Enuma Elish and the Transmission of Babylonian Cosmology to the West - Philippe Talon

8/3/2019 Enuma Elish and the Transmission of Babylonian Cosmology to the West - Philippe Talon

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THE MELAMMU PROJECT

http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/

Enma Eli and the Transmission of Babylonian Cosmology to the West

PHILIPPE TALON

Published inMelammu Symposia 2:

R. M. Whiting (ed.),

Mythology and Mythologies.

Methodological Approaches to Intercultural Influences.

Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and

Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Paris, France,

October 4-7, 1999 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus

Project 2001), pp. 265-77.

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Enuma Eliand the Transmission of Babylonian

Cosmology to the West*

M

y interest in the remarkable textknown to us as Enuma Eli(Ee)began more than ten years ago,

probably in the same way as it is for manyassyriologists. It has been translated somany times that it seems easy to have a lookat it and, furthermore, the cuneiform textprepared by Lambert gives wonderful teach-ing opportunities.

In 1987, however, H. Vanstiphout pub-lished a short note in NABU1 in which heproposed a reinterpretation of the first eightverses of Tablet I which rather profoundlychanged my views on the text. Vanstiphoutread the first eight verses in two four-verse

units, which looked to me as quite in-genious since it gave the text a much richersense. I had the rather simple idea then toextend this proposal to the rest of the poemand I began to examine tablet I with this inmind. It came as a real surprise to see thatthe four-verse units really worked most ofthe time. When clearly, for syntactical orsemantic reasons, this system did not work,it seemed clear to me that we were lookingat special cases, stanzas which had a veryspecial meaning and were thus emphasized

by a simple break in the rhythm.Another idea came out of this reading,

which I published in 1992 in a Festschrift2

honoring an eminent Egyptologist teaching

in Brussels and Kln universities, PhilippeDerchain. Unfortunately, this paper did notreally find its way into Assyriological cir-

cles and is not widely known. Ill take thisopportunity to bring this matter to lightagain and expand it into the topic of thissymposium.

Verses 1 to 108 of Tablet I are concernedfirst with the description of the primordialworld and then the appearance of the maingods, ending with Ea. But Aps and Tiamatare disturbed by the noise of the youngergods. Aps then decides to destroy the godsand goes to Tiamat with this proposal. It isremarkable to note that the f irst break in the

four-lines rhythm appears with lines 45-46,when Tiamat refuses to participate in thekilling of her creation:3

Why then should we destroy what we havecreated?Yes, their actions are worrysome, but let usstill remain patient!

Aps then turns to Mummu and both ofthem decide to go on anyway. Ea hearsabout their plans and, while the gods aredespairing, he immediately acts. His magic

arts easily overwhelm Aps and Mummuand Ea kills the former. He then proceeds toestablish Aps as his dwelling and this iswhere his wife Damkina will give birth to

* I wish to express my gratitude to my wife, MichleBroze, who contributed a lot to this paper and helped mein finding and understanding many Classical references.1 NABU 87/95. Abbreviations are given according to theChicago Assyrian Dictionary.2 Le premier pisode de lEnuma Eli, in M. Broze -

Ph. Talon (eds),LAtelier de lOrfvre. Mlanges offerts Philippe Derchain, Lettres Orientales 2 (Leuven,1992), 131-46.3 Ee I 45-46, mi-na-a ni-i-nu ni-ib-nu- nu-u-hal-laq-ma | al-kt-su-nu lu um-ru-$at i ni-i-du-ud#a-bi.

PHILIPPE TALON Brussels

R.M. Whiting (ed.)MELAMMUSYMPOSIAII(Helsinki 2001)ISBN 951-45-9049-X

TALON TRANSMISSION OF BABYLONIAN COSMOLOGY TO THE WEST

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Marduk. The birth of Marduk is emphasizedby a shout and this is where the secondbreak of rhythm appears (lines 101-102):4

Mariutu, Mariutu!Son of the Sun, Sun of the Gods!

With a well-known play on the name ofMarduk, commonly written dAMAR.UTUyoung bull of the Sun. When this is done,the universe is again at peace. But Anugives Marduk the Four Winds to play withand this prepares the rest of the story (line108):5

He brought the tide in existence, it wasgoing to disturb Tiamat

With this wonderful use of a verb in theimperfect (udallah) ends the first part, thedeeds of Ea. It is nothing more than a firstepisode in which every element of the mainstory is already present. It is a kind of re-hearsal of the epic fight between Mardukand Tiamat, but here the protagonists are

Aps and Ea. Everything Ea has accom-plished will be later accomplished by Mar-duk, on a grander scale. Aps and Mummuannounce Tiamat and Kingu and they arevanquished in the same way, by magic. Eahas created his dwelling with the body ofAps as Marduk will create the intelligibleworld with the body of Tiamat, the exactcorrespondance of the Aps being theEarra. The deeds of Ea are thus a prefigu-ration of the great deeds of Marduk, whowill receive as his last name the name of his

father in Tablet VII.Since the topic of this paper is to examinethe cosmological views of the Babylonians

and their transfer to the West, I shall nowcome back to the opening lines of our poem.The first two stanzas, that is the first eightverses have been unanimously interpretedas representing the undifferentiated chaosof the origins:6

When above the sky was not namedand below the earth had no name,Aps was the first, their ancestor,the creator was Tiamat, mother of them all.

They had mingled their waters together,

the pastures were not agglomerated, thecanebrakes were not extended,when the gods none had yet appeared had been given no name, the destinies werenot yet fixed.

