Babyloniaca (Berossus)

The Babyloniaca is a text written in the Greek language by the Babylonian priest and historian Berossus in the 3rd century BCE. Although the work is now lost, it survives in substantial fragments from subsequent authors, especially in the works of the fourth-century CE Christian author and bishop Eusebius,^[1] and was known to a limited extent in learned circles as late as late antiquity.^[2] Substantial sections, including one on the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, are also preserved in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, especially in his Antiquities of the Jews and Against Apion.

Until the rediscovery of cuneiform texts in the 19th century (which, for a while, drew attention away from the study of the works of Berossus), the fragments of the works of Berossus were the only genuine surviving material known from Mesopotamian civilization.^[3] During the 1970s, a German archaeological expedition discovered cuneiform texts with a kings list in Uruk similar to what is recorded in the second book of the Babyloniaca, which reinstated some confidence in the ability of the Babyloniaca to attest to genuine material from earlier periods, which, in turn, revived the scholarship addressing this work.^[4]

The Babyloniaca is structured into three books. The first recounts Babylonian geography and a variant of the cosmogony of the Enūma Eliš, as well as the transition of the existence of man prior to the divine law and after it had been revealed. The second and third books largely concern kingly genealogies and an account of the flood. An English edition of the text was first published by Burstein in 1978.^[5] A detailed study on the sources Berossus consulted for the third and final book of the Babyloniaca has also been produced^[6] as well as his conception of the creation story.^[7]

Context and survival

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the response of the newly conquered local populations was largely that of despair. However, some of the cultural and religious elite embraced the new leadership and attempted to educate their Hellenistic overlords on Mesopotamian traditions. The first known example of such a text written in Greek was the Babyloniaca, composed in 281 BC in dedication to the ascent of Antiochus I Soter to the throne of the Seleucid Empire.^[8] This work can be thought of as emerging out of the cultural and scientific milieu fostered by the Esagila Temple.^[9] In the preface, Berossus states his intent in writing the Babyloniaca, identifying himself as both a contemporary of Alexander and a Chaldean priest of Bel.^[10] Most readers of the Babyloniaca in classical and late antiquity did not read the original Babyloniaca, but rather an abridgement of it found in a work by the first century AD writer Alexander Polyhistor. This text consisted of a history of Babylonia (relying mostly on Berossus) followed by a history of Assyria. This work is also lost, but yet another abridgement was made of the work of Polyhistor by Eusebius in the fourth century, in the first book of his Chronicon. Finally, this work of Eusebius is extant in its Armenian translation as well as from excerpts of the original Greek in the Ecloga Chronographica of the Byzantine monk George Syncellus.^[11] The Armenian translation was edited by Josef Karst in 1911^[12] and the Greek excerpts of Syncellus were edited by Felix Jacoby in 1958.^[13] Fortunately for contemporary historians, both Polyhistor and Eusebius appear to have preserved the basic organization of the texts they were working with.^[14]^[15]

Synopsis

The Babyloniaca contains three books. Berossus followed the earlier Mesopotamian view, as opposed to the perspective of the Greek historians, that history was largely driven by divine revelation and intervention as opposed to the being the unravelling of human activities over time. The Babyloniaca is organized in reflection of this: the first book, after describing why Berossus wrote the Babyloniaca, contains information about cosmology and the geography of Babylonia and a description of mankind's animalistic state prior to revelation. Then, during the reign of the king Alorus, the divine messenger Oannes speaks to humanity and communicates the basic principles of civilization. The second book is divided into three sections: the reign of ten kings over 432,000 years prior to the flood; the catastrophe of the global flood; and the reign of kings after the flood, up until the reign of Nabu-Naṣir (Nabonassar) in 787 BC.^[16] The third book continues with the more recent succession of kings, from Nabu-Naṣir down to the reign of Alexander the Great, although the extant sections of the text do not allow us to know the degree to which Berossus merely listed this succession as opposed to providing more detailed commentary. According to Polyhistor, commentary was mostly lacking from the chain of dynastic succession contained in the second book. However, it is apparent that the period of the Achaemenid Empire (Persian rule) was treated briefly and that the reigns of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar II were treated at more length.^[5]

Cosmology

The first book of the Babyloniaca offers a variant (or, perhaps, an interpretation) of the cosmogony of the Enuma Elish. This work is not extant but survives in later quotations and abridgements. Berossus' account begins with a primeval ocean. Unlike in the Enuma Elish, where sea monsters are generated for combat with other gods, in Berossus' account, they emerge by spontaneous generation and are described in a different manner to the 11 monsters of the Enuma Elish, as it expands beyond the purely mythical creatures of that account in a potential case of influence from Greek zoology.^[17] The fragments of Berossus by Syncellus and the Armenian of how he described his cosmogony are as follows^[18]^[19]:

