The Divine Origin of Revelation

3. The Deluge

Stories of the Flood are met with in every part of the world. More than sixty different versions have been collected. Of these the Babylonian resembles the account given in Genesis more closely than any other.

Aside from the report of the priest Berossus (about 300 B.C.), which we possess only in scattered fragments quoted by ancient authors,⁷¹⁷717The version of Berossus records that after the death of Ardates, his son Xisouthros reigned 64,800 years. The god Kronos (Bel) appeared to him, warned him of a coming deluge, and bade him inter at Sippar a written account of “the beginning, middle, and end of all things,” build a boat for himself, his relatives and friends, birds and beasts. The flood comes, but ceases on the third day, and Xisouthros lets certain of the birds fly. They find no foothold and return. A second time he sends forth birds, and again they return, but this time with clay adhering to their feet. A third time he sends out birds, and this time they do not return. Xisouthros, ascertaining that the vessel has grounded on a mountain, emerges with his wife and daughter and the pilot, erects an altar, and offers sacrifice. Then he vanishes from sight with his three companions. A voice from heaven informs those left aboard the ship that Xisouthros, because of his piety, has gone to dwell with the gods and bids them return to Babylon and recover the writings which had been interred at Sippar. (Cfr. Wardle, Israel and Babylon, pp. 209 sq.) the Babylonian account of the Deluge has come down to us in four different, but more or less similar cuneiform recensions. Of three of these, which are extremely valuable on account of their antiquity (about 3,000 B.C.) and detail, we have only a few short fragments. The fourth version, which forms part and parcel of the Gilgamesh epic (700 B.C.), tells the story of the Flood substantially as follows: King Gilgamesh, fearing death and eager to obtain immortality, engages in a series of perilous adventures. He crosses deserts, mountains, and oceans to seek out his ancestor Uta-Napishtim, who alone had escaped death and now enjoyed a happy existence on the island of the blessed. Gilgamesh, upon meeting Uta-Napishtim, asks him: “How did you step before the council of the gods to view the life?” Uta-Napishtim replies by telling him the story of the great flood and how, having escaped death, he reached the land of immortality and peace. Shurippak, a city on the Euphrates River, he says, was already ancient when the great gods decided to destroy men by a flood. Ea, who had taken part in the council, warns Uta-Napishtim and instructs him to build a ship to save himself and the seeds of all kinds of life. Uta-Napishtim builds the ship and conducts into it his family, his dependents, artisans and domestics, as well as many wild animals, after which he himself enters and shuts the door. A terrible thunderstorm ensued, which lasted six days and six nights, and was so violent that “even the gods were terrified and ascended to Anu’s heaven, where they crouched along the wall and ducked themselves like dogs.” When, on the seventh day, the flood began to subside, Uta-Napishtim opened a port-hole and saw that the vessel was drifting towards Mount Nisir. There it landed and was detained for six days. On the seventh day Uta-Napishtim sent forth a dove and a swallow, which, finding no resting-place for their feet, returned to the ark. Then he dispatched a raven, which did not come back. On leaving the ship, Uta-Napishtim offered sacrifice to the gods, who “smelled the savory odor and gathered like flies over the burnt-offering.” When Ellil saw the ship and its inmates, he was angry, because not all men had perished. Ea tried to assuage his anger, led Uta-Napishtim and his wife ashore, blessed them, and received them among the gods with the words:

It would be folly to deny the resemblances between this Babylonian legend and the Biblical narrative of the Flood. But there are even more striking divergences, which show that the Biblical cannot have been derived from the Babylonian account. We will mention only a few. The Biblical account rests on a purely Monotheistic basis, whereas the Babylonian is frankly Polytheistic. The Bible describes the Deluge as a punishment for the sins of mankind, whereas the Babylonian legend traces it to an arbitrary whim of the gods, who were determined to destroy the human race without a perceptible cause. The rainbow as a divine guaranty of peace is absent from the Babylonian account. In regard to the duration of the Flood and the persons and localities concerned in the catastrophe, there is no agreement at all between “Bible and Babel.”

The existing resemblances can be sufficiently explained on the hypothesis that the details of the Flood were recorded soon after the event and that the Scriptural story is a parallel and independent form of a common tradition.

In 1909 the late Professor H. V. Hilprecht discovered a fragment of another Babylonian Flood story at Nippur. This account was probably written about the year 1,000 B.C., and is some 1,400 years older than the recension contained in the Gilgamesh epic. It shows even greater resemblance to the Biblical story. The chief points of likeness are the following:

a) The instructions given to the Babylonian Noe, so far as preserved, agree with those of Gen. VI, 14-16.

b) In the description of the ark, the “height” is mentioned last, as in Gen. VI, 15.

c) The directions for the construction of the roof in the Nippur version are soberly objective, as in Gen. VI, 16, in contradistinction to the hyperbolic terms employed in other Babylonian recensions of the Flood story.

d) The Nippur version alone among all the Babylonian accounts of the Flood contains the characteristic term mîn (= species, genus) found in Gen. VI, 20, and translated in our English version by “kind.”

e) The “fowls” of Gen. VI, 20, are not mentioned in any of the Babylonian cuneiform recensions with the sole exception of the Nippur version.⁷¹⁹719H. V. Hilprecht, Der neue Fund zur Sintflutgeschichte, Leipsic, 1910, p. 53; Wardle, Israel and Babylon, p. 205; transliteration and translation by R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, pp. 108 sq.; A. T. Clay, A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform, pp. 81 sq.

