Lecture I. Introductory. 251
was but a child, the offspring of a later day; and even when he
became supreme in Babylonia, the fact that he was so was still
remembered. If it is difficult to trace the earliest lineaments of
Merodach, how much more difficult must it be to trace those of
the older gods!
The theology of Babylonia, as it is known to us, is thus an
artificial product. It combines two wholly different forms of faith
and religious conception. One of these was overlaid by the other at
a very early period in the history of the people, and the theological
beliefs of Sumer received a Semitic interpretation. This natural
process of combination and assimilation was followed by an
artificial attempt to weld the whole into a consistent and uniform
shape. An artificial system took the place of natural growth,
and the punning etymologies which accompanied it were but
an illustration of the principles that underlay its methods. If
we would successfully analyse the theology which has come
down to us, we must, as it were, get behind it and discover
the elements of which it was composed. We must separate and
distinguish Sumerian and Semitic, must trace the influences they
exerted upon one another, and, above all, must detect and discard
the misinterpretations and accretions of the later systematic
theology. For such an undertaking, it is true, our materials are
still miserably scanty, and, with imperfect materials, the results [274]
also can be imperfect only. But all pioneering work is necessarily
imperfect, and for many a day to come the history of Babylonian
religion must be left to the pioneer. Year by year, indeed, the
materials are increasing, and it may be that a discovery will yet
be made, like that of the Pyramid texts in Egypt, which will
reveal to us the inner religious thought and belief of Babylonia
in those distant ages, when Nippur and Eridu, and not as yet
Babylon, were the theological centres of the land. Even now
we possess inscriptions of the Sumerian epoch, which tell us the
names of the gods who were worshipped by the kings of the
pre-Semitic age, and throw light on the religious ideas which