In one of the hymns Merodach is addressed as follows:—­

    Who shall escape from before thy power? 
    Thy will is an eternal mystery! 
    Thou makest it plain in heaven
    And in the earth,
    Command the sea
    And the sea obeyeth thee. 
    Command the tempest
    And the tempest becometh a calm. 
    Command the winding course
    Of the Euphrates,
    And the will of Merodach
    Shall arrest the floods. 
    Lord, thou art holy! 
    Who is like unto thee? 
    Merodach thou art honoured
    Among the gods that bear a name.

The monotheistic tendency, which was a marked feature of Merodach worship, had previously become pronounced in the worship of Bel Enlil of Nippur.  Although it did not affect the religion of the masses, it serves to show that among the ancient scholars and thinkers of Babylonia religious thought had, at an early period, risen far above the crude polytheism of those who bargained with their deities and propitiated them with offerings and extravagant flattery, or exercised over them a magical influence by the performance of seasonal ceremonies, like the backsliders in Jerusalem, censured so severely by Jeremiah, who baked cakes to reward the Queen of Heaven for an abundant harvest, and wept with her for the slain Tammuz when he departed to Hades.

Perhaps it was due to the monotheistic tendency, if not to the fusion of father-worshipping and mother-worshipping peoples, that bi-sexual deities were conceived of.  Nannar, the moon god, was sometimes addressed as father and mother in one, and Ishtar as a god as well as a goddess.  In Egypt Isis is referred to in a temple chant as “the woman who was made a male by her father Osiris”, and the Nile god Hapi was depicted as a man with female breasts.

CHAPTER VIII.

DEIFIED HEROES:  ETANA AND GILGAMESH

God and Heroes and the “Seven Sleepers”—­Quests of Etana, Gilgamesh, Hercules, &c.—­The Plant of Birth—­Eagle carries Etana to Heaven—­Indian Parallel—­Flights of Nimrod, Alexander the Great, and a Gaelic Hero—­Eagle as a God—­Indian Eagle identified with Gods of Creation, Fire, Fertility, and Death—­Eagle carries Roman Emperor’s Soul to Heaven—­Fire and Agricultural Ceremonies—­Nimrod of the Koran and John Barleycorn—­Gilgamesh and the Eagle—­Sargon-Tammuz Garden Myth—­Ea-bani compared to Pan, Bast, and Nebuchadnezzar—­Exploits of Gilgamesh and Ea-bani—­Ishtar’s Vengeance—­Gilgamesh journeys to Otherworld—­Song of Sea Maiden and “Lay of the Harper”—­Babylonian Noah and the Plant of Life—­Teutonic Parallels—­Alexander the Great as Gilgamesh—­Water of Life in the Koran—­The Indian Gilgamesh and Hercules—­The Mountain Tunnel in various Mythologies—­Widespread Cultural Influences.

One of the oldest forms of folk stories relates to the wanderings of a hero in distant regions.