Legends Of Babylon And Egypt

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(1) See Naville, _Deir el-Bahari_, Pt. II, pp. 12 ff.,
plates xlvi ff.

(2) See Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. II, pp. 23 ff.
His chief cult-centre was Hermonthis, but here as elsewhere
he is given his usual title "Lord of Thebes".

(3) Pl. xlvii. Similar scenes are presented in the "birth-
temples" at Denderah, Edfu, Philae, Esneh, and Luxor; see
Naville, op. cit., p. 14.

(4) Cf. Budge, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 50.

The scene in the series, which is of greatest interest in the present
connexion, is that representing Khnum at his work of creation. He is
seated before a potter's wheel which he works with his foot,(1) and on
the revolving table he is fashioning two children with his hands, the
baby princess and her "double". It was always Hatshepsut's desire to be
represented as a man, and so both the children are boys.(2) As yet they
are lifeless, but the symbol of Life will be held to their nostrils
by Heqet, the divine Potter's wife, whose frog-head typifies birth and
fertility. When Amenophis III copied Hatshepsut's sculptures for his own
series at Luxor, he assigned this duty to the greater goddess Hathor,
perhaps the most powerful of the cosmic goddesses and the mother of the
world. The subsequent scenes at Deir el-Bahari include the leading of
queen Aahmes by Khnum and Heqet to the birth-chamber; the great birth
scene where the queen is attended by the goddesses Nephthys and Isis, a
number of divine nurses and midwives holding several of the "doubles"
of the baby, and favourable genii, in human form or with the heads of
crocodiles, jackals, and hawks, representing the four cardinal points
and all bearing the gift of life; the presentation of the young child
by the goddess Hathor to Amen, who is well pleased at the sight of his
daughter; and the divine suckling of Hatshepsut and her "doubles". But
these episodes do not concern us, as of course they merely reflect the
procedure following a royal birth. But Khnum's part in the princess's
origin stands on a different plane, for it illustrates the Egyptian myth
of Creation by the divine Potter, who may take the form of either Khnum
or Ptah. Monsieur Naville points out the extraordinary resemblance in
detail which Hatshepsut's myth of divine paternity bears to the Greek
legend of Zeus and Alkmene, where the god takes the form of Amphitryon,
Alkmene's husband, exactly as Amen appears to the queen;(3) and it may
be added that the Egyptian origin of the Greek story was traditionally
recognized in the ancestry ascribed to the human couple.(4)

(1) This detail is not clearly preserved at Deir el-Bahari;
but it is quite clear in the scene on the west wall of the
"Birth-room" in the Temple at Luxor, which Amenophis III
evidently copied from that of Hatshepsut.

(2) In the similar scene at Luxor, where the future
Amenophis III is represented on the Creator's wheel, the
sculptor has distinguished the human child from its
spiritual "double" by the quaint device of putting its
finger in its mouth.

(3) See Naville, op. cit., p. 12.

(4) Cf., e.g., Herodotus, II, 43.

The only complete Egyptian Creation myth yet recovered is preserved in
a late papyrus in the British Museum, which was published some years ago
by Dr. Budge.(1) It occurs under two separate versions embedded in "The
Book of the Overthrowing of Apep, the Enemy of Ra". Here Ra, who utters
the myth under his late title of Neb-er-tcher, "Lord to the utmost
limit", is self-created as Khepera from Nu, the primaeval water; and
then follow successive generations of divine pairs, male and female,
such as we find at the beginning of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation
Series.(2) Though the papyrus was written as late as the year 311 B.C.,
the myth is undoubtedly early. For the first two divine pairs Shu and
Tefnut, Keb and Nut, and four of the latter pairs' five children, Osiris
and Isis, Set and Nephthys, form with the Sun-god himself the Greater
Ennead of Heliopolis, which exerted so wide an influence on Egyptian
religious speculation. The Ennead combined the older solar elements with
the cult of Osiris, and this is indicated in the myth by a break in the
successive generations, Nut bringing forth at a single birth the five
chief gods of the Osiris cycle, Osiris himself and his son Horus, with
Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus we may see in the myth an early example of
that religious syncretism which is so characteristic of later Egyptian
belief.

