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ancestors. The difference is racial: wherever we find the Semite,
in all periods of his history, his gods are human and not made in
the form of the beast.
But the Semite, though he moulded the later religion of
Babylonia, could not transform it altogether. The Sumerian
element in the population was never extirpated, and it is
probable that if we knew more of the religion of the people as
opposed to the official theology, we should find that it remained
comparatively little affected by Semitic influence. The witchcraft
and necromancy that flourished is a proof of this; even the State
religion was compelled to recognise it, and, like Brahmanism in
the presence of the native cults of India, to lend it its sanction
and control. It is instructive to observe what a contrast there
was in this respect between the official religion of Babylonia
and that of the more purely Semitic Israelites. Witchcraft and
necromancy were practised also in Israel, but there they were
forbidden by the law and suppressed by the head of the State. In
Babylonia, however, the local deities were for the most part of
Sumerian origin, and in spite of their Semitic colouring and dress
not unfrequently retained their old Sumerian names. Babylonian
religion could not wholly repudiate its origin and parentage; the
superstructure might be Semitic, but its basis was Sumerian. Like
the Sumerian words which had been adopted into the language,
the names of the gods remained to testify to the fact that the
people and their religion were alike mixed. And with the names
went early beliefs and legends, fragments of folk-lore and ritual
which had descended from a non-Semitic past. The official
creed found a niche for each of them as best it could, but the
assimilation was never more than partial, and from time to time [360]
we meet with practices and conceptions which are alien to the
official faith.
There were many expedients for getting rid of the
multitudinous spirits of the ancient creed who had not been
transmuted into Semitic deities. They might, as we have seen,