These two stanzas are full of riddles anddifficulties. First of all, the occurrence ofammatu (var. abbatu) in verse 2 instead ofthe expected er$etu earth is not easy tointerpret. The word is attested only here, ina lexical text7 and in the Theodicy. It isworth noting that in this text, it appears in

a comparison where the sufferer is called8

Palm tree, tree of wealth, my preciousbrother, endowed with all wisdom, jewel of[gold], you are as stable as the earth (am-ma-t), but the plan of the gods is remote.The ancient commentary of line 58 givesthe interpretation am-ma-t: [GIM]er-$e-tammati means like the earth. Onecould thus readily accept that this rare termwas taken by the Babylonians themselves asa synonym for earth.

Then comes the tricky part: Aps and

Tiamat are mentioned as being respectivelyancestor and begetter of all of them(-unu). There is no indication to the beings

4 Ee I 101-102, ma-ri--tu ma-ri--tu | ma-ri dUTU-idUTU-i DINGIR.DINGIR.

5 Ee I 108, -ab-i a-ga-am-ma -dal-lh ti-amat.6 Ee I 1-8: e-nu-ma e-li la na-bu- -ma-mu | ap-liam-ma-tum (var. ab-ba-tum) u-ma la zak-rat| ZU.AB-mare-tu- za-ru-u-un | mu-um-mu ti-amat mu-al-li-da-atgim-ri--un || A.ME--nu i-te-ni i-hi-qu--ma | gi-

pa-ra la ki-i$-$u-ru $u-$a-a la e-u- | e-nu-maDINGIR.DINGIRla u-pu-u ma-na-ma | u-ma la zuk-ku-ru i-ma-t la i-i-mu.7 Malku I 51 where it is equated with dannatu (CAD A/2,75a).8 BWL, p. 74-75, line 58 gi-na-ta-ma am-ma-t ni-simi-lik i-lim.


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referred to by the pronoun unu. The trans-lators have all considered that the pronounhere meant the gods, and this could behelped by the fact that the only other occur-rence of the term zar progenitor, father,ancestor9 in Enuma Eliis in line I 29 Itwas then that Aps, ancestor of the greatgods,10 called Mummu, his messenger. Theuse of the verbszar for Aps and aladu forTiamat also hints that Aps is masculineand Tiamat feminine.

What now about the term mummu at the

beginning of line 4? Most of the modernauthors see this word as an epithet of Tiamat,translating, for example, maker Tiamat,11

matrix-Tiamat, 12 Mre(?)-Tiamat.13 Theircomments show that, most of the time,mummu is taken as a synonym, or even amistake, for the usual word ummumother. We will see that the appearanceof the term here has led Damascius to pos-tulate a triad in the first stage of the Baby-lonian cosmology. But we will return to thislater.

The word mummu is probably not a mis-take for ummu, since it appears elsewhereat least once as an epithet of Tiamat (mu-umTi-amat).14 It is otherwise attributed to Eaas the creator: mummu ban kala creator of

everything,15mummu ban bintu creatorof all creatures,16 mummu ban am uer$eti creator of heaven and earth17

(which is also said of Marduk in Ee VII 86in the exegesis of the name Zulum). It is,remarkably, once used to qualify Itar:mummu ban par$i u uluhhi creator of therites and purification ceremonies.18

On the other hand, mummu is also used todesignate a school or a workshop, abode ofNab and Tametu, 19 and, in the expressionhouse of M/mummu (bit mummu/i), it is

a workshop used to make and repair ritualobjects.20

Elsewhere in Enuma Eli, Mummu ap-pears as a god, written with the divine deter-minative, playing the role of Apss vi-zier.21 His name is equated with Ilabrat andPapsukkal22 and it also appears in two suc-cessive series of names: Belet-ili Belet-matiAnar Kiar Enmearra Dumuzi Lugaldu-kuga Anu Kinga Mummu u Belili | KingaMummu Aps u Allatu.23

What is the status of Mummu/mummu

here ? The parallels with the epithet of Easuggests that it is a title of Tiamat. Never-theless it is always used elsewhere afterthename of the god and usually followed by anexplanatory note creator of (ban). Here

9 CAD s.v.zar 1.10 i-nu-u ZU.AB za-ri DINGIR.DINGIRra-b--tim11 S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford Univer-sity Press, (Oxford - New York, 1991) p. 233.12 B.R. Foster, From Distant Days (Bethesda, 1995), p.11.13 J. Bottro - S.N. Kramer, Lorsque les dieux faisaient

lhomme (Paris, 1989), p. 604.14 In a hymn to Nanaya, BA 5 664:15.15 Iraq 15, 123:19 and VAS 1 37 iii 5 (kudurru of Mero-dachbaladan II)16 PSBA 20 158:1417 LKA 77 i 29ff.18 Loretz-Mayer, u-ila, p. 15 (BMS 5+:17).19 See in general CAD M/2 197ff.20 CAD M/2 p. 198. Note also the appearance of the wordin the Anzu myth: mu-um-mu qati ana qiatiki (citedCAD M/2, 198b and translated there (return) frame ofthe bow, to your forest). The use ofmummu to designatethe frame of the bow could as well mean idea orconcept, thus implying that mummu doe not mean cre-

ator, but something more like that which inspires cre-ation.21 Ee I 30, 31, 47, 53, 66 (var. d), 70 (var. d), 72 (var. d),118, VII 86 (said of Marduk, see above). I 48 seems touse the name as a substantive without determinative:(dmu-um-mu) suk-kal-lum la ma-gi-ru mi-lik mu-um-mi-u (Mummu answers to Ea) and of an unfavorable vizier

was the counsel of his mummu.22 J. Nougayrol, Textes et documents figurs, RA 41,1947, p. 23-53; AO 17626 (and duplicate, TCL 6, 47), p.30:3. This text is a list of god names (with equations)ending with the note PAB 7 DINGIR.DINGIRDINGIR.MEki-[i]t-tum (var. 7 dEN.LL.ME ki-it-ti) IGI.2.ME--nu ina MEZEZABAR GAR-nu Total: 7 gods, capturedgods, whose eyes are put into a bronze manz-drum.23 RA 41, 1947, p. 37:25f, last section of a list of godsreceving merditu-offerings. This last section unfortu-nately does not have an explanatory note. Cf also thebroken commentary DT 184, published by W.G. Lam-bert, JCS 10, 1956, p. 100, mentioning ti-amat(ll. 8, 13)and dmu-um-mu (l. 14).