In view of these resemblances it may be admitted as a possibility that the Scriptural account of the Flood, considered as a literary document, is dependent upon the Nippur version. In that case it would furnish a new and important argument for the great antiquity of the Scriptural account of the Flood, which Rationalistic critics have assigned to the seventh century B.C. But since this newly discovered recension of the Babylonian story of the Flood is extremely fragmentary—we have only thirteen lines, of which not a single one is complete—no definitive conclusion can be drawn with regard to the mutual relation of the two reports.⁷²⁰720Dr. Wardle (Israel and Babylon, pp. 216-218) draws a detailed parallel between the leading features of the Hebrew and Babylonian traditions of the Flood, and says that while, from a purely literary point of view, the Biblical account is inferior to the Gilgamesh version, the striking resemblances between the two must not blind us to the even more salient divergences. The most important of these consists in the extremely different views of the deity. The cuneiform accounts are frankly polytheistic, and, even so, give no very elevated picture of the gods. The latter are terrified, crouching like dogs in dismay at the consequences of their own handiwork. They gather like flies about the sacrifice. They suffer from divided counsel, and intrigue one against another …. Even Ea, who appears in his usual rôle as the friend of man, protesting that punishment should fall only upon the guilty, acts very disingenuously, and advises Uta-Napishtim to tell lies in explanation of the boat-building. This criticism applies even more to the advice given by Kronos in the Berossus account. What a wide gulf between all this and the majestic and ethical conception of God in Genesis!” (Op. cit., p. 218 sq.)

4. The Monotheism of Babylonia

It has been known since 1880 that about 2,500 B.C. a Semitic tribe, related to the Chanaanites, migrated from Southern Arabia and settled in Babylonia, which had up to that time been inhabited by non-Semitic peoples (Sumerians and Akkadians). Of these Semitic immigrants, F. Hommel asserted, as early as 1897,⁷²¹721Die altisraelitische Ueberlieferung in inschriftlicher Beleuchtung, Münster, 1897, p. 117. that they brought with them to Babylonia a religion which, in its essential elements, must be regarded as Monotheistic. This hypothesis was mainly based upon certain hymns and prayers addressed to the moon-god.

Delitzsch, basing his deductions on the signification of the word ilu and of certain proper names compounded of ilu and Yahweh, maintained that the ancient Semitic tribes which settled in Babylonia about 2,500 B.C. “regarded the divine essence as an undivided unit.”⁷²²722Babel und Bibel, 2nd ed., Leipsic, 1903, p. 46. Cfr. Vol. I of this Handbook, p. 94.

The name ilu (Hebrew el), according to Delitzsch, signifies “goal.” “As the Sumerians pictured their gods as residing ‘high up’ in the direction in which the human vision travels, that is, in and above the firmament, and as we ourselves use the figurative expression ‘heaven’ for God, … so the most ancient Semites called the ‘divine’ Being which they conceived as dwelling in heaven and governing heaven and earth, il or el, i. e., that towards which their eyes were directed. ‘Target of the eye,’ like the sun and heaven, is in my opinion the first and original meaning of the word …. Quite naturally and by sheer necessity it happened that man, who first sought the divinity up there with his eyes, soon sought it also with his hands and with his heart.”⁷²³723Delitzsch, op. cit., p. 72 sq.

A further argument is derived from the personal names formed by means of the root syllable ilu, such as, for instance, Ilu-amranni (“God, look at me”), Ilu-tûram (“God, turn back to us”), Ilu-amtahar (“I invoked God”), Ilu-abi (“God is my father”), Iarbi-ilu (“God is great”), Jamlik-ilu (“God rules, reigns”), Ibši-ina-ili (“through God he came into existence”), Avêl-ilu (“servant of God”), Mut-ilu (“man of God”), Ilu-ma-le’i (“God is powerful”), Ilû-abi (“God is my father”), Ilûma-ilu (“God is God”), and so forth. “An unprejudiced and unaffected consideration of all these and other names of the time of Hammurapi,” says Delitzsch, “leads … to the conclusion that they are rooted in a religious conception of things which differed from the Polytheistic religion of Babylonia. The nature and value of this Monotheism cannot be determined from the sources at present available, but can be concluded only from the later development of ‘Yahvism.’”⁷²⁴724Op. cit., pp. (46), 72 sq.

Our opponents finally cite three proper names of the time of Hammurapi, which are said to contain Yahweh as a constituent element. Delitzsch read these names as follows: Ja-a’-ve-ilu, Ja-ve-ilu, Ja-ú-um-ilu, and interprets each one of them as meaning, “Yahweh is God.” “Therefore,” he adds, “Yahweh, He who is, He who, far beyond all change, … lives and works in the brilliant tent of the stars, which is subject to eternal laws, this name Yahweh was the spiritual possession of the same nomad tribes out of which after a thousand years the children of Israel were to emerge.”⁷²⁵725Op. cit., p. 47; cfr. pp. 73 sqq.

