The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria | Page 8

belief similar to that which an animistic creed might be regarded as
possessing, it must be admitted that these seemingly animistic doctrines
may have originated in another way, and be due to later developments.
The power of the gods to create living things naturally makes possible
the belief that they had also power to endow with a soul, and therefore
with life and intelligence, any seemingly inanimate object. Such was
probably the nature of Babylonian animism, if it may be so called. The
legend of Tiawthu (Tiawath) may with great probability be regarded as
the remains of a primitive animism which was the creed of the original
and comparatively uncivilised Babylonians, who saw in the sea the
producer and creator of all the monstrous shapes which are found
therein; but any development of this idea in other directions was
probably cut short by the priests, who must have realised, under the
influence of the doctrine of the divine rise to perfection, that animism
in general was altogether incompatible with the creed which they
professed.
Image-worship and Sacred Stones.
Whether image-worship was original among the Babylonians and
Assyrians is uncertain, and improbable; the tendency among the people
in early times being to venerate sacred stones and other inanimate
objects. As has been already pointed out, the {diopetres} of the Greeks

was probably a meteorite, and stones marking the position of the
Semitic bethels were probably, in their origin, the same. The boulders
which were sometimes used for boundary-stones may have been the
representations of these meteorites in later times, and it is noteworthy
that the Sumerian group for "iron," /an-bar/, implies that the early
Babylonians only knew of that metal from meteoric ironstone. The
name of the god Nirig or Ênu-rêštu (Ninip) is generally written with the
same group, implying some kind of connection between the two --the
god and the iron. In a well-known hymn to that deity certain stones are
mentioned, one of them being described as the "poison- tooth"[*]
coming forth on the mountain, recalling the sacred rocks at Jerusalem
and Mecca. Boundary-stones in Babylonia were not sacred objects
except in so far as they were sculptured with the signs of the gods.[†]
With regard to the Babylonian bethels, very little can be said, their true
nature being uncertain, and their number, to all appearance, small. Gifts
were made to them, and from this fact it would seem that they were
temples--true "houses of god," in fact-- probably containing an image
of the deity, rather than a stone similar to those referred to in the Old
Testament.
[*] So called, probably, not because it sent forth poison, but on account
of its likeness to a serpent's fang.
[†] Notwithstanding medical opinion, their phallic origin is doubtful.
One is sculptured in the form of an Eastern castellated fortress.
Idols.
With the Babylonians, the gods were represented by means of stone
images at a very early date, and it is possible that wood was also used.
The tendency of the human mind being to attribute to the Deity a
human form, the Babylonians were no exception to the rule. Human
thoughts and feelings would naturally accompany the human form with
which the minds of men endowed them. Whether the gross human
passions attributed to the gods of Babylonia in Herodotus be of early
date or not is uncertain--a late period, when the religion began to
degenerate, would seem to be the more probable.

The adoration of sacred objects.
It is probable that objects belonging to or dedicated to deities were not
originally worshipped--they were held as divine in consequence of their
being possessed or used by a deity, like the bow of Merodach, placed in
the heavens as a constellation, etc. The cities where the gods dwelt on
earth, their temples, their couches, the chariot of the sun in his
temple-cities, and everything existing in connection with their worship,
were in all probability regarded as divine simply in so far as they
belonged to a god. Sacrifices offered to them, and invocations made to
them, were in all likelihood regarded as having been made to the deity
himself, the possessions of the divinity being, in the minds of the
Babylonians, pervaded with his spirit. In the case of rivers, these were
divine as being the children and offspring of Enki (Aa or Êa), the god
of the ocean.
Holy places.
In a country which was originally divided into many small states, each
having its own deities, and, to a certain extent, its own religious system,
holy places were naturally numerous. As the spot where they placed
Paradise, Babylonia was itself a holy place, but in all probability this
idea is late, and only came into existence after the legends of the
creation and the rise of Merodach to the kingship of heaven