288 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia[314] Northern, Central, and Southern Chaldæa, whose sanctuaries
were the oldest in the land, and whose cult had been handed down
from time immemorial. The triad once formed became a model
after which others could be created. The other great gods followed
the example that had been set them, and were similarly resolved
into triads. As the orthodox theological system of Egypt rested
on the Ennead, the corresponding Babylonian system rested on
the triad. The principle in each case was much the same. The
Ennead was but a multiple of the triad, and presupposed the
sacred number. Perhaps we may see in it the result of a contact
between Sumerian modes of thought and the Semitic conception
of the divine family. Where the god had a wife and a son, the
godhead would naturally be regarded as a trinity.^245
Under the first and supreme triad came the second triad of
Sin, Samas, and Hadad. Sin, the moon-god, was adored under
many names and in many forms. But his two chiefest temples
were at Ur and at Harran. Ur, the modern Muqayyar, on the
western bank of the Euphrates, had been dedicated to his service
[315] from the earliest times. The ruins of his temple still rise in huge
mounds from the ground. The city stood outside the limits of the
Babylonian plain, in the Semitic territory of the Arabian desert,
(^245) The evidence that has since come to light shows that I was wrong in my
Hibbert Lectures (pp. 110, 193) in supposing that the origin of the triad was
purely Sumerian. It was really due to the fusion of the Sumerian and Semitic
elements in the official Babylonian religion. Possibly the astronomical triad
of the sun, moon, and evening star may have suggested the artificial grouping
of the gods of the three great seats of religious culture, but that was all. The
origin of the triad must be sought in geography, or rather in the fact that Ana,
En-lil, and Ea represented the three chief sanctuaries and centres of religious
influence in Babylonia. I have already pointed out (Hibbert Lectures, p. 192)
that from the fact that Ana is the first of the triad we may infer that the whole
doctrine originated in the theological school of Erech. Erech, in fact, was the
meeting-place of the Semite and Sumerian, where the Semitic influence first
found itself supreme. The Baal of historical Semitic religion was a sky-god,
despite Robertson Smith's ingenious philological attempts to find a terrestrial
source for him.