Sumerian cosmetics King Ur-engur proclaimed his code of laws in the name of the great god Shamash, for government had so soon discovered the political utility of heaven. Having been found useful, the gods became innumerable; every city and state, every human activity, had some inspiring and dis- ciplinary divinity. Sun-worship, doubtless already old when Sumeria be- gan, expressed itself in the cult of Shamash, "light of the gods," who passed the night in the depths of the north, until Dawn opened its gates for him; then he mounted the sky like a flame, driving his chariot over the steeps of the firmament; the sun was merely a wheel of his fiery car. 18 Nippur built great temples to the god Enlil and his consort Ninlil; Uruk worshiped especially the virgin earth-goddess Innini, known to the Semites of Akkad as Ishtar the loose and versatile Aphrodite-Demeter of the Near East. Kish and Lagash worshiped a Mater Dolorosa, the sorrowful mother- goddess Ninkarsag, who, grieved with the unhappiness of men, interceded for them with sterner deities. 40 Ningirsu was the god of irrigation, the "Lord of Floods"; Abu or Tammuz was the god of vegetation. Even Sin was a god of the moon; he was represented in human form with a thin 128 THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION ( CHAP. VII ) crescent about his head, presaging the halos of medieval saints. The air was full of spirits beneficent angels, one each as protector to every Sumerian, and demons or devils who sought to expel the protective deity and take possession of body and soul. IV. THE GODS OF BABYLON Religion and the state. The junctions and powers of the clergy The lesser gods Marduk lshtar The Babylonian stories of the Crea- tion and the Flood The love of Ishtar and Tammuz. The descent of Ishtar into Hell The death and resurrection of Tammuz Ritual and prayer. Penitential psalms. Sin- Magic Superstition. The power of the king was limited not only by the law and the aris- tocracy, but by the clergy. Technically the king was merely the agent of the city god. Taxation was in the name of the god, and found its way directly or deviously into the temple treasuries. The king was not really king in the eyes of the people until he was invested with royal authority by the priests, "took the hands of Bel," and conducted the (CHAP. IX) BABYLONIA 233 image of Marduk in solemn procession through the streets. In these ceremonies the monarch was dressed as a priest, symbolizing the union of church and state, and perhaps the priestly origin of the kingship. All the glamor of the supernatural hedged about the throne, and made rebellion a colossal impiety which risked not only the neck but the soul. Even the mighty Hammurabi received his laws from the god. From the patesis or priest-governors of Sumeria to the religious coronation of Nebuchad- rezzar, Babylonia remained in effect a theocratic state, always "under the thumb of the priests." 85 CHAP. IX) BABYLONIA 235 We do not find among the Babylonians such signs of monotheism as appear in Ikhnaton and the Second Isaiah. Two forces, however, brought them near to it: the enlargement of the state by conquest and growth brought local deities under the supremacy of a single god; and several of the cities patrioti- cally conferred omnipotence upon their favored divinities. "Trust in Nebo," says Nebo, "trust in no other god"; 71 this is not unlike the first of the com- mandments given to the Jews. Gradually the number of the gods was less- ened by interpreting the minor ones as forms or attributes of the major dei- ties. In these ways the god of Babylon, Marduk, originally a sun god, became sovereign of all Babylonian divinities. 72 Hence his title, Bel-Marduk that is, Marduk the god. To him and to Ishtar the Babylonians sent up the most eloquent of their prayers. Ishtar (Astarte to the Greeks, Ashtoreth to the Jews) interests us not only as analogue of the Egyptian Isis and prototype of the Grecian Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, but as the formal beneficiary of one of the strangest of Babylonian customs. She was Demeter as well as Aphrodite no mere goddess of physical beauty and love, but the gracious divinity of bounteous motherhood, the secret inspiration of the growing soil, and the creative principle everywhere. It is impossible to find much * harmony, from a modern point of view, in the attributes and functions of Ishtar: she was the goddess of war as well as of love, of prostitutes as well as of mothers; she called herself "a compassionate courtesan"; 78 she was represented sometimes as a bearded bisexual deity, sometimes as a nude female offering her breasts to suck; 74 and though her worshipers repeat- edly addressed her as "The Virgin," "The Holy Virgin," and "The Virgin Mother," this merely meant that her amours were free from all taint of wedlock. Gilgamesh rejected her advances on the ground that she could not be trusted; had she not once loved, seduced, and then slain, a lion? 78 It is clear that we must put our own moral code to one side if we are to understand her. Note with what fervor the Babylonians could lift up to her throne litanies of laudation only less splendid than those which a tender piety once raised to the Mother of God: I