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we would have to assume that it is empha-sized and put before the name of Tiamat(the creator par excellence). Anotherpossibility, reflected in my translation is totake the sentence as a non-verbal clausethe creator was Tiamat with Tiamat aspredicate.

One could also include in the discussionthe meaning of the term mummu. The trans-lation Creator is clear ly influenced by thevarious expressions which accompany it inthe above mentioned epithets. We will see

later on that Damascius calls it ton notonkosmon the intelligible world and SimoParpola has argued24 that it is the equivalentof the Sefira Daatthe worlds conscious-ness. Speaking strictly from an assyrio-logical point of view, the attestations of theword and their uses suggest that it has some-thing to do with knowledge or understand-ing of ritual and cultic objects or practice.Could we see it as the ability to elaborateconcepts and to thus to create them? Assuch it could be seen as a qualifier of Tiamat

as well as an independent entity. The ques-tion must remain open for the time being.

Next come the mention of the mingling ofthe waters and the unfinished state of thepastures and the canebrakes. These versesclearly depict the unfinished and undiffer-rentiated state of the universe. Again wehave the annoying use of the possessivepronoun unu, but here most commentatorswill agree that it refers to Aps and Tiamat,seen as the principles of sweet and saltwater not yet separated. One has the visual

impression of the South Iraqi marsheswhere land, river and sea mingle together ina chaotic environment, and it is perhaps thisimage that the poet had in mind.

The last two lines of the introductioncome back to the absence of the gods who

have not yet appeared and have still notbeen named. The destinies were not fixedis then to be understood as a depiction of asilent and immobile universe without anyrules or awareness.

Structurally, lines 7 -8 are an echo to lines1-2, with the repetition of enuma when.But if it is the case, we should equallyunderstand lines 5-6 as an echo to the men-tion of Aps and Mummu-Tiamat. Lines5-6 would then depict the original unity ofthe two (or three) first entities and not the

undifferentiation of the universe (whichdoes not exist yet).

From this situation are created (ibba-n) two pairs of beings: Lahmu-Lahamuand Anar-Kiar. The expression used doesnot refer to a genealogical process in thehuman sense of the word. The two pairs ofgods are created in the passive, they cometo existence without any external meansmentioned. We then have the first mentionof time in line 13 they lengthened the days ,added the years.25 It is only after this that,

at last, a real action intervenes: Anar issaid to reflect (umail) his son Anu, andAnu himself begets (ulid) Ea/Nudimmud ashis reflection or image (tamilau). Wehave here the first use of punctual verb-forms denoting a definite moment in time.With a four-line verse describing the excep-tional wisdom and strength of Ea/Nudim-mud, the first section is closed. The nar-rative will now switch to the destabilizationcaused by the noise of the gods and theanger of Aps. It is perhaps worth noting

that Ea will only be called by this name (Ea)later, in line 60 (!), when he decides to takemeasures against Aps and Mummu.

The text of Enuma Eli was widelyknown in the learned circles of Babyloniaand Assyria, as the number of copies found

24 The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins ofJewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy, JNES 52

(1993), p. 161-208 (especially note 110, p. 191).25 I 13 ur-ri-kuUD.MEu$-$i-bu MU.ME.


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in various sites of Mesopotamia shows. Itwas not only copied in Assyria, but alsoused as a reference work in other literarytexts. Elnathan Weissert has demonstratedthat the annalistic account of the campaignsof Sennacherib made extensive allusions toour text.26 In that way, the battles of the kingcould achieve a mythical dimension. EnumaEli was sufficiently known in academiccircles that the allusions could be easilyunderstood by all members of the Assyrianelite.

In other Assyrian scholarly works, thepoem is alluded to, either by a typical useof words, extracts or by its name. It is thecase, for example, in Marduks Ordeal, withcomments such as it is said in Enuma Eli:When heaven and earth were not created,Aur came into being27 or Enuma Eli,which is recited and chanted in front of Belin Nisan, concerns his imprisonment.28

The recitation of the poem during the AkituFestival in Nisan (on the 4th day) is alsoattested in the Akitu ritual29 itself, with the

additional precision that the tiara of Anuand the throne of Enlil had to remaincovered during the recitation.

The Neo-Assyrians certainly studied andcommented Enuma Eli. There are alsocopies of the myth in which the scholars ofNineveh changed the name of Marduk andreplaced it by the name of Aur.30 This wasnot simply a matter of writing Aur insteadof Marduk, but the whole genealogy of Mar-duk was thus lifted on a higher level, rep la-cing Anar and Kiar by Aur and Mullis-

su, Lahmu and Lahamu by Ea and Damkina,

and finally Aps and Tiamat by Anu andAntu (or Itar).31 It was probably this proce-dure which gave birth to a series of curiousallusions in mystical texts to the death ofAnu and the depiction of this god as an evilentity. It explains also the equations be-tween Tiamat and Itar or Antu.32 It is in thisperspective that one has to take into accountthe possibility to read Enuma Eliwith theAssyrian Tree of Life diagram in mind.Even if such was perhaps not the case at thetime of its composition, it is nevertheless

plausible that the scholars of Nineveh readit with a comparable model in mind. Thefact that the number of gods mentioned inthe first section (lines 1-16) is nine (if onetakes the mummu into account) could nothave escaped them:

Aps Tiamatmummu

Lahmu LahamuAnar Kiar

Anu

EaOne should also note that in this perspec-

tive the place ofmummu is that of Itar andthat the godMummu in Enuma Eliassumesthe role of Apss lover, replacing Tiamatwhen they plan their destruction. Thepossible androgyny of Mummu is anotherlink with Itar. The role of Mummu inEnuma eli is one of destabilization, andmost of the myths involving Itar presenther in a quite similar aspect. Itar andMummu both destabilize a situation which

Ea will later on reorganize.

