Lecture I. Introductory. 241
beneath the earth, or in the air by which we are surrounded. He
was the master of spells and incantations, of the magical formulæ
which enabled those who knew them to keep the evil spirits
at bay, or to turn their malice against an enemy. Nippur was
peculiarly the home of the darker side of Babylonian religion;
the teaching and influences that emanated from it regarded the
spirit-world as a world of night and darkness, peopled by beings
that were, for the most part, hostile to man. Thelilor ghost
belonged to the realm of the dead rather than to that of the living,
and the femalelilîtuwas the ancestress of that Lilith whom the
Jewish Rabbis made a vampire under the form of a beautiful
woman, who lived on the blood of the children she slew at night.
Eridu, on the contrary, was the seat of the Chaldæan god of
culture. Ea, whose home was in the deep, among the waters of
the Persian Gulf, had there his temple, and it was there that he
had taught the first inhabitants of Babylonia all the elements of
civilisation, writing down for them the laws they should obey,
the moral code they should follow, and the healing spells that
prevented disease and death. He was the author of all the arts
of life, the all-wise god who knew the things that benefited
man; and his son and minister Asari, who interpreted his will
to his worshippers, received the title of him“who does good to
mankind.”While El-lil of Nippur was the lord and creator of the
spirit-world, Ea was the lord and creator of men. He had made
man, like a potter, out of the clay, and to him, therefore, man [263]
continued to look for guidance and help.
The character of Ea was doubtless coloured by the position of
his city. The myth which spoke of him as rising each morning
out of the Persian Gulf to bring the elements of culture to his
people, clearly points to that maritime intercourse with the coasts
of Southern Arabia which seems to have had a good deal to do
Arab beliefs). When the spirit of Ea-bani rose from the ground, it naturally
took the form of a“dust-cloud”; at other times, when the spirits appeared in
the air, they revealed their presence by a draught of cold“wind.”