Concerning this theory we wish to say that the signification attributed by Delitzsch to the word ilu (goal) cannot be used as the point of departure for an argument in favor of the existence of Monotheism among the ancient Babylonians. For this interpretation is by no means certain,⁷²⁶726Delitzsch’s readings, to which Sayce had called attention some years earlier, were asserted to be false, not only by conservative scholars like König, but also by some noted Assyriologists, such as Bezold and Daiches. Wardle thinks that “most scholars would now grant that the divine name Yahweh was current in early times beyond the borders of Israel,” but emphasizes that “we should hesitate to build any argument upon etymological bases of this kind.” (Israel and Babylon, p. 250). and, on the other hand, the choice of such a term to express the idea of God could be expected only from philosophically trained nations, to which class the Assyrians and Babylonians did not belong. Professor Delitzsch later modified his theory by saying that ilu is primarily the goal of the eyes and only secondarily the goal of the hands and the heart; but this does not strengthen the case for the alleged Monotheism of the ancient Babylonians, for to the pagan, too, his fetish is the goal of his eyes, and, broadly speaking, every visible object may be designated as a goal of the eyes.

b) From the personal names which contain the stem ilu it does not follow that ilu is the proper name of the one and only Supreme Being. All that can be legitimately deduced therefrom is that he who coined these names, as is proved, e. g., by the phrase Samsu-iluna (“the sun-god is our god”, which was current in the days of Hammurapi), knew the appellative “God.” How the word “ilu” is to be interpreted in each individual combination, whether as a common or a proper name, cannot always be determined with certainty. Some of the above-quoted names, for instance, ilu-abi (“one god is my father”), ibši-ina-ili (“through one god I came into being”), ilûma-ilu (“one god is one god”), admit of the appellative meaning of “one” god. Others, like ilu-amranni (“God, look at me”), ilu-tûram (“God, turn back to us”), because of the direct invocation of the divine person, require that the syllable “ilu” be interpreted as the proper name of the deity. But even these last-mentioned examples are not sufficient proof that the respective names are based upon the Monotheistic concept of God. It is possible that “ilu” simply means one of the universally worshipped gods, e. g., Ellil or Ea; nay, this assumption is rendered probable by the consideration that a nation given to Polytheism always uses the term “god” to designate a definite deity, to which it gives a certain exterior worship.

c) Competent scholars regard Delitzsch’s proposed interpretation of the three proper names composed of “Yahweh” and “ilu” as possible, but in view of the ambiguity of the Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform characters, hold several other readings to be at least equally probable. Hence, the assertion that a deity with a name resembling the Hebrew “Yahweh” was known in nearer Asia at the time of King Hammurapi can claim only a certain degree of probability. That this deity cannot be identified with the God of the Jewish Covenant, is evident from the absolute contrariety existing between the Israelitic idea of God and that current among their neighbors, especially the Chanaanites.

But even if we were to concede, for the sake of argument, that the name “Yahweh” was used in Babylonia a thousand years before the time of Moses, the only conclusion that could logically be drawn from this fact would be that the God of Israel did not introduce a new name when He declared,⁷²⁷727Ex. III, 14. “I am who am,” but merely attributed to Himself a known name, to which He attached a new and special meaning.

To support his view of the Babylonian provenience of Israelitic Monotheism, Dr. Delitzsch speaks of Monotheistic currents within the Polytheistic State religion of Babylon. “In spite of the fact,” he says, “that free and enlightened thinkers openly taught that Nergal and Nebo, the moon-god and the sun-god, the thunder-god Ramman, and all other gods were one in Marduk, the god of light, a crass Polytheism remained the official religion of Babylonia for three thousand years.”⁷²⁸728Delitzsch, op. cit., p. 49. As proof for this assertion he quotes a neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablet, discovered in 1895, in which, as he claims, “all (or at least the main) deities of the Babylonian pantheon are designated as one with and in the god Marduk,”—showing that the names Ninib, Nergal, Sin, etc., are merely different appellations for Marduk.⁷²⁹729Op. cit., p. 78. Marduk had no less than fifty names bestowed upon him by the gods in council to indicate that the power and wisdom of every god were collected in him. (Cfr. Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and History, p. 85.) “At a comparatively late period,” says this learned Assyriologist (op. cit., pp. 101 sq.), “the powers and attributes of all the gods were assigned to Marduk, the son of Ea, and some have thought in consequence that the Babylonians were Monotheist, but such was not the case. The Monotheism of the Babylonians and Assyrians (for the national god Ashur was in Assyria what Marduk was in Babylonia) entirely lack the sublime, spiritual conception of God that the Israelites possessed, and was wholly different from the Monotheism of Christian nations.”

The text to which he refers reads as follows:

“Ninib-Marduk ša alli (Ninib-Marduk of the power)

Nêrgal-Marduk ša káblu (Nergal-Marduk of the combat)

Zamana-Marduk ša taḫazi (Zamana-Marduk of the battle)

Bêl-Marduk ša bêlûtu u mitluktu (Bel-Marduk of dominion)

Nabû-Marduk ša nikasi (Nabu-Marduk of business [?])

Sin-Marduk munammir mûši (Sin-Marduk, illuminator of the night)

Šamaš-Marduk ša kênâti (Shamash-Marduk, god of right)

Addu-Marduk ša zunnu (Addu-Marduk of rain).”

