Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple. 439
come to know more of the ritual of Babylonia, the resemblance
it bears to that of the Hebrews becomes at once more striking
and extensive. They both start from the same principles, and
agree in many of their details. Between them, indeed, lies that
deep gulf of difference which separates the religions of Israel
and Babylonia as a whole; the one is monotheistic, the other
polytheistic. But, apart from this profound distinction, the cult
and ritual have more than a family relationship. Customs and
rites which have lost their primitive meaning in the Levitical
Law, find their explanation in Babylonia; even the ecclesiastical
calendar of the Pentateuch looks back to the Babylonia of the age
of Khammurabi. It cannot be an accident that the Khammurabi
or Ammurapi of the cuneiform inscriptions is the Amraphel
of Genesis, the contemporary of Abram the Hebrew, who was
born in“Ur of the Chaldees.”The Mosaic Law must have
drawn its first inspiration from the Abrahamic age, modified
and developed though it may have been in the later centuries of
Israelitish history.
[479]