Lecture I. Introductory. 245
person of Khammurabi or Ammurapi, of the Arabian dynasty;
he drove the Elamites out of Babylonia, defeated Arioch of
Larsa, captured his capital, and once more united Babylonia
under a single head, with its centre at Babylon. From henceforth
Babylon remained the capital of the monarchy, and the sacred
city of Western Asia. The national revival was accompanied by
a literary revival as well. Poets and writers arose whose works
became classical; new copies and editions were made of ancient
books, and the theology of Babylonia was finally systematised.
Under Khammurabi and his immediate successors we may place
the consummation of that gradual process of development which
had reduced the discordant elements of Babylonian society and
religion into a single harmonious system. [267]
This theological system, however, cannot be understood,
unless we bear in mind that, as in Egypt so too in Babylonia,
there was originally a number of small independent principalities,
each with its tutelary deity and special sanctuary. The head
of the State was the patesi, or high priest of the god, his
vicar and representative upon earth, and the interpreter of the
divine commands to men. At the outset, therefore, Babylonian
government was essentially theocratic; and this theocratic
character clung to it to the last. It was this which made Babylon
a sacred city, whose priests had the power of conferring the right
to rule upon whom they would, like the Pope in the Middle
Ages. Though the high priest became in time a king, he never
divested himself of his sacerdotal mantle, or forgot that he was
the adopted son of his god.^212
The tutelary gods followed the fortunes of the cities over
whose destinies they watched. The rise of a city to power meant
(^212) It is to this adoption by the god that the phrase met with in early Sumerian
texts—“the king (or the man) the son of his god”—probably refers, though
it may possibly have eventually come to be synonymous with“pious man.”
Professor Hommel compares Hebrew names like Ben-Ammi,“the son of (the
god) Ammi.”