Greece and Babylon

;jj!fs Cornell littivetJjsiitg J OLIN LIBRARY - CiRCUlATIOrM DATE DUE 3b &7 GREECE AND BABYLON 1 GREECE AND BABYLON A COMPARATIVE SKETCH OF MESOPOTAMIAN, ANATOLIAN AND HELLENIC RELIGIONS BY LEWIS R. FARNELL, D.Litt., M.A. FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF "CULTS OF THE GREEK STATES" "EVOLUTION OF RELIGION" "HIGHER ASPECTS OF GREEK RELIGION" (hIBBERT LECTURES) Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street 191 /iJr' 1'^ V^ TO Dr. henry WILDE THE FOUNDER OF THE WILDE LECTURESHIP IN NATURAL AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD THESE FIRST-FRUITS OF HIS ENDOWMENT ARE DEDICATED BY THE FIRST WILDE LECTURER Exeter College, Oxford, November 191 1. The original of tiiis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029137615 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Inaugural Lecture . i CHAPTER II. Statement of the Problem and the Evidence. Indebtedness of primitive Greek religion to Mesopotamian influences—Various kinds of evidence to be considered : Texts and Monuments of Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, Hittite Kingdom, Asia-Minor coast, Minoan-Mycenaeau area — Necessity of determining when the North-Aryan tribes entered Greece, and what they brought with them —Influences from Mesopotamia on Greece of the second millennium at least not direct—Precariousness of theory of religious borrowing—Special lines that the inquiry will pursue . ..... 29 CHAPTER III. Morphology of the Compared Religions. Distinction between nature religions and ethical religions unsound—The degree of personality in the cult-objects a better criterion—The earliest system known in Mesopo- tamia a polytheism with personal deities, but con- taining certain products of animism and polydaimonism —Other Semitic and non-Semitic peoples of Asia Minor, the Minoan-Mycenaean races, the earliest Greek tribes, already on the plane of personal theism in the second millennium B.C. .40 CHAPTER IV. Anthropomorphism and Theriomorphism in Anatolia and THE Mediterranean. Mesopotamian religious conception generally anthropomorphic, but the anthropomorphism " unstable "—Theriomorphic — viii CONTENTS features, especially of daim'oniac powers—Mystic imagina- tion often theriomorphic—Individuality of deities sometimes indistinct—Female and male sometimes fused—^The person becomes the Word—Similar phenomena in other Semitic peoples—Theriolatry more prominent in Hittite religion, though anthropomorphism the prevalent idea The Minoan -Mycenaean religion also mainly anthropomorphic—The evidence of theriolatry often misinter- preted—The proto-Hellenic religion partly theriomorphic —Some traces of theriolatry even in later period, in spite of strong bias towards anthropomorphism . 51 CHAPTER V. Predominance of the Goddess. Importance of the phenomenon in the history of religions In Mesopotamia and other Semitic regions the chief deit}' male, except Astarte at Sidon—Evidence from Hittite kingdoms doubtful, but at points on the Asia-Minor coast, such as Ephesos, and notably in Phrygia, the supremacy of the goddess well attested—The same true on the whole of Cretan religion-—The earliest Hellenes, like other Aryan communities, probably inclined to exalt the male deity, -, and did not develop the cult of Virgin goddesses—There- j fore Athena and Artemis probably pre-Hellenic . .81 CHAPTER VI. The Deities as Nature-Powers. Shamash the sun-god derives his personal character from the nature-phenomenon ; but the Babylonian deities develop their personality independently of their nature-origin, which is often doubtful—Importance of Sin, the moon-god ' —Star-worship in Babylonian cult—No clear recognition of earth-goddess Tammuz a vegetation-power—^Western f;an — Canaanites worship nature-deities in the second millennium, probably with moral attributes—The Hittites a thunder- r god and corn-god—The Phrygians a mother-goddess of the ' '- earth and lower world—On the whole, pre-Homeric Hellas worships ethical personalities rather than nature-powers —Distinguished from Mesopotamia by comparative insig- nificance of solar, lunar, astral cults—Also by the great prominence of the earth-goddess and the association of certain eschatological ideas with her . 