Lecture VIII. The Myths And Epics. 395
had“planned evil because of former wickedness,”and it was
long before his rage was appeased, and the world returned to its
normal state. [430]
Similarly transparent is the story of the assault of the seven
evil spirits upon the moon, resulting in its eclipse and threatened
extinction. En-lil in despair sends his messenger, the fire-god,
to Ea for advice and help, which are accordingly given, and the
moon-god is saved. The poem, however, is of a much older date
than those we have hitherto been considering. It goes back to
the time when magic still held a foremost place in the official
religion of Babylonia; when Aaari, the son of Ea, had not as
yet become Bel-Merodach of Babylon; and when the cult of Ea
had not been obscured by those of younger deities. In fact, it
forms part of one of the incantation texts, and is described as
the sixteenth book of the series on evil spirits. But the divine
triads already make their appearance in it; Ea does not stand
alone, but shares his powers with En-lil and Anu, while below
them is the triad of Sin, Samas, and Istar. We may look upon
the story as belonging to the age which saw the transformation
of Sumerian animism into the syncretic State religion of later
days; the Semitic gods are there, but they still retain in part the
functions which distinguished them when they were“spirits”and
nothing more.
Between the legend of the assault upon the moon-god and the
Epic of Gilgames the distance is great. Centuries of thought and
development intervene between them, and there is a difference
not only in degree, but also in kind. While one reminds us of the
legends of Lapps or Samoyeds, the other finds its parallel in the
heroic tales of Greece. Gilgames is a hero in the Greek sense of
the term; he is not a god, at least for the poet of the Epic, even
though he lived like Achilles and Odysseus in days when the gods
took part in visible form in the affairs of men. So far as we know,
it is the masterpiece of Babylonian epical literature,—a proof
that however deficient the pure-blooded Semite may have been [431]