ps the
distinctest case of specialization is Ramman (Ninib, Adad), the
storm-god[1399]: the "thunderbolts of Im [Ramman]" are mentioned in "The
War of the Seven Evil Spirits"; yet Shamash stands with him against the
storm-spirits. In general it appears that the recognition of special
departments for gods is inchoate and feeble in Babylonia and Assyria.
There is a separate deity for the Underworld, sometimes a goddess,
sometimes a god, but they are vague figures.[1400] The connection of
certain gods with certain stars was a late construction, and seems to
have had no significance for worship except a general
deanthropomorphizing tendency.

+812+. 2. There is no trace of a cult of heroes in the Semitic area.
The Babylonian Etana, Gilgamesh, and Nimrod (an enigmatical figure), and
the Old Testament Nephilim do not receive worship.[1401] The dead were
consulted, but there was no cult of the great ancestors.[1402] The
divinization of Babylonian kings, referred to above,[1403] seems not to
have carried worship with it.

+813+. 3. The Semitic material of malefic spirits, while in general the
same as that found elsewhere in the world, has a couple of special
features. In Babylonia there was a sort of pandemonium, a certain
organization of demons,[1404] with proper names for some classes; demons
usually have not proper names, but may receive such names when they come
into specially definite relations with men. The demon Lilit mentioned in
the Old Testament,[1405] is probably Babylonian. The two great Hebrew
hostile beings, Satan and Azaz[)e]l, are rather gods than demons.[1406]
They were both most highly developed under Persian influence, and in the
Book of Enoch take on the character and role of Angro Mainyu. Their
history exhibits, however, the disposition of the later Jews to organize
the realm of supernatural evil; about the first century B.C. the
serpent-god of Genesis iii was identified with Satan.[1407]

The Greek malefic beings, Ker, Harpy, Fury, Gorgon, Sphinx, and the
like, appear to have been developed out of ghosts[1408]--whether or not
this is true of the Babylonian demons the known material does not enable
us to say. Organization of such beings was carried out fully by the
Persians, but not by any other Indo-European people and not by the
Chinese.

+814+. 4. On abstract gods and phallic cults see the discussions of
these points above.[1409]

+815+. 5. Semitic theistic myths differ from Indo-European in that t