Yet these gods were, so to speak, an early, inferior model which needed improvement. The names 'Apsu' and 'Tiamat' can be translated 'abyss', 'void' or 'bottomless gulf. They share the shapeless inertia of the original formlessness and had not yet achieved a clear identity. Consequently, a succession of other gods emerged from them in a process known as emanation, which would become very important in the history of our own God.
The new gods emerged, one from the other, in pairs, each of which had acquired a greater definition than the last as the divine evolution progressed. First came Lahmu and Lahamn (their names mean 'silt': water and earth are still mixed together). Next came Ansher and Kishar, identified respectively with the horizons of sky and sea. Then Anu (the heavens) and Ea (the earth) arrived and seemed to complete the process.
The divine world had sky, rivers and earth, distinct and separate from one another. But creation had only just begun: the forces of chaos and disintegration could only be held at bay by means of a painful and incessant struggle. The younger, dynamic gods rose up against their parents but even though Ea was able to overpower Apsu and Mummu, he could make no headway against Tiamat, who produced a whole brood of misshapen monsters to fight on her behalf.
Fortunately Ea had a wonderful child of his own: Marduk, the Sun God, the most perfect specimen of the divine line. At a meeting of the Great Assembly of gods, Marduk promised to fight Tiamat on condition that he became their ruler. Yet he only managed to slay Tiamat with great difficulty and after a long, dangerous battle. In this myth, creativity is a struggle, achieved laboriously against overwhelming odds.
Eventually, however, Marduk stood over Tiamat's vast corpse and decided to create a new world: he split her body in two to form the arch of the sky and the world of men; next he devised the laws that would keep everything in its appointed place. Order must be achieved. Yet the victory was not complete. It had to be re-established, by means of a special liturgy, year after year. Consequently the gods met at Babylon, the centre of the new earth, and built a temple where the celestial rites could be performed. The result was the great ziggurat in honour of Marduk, 'the earthly temple, symbol of infinite heaven'.
When it was completed, Marduk took his seat at the summit and the gods cried aloud: 'This is Babylon, dear city of the god, your beloved home!' Then they performed the liturgy 'from which the universe receives its structure, the hidden world is made plain and the gods assigned their places in the universe'. These laws and rituals are binding upon everybody; even the gods must observe them to ensure the survival of creation. The myth expresses the inner meaning of civilisation, as the Babylonians saw it. They knew perfectly well that their own ancestors had built the ziggurat but the story of the Enuma Elish articulated their belief that their creative enterprise could only endure if it partook of the power of the divine.
The liturgy they celebrated at the New Year had been devised before human beings had come into existence: it was written into the very nature of things to which even the gods had to submit. The myth also expressed their conviction that Babylon was a sacred place, the centre of the world and the home of the gods - a notion that was crucial in almost all the religious systems of antiquity. The idea of a holy city, where men and women felt that they were closely in touch with sacred power, the source of all being and efficacy, would be important in all three of the monotheistic religions of our own God.
The Divine Essence and Qualities