beseech thee, Lady of Ladies, Goddess of Goddesses, Ishtar, Queen of all cities, leader of all men. Thou art the light of the world, thou art the light of heaven, mighty daughter of Sin (the moon-god). . . . Supreme is thy might, O Lady, exalted art thou above all gods. 236 THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION (CHAP. IX Thou renderest judgment, and thy decision is righteous. Unto thec are subject the laws of the earth and the laws of heaven, the laws of the temples and the shrines, the laws of the private apartment and the secret chamber. Where is the place where thy name is not, and where is the spot where thy commandments are not known? At thy name the earth and the heavens shake, and the gods they tremble. . . . Thou lookest upon the oppressed, and to the down-trodden thou bringest justice every day. How long, Queen of Heaven and Earth, how long, How long, Shepherdess of pale-faced men, wilt thou tarry? How long, O Queen whose feet are not weary, and whose knees make haste? How long, Lady of Hosts, Lady of Battles? Glorious one whom all the spirits of heaven fear, who subduest all angry gods; mighty above all rulers; who boldest the reins of kings. Opener of the womb of all women, great is thy light. Shining light of heaven, light of the world, cnlightencr of all the places where men dwell, who gatherest together the hosts of the nations. Goddess of men, Divinity of women, thy counsel passeth under- standing. Where thou glancest, the dead come to life, and the sick rise and walk; the mind of the diseased is healed when it looks upon thy face. How long, O Lady, shall mine enemy triumph over me? Command, and at thy command the angry god will turn back. Ishtar is great! Ishtar is Queen! My Lady is exalted, my Lady is Queen, Innini, the mighty daughter. of Sin. There is none like unto her. 76 With these gods as dramatis persons the Babylonians constructed myths which, have in large measure come down to us, through the Jews, as part of our own religious lore. There was first of all the myth of the crea- tion. In the beginning was Chaos. "In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when nothing below had yet received the name of earth, Apsu, the Ocean, who first was their father, and Tiamat, Chaos, who gave birth to them all, mingled their waters in one." Things slowly began to grow and take form; but suddenly the monster- CHAP. IX) BABYLONIA 237 goddess Tiamat set out to destroy all the other gods, and to make her- selfChaos supreme. A mighty revolution ensued in which all order was destroyed. Then another god, Marduk, slew Tiamat with her own medi- cine by casting a hurricane of wind into her mouth as she opened it to swallow him; then he thrust his lance into Tiamat's wind-swollen paunch, and the goddess of Chaos blew up. Marduk, "recovering his calm," says the legend, split the dead Tiamat into two longitudinal halves, as one does a fish for drying; "then he hung up one of the halves on high, which be- came the heavens; the other half he spread out under his feet to form the earth." 77 This is as much as we yet know about creation. Perhaps the ancient poet meant to suggest that the only creation of which we can know anything is the replacement of chaos with order, for in the end this is the essence of art and civilization. We should remember, however, that the defeat of Chaos is only a myth [as related by Sumer and Babylonia, in Durant's opinion].* Having moved heaven and earth into place, Marduk undertook to knead earth with his blood and thereby make men for the service of the gods. Mesopotamian legends differed on the precise way in which this was done; they agreed in general that man was fashioned by the deity from a lump of clay. Usually they represented him as living at first not in a paradise but in bestial simplicity and ignorance, until a strange mon- ster called Cannes, half fish and half philosopher, taught him the arts and sciences, the rules for founding cities, and the principles of law; after which Cannes plunged into the sea, and wrote a book on the history of civilization. 79 Presently, however, the gods became dissatisfied with the men whom they had created, and sent a great flood to destroy them and all their works. The god of wisdom, Ea, took pity on mankind, and resolved to save one man at least Shamash-napishtim and his wife. The flood raged; men "encumbered the sea like fishes' spawn." Then sud- denly the gods wept and gnashed their teeth at their own folly, asking themselves, "Who will make the accustomed offerings now?" But Sham- ash-napishtim had built an ark, had survived the flood, had perched on the mountain of Nisir, and had sent out a reconnoitering dove; now he decided to sacrifice to the gods, who accepted his gifts with surprise and gratitude. "The gods snuffed up the odor, the gods snuffed up the ex- cellent odor, the gods gathered like flies above the offering." 80 [baal ze bub - the lord of the flies] * The Babylonian story of creation consists of seven tablets (one for each day of creation) found in the ruins of Ashurbanipal's library at Kuyunjik (Nineveh) in 1854; they are a copy of a legend that came down to Babylonia and Assyria from Sumeria. 