Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/55

 presence of Anu food of death will be offered thee, eat not thereof! Water of death will be offered thee, drink not thereof!" But lo! it was indeed food of life and water of life! Anu was filled with amazement. He had purposed that the man to whom his creator had revealed the inmost things of heaven and earth (i.e., had bestowed on him the highest wisdom) should receive also the gift of immortality. By his refusal Adapa had defrauded himself of this gift. Therefore Anu commanded, "Take him and bring him back to his earth."

In this narrative food of life and water of life are supposed to be in the palace of the god of heaven. This also is a similar conception to that of Olympus and the Elysian Fields, for among the Greeks the source of the Olympian nectar and ambrosia was to be sought in the Paradise on the Western Ocean. Food of life and water of life were found also in the Babylonian Paradise "at the mouth of the rivers," in Eridu and on the Island of the Blessed. We have already told how Gilgamesh obtained healing by means of the water of the fountain of life and of the magic food on the Island of the Blessed, and how he found the magic plant of immortality. Obviously also, the divine baker and cup-bearer has not, in the mind of the narrator, to do with common food and drink, but with the Babylonian equivalents of