THE EELIGIOUS IDEAS OF THE BABYLONIANS. O 



world anew, and with the opening hnes describing this the 

 4th tablet ends. 



We know, from the bilingual account of the creation, 

 that Merodach, with the goddess Aruru, was the creator of 

 all existing things, and in the Semitic account of the creation 

 also he is represented as taking a prominent part in it, being 

 the creator of the world, and apparently the orderer of the 

 heavenly bodies. This being the case, the Babylonian scribe 

 or narrator gives, in a series of numbered paragraphs which 

 occur on a large fragment of the last of the series that 

 has been handed down to us, praises of a deity who was 

 apparently the chief of the Babylonian pantheon. He is 

 called Zi('-'hfe"): - 



" Zi, thirdly, he called him, — he who doetli glorious things, 

 God of the good wind, lord of hearing and obeying ; 

 He who causeth glory and plenty to exist, establishing 



fertihty ; 

 He who turneth all small things into great ones — 

 (Even) in his strong severity we scent his sweet wind. 

 Let them speak, let them glorify, let them pay him 



homage ! " 



This paragraph is immediately followed by one which is 

 very interesting indeed, speaking, as it does, of the creation 

 of mankind as one of the things which this deity, the king 

 of the gods, had done, and giving the reason for it — a reason 

 strangely agreeing with that given by Caedmon in " The 

 fall of the Angels," and Milton in " Paradise Lost " : — 



" (He called him), fourthly, Aga-azaga (i.e., ' the glorious 

 crown ') — 



May he make the crown gloiious — 

 The lord of the glorious incantation raising the dead to hfe, 

 Who granted favour to the gods in bondage, 

 Fixed the yoke, caused it to be laid on the gods who 



were his enemies (and) 

 On account of their sin, created mankind. 

 The merciful one, with whom is the giving of life- - 

 May his word last, and may it not be forgotten 

 In the mouth of the black-headed ones* whom his hands 



have made. 



* The "black-headed ones" (sabnat Z'«H-ac?i) apparently stands for 

 ")nankind," or, perhaps, "the dark race" in contradistinction to the fair 

 sons of Japheth. 