26 E. Weissert, Creating a Political Climate: LiteraryAllusions to Enuma Eliin Sennacheribs Account of theBattle of Halule, 39me Rencontre Assyriologique In-ternationale (1997), 191-202.27 SAA 3 34:54 = 35:45: u- ina e-nu-ma e-liiq- [#i-bi] ki-i AN-e KI.TIMla ib-ba-nu-niAN.Rit-[tab-i].28 SAA 3 34:34 = 35:28: e-nu-ma e-li a da-bi-ib-u-niina IGI dENina ITI .BARAG i-za-mur---ni ina UGU a

$a-bit-u-ni [u-].29 F. Thureau-Dangin,Rituels accadiens, p. 136, 280-84.30 Cf W.G. Lambert, The Assyrian Recension ofEnumaEli, 39me Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale(1997), 77-79.31 See my forthcoming paper Esoteric Lore in Neo-Assyrian Tradition.32 SAA 3 39 = KAR 307.


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Another possibility of interpreting theopening lines of Enuma Eli within themodel of the Assyrian Tree of Life is to readthe first two lines as metaphors for the twoopposing points of the diagram. Abovethen represents the first Sefira , Anu, i.e. thesky, and below means the last one, Ner-gal, clearly associated with the earth. Theopening lines can then be understood as astatement that the f low of emanation has notyet begun, and the first section describes thecoming into being of the universe. But this

interpretation needs more evidence.33There is another passage which might

perhaps be linked with the Tree diagram. Intablet VI, after Marduk has created theworld and assigned stations to all the gods,there is a feast. The great gods, being fifty,take place with the seven gods of destinies.Marduk shows them his weapon, the Bow,and Anu kisses it, declaring this is reallymy daughter.34 It is well-known that theBow represents Itar, especially as her stel-lar incarnation.35 Thus the seven gods of

destinies, in front of Marduk, assign theplace of Itar as the daughter of Anu, bring-ing their number to nine and the diagram tocompletion.

Enuma Elicontinued to be studied andcopied down to Seleucid times, as is shownby the fact that some manuscripts werefound in the Sippar library, for example. Itis at this stage that the first attested case oftransfer into another language of our mythoccurs. At the beginning of the third cen turyBC, a priest of Bel, named Berossus, wrote

a book on Mesopotamian traditions in

Greek, called Babyloniaka . Unfortunately,this book is lost and only fragments survivein the works of other ancient authors, in thiscase mainly Eusebius of Cesarea.36 Euse-bius himself wrote in the beginning of thefourth century AD, and his citation of Be-rossus is only an abridgment of the accountsof Polyhistor and Abydenus. From what weknow, Berossus was of Chaldaean originand, after leaving Babylon, taught Chal-daean astrology on the island of Cos. Hewas also said to be an interpreter, i.e. a

prophet of Bel.37His depiction of Babylonian cosmology

is presented in Book I of the Babyloniaka .The fragments which came down to us arerelatively different from the account ofEnuma Eli, at least in the beginning. Theyevoke much more the famous Seleucid textpublished by Van Dijk in 1962 38 whichgives the list of the antediluvian kings andtheir apkallu. Berossus thus says that in thefirst year Oannes, a being half-man half-fish, came out of the Persian Gulf and

brought knowledge and civilization to thepeople of Mesopotamia. This Oannes hasbeen recognized in the figure of Uanna, theapkallu or mythical scholar of the first ante-diluvian king, Ayalu. Uanna is also knownin some texts under the name of Adapa.39

According to Berossus, Oannes revealedthe mystery of origins to man. One shouldremember here that the Enuma Eliis alsosaid to be a revelation ( taklimtu), but doesnot give the name of the speaker. Thus inlines VII 157-158, it is said: 40

33 See the remarks of S. Parpola, Tree of Life, p. 190ff.34 Ee VI 87: GI.BAN it-ta-iq i-i lu- DUMU.MUNUS(var. mar-ti).35 E. Reiner, Astral Magic in Babylonia (Philadelphia,1995), p. 88.36 For a translation of all extant passages, see S.M.Burstein, The babyloniaca of Berossus, (Malibu, 1978).37 Burstein, p. 15 and n. 19. The Latin verb interpretariis the equivalent of the Greek hermeneuein, which evokes

the god Hermes. Oannes-Adapa, on the other hand, is theexact parallel of Hermes Trismegistos, the one who trans-mits knowledge.38 W.20030,7: UVB 18, p. 44ff.39 See Picchioni,Il poemetto di Adapa (Budapest, 1981),p. 85ff; Ph. Talon, Le mythe dAdapa, SEL 7, 1990,43-57.40 tak-lim-ti mah-ru- id-bu-bu pa-nu-u- | i-#ur-mai-ta-kan ana i-m-e ar-ku-ti.


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The Revelation, the First One recited it be-fore him,he wrote it and and placed it at the disposalof future generations.

