340 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonianational god into the Babylonian system of theology. The gods
of Babylonia had each his wife; they were each the head of a
divine family, and consequently the chief god of Assyria must
be the same. But it was difficult to find for him a female consort.
Once or twice the help of the grammar is invoked, and the
feminine Assurit is made to take her place by the side of Assur.
But she was too evidently an artificial creation, and accordingly
Belit was borrowed from Bel-Merodach, or Nin-lil from Bel of
Nippur, and boldly claimed as the wife of Assur. But this too
was acceptable neither to Babylonians nor to Assyrians, and, as
a last resource, Istar, the virgin goddess, was transformed into
a married wife. It might have been thought that the idea, once
started, would have met with ready acceptance; for Istar was
the goddess of Nineveh, as Assur was of the older capital which
was superseded by Nineveh in the later days of the Assyrian
empire. That it did not do so is a proof how firmly rooted
was the wifelessness of Assur in the Assyrian mind; he was no
Babylonian Bel who needed a helpmeet, but a warrior's god, who
entered the battle wifeless and alone.
I can but repeat again of him what I said years ago in
my Hibbert Lectures: “Assur consequently differs from the
Babylonian gods, not only in the less narrowly local character
that belongs to him, but also in his solitary nature. He is‘king of
[372] all the gods’in a sense in which none of the deities of Babylonia
were. He is like the king of Assyria himself, brooking no rival,
allowing neither wife nor son to share in the honours which he
claims for himself alone. He is essentially a jealous god, and as
such sends forth his Assyrian adorers to destroy his unbelieving
foes. Wifeless, childless, he is mightier than the Babylonian
Baalim; less kindly, perhaps, less near to his worshippers than
they were, but more awe-inspiring and more powerful. We can,
in fact, trace in him all the lineaments upon which, under other
conditions, there might have been built up as pure a faith as that
of the God of Israel.”That none such was ever built, may be