Anu
Along with En-lil and Ea, Anu makes up the universal triad. He is called the 'father of the gods,' but appears to be descended from still older deities. His name is seldom discovered in the inscriptions prior to the time of Khammurabi, but such notices as occur of him seem to have already fixed his position as a ruler of the sky. His cult was specially associated with the city of Erech. It is probable that in the earliest days he had been the original Sumerian sky-father, as his name is merely a form of the Sumerian word for 'heaven.' This idea is assisted by the manner in which his name is originally written in the inscriptions, as the symbol signifying it is usually that employed for 'heaven.' It is plain, therefore, that Anu was once regarded as the expanse of heaven itself, just as are the 'sky-fathers' of numerous primitive peoples. Several writers who deal with Anu appear to be of the opinion that a god of the heavens is an 'abstraction.' "Popular fancy," says Jastrow, "deals with realities and with personified powers whose workings are seen and felt. It would as little, therefore, have evolved the idea that there was a power to be identified with the heavens as a whole, of which the azure sky is a symbol, as it would personify the earth as a whole, or the bodies of waters as a whole. It is only necessary to state the implications involved to recognize that the conception of a triad of gods corresponding to three theoretical divisions of the universe is a bit of learned speculation. It smacks of the school. The conception of a god of heaven fits in moreover with the comparatively advanced period when the seats of the gods were placed in the skies and the gods identified with the stars."6 A merely superficial acquaintance with the nature of animism and the sky-myths of primitive and barbarian peoples would lead us to the conclusion that the opposite is the case. In Egyptian, Polynesian, and North American Indian myth the sky itself is directly personalized. Egyptian mythological illustration depicts the sky in female form, for in Egyptian myth the sky is the mother and the earth the father of everything. Lang has shown that the sky-father is frequently personalized as a "magnified non-natural man" among races which possess no theological schools. We do not say that the arrangement of Anu, Ea, and En-lil into a triad is not "a bit of learned speculation," but to state that early animism did not first personalize the sky and the earth and the sea is rash in the extreme. When Deucalion and Pyrrha in the Greek myth asked the gods how they might best replenish the earth with the human race, they were instructed to cast "the bones of their mother" behind them, and these bones they interpreted as the stones and rocks and acted accordingly. So would primitive man all the world over have interpreted this advice, for universally he believes the very soil upon which he walks to be the great mother which produced his ancestors, out of whose dust or clay they were formed, and who still nourishes and preserves him.
Jastrow proceeds to state that "Anu was originally the personification of some definite power of nature, and everything points to this power having been the sun in the heavens. Starting from this point of view we quite understand how the great illuminer of heaven should have been identified with the heavens in an artificially devised theological system, just as En-lil became in this system the designation of the earth and of the region above the earth viewed as a whole."7 The very fact that in the earliest times Anu was identified with the expanse of the sky itself, and that the symbol used to denote him meant 'heaven,' is against this supposition. Again, the theory suffers from lack of analogy. In what other mythology is there to be found a sky-god who at one time possessed a solar significance? The converse might be the case. Some sky-gods have attained the solar connexion because of their rule over the entire expanse of the heavens, just as they have attained the power of wielding lightning and the wind. But we are at a loss to recall any deity originally of distinctive solar attributes who later took the position of a sky-god.
Anu was regarded as head of the triad and the father of En-lil. We are told that the goddess Aruru first shaped man in the image of Anu, who must thus have attained an anthropomorphic condition. He appears also to have been regarded as the conqueror of primeval chaos. His consort was Anatu, probably a later feminine form of himself.
Ishtar
Ishtar was undoubtedly a goddess of Semitic origin and symbolized the fertility of the earth. She was the 'great mother' who fostered all vegetation and agriculture. It is probable that her cult originated at Erech, and in the course of centuries and under many nominal changes dispersed itself throughout the length and breadth of western Asia and even into Greece and Egypt. It is probable that a number of lesser goddesses, such as Nanâ and Anunit, may have become merged in the conception of this divinity, and that lesser local deities of the same character as herself may have taken her name and assisted to swell her reputation. She is frequently addressed as 'mother of the gods,' and indeed the name 'Ishtar' became a generic designation for 'goddess.' But these were later honours. When her cult centred at Erech, it appears to have speedily blossomed out in many directions, and, as has been said, lesser cults probably eagerly identified themselves with that of the great earth-mother, so that in time her worship became more than a Babylonian cult. Indeed, wherever people of Semitic speech were to be found, there was the worship of Ishtar. As Ashteroth, or Astarte, she was known to Canaanites, Phœnicians, and Greeks, and there is some likelihood that the cult of Aphrodite had also its beginnings in that of Ishtar. We shall enquire later whether she can be the Esther of the Scriptures. Astrologically she was identified with the planet Venus, but so numerous were the attributes surrounding her taken from other goddesses with which she had become identified that they threatened to overshadow her real character, which was that of the great and fertile mother. More especially did her identification with Nin-lil, the consort of En-lil, the storm-god, threaten to alter her real nature, as in this guise she was regarded as a goddess of war. It is seldom that a goddess of fertility or love achieves such a distinction. Gods possessing an agricultural significance are nearly always war-gods, but that is because they bring the fertilizing thunder-clouds and therefore possess the lightning arrow or spear. But Ishtar is specifically a goddess of the class of Persephone or Isis, and her identification with battle must be regarded as purely accidental. In later times in Assyria she was conceived as the consort of Asshur, head of the Assyrian pantheon, in days when a god or goddess who did not breathe war was of little use to a people like the Assyrians, who were constantly employed in hostilities, and this circumstance naturally heightened her reputation as a warlike divinity. But it is at present her original character with which we are occupied, indeed in some texts we find that, so far from being able to protect herself, Ishtar and her property are made the prey of the savage En-lil, the storm-god. "His word sent me forth," she complains; "as often as it comes to me it casts me prostrate upon my face. The unconsecrated foe entered my courts, placed his unwashed hands upon me, and caused me to tremble. Putting forth his hand he smote me with fear. He tore away my robe and clothed his wife therein: he stripped off my jewels and placed them upon his daughter. Like a quivering dove upon a beam I sat. Like a fleeing bird from my cranny swiftly I passed. From my temple like a bird they caused me to fly." Such is the plaint of Ishtar, who in this case appears to be quite helpless before the enemy.
The myth which best illustrates her character is that which speaks of her journey to Aralu, the underworld.
1. Ishtar, the Mother-goddess.—2. Ishtar as the Goddess of War.—3. Ishtar, the Goddess of Love.
The Descent of Ishtar into Hades
The poem, which in its existing form consists of 137 lines in cuneiform characters, appears to be incomplete. We are not told therein what was the purpose of the goddess in journeying to the 'House of No-return,' but we gather from various legends and from the concluding portion of the poem itself that she went thither in search of her bridegroom Tammuz, the sun-god of Eridu. The importance of the myth of Ishtar and Tammuz lies partly in the fact that, travelling westwards to Greece by way of Phœnicia, it furnished a groundwork for classic myths of the Adonis-Attis type, which still provide mythologists with matter for endless speculation. The mythological significance