325
The change of form was due to the same striving to humanise
the superhuman beings of Sumerian belief as that which had
given a man's head to the colossal bulls; where the divine being
had become a god in the Semitic sense of the word, all traces
of his bestial origin were swept away; where he remained as it
were only on the margin of the divine world, the bestial element
was thrust as far as possible out of sight, and combined with
the features of a man. The cherub was allowed to retain his
bull's body or his eagle's head, but it was on condition that he
never rose to the rank of a god, and that human members were [355]
combined with his animal form.
The secondary creatures of the divine world of the Babylonians
thus resembled, in outward form, the gods of Egypt. But whereas
in Egypt it was the gods themselves who joined the head of
the beast to the body of the man, in Babylonia it was only the
semi-divine spirits and monsters of the popular creed who were
thus partly bestial and partly human. The official theology could
not banish them altogether; they became accordingly the servants
and followers of the gods, or else the rabble-host of Tiamât, the
impersonation of chaos and sin. Like the devils and angels of
medieval belief, they were included among the three hundred
spirits of heaven and the six hundred spirits of earth.^278 The
spirits of heaven formed“the hosts”of which the supreme deity
was lord, and whom he led into battle against his foes; Nebo was
the minister and lieutenant of Merodach and“the hosts of the
heaven and earth,”therefore it was his duty to muster and drill.^279
The Anunna-ki or“spirits of earth”had their habitation in the
subterranean world of Hades, where they sat on a throne of gold
(^278) In Reisner,“Sumerisch-babylonische Hymnen nach Thontafeln griechischer
Zeit,”in theMittheilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen, x. p. 135,
25-32, and p. 139, 151-158, we read,“the great gods are 50; the gods of destiny
are 7; the Anunnaki of heaven are 300; the Anunnaki of earth are 600.”
(^279) Hence he is called by Nebuchadrezzarpakid kissat samê u irtsitim,
“marshaller of the hosts of heaven and earth”(WAI.i. 51. 13).