nent in the developed
form of Babylonian theology, does not occupy the place one should expect
in the early Babylonian inscriptions. Ur-Bau erects a sanctuary to Ea,
at Girsu. Another of the governors of Lagash calls himself, priest of
Ea, describing the god as the "supreme councillor." From him, the king
receives "wisdom."[41] A ruler, Rim-Sin, of the dynasty of Larsa,
associates Ea with Bel, declaring that these "great gods" entrusted Uruk
into his hands with the injunction to rebuild the city that had fallen
in ruins. The ideograms, with which his name is written, En-ki,
designate him as god of that 'which is below,'--the earth in the first
place; but with a more precise differentiation of the functions of the
great gods, Ea becomes the god of the waters of the deep. When this
stage of belief is reached, Ea is frequently associated with Bel, who,
it will be recalled, is the 'god of the lower region,' but who becomes
the god of earth _par excellence_. When, therefore, Bel and Ea are
invoked, it is equivalent, in modern parlance, to calling upon earth and
water; and just as Bel is used to personify, as it were, the unification
of the earthly forces, so Ea becomes, in a comprehensive sense, the
watery deep. Ea and Bel assume therefore conspicuous proportions in the
developed Babylonian cosmogony and theology. In the cosmogony, Bel is
the creator and champion of mankind, and Ea is the subterranean deep
which surrounds the earth, the source of wisdom and culture; in the
theology, Ea and Bel are pictured in the relation of father and son,
who, in concert, are appealed to, when misfortune or disease overtakes
the sons of man; Ea, the father, being the personification of knowledge,
and Bel, the practical activity that 'emanates from wisdom,' as
Professor Sayce,[42] adopting the language of Gnosticism, aptly puts it;
only that, as already suggested, Marduk assumes the role of the older
Bel.

Confining ourselves here to the earlier phases of Ea, it seems probable
that he was originally regarded as the god of Eridu,--one of the most
ancient of the holy cities of Southern Babylonia, now represented by
Abu-Shahrein, and which once stood on the shores of the Persian Gulf.
Ur-Bau expressly calls the god the 'king of Eridu.' The sacredness of
the place is attested by Gudea, who boasts of having made the temple of
Nin-girsu as sacred as Eridu.[43] It is over this city that Ea watches.
The importance of the Persian Gulf to the growth