The Babylonian Legends of the Creation | Page 4

body of a man, resembling in shape the hippo-centaurs. Bulls
likewise were bred there with the heads of men, and dogs with four told
bodies, terminated in their extremities with the tails of fishes; horses
also with the heads of dogs; men too and other animals, with the heads
and bodies of horses and the tails of fishes. In short, there were
creatures in which were combined the limbs of every species of animals.
In addition to these, fishes, reptiles, serpents, with other monstrous
animals, which assumed each other's shape and countenance. Of all
which were preserved delineations in the temple of Belus at Babylon."
[Illustration: Babylonian Demon. [No. 93,089.]]
[THE SLAUGHTER OF THE QUEEN OF THE ABYSS.]
"The person, who presided over them, was a woman named
OMUROCA; which in the Chaldean language is THALATTH; in
Greek THALASSA, the sea; but which might equally be interpreted the
Moon. All things being in this situation, Belus came, and cut the
woman asunder: and of one half of her he formed the earth, and of the
other half the heavens; and at the same time destroyed the animals
within her. All this (he says) was an allegorical description of nature."
[THE CREATION OF MAN.]
"For, the whole universe consisting of moisture, and animals being
generated therein, the deity above-mentioned[1] took off his own head:
upon which the other gods mixed the blood, as it gushed out, with the
earth; and from whence were formed men. On this account it is that
they are rational and partake of divine knowledge."
[Footnote 1: The god whose head was taken off was not Belus, as is
commonly thought, but the god who the cuneiform texts tell us was
called "Kingu."]
[BELUS CREATES THE UNIVERSE.]

"This Belus, by whom they signify Jupiter, divided the darkness, and
separated the Heavens from the Earth, and reduced the universe to
order. But the animals not being able to bear the prevalence of light,
died. Belus upon this, seeing a vast space unoccupied, though by nature
fruitful, commanded one[1] of the gods to take off his head, and to mix
the blood with the earth; and from thence to form other men and
animals, which should be capable of bearing the air. Belus formed also
the stars, and the sun, and the moon, and the five planets. Such,
according to Polyhistor Alexander, is the account which Berosus gives
in his first book." (See Cory, Ancient Fragments, London, 1832, pp.
24-26.)
[Footnote 1: The god whose head was taken off was not Belus, as is
commonly thought, but the god who the cuneiform texts tell us was
called "Kingu."]
In the sixth century of our era DAMASCIUS the SYRIAN, the last of
the Neo-Platonic philosophers, wrote in Greek in a work on the Doubts
and Solutions of the first Principles, in which he says: "But the
Babylonians, like the rest of the Barbarians, pass over in silence the
One principle of the Universe, and they conceive Two, TAUTHE and
APASON; making APASON the husband of TAUTHE, and
denominating her the mother of the gods. And from these proceeds an
only-begotten son, MOYMIS, which I conceive is no other than the
Intelligible World proceeding from the two principles. From these, also,
another progeny is derived, DACHE and DACHUS; and again, a third,
KISSARE and ASSORUS, from which last three others proceed,
ANUS, and ILLINUS, and AUS. And of AUS and DAUCE is born a
son called Belus, who, they say, is the fabricator of the world, the
Demiurgus." (See Cory, Ancient Fragments, London, 1832, p. 318.)

THE SEVEN TABLETS OF CREATION. DESCRIPTION OF THEIR
CONTENTS.
In the beginning nothing whatever existed except APSÛ, which may be
described as a boundless, confused and disordered mass of watery

matter; how it came into being is unknown. Out of this mass there were
evolved two orders of beings, namely, demons and gods. The demons
had hideous forms, even as Berosus said, which were part animal, part
bird, part reptile and part human. The gods had wholly human forms,
and they represented the three layers of the comprehensible world, that
is to say, heaven or the sky, the atmosphere, and the underworld. The
atmosphere and the underworld together formed the earth as opposed to
the sky or heaven. The texts say that the first two gods to be created
were LAKHMU and LAKHAMU. Their attributes cannot at present be
described, but they seem to represent two forms of primitive matter.
They appear to have had no existence in popular religion, and it has
been thought that they may be described as theological conceptions
containing the notions of matter and some of its attributes.
[Illustration: Terra-cotta figure of a Babylonian Demon. [No. 22,458.]]
After countless aeons had passed the gods ANSHAR and KISHAR
came into being; the