Bel was, at first, excluded from the
sacrifice as the author of all the mischief; which really was
somewhat hard upon him, since the other gods agreed to his
proposal. But eventually a reconciliation takes place; the great
bow of Anu is displayed in the heavens; Bel agrees that he will
be satisfied with what war, pestilence, famine, and wild beasts
can do in the way of destroying men; and that, henceforward, he
will not have recourse to extraordinary measures. Finally, it is
Bel himself who, by way of making amends, transports Hasisadra,
his wife, and the faithful Nes-Hea to the abode of the gods.
It is as indubitable as it is incomprehensible to most of us,
that, for thousands of years, a great people, quite as
intelligent as we are, and living in as high a state of
civilisation as that which had been attained in the greater part
of Europe a few centuries ago, entertained not the slightest
doubt that Anu, Bel, Ea, Istar, and the rest, were real
personages, possessed of boundless powers for good and evil.
The sincerity of the monarchs whose inscriptions gratefully
attribute their victories to Merodach, or to Assur, is as little
to be questioned as that of the authors of the hymns and
penitential psalms which give full expression to the heights and
depths of religious devotion. An "infidel" bold enough to deny
the existence, or to doubt the influence, of these deities
probably did not exist in all Mesopotamia; and even constructive
rebellion against their authority was apt to end in the
deprivation, not merely of the good name, but of the skin of the
offender.
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