Such was the faith and doctrine of the Babylonians. In the original conception of El as lord of the sky, and Adar as the highest of the star gods, there may have been nobler and simpler traits, yet even these early views were not without their harshness and cruelty, as we are forced to conclude from the Hebrew accounts of the sacrifices offered to Adar. Such traits are also more than outweighed by the licentious worship of Mylitta, in which the sensual elements of the Semitic character are seen in all their coarseness. With the growth of the kingdom, and the consequent effeminacy and luxury of life in Babylonia, this side of their religion must have become predominant, while, on the other hand, the great conception of a world ruled and governed by the movements of the stars tended in time to degenerate into mere astrological computations and fortune-telling.
Our knowledge of the life and position of the priests of Babylon is scanty. The Greeks tell us that they took the same place as in Egypt. Their rank was hereditary; the son was instructed by the father from an early age. Some occupied themselves with the offerings and purifications; others strove to avert existing or threatening evils by expiations and charms; others explained any miraculous phenomena of nature, interpreted dreams, and prophesied from the flight of birds. The Hebrew scriptures speak of interpreters of stars and signs, magicians and prophets.[386] According to the accounts of Western writers, the priests at Babylon inhabited a special quarter of the city, and there were schools of priests at Sippara.[387] The fragments of Berosus pointed out Babylon, Sippara, and Larancha (p. 239) as centres of priestly wisdom even before the flood, inasmuch as they attribute to these places special revelations of the gods Anu and Dakan. They speak of the sacred books saved in Sippara from the flood. These books they divide into ancient, mediæval, and modern. By the "ancient" books we must understand the announcements which the god Anu caused to be made to the two earliest kings, Alorus and Alaparus, of Babylon. Under the "mediæval" are comprised the revelations received by Ammenon and Daonus of Sippara, and lastly, under the "modern" the mysteries disclosed by Dagon to Edorankhus of Sippara (p. 239). Hence we may assume that the priests of Babylon arrived at an early age at a code which included their creed and ritual, as it would seem, in seven books (p. 245). How high the cosmogonies go, of which the most essential traits were found in the fragments of Berosus (p. 238), we cannot decide. In the conception which lies at the base of them the forces of nature are seen pouring forth in wild confusion. The name of the woman who rules these forces, or of this chaos inhabited by monsters, Omorka, has been explained as "Homer-Kai," _i.e._, "material of the egg," the world-egg, but more recently by "Um Uruk," _i.e._ "the mother," the "great goddess of Erech." In the cosmogony of Berosus we can see, though in a very rude and contradictory shape, the opposition of a material and intellectual, a natural and supernatural principle, and later accounts maintain that the Babylonians regarded the world as arising out of fire and water, that Chaos and Love were the parents of Life and Contention, and of Life and Contention Bel was the son.[388]