Note 58.2 — Chapter IV · Anthropomorphism and Theriomorphism in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean.

Only, we discern signs in Canaan as in Mesopotamia, that the anthropomorphism is, as I have called it, unstable; for not only can the divinity be imagined as embodied in other forms than the human, but the demarcations of individuality tend at certain points to fall away: the most curious instance of this is that the female divinity seems at times to have been almost absorbed in the god. We must, however, distinguish here between what is real belief and what is mere theologic phrasing. In a hymn of praise to Ishtar, composed for the King Ashurbanapal, the equality of the goddess with the great Assyrian god Asshur is quaintly expressed by the phrase, “like Ashur, she wears a beard”; but Jastrow58.2 protests against the inference that the goddess was therefore really regarded as male in the Mesopotamian religion. And indeed this is probably only a fantastic expression of the idea that Ishtar is the compeer in power of the god, and has much of the masculine temperament. Even in the full vogue of an anthropomorphic religion which insists on the distinctions of sex, a mystical religious thinker could rise to the idea that the divinity might assume the powers of both natures, an idea of which we find a glimpse in the later Greek and Greek-Egyptian theosophy. Thus a Sumerian hymn to Enlil characterises him as “Lord of winds, father and mother who creates himself”;59.1 and a well-known hymn to Sin speaks of him as “Maternal Body that brings everything to birth,” and in the next line as “Compassionate, gracious father.”59.2