56 BY THE EIVERS OF BABYLON 



A priestess who entered a wine- shop was burned 

 alive. A married woman who was merely suspected, 

 or charged by gossip, with adultery had to purge 

 herself by ordeal. 



This state of things, in the height of Babylonian 

 civilization, is a surprising contrast to the traditional 

 idea of Babylon. 1 Other documents which we have 

 recovered entirely confirm the code. "We have large 

 numbers of marriage contracts, and in these the 

 chastity of the bride is quite commonly stipulated. 

 We have the lists of sins which were presented by 

 the priests in the temple to those who came to invoke 

 the favour of the gods — for misfortune was strictly 

 regarded as a visitation for sin — and unchastity is 

 classed as one of the worst. We have the hymns 

 and psalms used in the temples, and we see that even 

 the goddess Ishtar — the wicked " Astarte " of the Old 

 Testament — was regarded as a goddess of righteous- 

 ness, and particularly sexual righteousness. " The 

 fervent prayer of him who has sinned do thou accept," 

 says one of these prayers to Astarte, the " all-powerful 

 mistress of mankind," the " Queen of Heaven." The 

 whole temple-liturgy groans with acknowledgment of 

 "sin" and prayer for "mercy"; and both Marduk 

 and Shamash, the chief gods, are addressed essentially 

 as gods of righteousness, visiting the sins of men with 

 illness and misfortune. In the course of time Marduk 

 became practically the one god of the Babylonians, 



1 It is equally surprising how some people receive new discoveries. 

 In his apologetic work In Defence Sir Eobert Anderson refers to the 

 discovery of the Hammurabi Code as " undermining the foundations 

 of the critical hypothesis." He entirely ignores the facts I have given 

 above, and merely exults over the supposed fact that " Hammurabi " 

 is the Biblical " Amraphel " — which competent Assyriologists declare 

 to be nonsense. 



