THE HIBBERT LECTURES, 1887. LECTURES ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT BABYLONIANS. BY A. H. SAYCE, FELLOW AND LATE SENIOR TUTOR OF QUEEN'S COLL., AND DEPUTY-PROFESSOR OF 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; [All Rights reserved.] CZ 9H62 1887 PREFACE. A WORD of apology is needed for the numerous repetitions in the following chapters, which are due to the fact that the chapters were written and delivered in the form of Lectures. I cannot guarantee the exactness of every word in the translations of the cuneiform texts given in them. The meaning of individual words may at times be more precisely defined by the discovery of fuller materials, even where it has been supposed that their signification has been fixed with certainty. The same fate has befallen the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and is still more likely to befall a progressive study like Assyrian. How rapidly progressive the latter is, may be gathered from the number of contributions to our knowledge of Babylonian religion made since the following Lectures were in the hands of the printer. Prof. Tiele, in a Paper entitled, "De Beteekenis van Ea en zijn Verhouding tot Maruduk en Nabu," has tried to show that Ea was originally connected with the fire; Mr. Pinches has published a late Babylonian text in the Babylonian Record, from which it appears that the esra, or "tithe," was paid to the temple of the Sun-god not only by individuals, but also by towns; and Dr. Jensen, in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie (ii. 1), has made it probable that the azkaru of the hymn translated on pp. 68, 69, was the feast of the new moon. |