The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

308 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

history did not begin with the rise of Babylon to power, much
as the priests of Babylon wished to make it do so; and the
chronological schemes which made a native of Babylon the first
ruler of mankind, or traced to Babylon the first observations of
astronomy, were but fictions which a little acquaintance with
history could easily refute. The earlier cities of the land were
proud of their traditions and their temples, and were not inclined
to give them up in favour of theparvenucity of Merodach; their
religious corporations were still wealthy, and their sanctuaries
still commanded the reverence of the people. Wholly to displace
and efface them was impossible, as long as history continued
to be written and the past to be remembered. The sun-god of
Sippara, the moon-god of Ur or Harran, even En-lil of Nippur,
all remained the rivals of Merodach down to the latest days of
Babylonian existence. Nabonidos himself was forced to conform
to the prevailing sentiment; he bestowed almost as much care
on the temple of the moon-god at Harran, and the temple of
the sun-god at Sippara, as upon that of Merodach at Babylon,
though, it is true, he tells us that it was Merodach who bade him
[336] restore the sanctuary of Sin, while the sun-god of Sippara might
be considered to be Merodach himself under another name.^261
It was thus history which prevented the rise of anything like
monotheism in Babylonia. It was impossible to break with
the past, and the past was bound up with polytheism and with
the existence of great cities, each with its separate god and
sanctuary and the minor divinities who revolved around them.
At the same time the tendency to monotheism existed; and
could the Babylonian have blotted out the past, it might have
ended in the worship of but one god. As it was, the language
of the later inscriptions sometimes approaches very nearly that
of the monotheist. When Nebuchadrezzar prays to Merodach,

(^261) It must also be remembered that the attentions lavished by Nabonidos upon
the older sanctuaries of Babylonia outside the walls of Babylon belonged to
the earlier part of his reign.