99 6 CONTENTS ix PAGE CHAPTER VII. The Deities as Social-Powers. The religious origin of the city—Slight evidence from Mesopo- tamia, more from early Greece—Early Mesopotamian kingship of divine type—The king inspired and occasionally worshipped — The Hittite monuments show the divine associations of the king—Proto-Hellenic kingship probably of similar character—Social usages protected by religion in the whole of this area—No family cult of the hearth at Babylon—The code of Hammurabi—Comparatively secular in its enactments concerning homicide—Religious feeling perceptible in the laws concerning incest — The legal system attached to religion at certain points, but on the whole, independent of it—In early Hellas the religion an equally stiong social force, but many of its social " manifestations different—Religion tribal and " phratric in Greece ; not so in Babylon—Purification from blood- shed could not have been borrowed from Mesopotamia . II CHAPTER VIII. Religion and Morality. The deity conceived on the whole as beneficent and righteous, but the divine destructive power more emphasised in Babylonia—Every Babylonian deity moralised, not every Hellenic—In both societies perjury a sin, untruthfulness only in Babylonian religious theory—International morality—The ethics of the family very vital in both societies, but more complex in Babylonia — Ritualistic tabus a, heavier burden on the Babylonian conscience—Morality more daimonistic than in Greece—In the Babylonian con- fessional stress laid on unknown involuntary sin, hence tendency to pessimism—In Greece less timidity of conscience, less prominence of magic — Mercifulness a prominent divine attribute in both religions—More pan- theistic thought and a clearer sense of the divinity of all life in Babylonian theology, as in the Tammuz-myth 141 CHAPTER IX. Purity a Divine Attribute. ~1 Ritual purity generally demanded—Babylonian mythology far purer than the Greek—Character of Ishtar—Virginity a J - divine attribute—Mystic conception of a virgin-mother, the evidence examined in East and West . 163 X CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER X. Concept of Divine Power and Ancient Cosmogonies. Neither in Babylon nor Greece any clear and consistently main- tained dogma of divine omnipotence—Yet the divinities collectively the strongest power in the universe—No de- veloped theory of dualism—The divine power combined with magic in Babylonia, but not in Greece—No early Hellenic consciousness of the Word as a creative force—The magic power of the divine name felt by the Hellenes, but not realised as a creative force—Babylonian cosmogonies not traceable in the earliest Greek mythology, nor in Hesiod, but the myth of Typhoeus probably from Babylonian sources—Babylonian myths concerning creation of man not known in early Greece—^Organisation of the polytheism into divine groups—Evidence of Trinitarian idea and of monotheistic tendency—No proof here of Greek indebtedness to Mesopotamia ... 173 CHAPTER XI. The Religious Temperament of the Eastern and Western Peoples. The relation of the individual to the deity more intimate in . Mesopotamia than in Greece—^The religious temper more ecstatic, more prone to self-abasement, sentimentality, rapture—Humility and the fear of God ethical virtues in Babylonia—The child named after the god in both societies—-In some Semitic communities the deity takes a title from the worshipper—Fanaticism in Mesopotamian religion, entire absence of it in . the Hellenic . 190 CHAPTER XII. ESCHATOLOGIC IDEAS OF EAST AND WEST. General resemblances between Mesopotamian and early Hellenic rites of tendance of dead—^Mesopotamian theory of the lower world gloomier—The terror of the spectre •stronger in the East than in the West ; yet both fear the miasma of the dead—In both, the literary evidence clashes somewhat with the evidence from the graves—Certain important differences in tendance of dead—Water essential in later Babylonian, wine and the triple libation in early Hellenic—Hero-cult strong in early Hellas, at least very rare in Mesopotamia-^Hellenic idea of re-incarnation not —— —— I — — CONTENTS xi yet found in Babylonian records—The evocation of ghosts, and the periodic meals with or in memory of tBe dead, common to both peoples—General All Souls' festival—But in Babylonia no popular belief in posthumous punishments and rewards—The powers of the lower world more gloomy and repellent than in Hellas—No mysteries to develop the ' germs of a brighter eschatologic faith . zo4 CHAPTER XIII. Comparison of the Ritual. In the second millennium all Semitic communities had evolved the temple, and Babylonia the idol— n Greece, temple - building was coming into vogue, but the cults still aniconic —The pillar and the phallic emblem common in early Greece, very rare m Mesopotamia Sacrifice both in East and West of two types, the blood-sacrifice and the bloodless, but in Hellas vri^dXta iepd in early vogue, not y6t fOUIld in the Kast—Incense unknown to the pre-Homeric Greeks —The distinction between Chthonian and Olympian ritual not found at Babylon Communion-sacrifice and sacra- ment in early Greece, not found as yet m Mesopotamia -^Vicarious piacular sacrifice common to both regions, but human sacrifice rife in _early Greece, not found in Meso- potamia—Mystia_use of blood i n Greek ritual,

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