Lecture III. The Gods Of Babylonia. 277
god. En-lil of Nippur had to yield to the influence of the stranger.
The antiquity of his worship, the sanctity of his temple, could
not save him from his fate. He too became a Semitic god; his old
name became an unmeaning title, which survived in literature but
not in the mouths of the people, and he was henceforth addressed
as a Semitic Bilu or Baal. He ceased to be the chief of the ghosts
of night, and was transformed into the divine“Lord”of Semitic
worship, who, like the sun, watched over this nether earth. It was
a transformation and not a development.
As the Semitic Bel, the god of Nippur continued for long [302]
centuries to retain the ancient veneration of the people. Unlike the
Greek Kronos, he was not as yet dethroned by the younger gods.
The position occupied by the great sanctuary of Nippur and its
priesthood long prevented this. But the destiny of Kronos at last
overtook him. Babylon became the capital of the kingdom, and its
god accordingly claimed precedence over all others. Merodach
of Babylon assumed the title of Bel, and little by little the old
god of Nippur was robbed of his ancient rank. For the Babylonia
of later history Merodach and not En-lil was the supreme Baal,
and even the legends that had been told of the god of Nippur
were transferred to his younger rival. The memories that still
gathered round Nippur were too deeply tinged with the colours
of a religion that had passed away, and the beliefs of a darker and
less civilised form of faith. Merodach was the champion of the
gods of light, En-lil had been the lord of the demons of darkness.
Theologically as well as politically it was needful that Merodach
should supplant En-lil.
The spread of the worship of Ea, or rather of the religious
conceptions with which it was associated, brought with it the
effacement of Dam-kina. Dam-kina had once been the earth; just
as En-lil at Nippur was“the lord of ghosts,”of whom he was
himself one, so at Eridu Dam-kina was the“lady of the earth,”
with which, as its Zi or“spirit,”she was herself identified.
Sumerian grammar knew no distinction of gender, and in the