IX. PHILOSOPHERS
Religion and Philosophy—The Babylonian Job—The Babylonian Koheleth—An anti-clerical
A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle (to repeat a thoughtful adage) religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave. In the beginning of all cultures a strong religious faith conceals and softens the nature of things, and gives men courage to bear pain and hardship patiently; at every step the gods are with them, and will not let them perish, until they do. Even then a firm faith will explain that it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath; evil does not destroy faith, but strengthens it. If victory comes, if war is forgotten in security and peace, then wealth grows; the life of the body gives way, in the dominant classes, to the life of the senses and the mind; toil and suffering are replaced by pleasure and ease; science weakens faith even while thought and comfort weaken virility and fortitude. At last men begin to doubt the gods; they mourn the tragedy of knowledge, and seek refuge in every passing delight. Achilles is at the beginning, Epicurus at the end. After David comes Job, and after Job, Ecclesiastes.
Since we know the thought of Babylon mostly from the later reigns, it is natural that we should find it shot through with the weary wisdom of tired philosophers who took their pleasures like Englishmen. On one tablet Balta-atrua complains that though he has obeyed the commands of the gods more strictly than any one else, he has been laid low with a variety of misfortunes; he has lost his parents and his property, and even the little that remained to him has been stolen on the highway. His friends, like Job’s, reply that his disaster must be in punishment of some secret sin—perhaps that hybris, or insolent pride of prosperity, which particularly arouses the jealous anger of the gods. They assure him that evil is merely good in disguise, some part of the divine plan seen too narrowly by frail minds unconscious of the whole. Let Balta-atrua keep faith and courage, and he will be rewarded in the end; better still, his enemies will be punished. Balta-atrua calls out to the gods for help—and the fragment suddenly ends.162
Another poem, found among the ruins of Ashurbanipal’s collection of Babylonian literature, presents the same problem more definitely in the person of Tabi-utul-Enlil, who appears to have been a ruler in Nippur. He describes his difficulties:*
(My eyeballs he obscured, bolting them as with) a lock;
(My ears he bolted), like those of a deaf person.
A king, I have been changed into a slave;
As a madman (my) companions maltreat me.
Send me help from the pit dug (for me)! . . .
By day deep sighs, at night weeping;
The month—cries; the year—distress. . . .
He goes on to tell what a pious fellow he has always been, the very last man in the world who should have met with so cruel a fate:
As though I had not always set aside the portion for the god,
And had not invoked the goddess at the meal,
Had not bowed my face and brought my tribute;
As though I were one in whose mouth supplication and prayer were not constant! . . .
I taught my country to guard the name of the god;
To honor the name of the goddess I accustomed my people. . . .
I thought that such things were pleasing to a god.
Stricken with disease despite all this formal piety, he muses on the impossibility of understanding the gods, and on the uncertainty of human affairs.
Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven?
The plan of a god full of mystery—who can understand it? . . .
He who was alive yesterday is dead today;
In an instant he is cast into grief; of a sudden he is crushed.
For a moment he sings and plays;
In a twinkling he wails like a mourner. . . .
Like a net trouble has covered me.
My eyes look but see not;
My ears are open but they hear not. . . .
Pollution has fallen upon my genitals,
And it has assailed the glands in my bowels. . . .
With death grows dark my whole body. . . .
All day the pursuer pursues me;
During the night he gives me no breath for a moment. . . .
My limbs are dismembered, they march out of unison.
In my dung I pass the night like an ox;
Like a sheep I mix in my excrements. . . .
Like Job, he makes another act of faith:
But I know the day of the cessation of my tears,
A day of the grace of the protecting spirits; then divinity will be merciful.163
In the end everything turns out happily. A spirit appears, and cures all of Tabi’s ailments; a mighty storm drives all the demons of disease out of his frame. He praises Marduk, offers rich sacrifice, and calls upon every one never to despair of the gods.*
As there is but a step from this to the Book of Job, so we find in late Babylonian literature unmistakable premonitions of Ecclesiastes. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the goddess Sabitu advises the hero to give up his longing for a life after death, and to eat, drink and be merry on the earth.
O Gilgamesh, why dost thou run in all directions?
The life that thou seekest thou wilt not find.
When the gods created mankind they determined death for mankind;
Life they kept in their own hands.
Thou, O Gilgamesh, fill thy belly;
Day and night be thou merry; . . .
Day and night be joyous and content!
Let thy garments be pure,
Thy head be washed; wash thyself with water!
Regard the little one who takes hold of thy hand;
Enjoy the wife in thy bosom.165*
In another tablet we hear a bitterer note, culminating in atheism and blasphemy. Gubarru, a Babylonian Alcibiades, interrogates an elder sceptically:
O very wise one, O possessor of intelligence, let thy heart groan!
The heart of God is as far as the inner parts of the heavens.
Wisdom is hard, and men do not understand it.
To which the old man answers with a forboding of Amos and Isaiah:
Give attention, my friend, and understand my thought.
Men exalt the work of the great man who is skilled in murder.
They disparage the poor man who has done no sin.
They justify the wicked man, whose fault is grave.
They drive away the just man who seeks the will of God.
They let the strong take the food of the poor;
They strengthen the mighty;
They destroy the weak man, the rich man drives him away.
He advises Gubarru to do the will of the gods none the less. But Gubarru will have nothing to do with gods or priests who are always on the side of the biggest fortunes:
They have offered lies and untruth without ceasing.
They say in noble words what is in favor of the rich man.
Is his wealth diminished? They come to his help.
They ill-treat the weak man like a thief,
They destroy him in a tremor, they extinguish him like a flame.166
We must not exaggerate the prevalence of such moods in Babylon; doubtless the people listened lovingly to their priests, and crowded the temples to seek favors of the gods. The marvel is that they were so long loyal to a religion that offered them so little consolation. Nothing could be known, said the priests, except by divine revelation; and this revelation came only through the priests. The last chapter of that revelation told how the dead soul, whether good or bad, descended into Aralu, or Hades, to spend there an eternity in darkness and suffering. Is it any wonder that Babylon gave itself to revelry, while Nebuchadrezzar, having all, understanding nothing, fearing everything, went mad?