The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria
By Morris Jastrow
CHAPTER V.
THE CONSORTS OF THE GODS.
Attention has already been directed to the comparatively small number of female deities that appear in the inscriptions of the first period of Babylonian history. We must, however, not conclude from this, that such deities did not exist in larger numbers. On the contrary, we may feel certain that every god had his consort, and in some cases more than one. Several instances of such consorts have been furnished in this chapter; but if the consorts of the larger number of these gods are unknown, it is because of the insignificant rôle that these consorts played. The goddesses of Babylonia, with few exceptions, become mere shadowy reflections of the gods, with but little independent power, and in some cases none at all. They owe what popularity they enjoyed to their association with their male companions. In consequence of this inferior rôle played by the female deities, the tendency becomes more pronounced, as we pass from the first to the second period of Babylonian history, to reduce by assimilation the small number that have independent attributes, until we reach a condition in which we have practically only one goddess, appearing under many forms. It is only in the religious texts, and in some phases of the popular beliefs, that goddesses retain a certain degree of prominence.
So, a goddess Allat, as we shall see, plays an important part as the chief goddess of the subterranean cave that houses the dead. Allat appears to have been originally a consort of the famous Bel of Nippur, but through association with Nergal, who becomes the chief god of the lower world, almost all traces of the original character of the goddess disappear. Again,[Pg 105] Gula, the consort of Nin-ib, while occasionally mentioned in the historical texts of the second and third period, and under the form Ma-ma, as an element in a proper name belonging to the oldest period,[109] is more frequently invoked in incantations as the healer of disease. The same is the case with other goddesses; so that we may conclude that from the earliest times, the Babylonian religion shared the trait so marked in all Semitic cults, of a combination of the male and female principle in the personification of the powers that controlled the fate of man. In part, no doubt, the minor importance of women, so far as the outward aspects of social and political life were concerned, is a factor in the altogether secondary importance attaching to the consorts of the gods; but we may feel certain that there was no god, however restricted in his jurisdiction, or however limited in the number of his worshippers, who had not associated with him a female companion, who follows him as the shadow follows the substance.
[Pg 106]FOOTNOTES:
[109] According to Hilprecht, ib. p. 48, note 6. For Ma-ma and Me-me, as names of Gula, see chapter viii.