(1) See _Archaeologia_, Vol. LII (1891). Dr. Budge published
a new edition of the whole papyrus in _Egyptian Hieratic
Papyri in the British Museum_ (1910), and the two versions
of the Creation myth are given together in his _Gods of the
Egyptians_, Vol. I (1904), Chap. VIII, pp. 308 ff., and more
recently in his _Egyptian Literature_, Vol. I, "Legends of
the Gods" (1912), pp. 2 ff. An account of the papyrus is
included in the Introduction to "Legends of the Gods", pp.
xiii ff.

(2) In _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, Chap. VII, pp. 288
ff., Dr. Budge gives a detailed comparison of the Egyptian
pairs of primaeval deities with the very similar couples of
the Babylonian myth.

The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the Hebrew
cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water, corresponding to
the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is of a very general
character, and includes no etymological equivalence such as we find
when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal Semitic-Babylonian
Creation narrative.(1) The application of the Ankh, the Egyptian sign
for Life, to the nostrils of a newly-created being is no true parallel
to the breathing into man's nostrils of the breath of life in the
earlier Hebrew Version,(2) except in the sense that each process was
suggested by our common human anatomy. We should naturally expect to
find some Hebrew parallel to the Egyptian idea of Creation as the work
of a potter with his clay, for that figure appears in most ancient
mythologies. The Hebrews indeed used the conception as a metaphor
or parable,(3) and it also underlies their earlier picture of man's
creation. I have not touched on the grosser Egyptian conceptions
concerning the origin of the universe, which we may probably connect
with African ideas; but those I have referred to will serve to
demonstrate the complete absence of any feature that presents a detailed
resemblance of the Hebrew tradition.

(1) For the wide diffusion, in the myths of remote peoples,
of a vague theory that would trace all created things to a
watery origin, see Farnell, _Greece and Babylon_, p. 180.

(2) Gen. ii. 7 (J).

(3) Cf., e.g., Isaiah xxix. 16, xlv. 9; and Jeremiah xviii.
2f.

When we turn to Babylonia, we find there also evidence of conflicting
ideas, the product of different and to some extent competing religious
centres. But in contrast to the rather confused condition of Egyptian
mythology, the Semitic Creation myth of the city of Babylon, thanks
to the latter's continued political ascendancy, succeeded in winning a
dominant place in the national literature. This is the version in which
so many points of resemblance to the first chapter of Genesis have long
been recognized, especially in the succession of creative acts and their
relative order. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version the creation of the
world is represented as the result of conflict, the emergence of order
out of chaos, a result that is only attained by the personal triumph
of the Creator. But this underlying dualism does not appear in the more
primitive Sumerian Version we have now recovered. It will be remembered
that in the second lecture I gave some account of the myth, which occurs
in an epitomized form as an introduction to the Sumerian Version of
the Deluge, the two narratives being recorded in the same document and
connected with one another by a description of the Antediluvian cities.
We there saw that Creation is ascribed to the three greatest gods of
the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the goddess
Ninkharsagga.

It is significant that in the Sumerian version no less than four deities
are represented as taking part in the Creation. For in this we may see
some indication of the period to which its composition must be assigned.
Their association in the text suggests that the claims of local gods
had already begun to compete with one another as a result of political
combination between the cities of their cults. To the same general
period we must also assign the compilation of the Sumerian Dynastic
record, for that presupposes the existence of a supreme ruler among
the Sumerian city-states. This form of political constitution must
undoubtedly have been the result of a long process of development,
and the fact that its existence should be regarded as dating from the
Creation of the world indicates a comparatively developed stage of the
tradition. But behind the combination of cities and their gods we may
conjecturally trace anterior stages of development, when each local
deity and his human representative seemed to their own adherents the
sole objects for worship and allegiance. And even after the demands of
other centres had been conceded, no deity ever quite gave up his local
claims.