Syncellus: There was a time, he says, when everything was [darkness and] water and that in it fabulous beings with peculiar forms came to life. For men with two wings were born and some with four wings and two faces, having one body and two heads, male and female, and double genitalia, male and female ... [a list of monstrous beings follows]. Over all these a woman ruled named Omorka. This means in Chaldaean Thalatth, in Greek it is translated as ‘Sea’ (Thalassa) ... When everything was arranged in this way, Belos rose up and split the woman in two. Of one half of her he made earth, of the other half sky; and he destroyed all creatures in her ... For when everything was moist, and creatures had come into being in it, this god took off his own head and the other gods mixed the blood that flowed out with earth and formed men. For this reason they are intelligent and share in divine wisdom. Belos, whom they translate as Zeus, cut the darkness in half and separated earth and sky from each other and ordered the universe. The creatures could not endure the power of the light and were destroyed. When Belos saw the land empty and barren, he ordered one of the gods to cut off his own head and to mix the blood that flowed out with earth and to form men and wild animals that were capable of enduring the air. Belos also completed the stars and the sun and the moon and the five planets. Alexander Polyhistor says that Berossus asserts these things in his first book.
Syncellus: They say that in the beginning all was water, which was called Sea (Thalassa). Bel made this one by assigning a place to each, and he surrounded Babylon with a wall.
Armenian: All, he said, was from the start water, which was called Sea. And Bel placed limits on them (the waters) and assigned a place to each, allocated their lands, and fortified Babylon with an enclosing wall.

The conclusion of the account states that Belus then created the stars, sun, moon, and five planets. The account of Berossus agrees largely with the Enuma Elish, such as its reference to the splitting of the woman whose halves are used to create heaven and earth, but also contain a number of differences, such as the statement about allegorical exegesis, the self-decapitation of Belus in order to create humans, and the statement that it is the divine blood which has made humans intelligent. Some debate has ensued about which elements of these may or may not go back to the original account of Berossus.^[20] Some of the information Berossus got for his account of the creation myth may have come from the Enuma Elish and the Babylonian Dynastic Chronicle.^[21]

Editions and translations

Burstein, Stanley Mayer. The Babyloniaca of Berossus, Undena Publications, 1978.^[22]
Verbrugghe, G.P. and Wickersham, J.M. Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, 1996.
De Breucker, Geert. "Berossos of Babylon (680)" in Brill's New Jacoby, Brill, 2015.

References

Citations

^ Talon 2001, p. 270–274.
^ Decharneux 2023, p. 116n381.
^ Beaulieu 2006, p. 117–118.
^ Beaulieu 2006, p. 118.
^ ^a ^b Burstein 1978, p. 8.
^ Beaulieu 2006.
^ Beaulieu 2021.
^ Burstein 1978, p. 4.
^ Beaulieu 2006, p. 119.
^ Burstein 1978, p. 5.
^ George 2021, p. 186.
^ Karst, J. 1911. Eusebius Werke, fünfter Band. Die Chronik aus dem Armenischen übersetzt. Leipzig.
^ Jacoby, F. 1958. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH), III Geschichte von Staedten und Voelkern, C Autoren über einzelne Laender, I Aegypten–Geten. Leiden.
^ Burstein 1978, p. 6.
^ Beaulieu 2021, p. 147–148.
^ Burstein 1978, p. 6–8.
^ Beaulieu 2021, p. 152–156.
^ George 2021, p. 186–187.
^ Beaulieu 2021, p. 156.
^ Beaulieu 2021, p. 157–161.
^ George 2021, p. 187–189.
^ Burstein 1978.

Sources

Beaulieu, Paul-Alian (2006). Berossus on late Babylonian History. Special Issue of Oriental Studies.
Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2021). "Berossus and the Creation Story". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. 8 (1–2): 147–170. doi:10.1515/janeh-2020-0012.
Burstein, Stanley Mayer (1978). The Babyloniaca of Berossus (PDF). Undena Publications.
Decharneux, Julien (2023). Creation and Contemplation The Cosmology of the Qur'ān and Its Late Antique Background. De Gruyter.
George, Andrew (2021). "Berossus and Babylonian Cosmogony". In Kelly, Adrian; Metcalf, Christopher (eds.). Gods and Mortals in Early Greek and Near Eastern Mythology. Cambridge University Press. pp. 185–198.
Talon, Philippe (2001). "Enūma Eliš and the Transmission of Babylonian Cosmology to the West". Melammu. 2: 265–278.