Free Ancient Iraq by Georges Roux Page A

clad himself with ‘an armour of terror, a turban of fearsome halo’, and mounted on his storm-chariot went forth alone to fight the forces of Chaos. At the sight of him, the army of monsters disbanded; Kingu, their chief, was captured. As for Tiamat, she was caught in Marduk's net and, as she opened her mouth, he at once blew the four winds into her stomach. He then pierced her heart with an arrow, smashed her skull with his mace, and finally split her body open ‘like a shell-fish’. Half of her ‘he set up and ceiled it as sky’, the other half he placed beneath the earth.
    After his victory Marduk put the universe in order. Having in the new sky fixed the course of the sun, the moon and the stars, he decided to create mankind:
    I will establish a savage (
lullu
), ‘man’ shall be his name.
Verily, savage-man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
    That they might be at ease!
     
    On Ea's advice Kingu was put to death, and from his blood Marduk and his father fashioned the first human being. Thereafter Marduk divided the gods into two groups: three hundred of them to dwell in heaven, three hundred to live on earth side by side with humanity. As a reward for his victory the gods built Marduk's great temple in Babylon, Esagila, and, assembled at another great banquet, they ‘proclaimed his fifty names’.
    Childish as this story may sound, it was loaded with grave significance for the Babylonians. To their deeply religious minds it offered a non-rational but nevertheless acceptable ‘explanation’ of the universe. Among other things, it described how the world had assumed its alleged shape; it made good the fact that men must be the servants of the gods; it accounted for the natural wickedness of humanity, created from the blood of evil Kingu; it also justified the exorbitant powers of Marduk (originally Enlil) by his election and his heroic exploit. But, above all, it had, like the Sacred Marriage, a powerful magical virtue. If every year for nearly two millennia
Enuma elish
was recited by the priests of Babylon on the fourth day of the New Year Festival it was because the Babylonians felt that the great cosmic struggle had never really ended and that the forces of Chaos were always ready to challenge the established Order of the gods.
    Life, Death and Destiny
    The commerce of men with the gods, like the commerce of men between themselves, had its degrees. If the King of Babylon wasdirectly under Marduk's orders the Babylonian peasant was in closer contact with Ashnan, the barley-god, or Shumuqan, the cattle-god, than with Anu or Enlil. Besides, there were enough deities to cater for the important events of life; whenever required, an invocation and an offering of dates would propitiate Gula, the goddess of childbirth, or Pasag, the protector of travellers. In case of dire emergency, the greater deities could be approached through the clergy or, more directly, through the offices of his ‘personal god’.
    Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians looked up to their gods as servants look to their good masters: with submission and fear, but also with admiration and love. For kings and commoners alike, obedience to divine orders was the greatest of qualities, as the service of the gods was the most imperative of duties. While the celebration of the various festivals and the performance of the complicated rituals of the cult were the task of priests, it was the duty of every citizen to send offerings to the temples, to attend the main religious ceremonies, to care for the dead, to pray and make penance, and to observe the innumerable rules and taboos that marked nearly every moment of his life. A sensible man ‘feared the gods’ and scrupulously followed their prescriptions. To do otherwise was not only foolish but sinful, and sin – as everyone knew – brought on man's head the most terrible punishments. Yet it would be wrong to think of the Mesopotamian religion as a purely formal affair,