Enlil, the second of the four Sumerian creating deities, eventually
ousted his rivals. It has indeed long been recognized that the _role_
played by Marduk in the Babylonian Version of Creation had been borrowed
from Enlil of Nippur; and in the Atrakhasis legend Enlil himself appears
as the ultimate ruler of the world and the other gods figure as "his
sons". Anu, who heads the list and plays with Enlil the leading part
in the Sumerian narrative, was clearly his chief rival. And though
we possess no detailed account of Anu's creative work, the persistent
ascription to him of the creation of heaven, and his familiar title,
"the Father of the Gods", suggest that he once possessed a corresponding
body of myth in Eanna, his temple at Erech. Enki, the third of the
creating gods, was naturally credited, as God of Wisdom, with
special creative activities, and fortunately in his case we have some
independent evidence of the varied forms these could assume.

According to one tradition that has come down to us,(1) after Anu had
made the heavens, Enki created Apsu or the Deep, his own dwelling-place.
Then taking from it a piece of clay(2) he proceeded to create the
Brick-god, and reeds and forests for the supply of building material.
From the same clay he continued to form other deities and materials,
including the Carpenter-god; the Smith-god; Arazu, a patron deity
of building; and mountains and seas for all that they produced; the
Goldsmith-god, the Stone-cutter-god, and kindred deities, together with
their rich products for offerings; the Grain-deities, Ashnan and Lakhar;
Siris, a Wine-god; Ningishzida and Ninsar, a Garden-god, for the sake of
the rich offerings they could make; and a deity described as "the
High priest of the great gods," to lay down necessary ordinances and
commands. Then he created "the King", for the equipment probably of a
particular temple, and finally men, that they might practise the cult in
the temple so elaborately prepared.

(1) See Weissbach, _Babylonische Miscellen_, pp. 32 ff.

(2) One of the titles of Enki was "the Potter"; cf. _Cun.
Texts_ in the Brit. Mus., Pt. XXIV, pl. 14 f., ll. 41, 43.

It will be seen from this summary of Enki's creative activities, that
the text from which it is taken is not a general Creation myth, but
in all probability the introductory paragraph of a composition which
celebrated the building or restoration of a particular temple; and the
latter's foundation is represented, on henotheistic lines, as the main
object of creation. Composed with that special purpose, its narrative
is not to be regarded as an exhaustive account of the creation of the
world. The incidents are eclective, and only such gods and materials are
mentioned as would have been required for the building and adornment of
the temple and for the provision of its offerings and cult. But even so
its mythological background is instructive. For while Anu's creation of
heaven is postulated as the necessary precedent of Enki's activities,
the latter creates the Deep, vegetation, mountains, seas, and mankind.
Moreover, in his character as God of Wisdom, he is not only the
teacher but the creator of those deities who were patrons of man's own
constructive work. From such evidence we may infer that in his temple at
Eridu, now covered by the mounds of Abu Shahrain in the extreme south of
Babylonia, and regarded in early Sumerian tradition as the first city in
the world, Enki himself was once celebrated as the sole creator of the
universe.

The combination of the three gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, is persistent
in the tradition; for not only were they the great gods of the universe,
representing respectively heaven, earth, and the watery abyss, but
they later shared the heavenly sphere between them. It is in their
astrological character that we find them again in creative activity,
though without the co-operation of any goddess, when they appear as
creators of the great light-gods and as founders of time divisions, the
day and the month. This Sumerian myth, though it reaches us only in an
extract or summary in a Neo-Babylonian schoolboy's exercise,(1) may well
date from a comparatively early period, but probably from a time when
the "Ways" of Anu, Enlil, and Enki had already been fixed in heaven and
their later astrological characters had crystallized.

(1) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. 124 ff.
The tablet gives extracts from two very similar Sumerian and
Semitic texts. In both of them Anu, Enlil, and Enki appear
as creators "through their sure counsel". In the Sumerian
extract they create the Moon and ordain its monthly course,
while in the Semitic text, after establishing heaven and
earth, they create in addition to the New Moon the bright
Day, so that "men beheld the Sun-god in the Gate of his
going forth".