Delitzsch’s interpretation of this inscription may be correct; but it is equally possible that the collocation of the different deities with Marduk was made for the purpose of raising the latter above all the others, and that the Babylonians, without wishing to deny the existence of the other gods, attributed to Marduk the sum-total of those perfections and powers which were believed to exist separately in the others. The latter interpretation squares neatly with the text and falls naturally within the Polytheistic religious views of the Babylonians, whereas Delitzsch’s interpretation is diametrically opposed to their acknowledged Polytheism, and the author is unable to justify this radical departure from the known facts by any convincing argument.

But even if the Monotheism of Israel could be proved to be of Babylonian origin, the fact would merely furnish another valuable confirmation for the thesis we have demonstrated in the first volume of this Handbook, namely, that Monotheism was the primitive religion of all mankind. The Monotheism of Israel in its purity would be absolutely inexplicable from the natural point of view. The greatness of the Jewish religion does not consist in this that the Israelites were the only Monotheists at the beginning of their religious development, but rather in the fact that they alone, among all the nations of antiquity, preserved the primitive faith in one God pure and unadulterated for more than two thousand years and worshipped Him without images, in spite of their strong inclination to adapt themselves to the Polytheistic beliefs and practices of their neighbors round about.

“If we think of Yahweh as an epithet, from an ancient Semitic root whose meaning is quite uncertain,” says Dr. Landsdell Wardle, “we find no difficulty in supposing that in different places men speaking Semitic tongues may have called the god whom they worshipped by that name. This is, however, very far from saying that they worshipped the same god. The really vital matter is not primarily what men call their god, but what character they attribute to him. Even if it be true that the name Yahweh was known to the Hebrews in pre-Mosaic times, the great leader [Moses, who was instructed to say to the Hebrews: The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you] certainly filled the name with a new content for his people. There is not the least reason to suppose that the name came to Israel from Babylon. Indeed it is a striking fact that most, if not all, the names found in Babylonian documents which are supposed to contain this divine name are the names of immigrants to that country. So that, if we are to assume borrowing at all in this case, Babylon is not the creditor, but the debtor.”⁷³⁰730Israel and Babylon, p. 251. We must remember, too, that according to Gen. IV, 26, men began to use the name Yahweh in worship in the time of Seth.

5. The Laws of Babylonia

When dealing with the religion of the Old Testament, we noted certain points of contact between the Mosaic law and the legislation of the Babylonians and other Oriental nations, and showed how Catholic theologians view this fact. Hence, we can here content ourselves with adding a few observations for the sake of completeness.

When there is question of pagan parallels to the legislation of the Old Testament, we have in mind mainly the civil laws promulgated by Moses, the Decalogue, the sanctification of the Sabbath, the hygienic precepts, and the laws regulating divine worship.

The famous Code of Hammurapi, found at Susa in Persia by French excavators in 1901-1902, is inscribed upon a tapering stela of black diorite nearly eight feet high. The stela had been broken into three pieces, which fortunately had suffered little damage and were easily fitted together. The Code was compiled towards the end of Hammurapi’s reign, ca. 2030 B.C. When complete, it contained, according to the estimate of Mr. C. W. H. Johns,⁷³¹731The Oldest Code of Laws in the World, Edinburgh, 1911. approximately 8,000 words. The Code is a collection of ancient Babylonian laws, some of which show remarkable resemblances to the civil laws of Israel, as contained especially in chapters XXI to XXIII of the Book of Exodus.⁷³²732That the stela was found at Susa in Persia is attributed to the fact that it had been carried off as a booty of war by some Elamite conqueror of Babylon. The text of the Code was first published by Father V. Scheil, under the title, Code des Lois de Hammourabi, Paris, 1902, followed by a commentary by the same learned scholar, La Loi de Hammourabi, Paris, 1906. Part of the text has been polished off, leaving a smooth surface, on which the conqueror probably intended to inscribe his own name and the story of his triumph; but as the intention was never carried out, we are left to conjecture when and by whom the stela was removed from Babylon. Wardle (Israel and Babylon, p. 253) thinks it may possibly have been taken by Shutruknahunde, about 1100 B.C. For a transliteration and translation of the cuneiform text of the Code of Hammurapi (this is the form of the name which Assyriologists now mostly prefer; Budge writes Khammurabi; see the discussion in A. T. Clay, The Empire of the Amorites) cfr. R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, pp. 398-465; C. W. H. Johns, The Oldest Code of Laws in the World, Edinburgh, 1911; P. S. P. Handcock, The Code of Hammurabi, London, 1910. Large extracts in English translation in E. A. Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and History, pp. 124-130; H. Winkler, Die Gesetze Hammurabis in Umschrift und Uebersetzung, Leipsic, 1904.

It is asserted that the Code of Hammurapi duplicates all the precepts of the Decalogue with the exception of the second, and possibly the third.⁷³³733A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, Vol. II, p. 107. The Sabbath, according to Delitzsch, did not originate with the Jews, but among the ancient inhabitants of the region lying between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Both the name (šabattu or šapatta) and the object itself are found in ancient Babylonia, where the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth day of each month were observed in a special manner as days of rest, penance, and reconciliation.⁷³⁴734Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel, pp. 40 sq.; 6th ed., p. 31.

