me, and on account
of this, it is very probable that their godhood was utterly forgotten,
in the case of those who were strictly historical, after their death.
The deification of the kings of Babylonia and Assyria is probably due
to the fact, that they were regarded as the representatives of God
upon earth, and being his chief priests as well as his offspring (the
personal names show that it was a common thing to regard children as
the gifts of the gods whom their father worshipped), the divine
fatherhood thus attributed to them naturally could, in the case of
those of royal rank, give them a real claim to divine birth and
honours. An exception is the deification of the Babylonian Noah,
Ut-napistim, who, as the legend of the Flood relates, was raised and
made one of the gods by Aa or Ea, for his faithfulness after the great
catastrophe, when he and his wife were translated to the "remote place
at the mouth of the rivers." The hero Gilgames, on the other hand, was
half divine by birth, though it is not exactly known through whom his
divinity came.

[1] According to Nabonidus's date 3800 B.C., though many
Assyriologists regard this as being a millennium too early.

The earliest form of the Babylonian religion.

The state of development to which the religious system of the
Babylonians had attained at the earliest period to which the
inscriptions refer naturally precludes the possibility of a
trustworthy history of its origin and early growth. There is no doubt,
however, that it may be regarded as having reached the stage at which
we find it in consequence of there being a number of states in ancient
Babylonia (which was at that time like the Heptarchy in England) each
possessing its own divinity--who, in its district, was regarded as
supreme--with a number of lesser gods forming his court. It was the
adding together of all these small pantheons which ultimately made
that of Babylonia as a whole so exceedingly extensive. Thus the chief
divinity of Babylon, as has already been stated, as Merodach; at
Sippar and Larsa the sun-god Samas was worshipped; at Ur the moon-god
Sin or Nannar; at Erech and Der the god of the heavens, Anu; at Muru,
Ennigi, and Kakru, the god of the atmosphere, Hadad or Rimmon; at
Eridu, the god of the deep, Aa or Ea; at Niffur[1] the god Bel; at
Cuthah the god of war, Nergal; at Dailem the god Uras; at Kis the god
of battle, Zagaga; Lugal-Amarda, the king of Marad, as the city so