iant precinct,' 'great place,' 'lofty and brilliant
wall,'[1406] 'house of great splendor,' 'the splendor of heaven and
earth,' 'house without a rival,' 'light of Shamash.' The seat of
Sarpanitum in E-Sagila, is known as 'the gate of widespread splendor';
E-salgisa, 'the treasury,' as the name of a temple in Girsu, may belong
here. A temple to Gula in Sippar was called E-ulla; that is, 'the
beautiful house.' The old temple to Sin at Harran bore the significant
name E-khulkhul, 'house of joys,' while the pious wish of the worshipper
is again expressed in the name 'threshold of long life,' given to the
zikkurat in Sippar.[1407] Among a series of names,[1408] illustrating
the religious sentiments of the people are the following: 'the heart of
Shamash,' 'the house of hearkening to prayers,'[1409] 'the house full of
joy,' 'the brilliant house,' 'the life of the world,' 'the place of
fates,' and the like.

These various classes of names are a valuable index of the varied and
often remarkable conceptions held of the gods. To call a temple, for
example, 'court of the world'[1410] may have been due originally to a
haughty presumption on the part of some one deeply attached to some god;
but such a name must also have led to regarding the god as not limited
in his affections to a particular district. Whatever tendencies existed
in Babylonia and Assyria towards universalistic conceptions of the
divine beings were brought out in the temple names, and in part may have
been advanced by these names. The custom still surviving in the Jewish
Church of giving names to synagogues may be traced back to a Babylonian
prototype.[1411]

The History of the Temples.

The history of the temples takes us back to the earliest period of
Babylonian history, and the temples of Assyria likewise date from the
small beginnings of the Assyrian power. The oldest inscriptions of
Mesopotamian rulers commemorate their services as builders of temples.
Naram-Sin and Sargon glory in the title 'builder of the temple of En-lil
in Nippur.' Of the rulers of the first period of Babylonian history, it
so happens that we know more of Gudea than of any other. We may feel
certain that he but follows the example of his predecessors, in devoting
so large a share of his energies to temple building. Hammurabi is an
active builder of sanctuaries, and so on, through the period of Assyrian
supremacy down to the closing days of the Babylonian monarchy, the
thoughts of the ru