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his ears and enlightened his eyes,”so that he had collected and
republished the books and tablets of the kings who had gone
before him.
As minister of Merodach, Nebo passed into the solar circle. In
Egypt he would have been absorbed by the more influential god,
but in Babylonia the Semitic conception of Merodach as a Baal
who required his minister and envoy like an earthly king, stood
in the way of any such identification. He consequently retained
his personality, and it was another god who was identified with
him. This was Nusku, once the fire which blazed up into flame
and purified the sacrifice. With the spread of the solar cult Nusku
became a local sun-god, and was regarded as the god of the
burning sun of noon. In Sumerian days, however, while he was
still the spirit of the fire, he had been necessarily the servant
and associate of En-lil; and when En-lil became the Semitic
Bel of Nippur, Nusku followed his fortunes and was made his
messenger. After this his identification with Nebo was easy.
Nebo, too, was the messenger and interpreter of Bel, though it [364]
was the younger Bel of Babylon who had supplanted the older
Bel of Nippur. As Bel-Merodach took the place of En-lil, so
too did Nebo take the place of Nusku. The priests of Babylon
knew of one Bel only, and the minister of Bel must be one and
the same whether his name were Nusku or Nebo. That Nusku
had originally been an independent deity was, however, never
forgotten. The past history and religion of the country could not
be ignored, and the priesthood were forced to erect a separate
shrine to Nusku within the precincts of the temple of Nebo itself.
Only thus could they be certain that the god would not avenge
himself for being defrauded of his dues.
The history of Nebo is an instructive illustration of the
successive changes that passed over the religion of Babylonia.
We first have the ghost of Sumerian times, who becomes the
god of a special city in the days when Semitic influence began to
make itself felt. Then the god is transformed into a Semitic Baal,