Circumcision, it is said, was not only found among the Israelites, but was widely spread throughout the Orient as a rite connected with the attainment of puberty. In Egypt it was in vogue before the time of Abraham, on whom it was imposed by Yahweh as a sign of the sacred covenant for his descendants.⁷³⁵735Gen. XVII, 10. Cfr. A. Bertholet, The History of Hebrew Civilization, tr. by A. K. Dallas, New York, 1926, pp. 112, 162.

Laws concerning ritual cleanness were in force among many other nations besides the Jews. Certain animals, foods, and conditions were quite generally regarded as “clean,” while others were looked upon as “unclean.”⁷³⁶736Cfr. A. Jeremias, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 117.

The sacrificial rites of the Egyptians and Babylonians are also said to show certain analogies with the corresponding precepts of the Pentateuch. The Hebrew and Babylonian languages have in common certain sacrificial terms like kirbannu (sacrificial gift), zibu (sacrifice), kuppuru (to atone), and tabahu (to slaughter). Scattered Minaic inscriptions have preserved for us the terms lewi’u (priest) and lewi’at (levite). In regard to the sacrificial material, too, there are many analogies. The Biblical “loaves of proposition” have their counterpart in the twelve or thirty-six loaves which the Babylonians offered to their gods and which had to be made of pure sweet flour. The sacrificial animals of Babylonia are for the most part identical with those of Israel.⁷³⁷737Jeremias, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 114 sqq. Priestly vestments were known also in Egypt.⁷³⁸738V. Zapletal, O.P., Alttestamentliches, Freiburg, 1903, pp. 55 sq.

a) The Babylonian parallels to the civil laws of Moses and Decalogue have already been dealt with above, and we shall add but one brief remark to what we have said concerning them. The undeniable similarity between the laws of Moses on the one hand, and those of Hammurapi and other pagan legislators on the other, find their explanation in the wide extension of Babylonian culture, which powerfully influenced the habits and customs of the nations of Asia, to which the Israelites were related. But the ancient laws were ennobled, broadened, and filled with a new spirit through their being brought into intimate connection with the Monotheism of the Jews.

b) The Babylonian šabattu is not synonymous with the Hebrew Sabbath. Šabattu is the day on which the hearts (of the gods) are propitiated, a day of penance and reconciliation, whereas the Hebrew Sabbath is a day of recreation and innocent enjoyment. “We do not know how this šabattu was celebrated; we do not even know whether it was celebrated once a year, like the Hebrew Day of Atonement, or repeatedly. It is usually assumed that … the seventh, etc., day of the month was called šabattu. Whether this assumption is justified, is a question that cannot be definitely decided at the present stage of our knowledge of the cultural life of Assyria.”⁷³⁹739P. Keil, Zur Babel- und Bibelfrage, Treves, 1903, p. 41. Wardle says (Israel and Babylon, pp. 244, 247-48): “In a syllabary, that is, a document explaining difficult words, was found the equation um nuh libbi = shapattum. The meaning of the words on the left side of the equation is literally ‘day of rest of the heart.’ So it was thought that here was a proof of the Sabbath as a rest day. But from the penitential psalms it is clear that the real meaning of the words is ‘day when the heart [of the god] is propitiated.’ A tablet discovered by Pinches showed that the shapattum was the fifteenth day of the month. The passage in the astronomical poem of enuma elish which deals with the motions of the moon quite clearly establishes the fact that the shapattum is the day of the full moon. Since the verb shabatu is explained elsewhere as an equivalent of gamaru, meaning to be ‘complete,’ ‘full,’ there can be little hesitation in saying that the fifteenth day of the month [the Babylonians reckoned by means of the lunar year] was treated in Babylonia as the full moon day, and received the name shapattum because that was the day when the moon was a complete circle …. It seems probable on the whole, that the Sabbath goes back in Israel to the earliest times, and that it was connected with the changes of the moon. Whether it was originally only the day of the full moon, or whether the half-moon days were also Sabbaths, is difficult to decide. If the former view be taken, it seems reasonable to believe that the word Sabbath is connected with the Babylonian shapattum, which may, indeed, be true on the other supposition also. To grant that the two peoples employed a common name for the two things by no means justifies the contention of Delitzsch that Israel owed its Sabbath to Babylonia. Such days are entirely transformed by the religion of the people among whom they are celebrated, and even where they start from a common origin, develop utterly distinct characteristics. At present no evidence has been produced to show that the Babylonians had any real equivalent of the Hebrew Sabbath. Indeed, if there had been any good foundation for such a theory, it is extremely difficult to understand why, after the Exile, so much importance was attached to the Sabbath as a mark of distinction between the Jews and other peoples. Another difficulty in the way of accepting the theory lies in the fact that the Babylonians had throughout their history a five-day, not a seven-day, week.” Hence the only thing that remains as distinctively Babylonian is the period of seven phases, which was probably based upon the changes of the moon. If the seven days of the Jewish week were derived from Babylonia, there were about it features which were entirely new, namely, the independence of the Jewish Sabbath from the phases of the moon, its character as a day of rest and joy, and as a day for commemorating the perfectioning of the created world by its Maker and the liberation of the Chosen People from the servitude of Egypt.⁷⁴⁰740On the question of the origin of the Sabbath see W. L. Wardle, Israel and Babylon, pp. 236-248, where the theory of Meinhold (Sabbat und Woche im Alten Testament, 1905) is briefly summarized and refuted; cfr. also J. Hehn, Der israelitische Sabbath, 1909; IDEM, Siebenzahl und Sabbath bei den Babyloniern, 1907.

