Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Adad or Ramman and the Bull 579

Ramman cannot have been accidental. This double nature of
Ramman—as a solar deity representing some particular phase of
the sun that escapes us and as a storm-god—still peers through the
inscription...from the Cassite period where Ramman is called "the
lord of justice,"—an attribute peculiar to the sun-god ; but in
Assyria his role as the thunder- and storm-god overshadows any
other attributes that he may have had1.' Such being the character
of Adad or Ramman, it may be conjectured that the bull was
considered a fitting vehicle for him, partly perhaps because its
bellowing resembled the sound of thunder, but mainly because its
generative powers recalled the fertilising effects of rain and sun.

Nor is this conjecture wholly unsupported by evidence. 'Ram-
man,' according to G. Maspero, 'embraced within him the elements
of many very ancient genii, all of whom had been set over the
atmosphere, and the phenomena which are daily displayed in it—
wind, rain, and thunder. These genii...are usually represented as
enormous birds flocking on their swift wings from below the
horizon, and breathing flame or torrents of water upon the
countries over which they hovered. The most terrible of them
was Zu, who presided over tempests: he gathered the clouds
together, causing them to burst in torrents of rain or hail; he let
loose the winds and lightnings, and nothing remained standing
where he had passed....Zu had as son a vigorous bull, which,
pasturing in the meadows, scattered abundance and fertility around
him2.' Monsieur Maspero is here paraphrasing a Babylonian litany,
which prescribes certain rites to be performed with an actual bull
taken to represent a divine bull 'child of the god Zu3.' This divine
bull is described in the text as follows : 'The great bull, the noble
bull that wanders over shining pasture-ground has come to the
fields bringing abundance. O planter of the corn, who dost bless
the land with richest plenty, my pure hands have made their
offering before thee4.' Prof. Jensen connects this bull with the
constellation Taurus5. But in any case it is invoked as a bringer
of fertility.

The same group of ideas—storm-god, sun-god, fertilising bull—

1 M. Jastrow The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Boston etc. 1898 p. 160, id. Die
Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens Giessen 1905 i. 150.

2 G. Maspero op. cit. p. 658 f.

3 E. T. Harper 'Die babylonischen Legenden von Etana, Zu, Adapa und Dibbarra'
in the Beitrdge zur Assyrialogie Leipzig 1894 ii. 416 f. See also A. Jeremias Die baby-
lonisch-assyrischen Vorstellungcnvom Leben nach dem Tode Leipzig 1897 p. 73 f, P. Jensen
Die Kosmologie der Babylonier Strassburg 1890 p. 91 ff. The text is IV R 23 no. t.

4 E. T. Hai-per loc. cit. p. 417.

5 P. Jensen op. cit. p. 93.

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