And also in lines VII 145-146 :41

Let them (the 50 names of Marduk) be re-membered, let the First One comment uponthem,let the wise and the scholar meditate on themtogether.

The First One mentioned in Enuma Eli

is probably Oannes-Adapa,42 who wascredited with the authorship of literaryworks,43 and this tradition was taken up byBerossus.44

At the beginning, he writes, there was atime when everything was darkness andwater,45 which corresponds with the open-ing lines ofEnuma Eli. But then Berossusgoes on to explain that many strange crea-tures came to life in these waters. Most ofthese creatures are curiously marked by abinary aspect: two wings, two faces, two

heads, two sets of sexual organs. It is onlyafter this episode that Berossus introducesTiamat: A woman named Omorka ruledover these creatures . In Chaldaean her namewas Thalath which translated into Greekmeans Thalassa (sea). The name Thalathis probably a corruption of an originalThauthe (as found in Damascius), under the

influence of the word-play with the Greekword for sea Thalassa.46 As for the nameOmorka, it has been proposed that it was acorruption of the expression ummu HuburMother Hubur, designating Tiamat inEnuma Eli.47

After this simple statement, Berossus goeson to describe the creation of the universeby Bel and gives no account of the conflictbetween Marduk and Tiamat. Two versionsof the creation are given , both of them men-tioning the division of Tiamat into heaven

and earth, as is done in Enuma Eli. In oneversion, Berossus explicitly says that Belcut the woman in two. In the other, it isdarkness which is divided.

The account of Berossus is thus concisein the extreme concerning the cosmologicalopening of the Babylonian myth. He seemsmore interested in the Revelation of Oannesand the creation of the planets and the stars,as could be expected from an Chaldaeanastrologer.

After Berossus, we have seen that Baby-

lonian cosmology had been treated by sev-eral Greek authors, like Polyhistor andAbydenus, but these works are now lost . Wehave to go down to the end of the 5th cen-tury and the beginning of the 6th to find onelast echo ofEnuma Eli. Damascius,48 bornin Damascus around 460 and raised in Alex-andria, made an extensive visit to the great

41 li-i$-$ab-t-ma mah-ru-u li-kal-lim | en-qu mu-du-umit-ha-ri lim-tal-ku.42 The parallelism between the first episode and the main

body ofEnuma Eliauthorizes an intriguing hypothesis:In the main myth, Marduk defeates Tiamat and Kingu.With Tiamat, Marduk creates the world and, afterwards,proceeds to create man with the blood of Kingu. In thefirst episode, Ea kills Aps and puts the leash on Mum-mu. We are told that he used Aps to create his newdwelling, but nothing is said about the fate of Mummu.If the parallelism between both situations is applied, wewould expect Mummu to be killed in order to create aservant of Ea, which is exactly the way in which Adapais described in the Adapa Myth.43 W.G. Lambert,JCS 16, 1962, p. 62, line 11 [ u4-an-na a-da]-p ina pi-i- i-#u-ru [that Oannes-Ada]pawrote under his dictation.

44 It is also attested in other Hellenistic works, e.g. in thefragments of Chaeremon, an Egyptian priest of the firstcentury AD, see P.W. Van der Horst, Chaeremon, Egyptian Priest

and Stoic Philosopher, Etudes prliminaires aux religionsorientales dans lempire romain, vol. 101, (Leiden, 1984).Two fragments preserved by Psellus mention Oannes/Ioannes, clothed in a fish-skin, descendant or son ofHermes and Apollo (p. 11 and 27).45 I use the translation given by Burstein,Babyloniaca .46 See Burstein, p. 14 n. 15.47 The opinion of Komorczy cited by Burstein, p. 14note 14, has to be abandoned: e-ma-ru-uk-ka in line EeII 134 (not II 101) is for amarukka, derived from the verbamaru to see and has nothing to do with the flood.48 See L. Couloubaritsis,Histoire de la philosophie an-cienne et mdivale, (Paris, 1998), p. 802-803.


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philosophical centres of Syria49 beforegoing to Athens where he eventually be-came director of the Platonic School. Whenthe School was closed in 529, Damasciusand his disciples left Greece for Syria andPersia. It is believed that he ended his lifein Harran where a Neo-Platonic School

functioned until the 10th century.50

Damascius is a representative of Neopla-tonic thought and wrote several books, in-cluding commentaries to Platos works. Inhis Treatise of the First Principles, one ofthe major last works of Greek philosophy,he discusses at length the relations betweenthe One and the World, or the One and theAll.51 His position is largely influenced bythe commentaries of Proclus (beginning ofthe 5th cent.) and by the Chaldaean Oracles,a collection of prophetic revelations origi-

nating from Syria and dating from the

middle of the 3rd century.52 These Oraclesare considered today as the Bible of theNeoplatonic philosophers.53 I shall comeback to this later.

Explaining the various approaches tothe qualities of the One, Damascius passesin review the Orphaic tradition and the

opinions of Oriental theologies, mainly theBabylonians, the Mages, the Phoeniciansand the Egyptians. Of the Babylonians hewrites:54

Among the Barbarians, the Babyloniansseem to be silent on the unique principle ofthe all and pose two principles, Tauthe andApasn, considering Apasn as the husbandof Tauthe, whom they call mother of thegods. From Apasn and Tauthe has been en-gendered, they say, an only child, Mmis,who is, I think, the intelligible world pro-

duced from the two principles. Then , from

49 See M. Tardieu, Les paysages reliques. Routes ethaltes syriennes dIsidore Simplicius (Leuven, 1990);P. Chuvin, Chronique des derniers paens (Paris, 1991).50 See Chuvin, Chronique and T.M. Green, The City ofthe Moon God. Religious Traditions of Harran (Leiden,1992).51 A recent edition can be found in L.G. Westerink - J.Combs,Damascius. Trait des Premiers Principes , LesBelles Lettres (Paris, 1991).52 Edition: E. des Places, Oracles Chaldaques avec un

choix de commentaires anciens, Les Belles Lettres, 3rded. (Paris, 1996); R. Majercik, The Chaldaean Oracles:Text, Translation and Commentary (Leiden, 1989).53 P. Athanassiadi, The Chaldaean Oracles: Theologyand Theurgy, in P. Athanassiadi - M. Frede (eds.),Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1999),149-84; especially p; 152 n. 15.54 Damascius, p. 165 and commentary on p. 234-36. It ispossible, but not certain, that his source on this passageis Eudaemus of Rhodos.

