Note 56.3 — Chapter IV · Anthropomorphism and Theriomorphism in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean.

It naturally happens in a religion of unstable anthropomorphism that the different personalities are unfixed and may melt away one into the other, or may become conceived as metaphysical emanations, thus losing concrete individuality. As Dr. Langdon remarks of Babylonian religious phraseology, “the god himself becomes mystified, he retires into the hazy conception of an all-pervading spirit, and his word becomes the active agent.”56.3 Thus even the strongly personal goddess “Nana” is identified with the word of Enlil; she herself exclaims, “Of the Lord his word am I.” His statement accords with the general impression that the liturgies and monuments of this vast and complex religion make upon the student. One discerns that the religious art, and to some extent the religious poetry, developed and strengthened the anthropomorphic faith and perception of the people, but not so powerfully as to preclude a mysticising tendency towards metaphysical speculation that transcended the limits of a polytheism of concrete personalities. Even Allatu, the goddess of Hell, she who was presented with the dog’s head and the lions at the breast, was half spiritualised by the epithet which is rendered “spirit-wind of the consecrate.”57.1