Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple.
The temple of the god was the centre and glory of every great
Babylonian city. The Babylonian States had been at the outset
essentially theocratic; their ruler had been a high priest before
he became a king, and up to the last he remained the vicegerent
and adopted son of the god. It was round the temple that the
city had grown and its population clustered. The artisans worked
for it, and the agricultural labourers tilled its fields. The art of
Babylonia originated within the temple precincts; it was for its
adornment that the enamelled tiles were first made, and wood or
stone or metal carved into artistic shapes, while the endowments
which thus fostered the craftsman's art were derived from landed
property or from the tithes paid to the priests upon the produce of
the soil. The culture of Babylonia was with good reason traced
back to the god Ea.
The place occupied in Assyria by the army was filled in
Babylonia by the priesthood. The priests could make and
unmake their kings. The last monarch of Babylonia, Nabonidos,
was a nominee of the priests of Babylon; it was from them, and
not from the rights of heritage, that he had derived his title to
the throne. The great sanctuaries of the country influenced its
destinies to the last. The influence of Nippur and Eridu, in fact,
was wholly religious; we know of no royal dynasties that sprang
[449] from them. Even Nabonidos, with all his centralising zeal on
behalf of Merodach of Babylon, was constrained to lavish gifts
and honours on the sun-god of Sippara, at all events in the early
part of his reign.
We must therefore look upon the temple as the oldest unit
in the civilisation of Babylonia. Babylonian culture begins with
the temple, with the worship of a deity or a spirit, and with the
ministers attached to the cult. Centuries before En-lil of Nippur
had developed into a Semitic Bel, an earthly dwelling-house had
been provided for him which became in time the temple of a god.