Note 142.1 — Chapter VIII · Religion and Morality.

A careful study of all the sources will allow this induction, that the deities of this period in both societies are on the side of whatever morality is current, inspiring it, protecting it, and avenging the breach of it; we are dealing, in fact, with a religion of personal moral powers. Concerning the Mesopotamian, this is a trite observation to make; the most superficial glance of a few hymns confirms it. Shamash is the great god of justice, the protector of the weak; Enlil “destroyeth the evil-minded”;142.1 Ishtar judges the cause according to right—she maintains the right of the oppressed and the downcast; Righteousness and Judgment are the sons of Shamash. Ga-tum-duga, “she who produces good,” is an appellative of Bau.142.2 And yet this is not the whole account. The destructive and evil character of some of the deities in Mesopotamia occasionally appears in the hymns, and is expressed apparently in certain titles. This might be the case at times when those deities are addressed that were powers of death and the lower world; for instance, Nergal, the lord of destruction; Isum, a little-known deity to whom a phrase is attached that is said to mean “the exalted murderer.”142.3 And this might be explained by the fact that these powers personified, as it were, the baneful forces of nature, or, as perhaps in the case of Martu, whom Jeremias cites as one of the evil gods, were aliens.142.4 We find also the name of an obscure deity, “Ira,” who was a god of pestilence, and at times identified with Nergal;143.1 but that a direct cult was attached to him in this baneful character is not shown. And it is unlikely that any Babylonian deity was worshipped definitely as an evil power: moral speculation could always explain the evil that he appeared to work as a punishment for sin or as righteous vengeance on the enemy; that is to say, the evil element becomes moralised, and the worshipper is always convinced that the god can become good to him. Thus in the same context Nergal is called the “Lord of Destruction,” and yet he is “the god of the little ones, he of the beneficent visage.”143.2 The dark storm-god Adad, before whose wrath the high gods rise up in terror, the pitiless one, can yet be implored as “the merciful among the great gods.”143.3 This transformation, by which a destructive nature-power could become a benevolent being, follows a law of religious psychology, which expresses itself in the quasi-magical phraseology of prayer. The worshipper wishes to get some good from his deity or some mercy: therefore he calls him good and merciful, feeling that such spell-words constrain the god to be so; and belief will arise from the continual repetition of formulae. Therefore, by the time our record begins, all the deities that the Babylonian and Assyrian worshipped are beneficent on the whole: the Epic of Creation supposes the existence of primeval bad powers, but these had been conquered, and some pardoned, by Marduk. The evil personal agencies that remained active were demons, and these were not worshipped, but exorcised or averted by the good gods.144.1