The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

298 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

had been but one of the many villages of Babylonia, Merodach
had been its presiding god. It was to him that Ê-Saggil, its
sanctuary, was dedicated, and from him and his priesthood the
kings of Babylon derived their right to rule. Merodach had given
them their supremacy, first in Babylonia and then throughout
Western Asia, and the supremacy he bestowed upon them was
reflected upon himself. The god followed the fortunes of his city,
because through him his city had risen to power; and he became
Bel,“the lord,”not for the inhabitant of Babylon only, but for
all the civilised world. Like Amon of Thebes, Bel-Merodach of
Babylon supplanted the older gods of the country because the
city wherein he was worshipped supplanted the earlier seats of
Babylonian power.
Like Amon of Thebes, moreover, Merodach of Babylon owed
much to his solar character. Youngest of the gods though he
might be, he was yet a form of the sun-god,^253 and as such a
[325] representative and impersonation of the supreme Baal. However
much his solar features were overshadowed by other attributes in
later days, they were never wholly obscured, and his solar origin
was remembered to the last. It was never forgotten that before
he became the supreme Bel or“lord”of Babylonian theology he
had been merely a local sun-god, like Utu of Larsa or Samas of
Sippara.
We can even trace his cult to Sumerian days. A punning
etymology, proposed for his name in an age when the true origin
of it had been lost, made him theamar-utukior“heifer of the

(^253) The solar character of Merodach was first pointed out by myself (Trans.
SBA.(1873) ii. p. 246), and the proofs of it were given in my Hibbert Lectures,
p. 100 sqq. The Sumerian poem in which the creation is ascribed to Ea makes
Ê-Saggil originally the name of the temple of Ea at Eridu, from whence it
must have been transferred to Babylon when Ea was supplanted by Merodach.
From the list of Babylonian kings in which their names are explained, we may
perhaps infer that the proper title of the temple at Babylon was E(s)-Guzi. Guzi
had the same meaning in Sumerian as Ê-Saggil,“the house of the high head”
(WAI.ii. 30. 4, 26. 58).