78 [Like all non-Biblical remembrances of actual history of God's creation in pagan sources, based on fact and seeded with instigations of the Devil.] 238 THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION ( CHAP. IX ) Lovelier than this vague memory of some catastrophic inundation is the vegetation myth of Ishtar and Tammuz. In the Sumerian form of the tale Tammuz is Ishtar's young brother; in the Babylonian form he is some- times her lover, sometimes her son; both forms seem to have entered into the myths of Venus and Adonis, Demeter and Persephone, and a hun- dred scattered legends of death and resurrection. Tammuz, son of the great god Ea, is a shepherd pasturing his flock under the great tree Erida (which covers the whole earth with its shade) when Ishtar, always in- satiable, falls in love with him, and chooses him to be the spouse of her youth. But Tammuz, like Adonis, is gored to death by a wild boar, and descends, like all the dead, into that dark subterranean Hades which the Babylonians called Aralu, and over which they set as ruler Ishtar's jealous sister, Ereshkigal. Ishtar, mourning inconsolably, resolves to go down to Aralu and restore Tammuz to life by bathing his wounds in the waters of a healing spring. Soon she appears at the gates of Hades in all her imperious beauty, and demands entrance. The tablets tell the story vigorously: When Ereshkigal heard this, As when one hews down a tamarisk (she trembled?). As when one cuts a reed (she shook?). "What has moved her heart, what has (stirred) her liver? Ho, there, (does) this one (wish to dwell) with me? To eat clay as food, to drink (dust?) as wine? I weep for the men who have left their wives; I weep for the wives torn from the embrace of their husbands; For the little ones (cut off) before their time. Go, gate-keeper, open thy gate for her, Deal with her according to the ancient decree." The ancient decree is that none but the nude shall enter Aralu. There- fore at each of the successive gates through which Ishtar must pass, the keeper divests her of some garment or ornament: first her crown, then her ear-rings, then her necklace, then the ornaments from her bosom, then her many-jeweled girdle, then the spangles from her hands and feet, and lastly her loin-cloth; and Ishtar, protesting gracefully, yields. Now when Ishtar had gone down into the land of no return, Ereshkigal saw her and was angered at her presence. (CHAP. IX) BABYLONIA 239 Ishtar without reflection threw herself at her. Ereshkigal opened her mouth and spoke To Namtar, her messenger. . . . "Go, Namtar, (imprison her?) in my palace. Send against her sixty diseases, Eye disease against her eyes, Disease of the side against her side, Foot-disease against her foot, Heart-disease against her heart, Head-disease against her head, Against her whole being." While Ishtar is detained in Hades by these sisterly attentions, the earth, missing the inspiration of her presence, forgets incredibly all the arts and ways of love: plant no longer fertilizes plant, vegetation languishes, ani- mals experience no heat, men cease to yearn. After the lady Ishtar had gone down into the land of no return, The bull did not mount the cow, the ass approached not the she-ass; To the maid in the street no man drew near; The man slept in his apartment, The maid slept by herself. Population begins to diminish, and the gods note with alarm a sharp decline in the number of offerings from the earth. In panic they command Ereshkigal to release Ishtar. It is done, but Ishtar refuses to return to the surface of the earth unless she is allowed to take Tammuz with her. She wins her point, passes triumphantly through the seven gates, receives her loin-cloth, her spangles, her girdle, her pectorals, her necklace, her ear-rings and her crown. As she appears plants grow and bloom again, the land swells with food, and every animal resumes the business of re- producing his kind." Love, stronger than death, is restored to its rightful place as master of gods and men. To the modern scholar it is only an ad- mirable legend, symbolizing delightfully the yearly death and rebirth of the soil, and that omnipotence of Venus which Lucretius was to cele- brate in his own strong verse; to the Babylonians it was sacred history, faithfully believed and annually commemorated in a day of mourning and wailing for the 240 THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION ( CHAP. IX ) Nevertheless the Babylonian derived no satisfaction from the idea of per- sonal immortality. His religion was terrestrially practical; when he prayed he asked not for celestial rewards but for earthly goods;* he could not trust his gods beyond the grave. It is true that one text speaks of Marduk as he "who gives back life to the dead," 8 * and the story of the flood represents its two survivors as living forever. But for the most part the Babylonian con- ception of another life was like that of the Greeks: dead mensaints and vil- lains, geniuses and idiots, alike went to a dark and shadowy realm within the bowels of the earth, and none of them saw the light again. There was a heaven, but only for the gods; the Aralu to which all men descended was a place frequently of punishment, never of joy; there the dead lay bound hand and foot forever, shivering with cold, and subject to hunger and thirst unless their children placed food periodically in their graves. 