have realised, under the influence of
the doctrine of the divine rise to perfection, that animism in general
was altogether incompatible with the creed which they professed.

Image-worship and Sacred Stones.

Whether image-worship was original among the Babylonians and Assyrians
is uncertain, and improbable; the tendency among the people in early
times being to venerate sacred stones and other inanimate objects. As
has been already pointed out, the {diopetres} of the Greeks was
probably a meteorite, and stones marking the position of the Semitic
bethels were probably, in their origin, the same. The boulders which
were sometimes used for boundary-stones may have been the
representations of these meteorites in later times, and it is
noteworthy that the Sumerian group for "iron," /an-bar/, implies that
the early Babylonians only knew of that metal from meteoric ironstone.
The name of the god Nirig or Enu-restu (Ninip) is generally written
with the same group, implying some kind of connection between the
two--the god and the iron. In a well-known hymn to that deity certain
stones are mentioned, one of them being described as the "poison-tooth"[1]
coming forth on the mountain, recalling the sacred rocks at
Jerusalem and Mecca. Boundary-stones in Babylonia were not sacred
objects except in so far as they were sculptured with the signs of the
gods.[2] With regard to the Babylonian bethels, very little can be
said, their true nature being uncertain, and their number, to all
appearance, small. Gifts were made to them, and from this fact it
would seem that they were temples--true "houses of god," in
fact--probably containing an image of the deity, rather than a stone
similar to those referred to in the Old Testament.

[1] So called, probably, not because it sent forth poison, but on
account of its likeness to a serpent's fang.

[2] Notwithstanding medical opinion, their phallic origin is doubtful.
One is sculptured in the form of an Eastern castellated fortress.

Idols.

With the Babylonians, the gods were represented by means of stone
images at a very early date, and it is possible that wood was also
used. The tendency of the human mind being to attribute to the Deity a
human form, the Babylonians were no exception to the rule. Human
thoughts and feelings would naturally accompany the human form with
which the minds of men endowed them. Whether the gross human