If Ashur combined the attributes of Anshar and Anu, his early mystical character may be accounted for.  Like the Indian Brahma, he may have been in his highest form an impersonation, or symbol, of the “self power” or “world soul” of developed Naturalism—­the “creator”, “preserver”, and “destroyer” in one, a god of water, earth, air, and sky, of sun, moon, and stars, fire and lightning, a god of the grove, whose essence was in the fig, or the fir cone, as it was in all animals.  The Egyptian god Amon of Thebes, who was associated with water, earth, air, sky, sun and moon, had a ram form, and was “the hidden one”, was developed from one of the elder eight gods; in the Pyramid Texts he and his consort are the fourth pair.  When Amon was fused with the specialized sun god Ra, he was placed at the head of the Ennead as the Creator.  “We have traces”, says Jastrow, “of an Assyrian myth of Creation in which the sphere of creator is given to Ashur."[359]

Before a single act of creation was conceived of, however, the early peoples recognized the eternity of matter, which was permeated by the “self power” of which the elder deities were vague phases.  These were too vague, indeed, to be worshipped individually.  The forms of the “self power” which were propitiated were trees, rivers, hills, or animals.  As indicated in the previous chapter, a tribe worshipped an animal or natural object which dominated its environment.  The animal might be the source of the food supply, or might have to be propitiated to ensure the food supply.  Consequently they identified the self power of the Universe with the particular animal with which they were most concerned.  One section identified the spirit of the heavens with the bull and another with the goat.  In India Dyaus was a bull, and his spouse, the earth mother, Prithivi, was a cow.  The Egyptian sky goddess Hathor was a cow, and other goddesses were identified with the hippopotamus, the serpent, the cat, or the vulture.  Ra, the sun god, was identified in turn with the cat, the ass, the bull, the ram, and the crocodile, the various animal forms of the local deities he had absorbed.  The eagle in Babylonia and India, and the vulture, falcon, and mysterious Phoenix in Egypt, were identified with the sun, fire, wind, and lightning.  The animals associated with the god Ashur were the bull, the eagle, and the lion.  He either absorbed the attributes of other gods, or symbolized the “Self Power” of which the animals were manifestations.

The earliest germ of the Creation myth was the idea that night was the parent of day, and water of the earth.  Out of darkness and death came light and life.  Life was also motion.  When the primordial waters became troubled, life began to be.  Out of the confusion came order and organization.  This process involved the idea of a stable and controlling power, and the succession of a group of deities—­passive deities and active deities.  When the Babylonian astrologers assisted in developing the Creation myth, they appear to have identified with the stable and controlling spirit of the night heaven that steadfast orb the Polar Star.  Anshar, like Shakespeare’s Caesar, seemed to say: