The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia The Gifford Lectures on the Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian Conception of the Divine Delivered in Aberdeen By Archibald Henry Sayce, D.D., LL.D. Professor of Assyriology, Oxford Edinburgh T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street 1903 CONTENTS Preface. Part I. The Religion Of Ancient Egypt. Lecture I. Introduction. Lecture II. Egyptian Religion. Lecture III. The Imperishable Part Of Man And The Other World. Lecture IV. The Sun-God And The Ennead. Lecture V. Animal Worship. Lecture VI. The Gods Of Egypt. Lecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith. Lecture VIII. The Sacred Books. Lecture IX. The Popular Religion Of Egypt. Lecture X. The Place Of Egyptian Religion In The History Of Theology. Part II. The Religion Of The Babylonians. Lecture I. Introductory. Lecture II. Primitive Animism. Lecture III. The Gods Of Babylonia. Lecture IV. The Sun-God And Istar. Lecture V. Sumerian And Semitic Conceptions Of The Divine: Assur And Monotheism. Lecture VI. Cosmologies. Lecture VII. The Sacred Books. Lecture VIII. The Myths And Epics. Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple. Lecture X. Astro-Theology And The Moral Element In Babylonian Religion. Index. Footnotes PREFACE. The subject of the following Lectures was “The Conception of the Divine among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians,” and in writing them I have kept this aspect of them constantly in view. The time has not yet come for a systematic history of Babylonian religion, whatever may be the case as regards ancient Egypt, and, for reasons stated in the text, we must be content with general principles and fragmentary details. It is on this account that so little advance has been made in grasping the real nature and characteristics of Babylonian religion, and that a sort of natural history description of it has been supposed to be all that is needed by the student of religion. While reading over again my Hibbert Lectures, as well as later works on the subject, I have been gratified at finding how largely they have borrowed from me, even though it be without acknowledgment. But my Hibbert Lectures were necessarily a pioneering work, and we must now attempt to build on the materials which were there brought together. In the present volume, therefore, the materials are presupposed; they will be found for the most part either in my Hibbert Lectures or in the cuneiform texts which have since been published.