85 Those who had been especially wicked on earth were subjected to horrible tortures; leprosy consumed them, or some other of the diseases which Nergal and Allat, male and female lords of Aralu, had arranged for their rectification. Most bodies were buried in vaults; a few were cremated, and their remains were preserved in urns. 80 The dead body was not embalmed, but professional mourners washed and perfumed it, clad it presentably, painted its checks, darkened its eyelids, put rings upon its fingers, and provided it with a change of linen. If the corpse was that of a woman it was equipped with scent- bottles, combs, cosmetic pencils, and eye-paint to preserve its fragrance and complexion in the nether world.* 7 If not properly buried the dead would torment the living; if not buried at all, the soul would prowl about sewers and gutters for food, and might afflict an entire city with pestilence. 88 It was a medley of ideas not as consistent as Euclid, but sufficing to prod the simple Babylonian to keep his gods and priests well fed. The usual offering was food and drink, for these had the advantage that if they were not entirely consumed by the gods the surplus need not go to waste. A frequent sacrifice on Babylonian altars was the lamb; and an old Babylonian incantation strangely anticipates the symbolism of Judaism and Christianity: "The lamb as a substitute for a man, the lamb he gives for his life." 89 Sacrifice was a complex ritual, requiring the expert services of a priest; every act and word of the ceremony was settled by sacred tradition, and any amateur deviation from these forms might mean that the gods would eat without listening. In general, to the Babylonian, religion meant correct ritual rather than the good life. To do one's duty to the gods one had to offer proper sacrifice to the temples, and recite the appropriate prayers; 90 for the rest he might cut out the eyes of his fallen enemy, cut off the hands and feet of captives, and roast their remainders alive in a furnace, 01 without much offense to heaven. To participate in or reverently to attend long and solemn CHAP. IX) BABYLONIA 241 processions like those in which the priests carried from sanctuary to sanc- tuary the image of Marduk, and performed the sacred drama of his death and resurrection; to anoint the idols with sweet-scented oils,* to burn incense before them, clothe them with rich vestments, or adorn them with jewelry; to offer up the virginity of their daughters in the great festival of Ishtar; to put food and drink before the gods, and to be generous to the priests these were the essential works of the devout Babylonian soul. 98 Perhaps we misjudge him, as doubtless the future will misjudge us from the fragments that accident will rescue from our decay. Some of the finest literary relics of the Babylonians are prayers that breathe a profound and sincere piety. Hear the proud Nebuchadrezzar humbly addressing Marduk: Without thee, Lord, what could there be For the king thou lovest, and dost call his name? Thou shalt bless his title as thou wilt, And unto him vouchsafe a path direct. I, the prince obeying thee, Am what thy hands have made. 'Tis thou who art my creator, Entrusting me with the rule of hosts of men. According to thy mercy, Lord, . . . Turn into loving-kindness thy dread power, And make to spring up in my heart A reverence for thy divinity. Give as thou thinkest best. 04 The surviving literature abounds in hymns full of that passionate self abasement with which the Semite tries to control and conceal his pride. Many of them take the character of "penitential psalms," and prepare us for the magnificent feeling and imagery of "David"; who knows but they served as models for that many-headed Muse? I, thy servant, full of sighs cry unto thee. Thou acceptest the fervent prayer of him who is burdened with sin. Thou lookest upon a man, and that man lives. . . . Look with true favor upon me, and accept my supplication. . . . Therefore Tammuz was called "The Anointed." 91 (CHAP. Xl) A MOTLEY OF NATIONS 295 some places as the goddess of a cold Artemisian chastity, and in others as the amorous and wanton deity of physical love, in which form she was identified by the Greeks with Aphrodite. As Ishtar-Mylitta received in sacri- fice the virginity of her girl-devotees at Babylon, so the women who hon- ored Astarte at Byblos had to give up their long tresses to her, or surrender themselves to the first stranger who solicited their love in the precincts of the temple. And as Ishtar had loved Tammuz, so Astarte had loved Adoni (i.e., Lord), whose death on the tusks of a boar was annually mourned at Byblos and Paphos (in Cyprus) with wailing and beating of the breast. Luckily Adoni rose from the dead as often as he died, and ascended to heav- en in the presence of his worshipers." Finally there was Moloch (i.e., King), the terrible god to whom the Phoenicians offered living children as burnt sacrifices; at Carthage, during a siege of the city (307 B.C.), two hundred boys of die best families were burned to death on the altar of this fiery divinity. 30
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