Note 219.1 — Chapter XII · Eschatologic Ideas of East and West.

Finally, there appears a difference in character between the Mesopotamian and the Hellenic deities who were concerned with the surveillance of the world below. In the religion of the Western people, the latter are as essentially concerned with life as with death; and Demeter, Kore-Persephone, Plouton, Zeus Χθόνιος, are benign divinities whose sombre character is only the reverse of the picture; there is a chance of development for a more hopeful creed when the dead are committed to the care of the gentle earth-goddess: and it was through this double aspect of Demeter-Kore that the eschatologic promise of the Greek mysteries was confirmed. But the Babylonian Queen of Hell, Allatu, is wholly repellent in character and aspect, nor do we find that she was worshipped at all; the only indication of a softer vein in her is the passage in “The Descent of Ishtar,” which describes the sorrow of Allatu for the sufferings brought upon men through the departure of the goddess of life and love. Nergal, who is probably an usurper of the older supremacy of Allatu, has indeed a celestial character as the upper god of Kutha, but even in the upper world his nature was regarded as terrible and destructive. Only once or twice is the gentler Greek conception concerning the rulers of the lower world found in Babylonian literature.219.1 Enmesharra—a name that may be a synonym for Nergal219.2—is hailed as “Lord of Earth, of the land from which none returns (Aralu), great Lord, without whom Ningirsu allows nothing to sprout in field and canal, no growth to bloom.”219.3 Tammuz himself also is once at least styled “the Lord of the lower world.”219.4 And if Ningirsu is another name of the underworld-god, which is possible, it is significant that in an old Babylonian document the cultivator of the soil is called “the servant of Ningirsu.”219.5 These isolated utterances, if they had penetrated the popular religious thought, might have engendered a softer and brighter sentiment concerning the world of death. But it is doubtful if they were potent enough to effect this.219.6 If the gentle Tammuz had displaced Allatu and Nergal as the Lord of death, Babylonian eschatology might have had a different career. But it does not appear that he ever did. Deeply beloved as he was, he never reached the position of a high god either in heaven or the lower world.219.7 Nor did his resurrection from the dead evoke any faith, as far as we see at present, that might comfort the individual concerning his own lot. The personality and the rites of Attis, “the Phrygian shepherd,” are closely akin to those of Tammuz, and may be partly of Babylonian origin: and from these were evolved a higher eschatologic theory that became a powerful religious force in later Paganism. On the other hand, in Babylonia the germs of higher religion in the Tammuz-ritual seem to have remained unquickened; possibly because they were not fostered and developed by any mystic society. For it is perhaps the most salient and significant difference between Hellenic and Mesopotamian religions that in the latter we have no trace of mysteries at all, while in the former not only were they a most potent force in the popular religion, but were the chief agents for developing the eschatologic faith.