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PART III.

PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

OF

THE BABYLONIAN AND PHOENICIAN

KOSMOGONIES.

149

INTRODUCTION.

THE KOSMOGONIES ACCORDING TO BEROSUS, EUDEMUS, AND DAMASCIUS.4

I.

THE KOSMOGONY OF THE BABYLONIANS ACCORDING TO BEROSUS.

AFTER the searching inquiries instituted by Niebuhr, it is unnecessary to offer any further proof of the entire credibility of Berosus, the scholar of Babylon, the contemporary of the first Seleucida. It would seem that almost everything we know about the Babylonian antiquities and histories from the later Greeks, on which reliance can be placed, is derived directly or indirectly from him.

The following is his account of the beginnings of the world and of man from the Babylonian records.

At first all was darkness and water. In these the commencements of animal life were produced. But there was as yet no distinction of races and species. Sometimes men had feet of beasts, sometimes wings; there were quadrupeds and men with fishes' tails and similar incongruities, representations of which were to be seen in the temple of Belus.

Over this unorganised creation a woman presided, Omorôka, known to the Chaldees as Thalatth. Belus split her in two, and thus the heaven and the earth were separated. Whatever portion of her living substance could not bear the light perished.

From the derivation of the word and the general

4 The text of Berosus was given in the First Volume, in the Appendix of Authorities; the other two texts will appear in the Fifth.

views entertained by these nations, the Thalatth of the Chaldees (and it was evidently the ordinary name) can only have signified "the bearing," or "the eggproducing" (Tolédeth, or Talédeth). The other word inust, therefore, contain "egg." The Kosmic egg, the opening or splitting of which by the creative God produced the present order of things, is the natural way of representing the first limitation of chaos, as the condition of the existence of things in space. It is here also expressly stated, that the animal creation had already begun to move in the dark waters, but light, order, and consciousness were yet in embryo.5

The same explanation must be given of the name Omorôka, which is evidently a compound one, and descriptive of properties (Markaia in the Armenian version of Eusebius). The first part is supposed to contain Mother ('em): hence some have explained it as "Mother of the Void;" according to Movers, "of the canopy of heaven." Neither of them is suitable. A better explanation, which agrees also with the etymology, would be, "Mother of the Earth ;"6 that is, what is as yet unilluminated by the light of heaven or spirit, dark beginnings of things, the dark terrestrial element. But, according to Professor Dietrich, it contains the word egg, by dividing it into (a) Mar-kaia; that is, the inmate of the

egg.

5 As stated in the text, I consider it an old feminine Taládeth, formed from the verb which must correspond with the Hebrew yalad, valad, and, like it, have signified, not merely "to bear," but also “to lay an egg." Our word, therefore, may just as well mean "the eggproducing." According to Dietrich, the Vau may be dropped, on account of the affixed nominal preformative T, which occurs in tosab, "inhabitant," for instance, from (vasab) yasab.

Am-arqâ, or Om-orqô, signifies, in modern Armenian, "Mother of the Earth,' ""Mother-earth."

7 Dietrich supplied me with the following explanation :-"It might be divided into 'Oμopw-ka, (a) Map-kata. The second syllable may be an old word, ka, for egg: at all events the reduplicated form kaikai is the Arabic for egg, kaikat in the feminine, which stands, according

After this (it proceeds to say) Belus (Baal, the Lord, who, according to Berosus, corresponded to Zeus) cut off his own head, and let his blood trickle on to the ground. The other Gods (Elôhim, or Baalim, as it was doubtless written in the records) mixed the blood of Belus with the dust of the earth. By this means (says Berosus) man became possessed of reason and divine knowledge.

If we compare this account with what we find in the Bible, it is as impossible not to remark the agreement between them as to the fundamental idea, the community of the divine and human, as it is not to see the discrepancy in the way it is carried out and applied. In the Babylonian version, the speculative and mystical idea of natural religions, kept out of sight in Genesis, is brought prominently forward: That creation, and especially the creation of man, is a self-offering of the Deity: the Infinite and Unlimited giving itself up out of love to the Finite and the Limited. Hence, if we put aside the veil of the genealogical view, and see nothing in the Sonship but the separate momenta of the divine self-consciousness, we have here the simplest expression of the idea, which, when differently applied, is represented as the sacrifice of the Only Son, or even as the slaying of the Father by the divine Son.

It is further stated in our epitomes that Belus created the constellations also, among which the sun, moon, and planets are mentioned by name. Babylonian philosophers can never have viewed the creation of man in

to the Arabic lexicographers, for kaikayyat. A similar, but more abbreviated, form of reduplication means in Syriac, according to Bar Bahlul, the hen, kokito'. Supposing the simple word kai also to signify egg, 'hamórkai, according to the Syriac and Arabic meaning of 'hmr, to dwell, would be 'the inmate of the egg.' It seems more advisable, therefore, to explain 'Ouop from 'hamar (properly, to ferment): 'homer (in old Hebrew, the potter's clay) is the Rabbinical word to express matter; hence, 'homer kai would be the matter of the egg,' egg-stuff. The Greeks often expressed merely by the spiritus lenis; for instance, in the names of Eve, Enoch, Ezekiel, &c."

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