Enuma Eli

1 Apsu Tiamat

?

Mummu

2 Lahmu Lahamu

3 Anar Kiar

Anu

Ea (Damkina)

Marduk

Damascius

Apasn Tauthe

Mmis

Dach Dachos

Assros Kissar

Anos Illinos Aos Dauk

Blos

Fig. 1. The cosmological scheme ofEnuma Eliand its reflection in the writings of Damascius (6th century AD)


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the same, another generation proceeded,Dach and Dachos. then, from the same, athird one again, Kissar and Assros, fromwhom were born three gods, Anos, Illinosand Aos. Finally, from Aos and Dauk, a sonwas born, Blos, who, they say, is the demi -urge.

The names Damascius uses are easilyconverted to their Babylonian counterparts,even if some manuscript mistakes have oc-curred. Tauthe and Apasn are Tiamat andAps; Mmis has to be Mummu. Dach

and Dachos must be Lahmu and Lahamu,with the easily explained mistake of theGreek letters Lambda and Delta. Kissarand Assros are Kiar and Anar (or moreexactly Aur). Anos, Illinos and Aos willthen be Anu, Enlil and Ea, and, finally,Blos is Marduk, the demiurge, son of Aos(Ea) and Dauk (Damkina). We thus havethe figure seen on the facing page (Fig. 1).

Damascius, or his source (which could beEudaemus of Rhodos, but this is not cer-tain), is very well informed. His presenta-

tion closely follows the opening lines ofEnuma Eli, even going into details. Thereare, though, some slight discrepancies:First of all, he describes Mummu as thechild (paida) of Aps and Tiamat. We haveseen that the status of this Mummu in theopening lines of the Babylonian myth isvery difficult to ascertain. Even here, Da-mascius seems to give him a special role,not counting him among the three gener-ations and adding a personal interpretation.The two next pairs of gods are here de-

scribed as generations proceeding from thefirst, whereas Enuma Elionly marks themas being created (ibban). Finally Anarand Kiar are said to produce three gods,whereas our myth only speaks of Ea in thisplace.

It is remarkable to note that the triad ofAnu, Enlil and Ea appears as such in EnumaEli at the very end of Tablet IV whenMarduk has created the Earra and placedtherin the sanctuaries of these three gods.

Furthermore, Damascius says that theBabylonians are silent on the first principleof the universe, the One, which he implicit-ly considers to be removed from the firstthree generations. Damascius writes else-where:55 As for Epimenides, Eudaemussays that he supposed two first principles,

Air and Night, after having honoured, bysilence of course, the unique principlewhich precedes both. This shows thatwhen Damascius speaks about silence, hedoes not mean the absence of the conceptitself, but the fact that the first principle isunknowable. In this respect it is interestingto note the mention in Gnostic thought of acompanion to the first unnamable principle,who is called Silence, and with whom theFirst One created the Intellect.56

Being largely influenced by Proclus,

whom he considers as one of the wisesttheologians, and the Chaldaean Oracles, itis also remarkable that Damascius presentsto us a series of three dual generations,dyads. The theology of the Oracles, as wewill see, is completely organized aroundthree successive triads. Nevertheless, Da-mascius has to introduce a third componentin his first generation, that is Mummu,whom he then considers as being the intel-ligible world (ton noton kosmon), linkedwith the nous, that is the Intellect which

conceives before creation or action actuallyoccurs. In Semitic terms this would be theheart (libbu), siege of thought and emo-tion. This could well correspond to theplacement of the term mummu immediatelybefore the name of Tiamat in Ee I 4.

55Damascius. , p. 164.56 This is mentioned in Ireneus, Against the Heresies , I,1, 1-2 (text translated in Nag Hammadi. Textes gnos-

tiques aux origines du christianisme, Supplement au Ca-hier Evangile 58 (Paris, 1987), p. 142).


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Mmis is presented not as a son, but asa child, which is neuter in meaning, andwith an ending -is which could suggest afeminine entity. In Enuma Eli, the status ofthe divine Mummu, the vizier of Aps, israther ambiguous and we couldread somelines as meaning that he took the place ofTiamat in Apss heart. This, we have seen,could be an interesting link with Itar.

The presence ofMmis in the Greek textof Damascius is nevertheless difficult toexplain. Where did this author find this

name? Appearing as it does immediatelyafter Aps and Tiamat, it is necessary forDamascius (or for his source) to haveknown theAkkadian text ofEnuma eli. Wehave no knowledge of a Greek translationof the Babylonian myth. Did the source ofDamascius still know how to read cunei-form? Even the orthography of the Greekword is interesting, since it suggests a read-ing mu umm(u) instead ofmumm(u) (cf. n.14 above).

In fact, the main aim of Damascius in this

book is to show that every approach comesto a unique principle: there is a transcendentOne, completely removed from the intel-ligible world, and this is the unifying prin-ciple of all theologies. The emanations andfragmentation of the divine powers onlystart at a lower stage. The Babylonians alsotook part, he says, in this conception, evenif they do not speak about it as such.

