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SEVENTH TABLET (Continued)

The creator of fullness and plenty, who establishes abundance.
Whatever is lacking, he turns to plenty.

In sore distress, we caught his good wind.

Let them proclaim, let them exalt, let them render his service.
25 Tutu, the Aga-azag, as the fourth, mankind will magnify.
The lord of the holy incantation, who brings the dead to life.
Who granted mercy to the captive gods.

He removed the yoke which he had imposed upon the gods, his enemies.
For their deliverance, he created humanity.

30 The merciful one, with whom there is power to give life.

Let them be established, lest his word be forgotten

In the mouth of the Black-headed, whom his hands have created.

Tuti, the Tu-azag, as the fifth, his holy incantation, he will pronounce pashina

Who, through his holy incantation, destroys all the wicked.

35 Shazu, who knows the heart of the gods, who sees the innermost parts, The doer of evil he taketh not out with him;

The founder of the assembly of the gods, [who appeases] their hearts; The subduer of the disobedient ....

The director of righteousness, who guards

40 Who, the rebellion and ....

Tutu, the Zisi, the .....

Who banishes the fury

Tutu, the Sukh-kur, as the third, who destroys .....

Who confuses their plan ......

45 Who destroys all the wicked

(About sixty lines missing.)

.....

Verily, he takes.... their ... truly they look upon him.
Thus: who passed through the midst of Tiamat
His name truly is Nibiru, who seizes its midst.
110 He will uphold the ways of the stars of heaven.
He will pasture the gods like a flock, all of them.

He will bind Tiamat, he will trouble and oppress her soul.

In the future of men, in the oldness of days,

He will bear up without ceasing; he will rule for eternity.

115 Since he built the places (heaven), fashioned the fastnesses (earth), "The lord of lands," Enlil the father, has pronounced his name. The Igigi named the names, all of them.

SEVENTH TABLET (Continued)

Ea heard, and his liver rejoiced.

Thus: "He whose names his fathers have magnified,

120 He, like me, Ea, truly is his name.

The sum-total of my commands, all of them he will observe.
All my oracles he shall observe."

By the fifty names, the great gods;

His fifty names they named, they made his path excel.
125 Let them be held fast, let the foremost reveal (them).
Let the wise and the understanding consider them together.
Let the father repeat (them), and teach the son.
Let the shepherd and the herdsman open their ears.
Let them rejoice, for the Enlil of the gods, Marduk,
130 Will make his land prosperous; it verily will succeed.
His word is established; his command is unchangeable.
The utterance of his mouth, no god shall revoke.
When he looks about, he turns not his neck.
In his anger (and) his wrath, no god can face him.
135 Extended is his heart; wide is his compassion;
The sinner and evil-doer, before him
They received instruction, they spoke in his presence

....

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B. BILINGUAL BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

The holy house, the house of the gods, in the holy place, was not made.
The reed had not come up; the tree was not created.

A brick was not made; the mould was not fashioned.
A house was not made; the city was not built.

5 A city was not made; a creature was not constituted.

For the text see CT 13, 35 ff. It was first translated by Pinches, JRAS 23, 393 ff. See also Sayce, Higher Criticism and the Monuments p. 39; Zimmern in Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos 419f; Jensen, KB 6, 38f; King, Seven Tablets of Creation 130 ff; Dhorme, Choix de Textes Religieux Assyro-Babyloniens 83 ff; Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels 47 ff; Jeremias, Altorientalischen Geisteskultur p. 24; Jastrow, JAOS 36, 280ff; Budge, The Babylonian Legends of Creation 5 ff; Ungnad, Die Religion der Babylonier und Assyrer 52 ff, etc.

Nippur was not made; Ekur was not built.

Erech was not made; E-anna was not built.

The apsû was not made; Eridu was not built.

The holy house, the house of the gods, his habitation, was not made.

10 All lands were sea.

Then, what was in the midst of the sea was squeezed out.

At that time, Eridu was made, Esagila was built,

The temple .. where in the apsû Lugal-du-azag had dwelt,

....

Babylon was made; Esagila was finished.

15 The gods, the Anunnaki, altogether, he made.

The holy city, the dwelling of their hearts' desire, they proclaimed

supreme,

Marduk laid a reed work upon the face of the waters.

He created dirt, and poured (it) with the reed-work.

To have the gods dwell in a desired habitation,

20 He created mankind.

The goddess Aruru with him created the seed of mankind.

The beast of the field, the living things in the field, he created,

The Tigris and Euphrates, he created and fixed (their) course;

Their names he appropriately announced.