c) Circumcision, which among other nations, was a hygienic measure, became for the Israelites, by special divine command, a sign of the covenant which God had made with His Chosen People, and thus received a supernatural significance.⁷⁴¹741It is not by any means certain that circumcision was common among the ethnic nations of antiquity; no less an authority than Sir Wallis Budge says (Babylonian Life and History, p. 165) that “the reliefs on the monuments make it certain that circumcision was not practised.”

d) The similarity between Jewish and pagan precepts regarding cleanness and the sacrificial rite merely prove how intimately the Israelites associated with their neighbors. The agreement in cultic terms must evidently be traced to the close relationship between the respective languages. The Minaic terms lewi’u and lewi’at do not prove that the Israelitic title “levite” is derived from the Minæans rather than from their own tribal name Levi. For since the age of the Minæic inscriptions cannot be definitely determined, it is possible that the cultic terms which they contain are derived from those of the Israelites. The similarities in regard to the sacrificial victim and the priestly vestments are based on the ancient Semitic civilization, common alike to Jews, Babylonians, and Egyptians. Providence took the existing elements of Monotheistic worship, adapted them in a special manner to the cultus of the Jews, and so raised it to a higher level.

6. The Babylonian and Persian Doctrine of the Angels

The Israelitic belief in angels is sometimes said to have been borrowed from Babylonian and Persian mythology. One of the arguments adduced in proof of this assertion is that, after the Babylonian Captivity, angelology appears to be more highly developed in the sacred writings of the Old Testament than before. Certain names (among them “Asmodeus,” derived from a Persian deity),⁷⁴²742Cfr. Tob. III, 8. were now attributed to the angels, and the “Cherubim” of the Bible had their prototype in the colossal figures of bulls or lions with human heads and eagle wings found at the entrance of Assyrian temples and in the winged patronal deities charged with watching over the “sacred tree.” Delitzsch does not hesitate to assert that the messengers of the deity, the angels, who were unknown to the Egyptians, are of Babylonian origin, and that particularly the notion of the Cherubim and Seraphim and of the guardian angels who accompany men, can be traced to Babylonia.⁷⁴³743Babel und Bibel, 6th ed., p. 43.

a) That the Israelitic belief in angels is more marked in the literature of the Old Testament after than before the Exile, only proves that this element of the Jewish religion, too, was drawn into the process of gradual development which characterizes the religious thought and life of the ancient Hebrews. The belief in angels, which was known to the Patriarchs, the ancestors of the Hebrew nation, cannot have been derived from Babylonia, for it is incompatible with the Polytheistic views entertained by the Babylonians at that time. The angels of the Old Testament are created spirits who serve the one true God, whereas the planetary spirits of the Babylonians and the Ameša Spentas (Amshaspands) of the Persians, which are said to be their prototypes, are conceived as real deities.

b) The Biblical Cherubim are said to derive their name, office, and manner of representation from Babylon. “Cherub” is identified with kirûbu, a term used to designate the winged bull-gods of the Babylonians. But neither of these contentions can be proved.⁷⁴⁴744P. Keil, Zur Babel- und Bibelfrage, pp. 35 sq. Nor does the further assertion that the word “cherub” is not derived from a Jewish root, but comes from the Assyrian “karûbu,” which means condescending, powerful, great, give us any real information, since it is a mere conjecture, and the possibility always remains that the word “cherub” is independent of the Assyrian “karûbu” and together with the latter is derived from some common Semitic root.

The case is similar with regard to the office of the Cherubim. Up to the present time it has not been possible to establish with certainty the peculiar office of either the Scriptural Cherubim or the Babylonian or Assyrian gods depicted in the form of bulls and lions, and consequently to derive that office from Assyria and Babylonia is nothing more than an unproved assumption.⁷⁴⁵745Keil, op. cit., pp. 34 sq.

We do not even know how the Hebrews pictorially represented the Cherubim. The vision of the Prophet Ezechiel,⁷⁴⁶746Ez. I and X. which took place in Babylonia, may have been influenced by ideas traceable to the bull and lion gods of that nation. It is possible, too, that the sight of Babylonian or Assyrian sculptures may have inspired Hebrew artists to produce similar creations. But all this would only prove that the manner of depicting the angels was of Babylonian provenience; it would demonstrate nothing with regard to the origin of the belief in their existence. It is in this sense that we must judge the use of the Persian name “Asmodeus” (Asmodi) in the Book of Tobias. The sacred writer took the linguistic form, but not the underlying idea from pagan sources.⁷⁴⁷747Fr. Hugh Pope, O.P., thinks that the belief in angels, or spirits intermediate between God and man, is a characteristic of all Semitic nations. He quotes Sayce (The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, London, 1901) as identifying the Babylonian sukallin with angels, but justly remarks that as the Babylonian accounts of the Creation and the Flood “do not contrast very favorably with the Biblical accounts,” so, too, the contrast between the “chaotic hierarchies of gods and angels which modern research has revealed” and the angels of the Holy Book is very great, and “perhaps we are justified in seeing in all forms of religion vestiges of a primitive nature-worship which has at times succeeded in debasing the purer revelation, and which, where that primitive revelation has not received successive increments as among the Hebrews, results in an abundant crop of weeds.” On the attempts to trace a connection between the angels of the Bible and the amesha spentas of the Zend-Avesta, the same writer says: “That the Persian domination and the Babylonian Captivity exerted a large influence upon the Hebrew conception of the angels is acknowledged in the Talmud of Jerusalem (Rosh Haschanna, 56), where it is said that the names of the angels were introduced from Babylon. It is, however, by no means clear that the angelic beings who figure so largely in the pages of the Avesta, are to be referred to the older Persian religion of the time of Cyrus and not rather to the Neo-Zoroastrianism of the Sasanides. If this be the case, as Darmsteter holds, we should rather reverse the position and attribute the Zoroastrian angels to the influence of the Bible and of Philo.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I, pp. 480 sq.) See the detailed study of these questions by Joseph Plessis, “Babylon et la Bible,” in the Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement. Vol. I, pp. 714-851 (Paris, 1928), with all the latest literature on the subject.

