The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

372 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

incantatory texts. The spirit of the sun became Samas, the spirit
of the evening star became Istar. En-lil of Nippur was transmuted
into Bel, and Nin-lil, the lady of the ghost-world, into Bilat or
[406] Beltis. The process was facilitated by the changes undergone
at Eridu by the magical texts themselves, even before the days
of Semitic influence. Maritime intercourse with other lands
had already deeply affected the theology of Eridu; the crude
animism of an earlier epoch had made way for the conception of
a culture-god who taught men the elements of civilisation, and
wrote books for their instruction. He was still a“spirit”rather
than a god in the Semitic sense of the word, but he was a spirit
who had emerged above the rest, who had acquired those family
ties which formed the very foundation of civilised life, and to
whom the creation of the world was due. Ea was not indeed a
Baal, but he was already on the way to become a god in human
form.
At the same time, both Ea and his son Asari still appear in
animal shape. Asari is, it is true,“the benefactor of man,”but he
is also“the mighty one of the princely gazelle,”and even“the
gazelle”himself; while Ea is“the antelope of the deep,”or more
simply“the antelope.”^315 At other times he is the“lord of the

(^315) WAI.ii. 55. 27, iv. 25. 40. I have retained here the ordinary rendering of
“gazelle”for the Assyrianditanu, though it is more probable that its Sumerian
equivalentelim(perhaps the Heb. âyîl) means“ram.”At all eventselimis
given askuaarikkuor“ram”in Sc. 315. But there is a difficulty about the god
to whom the name was originally applied. InWAI.ii. 55. 31-33,“the princely
elim,” “the mightyelim,”and“the earth-creatingelim”are given as names of
Ea; whereas inWAI.v. 21. 11,elimis a synonym of the god Aaari, and in
Sc. 312 it is the equivalent of El-lil. As“the ship”or ark of Ea was“the ship
of the antelope of the deep,”Ea must have been the antelope (turakhu) rather
than the ram or gazelle; and I believe, therefore, that the transference of what
was properly the name of El-lil to Asari and Ea was due to the confusion that
grew up between El-lil after his transformation into the Semitic Bel and Asari
after his transformation into the Semitic Bel-Merodach. The ideograph which
denoteselimrepresents a quadruped, sometimes with an eye, sometimes with
the ideograph of sheep, attached to it.