This unifying principle, the One, is at thecentre of the doctrine of the ChaldaeanOracles.57 The revelation of these Oracles is

attributed to a Syrian, Julian the Theurgist,in the 3rd century AD. They were writtendown by his father, Julian the Chaldaeanand became one of the main reference ofNeoplatonic philosophers. Only fragments

are known today, transmitted through thebooks of principally Syrian authors, such asPorphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus and Damas-cius.

In his commentary to Platos Parmenides,Proclus, speaking of the Chaldaean Oracles ,has this interesting note:58

There are many, saying a variety of otherthings, but they all try to direct the thoughtof the soul towards the One. The gods,knowing what concerns them, tend upwardstowards the One by means of the One in

themselves. And this precisely is their theo-logical teaching: through the voice of thetrue theologians [i.e. the ChaldaeanOracles] they have handed down to us thishint regarding the first principle. They callit by a name of their own, Ad, which istheir word for one; so it is translated bypeople who know their language. And theyduplicate it in order to name the demiurgicintellect of the world, which they callAdad, worthy of all pra ise. They do not saythat it comes immediately next to the One,but only that it is comparable to the One byway of proportion: for as that intellect is to

the intelligible, so the One is to the wholeinvisible world, and for that reason the latteris simply called Ad, but the other whichduplicates it is called Adad.

What we have here is an exegesis on thename of Adad, head of the pantheon inmany Syrian cities where he is commonlycalled Bel, the demiurge, as meaning one-one, thus equating him with the Twice-Beyond, the creator of the intelligible world(dis epekeina). The One-Beyond (apax epe-keina), the unknowable first principle, can

then be deduced as being Ad, that isOne in Syriac. Adad is linked with theAssyrians in an interesting note of Macro-bius59 (beginning of the 5th cent.), saying:

57 For the edition, see above, and cf. P. Athanassiadi,The Chaldaean Oracles: Theology and Theurgy, in P.Athanassiadi - M. Frede (eds.), Pagan Monotheism inLate Antiquity (Oxford, 1999), pp. 149-84.

58 R. Klibansky - C. Labowky, Plato Latinus, vol. III(London, 1953), p. 59-61 and commentary p. 95.59 Macrobius, Saturnalia I 23, 17; cf Klibansky - Labow-ky, Plato Latinus, p. 95.


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Learn what the Assyrians thought about thepower of the sun. To the god they worshipas the highest and greatest (summum maxi-mumque) they gave the name Adad. Theinterpretation of his name means one one.

Let us remember at this point that Adad,or more exactly the variant Addu, is one ofthe fifty names given to Marduk, 60 the cre-ator of the world, in Enuma Eli, and thatthe link between Marduk and the sun isexplicit in the interpretation of his name asmari Utu, son of the Sun (Ee I 101-102). On

the other hand, one of the frequent graphiesof the name of Aur is dA, literally theDivine One or even simply A the One.61

The importance of the names is not to beunderstressed. One of the preserved Chal-daean Oracles62 says: Never change theBarbarian names and in his commentaryPsellus (in the 11th century) adds 63 Thismeans: there are among the peoples namesgiven by God, which have a particularpower in the rites. Do not transpose them inGreek.64 A god may also have more than

one name, even if this seems to introduce adifficult element of confusion, at least forus. We can think, for example, of Marduk,who is equated with Aur and thus namedin many texts (especially Assyrian textswritten for a Babylonian audience). He thenassumes either the aspect of the One him-self or the aspect of only an emanation ofthe One. The same occurs when Aur re-places Marduk in the Assyrian version ofEnuma Eli. This can become confusing. On

this subject, I would like to cite a note ofDamascius about Zeus:65 Effectively, theTwice-Beyond (i.e. the demiurge) is com-pletely in all (the gods); if he is called him-self Zeus and if one of the particular sourceswhich are inside him is also called Zeus, inthe same way as another is called Helios andanother Athena, (), then in this way ifthere is a certain source called source ofZeus, homonymous with the universalsource, this one will also produce a particu-lar series from itself. This is of course

rather convoluted, but it shows that, in theopinion of Damascius, there is no ambiguitybetween the source of emanation and one ofthe emanations, even if they are called bythe same name.66 It also shows that the threemembers of the triad may be called by thesame or different names. This brings tomind the various aspects that the wingedsun of Aur can assume in Assyrian icono-graphy: the winged sun alone or containingone or three persons (one of them beingfemale).

I have already mentioned Psellus, a highofficial in the Byzantine court in the 11thcentury. Psellus knew the ChaldaeanOracles and the various commentaries writ-ten on them throughout the centuries, espe-cially the one by Proclus. He wrote his owncommentary and is one of the main sourcesof our knowledge of the oracles. He alsowrote different presentations or explana-tions of the Chaldaean doctrine. All thesetexts are quite remarkable and the links they

60 Ee VII 119.61 See Parpola, Tree of Life, p. 206.62 Fr. 150, des Places, p. 103.63 des Places, p. 169-70.64 The same idea is present in IamblichusDe MysteriisVII 4 (ed. E. des Places, Jamblique. Les MystresdEgypte (Paris, 1989), p. 192-93):

But why do we prefer the Barbarians signs to those ofour respective languages? There is in fact a mysticalreason. As the gods have taught us that the wholelanguage of the sacred peoples, like the Assyrians andthe Egyptians, is apt to the sacred rites, we believe wemust address to the gods in the language that is con-

natural to them the formulas which we choose, andsince this type of language is primitive or veryancient the more so that those who taught the firstnames of the gods have transmitted them to us whilemingling them to their own language, thought to beproper and adapted to those names , we keep until nowthe law of tradition, intangible and unchanging.

