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the ideas connected with them were borrowed too. In the gloom
of that underworld, where the ghosts of the dead fed on dust
and refuse, the hideous monsters of chaos still moved and dimly
showed themselves, while“the kings of the nations”sat on their
shadowy thrones, welcoming the slaughtered king of Babylon
with the words:“Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou
become like unto us?”The dead man never again saw the light
of the sun. There was no Osirian paradise to receive him, with
its sunshine and happy meadows; even the brief period of light
which the solar creed of Egypt allowed the bark of the sun-god
to bring to the denizens of the other world, was denied to the
dead Babylonian. Over the gates of the world beyond the grave
the words were written:“Abandon hope, all ye that enter here.”
There was no return; none, even with the help of Merodach,
could come back to the home he had left on earth; the sevenfold
gates of Hades opened only to admit those that entered it. Death
meant the extinction of light and hope, even of the capacity for
feeling either pleasure or pain.
It was on this life, therefore, that the religious thoughts of the
Babylonian were centred. And his view of his relation to the
gods was a curious mixture of spirituality and the commercial [492]
instinct. On the one hand, it was a question of barter; if the man
was generous in his gifts to the gods, if he did what they approved
and abstained from what they condemned, above all, if the rites
and ceremonies of religion were correctly fulfilled, the gods were
bound to grant him all that his heart desired. On the other hand, if
misfortune fell upon him, it was a proof that he had sinned against
them. And as the centuries passed the consciousness of sin sank
more and more deeply into the heart of the Babylonian. At
first, indeed, the sins were offences against the ritual rather than
against the moral and spiritual code. The ghosts and spirits of
the old Sumerian faith were non-moral; if some of them inflicted
pain and disease upon man, it was because it was their nature to
do so, and the only defence against them was in the charms of the