Lecture IV. The Sun-God And Istar. 305
It passed into the person of the other deity; the two gods were [332]
identified together; but it was not by the absorption of the one
into the other but by the loss of individual existence on the part
of one of them. It was no resolution of two independent beings
into a common form, but rather the substitution of one individual
for another.
This process of assimilation was assisted by the Babylonian
conception of the goddess. By the side of the god, the goddess
was little more than a colourless abstraction which owed its
origin to the necessities of grammar. The individual element
was absent; all that gave form and substance to the goddess was
the particular name she happened to bear. Without the name
she had no existence, and the name itself was but an epithet
which could be interchanged with another epithet at the will of
the worshipper. The goddesses of Babylonia were thus like the
colours of a kaleidoscope, constantly shifting and passing one
into another. As long as the name existed, indeed, there was
an individuality attached to it; but with the change of name the
individuality changed too. The individuality depended more on
the name in the case of the goddess than in the case of the god;
for the goddess possessed nothing but the name which she could
call her own, while the god was conceived of as a human lord
and master with definite powers and attributes. There was, it is
true, one goddess, Istar, who resembled the god in this respect;
but it was just the goddess Istar who retained her independent
personality with as much tenacity as the gods.
When once the various sun-gods of Babylonia had been
assimilated, or identified, one with the other, it was not difficult to
extend the process yet further. As the city of Merodach increased
in power, lording it over the other States of the country, and
giving to their inhabitants its own name, so Merodach himself [333]
took precedence over the older gods of Babylonia, and claimed
the authority and the attributes which had belonged to them.
Their names, and therewith their powers, were transferred to