25 The grass, the rush of the marsh, the reed, and the forest, he created. The green herb of the field, he created.

The lands, the marsh, the swamp,

The cow, her offspring, the young, the ewe, her kid, the sheep of the fold, Groves and forests,

30 The he-goat, the mountain-goat, he brought into existence.

355

The lord Marduk filled in an embankment at the edge of the sea.

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C. THE PHOENICIAN COSMOGONY ASCRIBED TO

SANCHUNIATHON BY PHILO OF BYBLUS

As the first principle of the universe he posits murky, windy air, or a breath of murky air, and turbid chaos, dark as Erebos; these were infinite and throughout a long lapse of time limitless. "But," says he, "when the windy breath became enamoured of its own first principles and an intermingling took place, that union was called Desire. This was the beginning of the creation of all things; but it was not aware of its own creation. From the self-embrace of the windy breath was engendered Mot; this some say was mud, others the corruption of a watery mixture. From this was engendered all seed of creation, and the origin of the universe. There were certain beings devoid of sense-perception, out of which were engendered sentient beings; and they were called Zophasemin, that is, beholders of Heaven, and were fashioned like the shape of an egg. And Mot was illumined by the sun and moon, and by the stars and the great stellar bodies."5

Such is their cosmogony, which brings in downright atheism. But let us next see how he says the origin of life came about. He says, then:

"And after the air had become glowing, through the burning of the sea and the earth were engendered winds and clouds, and very great downfalls and outpourings of heavenly waters. When these had become disjoined from each other and disparted from their own place through the burning heat of the sun, and when they all encountered again in the air, one with another, and collided, claps of thunder and bolts of lightning were created. At the noise of the thunder-claps, the previously mentioned sentient beings awoke, and started at the sound, and moved upon the earth and in the sea, male and female."

Such is their view of the origin of life. Directly after this the same writer adds the remark:

"All this was found written in the cosmogony of Taautos and his commentaries; by means of indications and proofs which his intelligence had discerned, he discovered it and enlightened us."

'These quotations, from the first book of the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblus, are given by Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, i, 10. The translation, which has been made by my colleague, Professor A. M. Harmon, follows the text of Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii, p. 565. The interspersed comments are those of Eusebius.

'Or, "set aflame."

'The five planets.

D. STORY OF CREATION ASCRIBED TO OANNES BY

BEROSSUS

"There was," he says, "a time when everything was darkness and water, and in these were bred portentous creatures with peculiar appearances; for men with two wings were born, and some, too, with four wings and two faces; they had only one body, but two heads, a man's and a woman's also, and double privates, male and female. And there were other men, some of whom had goat's legs and horns, some had horse's hooves, and some had the hinder parts of horses and the fore parts of men, so as to look like hippocentaurs. Bulls with human heads were bred, too, and four-bodied dogs, with fish-tails attached to their hind quarters, and horses and men with the heads of dogs, and other creatures that had the heads and bodies of horses but the tails of fish, and still other creatures with the shapes of all manner of beasts. In addition to these, there were fish and creeping things and serpents and many other marvellous creatures that had appearances derived from one another. Images of all these are set up as offerings in the temple of Bel. The ruler of them all was a woman whose name was Omorka, which in Chaldean is interpreted Thalatth, and in Greek Thalassa (sea); but by numerical equivalence (it is) Selene (the moon)."

Earth and the This, he says, universe was

"After the universe had thus come into being, Belos made his appearance and clove the woman in two; he made half of her other half Heaven, and did away with the creatures in her. is a physical truth allegorically set forth; for when the liquid and only animals had come into being in it, [this god removed his own head, and the other gods mixed with earth the blood that flowed and moulded men; hence they are intelligent and partake of divine wisdom]8

6 For the text see Schoene, Eusebi Chronicorum Liber Prior pp. 14-18. It may also be found in Müller, Fragm. Hist. Graec. ii. pp. 497-498. The translation and notes are by Professor A. M. Harmon, of Yale University.

The two words Omorka and Selene not only have the same number of letters, but if the letters are given their numerical value, according to the Greek system, the sum of the letters in Omorka (301) is the same as the sum of the letters in Selene.

I have bracketed these words following Gudschmid, and on my own responsibility have indicated a lacuna between what precedes them and what follows. The bracketed passage interrupts the rationalistic explanation of the myth, and is evidently a double of the continuation of the myth itself. Out of the interpretation of the myth we have lost at least the explanation that Belos is light (A. M. H.).

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