The idea that a goddess should take part with a god in man's creation
is already a familiar feature of Babylonian mythology. Thus the goddess
Aruru, in co-operation with Marduk, might be credited with the creation
of the human race,(1) as she might also be pictured creating on her own
initiative an individual hero such as Enkidu of the Gilgamesh Epic. The
_role_ of mother of mankind was also shared, as we have seen, by the
Semitic Ishtar. And though the old Sumerian goddess, Ninkharsagga, the
"Lady of the Mountains", appears in our Sumerian text for the first time
in the character of creatress, some of the titles we know she enjoyed,
under her synonyms in the great God List of Babylonia, already reflected
her cosmic activities.(2) For she was known as

"The Builder of that which has Breath",
"The Carpenter of Mankind",
"The Carpenter of the Heart",
"The Coppersmith of the Gods",
"The Coppersmith of the Land", and
"The Lady Potter".

(1) Op. cit., p. 134 f.

(2) Cf. _Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl. 12,
ll. 32, 26, 27, 25, 24, 23, and Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p.
34.

In the myth we are not told her method of creation, but from the above
titles it is clear that in her own cycle of tradition Ninkhasagga was
conceived as fashioning men not only from clay but also from wood, and
perhaps as employing metal for the manufacture of her other works of
creation. Moreover, in the great God List, where she is referred to
under her title Makh, Ninkhasagga is associated with Anu, Enlil, and
Enki; she there appears, with her dependent deities, after Enlil and
before Enki. We thus have definite proof that her association with the
three chief Sumerian gods was widely recognized in the early Sumerian
period and dictated her position in the classified pantheon of
Babylonia. Apart from this evidence, the important rank assigned her
in the historical and legal records and in votive inscriptions,(1)
especially in the early period and in Southern Babylonia, accords fully
with the part she here plays in the Sumerian Creation myth. Eannatum and
Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and Enlil, giving
her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite Kudurru inscriptions
of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, where she is referred to, she
takes rank after Enki and before the other gods. In Sumer she was known
as "the Mother of the Gods", and she was credited with the power
of transferring the kingdom and royal insignia from one king to his
successor.

(1) See especially, Poebel, op. cit., pp. 24 ff.

Her supreme position as a goddess is attested by the relative
insignificance of her husband Dunpae, whom she completely overshadows,
in which respect she presents a contrast to the goddess Ninlil, Enlil's
female counterpart. The early clay figurines found at Nippur and on
other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and clasping one of
her breasts, may well be regarded as representing Ninkharsagga and not
Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab, both in the south, and
this fact sufficiently explains her comparative want of influence in
Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place. She does indeed appear
in the north during the Sargonic period under her own name, though later
she survives in her synonyms of Ninmakh, "the Sublime Lady", and Nintu,
"the Lady of Child-bearing". It is under the latter title that Hammurabi
refers to her in his Code of Laws, where she is tenth in a series
of eleven deities. But as Goddess of Birth she retained only a pale
reflection of her original cosmic character, and her functions were
gradually specialized.(1)

(1) Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 33. It is possible that, under
one of her later synonyms, we should identify her, as Dr.
Poebel suggests, with the Mylitta of Herodotus.

From a consideration of their characters, as revealed by independent
sources of evidence, we thus obtain the reason for the co-operation of
four deities in the Sumerian Creation. In fact the new text illustrates
a well-known principle in the development of myth, the reconciliation
of the rival claims of deities, whose cults, once isolated, had been
brought from political causes into contact with each other. In this
aspect myth is the medium through which a working pantheon is evolved.
Naturally all the deities concerned cannot continue to play their
original parts in detail. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, where
a single deity, and not a very prominent one, was to be raised to
pre-eminent rank, the problem was simple enough. He could retain his own
qualities and achievements while borrowing those of any former rival. In
the Sumerian text we have the result of a far more delicate process of
adjustment, and it is possible that the brevity of the text is here not
entirely due to compression of a longer narrative, but may in part
be regarded as evidence of early combination. As a result of the
association of several competing deities in the work of creation, a
tendency may be traced to avoid discrimination between rival claims.
Thus it is that the assembled gods, the pantheon as a whole, are
regarded as collectively responsible for the creation of the universe.
It may be added that this use of _ilani_, "the gods", forms an
interesting linguistic parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title
Elohim.