2. New Testament Parallels in the History of Religions

So-called parallels to the revealed religion of the New Testament are drawn from widely different religious and philosophical systems. They refer partly to historical facts, partly to dogmas, and partly to ritual precepts, more especially to the dogmas of the Divine Trinity and the Redemption, the Incarnation, the principal events of Christ’s earthly life, particularly His death and Resurrection, and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.

1. The Dogma of the Trinity

The Christian dogma of the Trinity is said to be of pagan origin because many ethnic religions of antiquity regarded the figure three as sacred and connected it with the essence of the Godhead as principle of division. A number of nations are said to have believed in the Trinity in a more or less explicit form. The Egyptians, for instance, worshipped Amon, Ra, and Ptah, or Amon, Ptah, and Osiris, who were represented by three human heads placed above the abstract symbol of the deity. Among the Babylonians we meet with several triads: Ea, Marduk, and Nebo; Anu, Enlil, and Ea; Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar, etc. Among the Hindus, Brahma, Višnu, and Çiva are depicted under the image of one body with three heads. Chinese Taôism distinguishes three principles in the divine essence, namely, the nameless super-being, the name and revelation of the super-being, and the spirit which emanates from, yet forever remains in, God. The three Platonic principles: the demiurge, the world of ideas, and the oversoul of the universe, also are a sort of counterpart to the Christian Trinity.⁷⁴⁸748Cfr. C. Clemen, Religionsgeschichtliche Erklärung des Neuen Testamentes, Giessen, 1909, pp. 158 sqq.; P. Schanz, Apologie des Christentums, Vol. II, 3rd ed., pp. 79 sq.; 154 sqq.; 176 sq.; O. Willmann, Geschichte des Idealismus, Vol. II, 2nd ed., Braunschweig, 1907, pp. 156 sqq.; J. Lebreton, Les Origines du Dogme de la Trinité, Paris, 1910 (recently republished as Vol. I of Histoire du Dogme de la Trinité, 6th ed., Paris, 1927.)

It may be admitted that these pagan triads show a certain external resemblance to the Divine Trinity of Christian revelation, but this resemblance is purely external.

a) Christian theology believes just as firmly in the unity of the Divine Essence as in the real distinction between the three Divine Persons.⁷⁴⁹749Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trinity, pp. 253 sqq. The pagan idea, on the other hand, sacrifices either the distinction of persons or the unity of nature. Thus the Egyptian trinity is merely the expression of three distinct powers, properties, or effects of the deity. Amon is the invisible power, Ptah the truth, and Osiris the benevolence of the Creator. In India, Brahma is the creator, Višnu the preserver, and Çiva the destroyer of the world. Of the Taôistic trinity nothing definite can be said, as the doctrine is too obscure. The pagan nations who believed in a real trinity of divine persons, lost the idea of the unity of the divine essence. This is the case with the Babylonians, and also with Plato, whose three principles are really as many distinct and separate gods.

b) The one God in three Persons, in whom Christianity believes, creates beings different from Himself, but He is not drawn into the process of the world’s evolution, but remains immutable, always the same, in the possession of the infinite perfections which are His from all eternity. In diametrical opposition to this doctrine, theogony and cosmogony largely coincide in the Trinitarian notions of the pagans, and the divine being is thus made to pass through various stages of development. This is the case in the Pantheistic religion of the Hindus, in the theological teaching of the Babylonians and Egyptians, and even Plato connects at least one member of his triad, the universal or over-soul, with matter. Hence there can be no doubt that the Christian Trinity is essentially different from the pagan triads, and, as a consequence, its substance cannot have been derived from pagan sources, though we may admit that the form, i. e., the notions and terms which in course of time were employed to express it scientifically, were of pagan provenance. Thus the ideas of essence, substance, personality, the term Logos, etc., were actually borrowed from pagan philosophy⁷⁵⁰750Cfr. S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity, pp. 48, 106, 242, 311. Neither the Jews nor the Christians created, or could create, a new language of their own to express their religious ideas. They necessarily employed the terms of the language that had been shaped by pagans and polytheists, to express their religious ideas. We use Deus, a word the pagans had first used; for us it is a proper name, for them it was an appellative or common noun. And thus with the rest. and adapted to the scientific demonstration of the Christian religion. Not the Christian dogma of the Trinity as such, therefore, but only some of the elements of its formal expression were derived from paganism, or, more correctly, from the natural truths contained in pagan philosophy.⁷⁵¹751Dr. Pohle says on this subject: “Certain Rationalists have attempted to explain the Christian dogma of the Trinity as the product of purely natural reflection on the part of pre-Christian philosophers and religionists. Having emptied it of its supernatural content, they profess to find its germs and prototypes in the philosophy of Plato and the Neo-Platonists, in Philo’s doctrine of the Logos, in the writings of the legendary Mercury Trismegistus, and, lastly, in the day-dreams of Kabbalistic theosophy. But all this is rank sophistry. As a matter of fact the Christian Trinity is diametrically opposed alike to the Platonic triad (God, ideas, and world), to the Hindu triad (Brahma, Vishnu, and Çiva), and to the Chinese Tâo trinity of heaven, earth, and man. Indeed, none of the so-called ethnic trinities can be shown to possess more than a purely external resemblance to the revealed Trinity of the Christian dispensation.” (Pohle-Preuss, The Divine Trinity, p. 199). See also on this subject G. Van Noort, De Deo Uno et Trino, pp. 193 sqq.; E. Krebs, Der Logos als Heiland im ersten Jahrhundert, Freiburg i. B., 1910; J. Lebreton, Les Origines du Dogme de la Trinité, pp. Paris, 1910, pp. 1–207 (6th ed. 1927, pp. 1–251.) B. Bartmann, Dogma und Religionsgeschichte, Paderborn, 1922, pp. 16-24.

