Anu, Enlil and Ea were the early Babylonian triad and Ea the god of water is the "beneficent one, the mediator who is constantly on the side of humanity."
In a later triad Babylon the "mother of astronomy, star worship and astrology. . . influenced by theological speculations" worshipped Sin the moon-god, then Shamash the sun, and Ishtar as the planet Venus. Even when the Assyrians placed Ashur, their sun-god, at the head of the pantheon, they included the powerful and potent Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, whom we have seen a!l Mother Earth mourning for the lost sun-god, Tammuz. It is the same Ishtar who when associated with the heroic Ashur becomes the goddess of war, and with the beloved Tammuz is the goddess of vegetation and a$ the planet Venus is the Queen of Heaven, the 'rival of the sun and moon.' Far less spiritual than Isis "Ishtar is the goddess of human instinct or passion which accomp~nies human love. She is the mother of mankind-but also she who awakens human passion. . ., Seven centuries after the religion of Assyria and Babylonia had passed out, leaving scarcely a trace, the Romans brought Cybele, the Phrygian Mother goddess, and built a temple to her honour. It was Ishtar of Babylonia transformed to meet changed conditions, the same great ieminine principle of nature in its various manifestations, as mother earth the source of all fertility at once the loving mother of mankind and of the gods."1
1 Jastrow's Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria.