It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of
Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as were
directly related to the Deluge story. No doubt the selection of men and
animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the Flood; and
emphasis was purposely laid on the creation of the _niggilma_ because of
the part it played in securing mankind's survival. Even so, we noted one
striking parallel between the Sumerian Version and that of the Semitic
Babylonians, in the reason both give for man's creation. But in the
former there is no attempt to explain how the universe itself had come
into being, and the existence of the earth is presupposed at the moment
when Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga undertake the creation of man.
The Semitic-Babylonian Version, on the other hand, is mainly occupied
with events that led up to the acts of creation, and it concerns our
problem to inquire how far those episodes were of Semitic and how far of
Sumerian origin. A further question arises as to whether some strands
of the narrative may not at one time have existed in Sumerian form
independently of the Creation myth.

The statement is sometimes made that there is no reason to assume a
Sumerian original for the Semitic-Babylonian Version, as recorded on
"the Seven Tablets of Creation";(1) and this remark, though true of that
version as a whole, needs some qualification. The composite nature of
the poem has long been recognized, and an analysis of the text has shown
that no less than five principal strands have been combined for its
formation. These consist of (i) The Birth of the Gods; (ii) The Legend
of Ea and Apsu; (iii) The principal Dragon Myth; (iv) The actual account
of Creation; and (v) the Hymn to Marduk under his fifty titles.(2) The
Assyrian commentaries to the Hymn, from which considerable portions of
its text are restored, quote throughout a Sumerian original, and explain
it word for word by the phrases of the Semitic Version;(3) so that for
one out of the Seven Tablets a Semitic origin is at once disproved.
Moreover, the majority of the fifty titles, even in the forms in which
they have reached us in the Semitic text, are demonstrably Sumerian, and
since many of them celebrate details of their owner's creative work, a
Sumerian original for other parts of the version is implied. Enlil and
Ea are both represented as bestowing their own names upon Marduk,(4)
and we may assume that many of the fifty titles were originally borne by
Enlil as a Sumerian Creator.(5) Thus some portions of the actual account
of Creation were probably derived from a Sumerian original in which
"Father Enlil" figured as the hero.

(1) Cf., e.g., Jastrow, _Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol.
XXXVI (1916), p. 279.

(2) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. lxvi
ff.; and cf. Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 43 ff.

(3) Cf. _Sev. Tabl._, Vol. I, pp. 157 ff.

(4) Cf. Tabl. VII, ll. 116 ff.

(5) The number fifty was suggested by an ideogram employed
for Enlil's name.

For what then were the Semitic Babylonians themselves responsible?
It seems to me that, in the "Seven Tablets", we may credit them with
considerable ingenuity in the combination of existing myths, but
not with their invention. The whole poem in its present form is
a glorification of Marduk, the god of Babylon, who is to be given
pre-eminent rank among the gods to correspond with the political
position recently attained by his city. It would have been quite out of
keeping with the national thought to make a break in the tradition,
and such a course would not have served the purpose of the Babylonian
priesthood, which was to obtain recognition of their claims by the older
cult-centres in the country. Hence they chose and combined the more
important existing myths, only making such alterations as would fit
them to their new hero. Babylon herself had won her position by her own
exertions; and it would be a natural idea to give Marduk his opportunity
of becoming Creator of the world as the result of successful conflict.
A combination of the Dragon myth with the myth of Creation would have
admirably served their purpose; and this is what we find in the Semitic
poem. But even that combination may not have been their own invention;
for, though, as we shall see, the idea of conflict had no part in the
earlier forms of the Sumerian Creation myth, its combination with the
Dragon _motif_ may have characterized the local Sumerian Version
of Nippur. How mechanical was the Babylonian redactors' method of
glorifying Marduk is seen in their use of the description of Tiamat
and her monster brood, whom Marduk is made to conquer. To impress the
hearers of the poem with his prowess, this is repeated at length no less
than four times, one god carrying the news of her revolt to another.

Direct proof of the manner in which the later redactors have been
obliged to modify the original Sumerian Creation myth, in consequence of
their incorporation of other elements, may be seen in the Sixth Tablet
of the poem, where Marduk states the reason for man's creation. In the
second lecture we noted how the very words of the principal Sumerian
Creator were put into Marduk's mouth; but the rest of the Semitic god's
speech finds no equivalent in the Sumerian Version and was evidently
inserted in order to reconcile the narrative with its later ingredients.
This will best be seen by printing the two passages in parallel
columns:(1)