1

Mardux, or Marodach, of the Babylono-Assyrians, and Bel, of later times. Space forbids me to give a long account of him. Much can be learned about him passim in the admirable works of M. François Lenormant,3 and in the "Records of the Past."4

Silik-mulu-khi-that is, "He who distributes good among men"-was, as already stated, the son of Hea, to whom he remained subject. He overcame the dragon of the deep, and is spoken of as the Redeemer of mankind, the Restorer of life, and the Raiser from the dead. He took shape among the Accadio-Sumerians.

Hea, or Ea," the master of the eternal secrets," "the god who presides over theurgical action," revealed to Silik-mulu-khi "the mysterious rite, the formula, or the all-powerful hidden name which shall thwart the efforts of the most formidable powers of the Abyss. 197 Like Apollo, he had special medical functions; indeed, Mr. Sayce observes that "he was emphatically the god of healing, who had revealed medicine to mankind."8

In an article entitled "Nemrod et les Ecritures Cuneiformes," M. Joseph Grivel has occasion to speak of the names of the god. Amar-ud, which is apparently the same as Nimrod, is a synonym of Merodach. See Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iii, p. 136.

2 The older Bel was Elum, father of the gods.

3 Chaldean Magic, and the Beginnings of History. To M. Lenormant mainly belongs the credit of opening up the valuable stores of learning wrapped in the Accadian and closely allied idioms.

4 A series of small volumes, twelve in number, issued a few years ago, in London.

'Silik-mulu-khi is rather a descriptive title than a name. It is the designation used in the magical and mythological texts of the Accadian inscriptions.

Of this serpentine god of life and revealer of knowledge, Sir Henry Rawlinson remarks that "there is very strong grounds for connecting Hea, or Hoa, with the serpent of Scripture and the paradisiacal traditions of the tree of life." See George Rawlinson's second edition of Herodotus, vol. i, p. 600.

Chaldean Magic, p. 19.

Assyria, its Princes, Priests, and People, p. 59. London, 1885.

As the symbol of his office, Silik-mulu-khi carried a reed, which took the place of both the royal sceptre and magic wand, and which was transmitted to the Assyrian Mardux.1 In a hymn it is said :—

"Golden reed, great reed, tall reed of the marshes, sacred bed of the

I am the messenger of Silik-mulu-khi, who causes all to grow young again."2

Although Silik-mulu-khi's functions were largely medical, it is not to be supposed that he resorted much to the use of medicaments. For it has not yet been made very apparent that medicine, properly so called, was much esteemed by the early Babylono-Assyrian peoples. Not long ago Mr. H. F. Talbot, in an interesting article on Assyrian talismans and exorcisms, said: "Diseases were attributed to the influence of spirits. Exorcisms were used to drive away those tormentors; and this seems to have been the sole remedy employed, for I believe that no mention has yet been found of medicine."3 This statement does not hold good now, as will be shown later.a

'Another symbol of this god was the thunderbolt in the form of a sickle, with which he slew the dragon of the deep.

3 Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 139.

2 Chaldean Magic, p. 190. Herodotus, who visited the country, states that the Babylonians "have no physicians; but when a man is ill they lay him in the public square and the passers-by come up to him; and if they ever had his disease themselves, or have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case or in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence, without asking him what his ailment is" (i, 197). From this it would seem that Herodotus might rather have said that the Babylonians were all doctors, or presumed to be. However, it is thought that Jeremiah refers to the practice in Lamentations, i, 12, when he says: "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow." A similar plan was certainly practiced elsewhere than in Babylonia. Strabo says that the Egyptians resorted to it (xvi), and in St. Mark it is said that the people "laid the sick in the streets" (vi, 56) in order to be healed by Jesus as he passed along.

In the cure of diseases the Babylono-Assyrian practitioners first duly guarded the entrance to the patient's chamber. Images or guardian statues of Hea and Silik-mulu-khi were placed one to the right and the other to the left. Texts were put on the threshold and on the statues, after the manner spoken of in Deuteronomy.1 These were also placed on the brow of the patient and about the room. In bad cases recourse was had to the "mamit," something which the evil spirits could not resist. Talbot gives the following prescription from an Accadian tablet ::

"Take a white cloth. In it place the mamit in the sick man's right hand;

And take a black cloth and wrap it round his left hand.

Then all the evil spirits, and the sins which he has committed,
Shall quit their hold of him and shall never return."2

M. Lenormant gives a translation of an interesting magic tablet. Here is a passage from it which the conjurer, the Shaman, is supposed to speak, ending with the usual adjuration:

"Disease of the bowels, the disease of the heart,

The palpitation of the heart,

Disease of the vision, disease of the head,

Malignant dysentery

The humor which swells,

Ulceration of the veins, the micturition which wastes,

Cruel agony which never ceases,

Nightmare,

Spirit of the Heavens, conjure it;

Spirit of the Earth,5 conjure it."6

What follows is part of an incantation against "the diseases of the head ":

'Deuteronomy, xi, 18.

Records of the Past, vol. iii, p. 140.

Chaldean Magic, p. 4.

3 Was this gonorrhea or diabetes? See Leviticus, xv.

"The diseases of the head, like doves to their dove-cots, like grass

hoppers into the sky,

Like birds into space,

May they fly away!

May the invalid be replaced in the protecting hands of his god."1

Here is the remedy for "diseases of the head," as given by Hea to Silik-mulu-khi :—

“ Come my son, Silik-mulu-khi,

Take a sieve: draw some water from the surface of the river,

Place thy sublime lip upon the water;

Make it shine with purity from thy sublime breath,

Help the man, son of his god

Let the disease of his head depart;

May the disease of his head be dispersed like a nocturnal dew."2

I have already stated that Silik-mulu-khi became in time assimilated with the god possessing beauty or splendor, Mardux.3 Here are extracts from a hymn addressed to him after the change:

"Merciful one among the gods,

Generator who brought back the dead to life,
Silik-mulu-khi, king of heaven and of earth.

I have invoked thy name, I have invoked thy sublimity.

Lenormant remarks that the assimilation was probably made when Mardux had become emphatically the god of the planet Jupiter, "the great fortune" of the astrologers, which justified them in connecting with his other attributes the favorable and protecting office of Silik-mulu-khi. He was originally a solar deity.

Chaldean Magic, p. 190.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PINE-CONE AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF ESCULAPIUS.

THE fruitful results of studies in oriental history, industriously and intelligently pursued by able and learned men in recent times, are making more and more apparent the borrowed character of many features of the civilization of Greece and other western nations. Greek, Latin, German, Irish, and other languages of the IndoEuropean races, have been shown to be largely derived from Sanskrit, or a source similar to it, and the various mythologies have also been proved to be more or less evolutions.

66

66

Of late, the Assyrians, Babylonians, and AccadioSumerians, but especially the last, who were, as is said in the Bible, both a mighty" and an ancient nation," have been accorded a greater influence than formerly on other peoples. There is little or no ground for doubt that the first forms of belief, as well as art, came from the East. It is certain that in the fertile region, about the lower waters of the Euphrates and Tigris, there was, at a very early period, a remarkable unfoldment of intellectual, social, and other elements of progress, from the savage state. The ideas brought with them three thousand years or more before our era, to the rich plains southward of Mesopotamia, and gathered there by the early inhabitants of the hills of Elam and their kin, the earlier inhabitants of Sumer,2 have been potent everywhere to the westward.

'Jeremiah, v, 15.

2 Or Shinar. See Gen., xi, 2. Essentially Babylonia.