2. The Dogma of the Redemption

Christianity is essentially a religion instituted for the purpose of redeeming mankind from sin and its consequences. As the idea of redemption plays a dominant rôle also in Buddhism, that religion is often compared favorably with the Church founded by Jesus Christ. “The sole aim of Buddhism,” says a learned scholar, “was to redeem [mankind] from the painful world of birth and decay.”⁷⁵²752H. Oldenberg, Buddha, 5th ed., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1906, p. 314. (The first edition of this learned work has been translated by A. Hoey under the title, Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order, London: Williams & Norgate). On Buddhism in general see Vol. I of this Handbook, pp. 55 sq., 89, 102 sq. Its followers believe that man is on earth to suffer. The “Four Noble Truths” which form the innermost essence of the Buddhistic creed are: (1) existence is painful; (2) pain has a cause; (3) pain can be brought to an end; (4) an eightfold path leads to the cessation of pain.⁷⁵³753Oldenberg, op. cit., pp. 243 sq.; E. J. Thomas, The Life of Buddha as Legend and History, London and New York, 1927, pp. 87, 145, 173, 193 sq. It is the supreme task of the faithful disciple of Buddha to rid himself of every desire, including the will to live. He who has abandoned every desire and harbors no further wish, has attained to complete beatitude, and can enter Nirvana as a perfect man.

Christianity and Buddhism resemble each other in this respect that both religions propose to redeem man and make him eternally happy. But this resemblance is purely superficial and does not extend to the innermost substance. As a matter of fact the Christian doctrine of the Redemption differs from that of Buddha in a number of essential points:

a) In its presuppositions. The Christian doctrine of the Redemption is based on the existence of a personal, supra-mundane God, on whom man depends and whose law he has violated by sin. Buddhism, on the contrary, is essentially atheistic, being founded upon the doctrine of palingenesis and the transmigration of souls, and paying no attention to human guilt and sin.

b) In the manner of redemption. According to Christian belief the Redemption was accomplished by the sacrificial death of the incarnate Son of God. He freed mankind from the guilt incurred by sin and thus gave to every individual member of the human race an opportunity to reach his eternal, supernatural goal. Buddhism, on the contrary, teaches that every man must redeem himself by eradicating all his natural instincts and desires.⁷⁵⁴754Oldenberg, op. cit., pp. 316 sqq. A remarkable feature of the passages collected by Oldenberg is that even in the “scriptures” the most important statements are not given as Buddha’s own words, but as the exposition of disciples, showing that they had to depend on their own inferences. Cfr. E. J. Thomas, The Life of Buddha, pp. 188 sqq.

c) In the object of redemption. The object of the Redemption, according to Christian dogma, is perfect beatitude in the eternal contemplation and possession of the triune God, who is infinite truth and goodness, whereas in the Buddhist sense redemption merely means deliverance from all desires and from pain, and final entrance into Nirvana, a state which Buddha never defined, so that his followers have no means of knowing whether it signifies the complete extinction of the individual or a state of supreme bliss.

d) In the way in which the goal of redemption is to be attained. Christianity and Buddhism both demand self-denial and mortification, but in different ways. The disciple of Buddha is intent upon suppressing every movement of his appetitive faculties and strives to practice absolute self-renouncement. The Christian ascete practices spiritual and corporal self-denial, but not in order to suppress the appetites and passions, but to direct them towards, and to confirm them in, moral goodness. He renounces the right of holding property and the enjoyment of the fleeting pleasures of this world in order to be able to employ his full strength in the service of God and thereby to obtain everlasting beatitude in Heaven. Thus Buddhism and Christianity are exact opposites in their ascetical teaching: Buddhism spells the absolute negation of life, whereas Christianity affirms life in its highest and noblest sense.

Consequently the Christian and the Buddhist ideas of Redemption differ essentially from each other and the Buddhist doctrine, despite its greater antiquity, cannot possibly have been the model and source of the Christian dogma.