65 Westerink-Combs, p. 37.66 It appears that in such a structure, the second takes theattributes of the first and the third takes those of the twoprecedent ones. The Ones unity in fact diminishes withits growing qualification.


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seem to establish between the oracles andAssyrian religion are many. This subject isbeyond the scope of this paper so I shallonly give some examples worthy, I think, ofattention. But a lot of work has still to bedone in this area.

The Chaldaean doctrine does not directlyreflect Mesopotamian cosmology in itself,but is rather like an echo. Fragment 7 of theOracles says:67 Because the Father createdeverything in perfection and gave it to thesecond Intellect, whom you call the first, all

of you, human race. On which Pselluscomments: After having worked the wholecreation, the first Father of the Triad gaveit to the Intellect, the one that the humanrace, ignorant of the preeminence of theFather, calls the first God. Psellus, beingof Christian faith, is here linking the Oraclewith his own doctrine and he adds: Be-cause in the book of Moses, the Father givesthe Son the idea of the production of crea-tures, and the Son becomes the artisan ofcreation. This agrees with the role of Mar-

duk in the Babylonian myth if we see himas the Demiurge, the Twice-Beyond whocreated the universe, distinct from Aur/Marduk, the One from which the other godsemanate in the diagram elaborated by S.Parpola. It also agrees well with EnumaEli, if we understand the Father as Ea andthe son, the Creator, as Marduk. It is Ea whoadvises his son and gives him the plan, theidea, leading to his victory over Tiamat.Later, at the end of the myth, Marduk event-ually assumes the name of his Father, Ea,

and thus all of his powers.The Sefirotic model proposed by S. Par-

pola is almost directly described by Psellus

in his comments on the Chaldaean Oraclesor on Chaldaean doctrine. I t is worth notingthat one of these explanations uses the wordAssyrian instead of Chaldaean.68

Psellus writes:69

In the definition of the Chaldaeans, Hekateoccupies an exactly intermediate order andassumes the role of the centre relative to allthe powers. And to her right they put thesource of the souls, and to her left the sourceof the virtues.

This could precisely describe the positionof Itar in the Assyrian Tree of Life dia-gram.70 The whole diagram, with its seriesof triads, is described by Psellus in theseterms:71

After the One, they (the Assyrians) affirmthe paternal abyss, filled with three triads,each of which has first a Father, then, in themiddle, a Power, and then, thirdly, an Intel-lect, which closes the triad on itself Theythink Hekate is the source of the angels, thedemons, the souls and the natures. And they

often make the soul descent into the world,for multiple causes: either by loss of thewings, or by a fatherly will in order to ornatethe world.

I could multiply the examples, but I thinkthis will be enough to show the interest ofthe commentaries of Psellus on our subjectin general.72

To conclude, I would say that Babyloniancosmology certainly was known by West-ern philosophers and scholars in the firstmillennium A.D. They certainly had a good

source, probably other than Berossus, attheir disposal, which was close to the orig-inal, at least concerning the Akkadian

67 des Places p. 68; Psellus commentary, p. 178.68 des Places, p. 194-95.69 des Places, p. 173.70 Parpola, SAA 9, p. XXXI and note 105.71 des Places, p. 194.72 Psellus also knew of Oannes, through the works of the

Egyptian priest Chaeremon, cf P.W. Van der Horst,Chaeremon , p. 11 (fgt. 2) and p. 27 (fgt. 16D), see above.Here Oannes also appears as Ioannes, and traces hisancestry to Hermes and Apollo. The use of the formIoannes could perhaps be linked with the importantfigure of Johannes in Mandaic texts.


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names and expressions involved.73 Becauseof their Syrian origin, the ChaldaeanOracles were a primary means of transmit-ting Oriental ideas into Western philoso-phies. But these Western philosophies, es-pecially Neoplatonism, were in search of auniversal doctrine and were deliberately in-terpreting everything they found to justifytheir system. There is thus a risk of trans-posing wrongly their conceptions or inter-pretations of Oriental themes back to theoriginal Mesopotamian religion and thought.

One should also not ignore the fact thatNeoplatonism took over many Egyptianideas and this is particularly true of theOrphaic doctrine. Many concepts now rec-ognized in Assyrian esoterism are also pres-ent in Egypt. It is not always easy to sep-arate both origins. The whole process isalways threatened by the risk of Pan-Assyr-ianism.

Nevertheless, the Greeks themselves at-tributed many concepts to the Assyrians and

many Western philosophers were in fact ofSyrian origin or education. It should thusnot come as a surprise to find these conceptsused and rephrased. They give us a wholenew perspective with which to examine theMesopotamian texts.

It is no wonder that many pagan scholarscame to Syria and especially to Harran todiscuss with men versed in Chaldaean lore.I think that Harran is one of the main linksbetween the ancient East and Western phil-osophical movements. One should perhaps

remember that the Assyrians fell back onthis city after the fall of Nineveh and thatHarran was the last Assyrian capital. Fromthere we can trace a link to Constantinoplethrough Proclus, Damascius and Psellus.And from there we could envision a link tothe first Kabbalistic texts . Through all thesereinterpretations and commentaries, it is inmy opinion quite possible that something ofthe original Mesopotamian concept of thedivine left its mark in the Western mind.

73 See, in this context, M.J. Geller, The Last Wedge,ZA 87, 1997, 43-95. It is difficult to imagine the re-inter-

pretation of Enuma Eli by Damascius without someknowledge of the A kkadian original.


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Documents

Enuma Elish and the Transmission of Babylonian Cosmology to the West - Philippe Talon