Note 122.2 — Chapter VII · The Deities as Social-Powers.

The king, then, is the head of the church, himself a high-priest, as Gudea was high-priest of Ningirsu, and as the Assyrian kings described themselves as the priests of Asshur, the professional priesthood serving as their expert advisers and ministers. Was he actually worshipped in his life? This is maintained by some Assyriologists, and certain evidence points to the practice. In the conversation between Nebo and Assurbanipal, to which reference has been made, the god promises to the king, “I will raise up thy head and erect thy form in the temple of Bit-Mashmash”;122.2 the names of old Babylonian kings are marked with the ideogram of divinity, and Professor Jastrow122.3 mentions an inscription of the fourth millennium B.C. in which Gudea ordains sacrifices to his own statues. A document is quoted by Mr. Johns,122.4 recording the dedication of a piece of land by a private citizen “for his life,” that is to say, to bring a blessing on himself, to the King Lugalla who is called a god, and to his consort. But Zimmern122.5 considers that the direct deification of kings was a practice of the earliest period only, and was never pushed so far as it was in Egypt. There is reason to suppose that the king or patesi who controlled Nippur had alone the right to be deified, Nippur being the original centre of the Sumerian religion.123.1