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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
In Greek philosophy the word λόγος, which by derivation and usage meant speech, discourse, spoken word, assumed at an early period in the history of Greek thought the meaning reason, thought, mind. It is so employed, apparently, first by Heraclitus of the Ionian school at Ephesus. There seems to be in the region of purely Greek thought and religion no conception of λόγος or uttered word of the gods which could have suggested its identification with universal reason, first principle and cause of all things as variously employed in Greek philosophy. Rumour was called Ὄσσα Διóς ἄγγελος, “Rumour the messenger of Zeus,” who goes about stirring up strife. And she is the messenger or dame rumour, Ὄσσα δ'ἄρ' ἄγγελος, who hastens swiftly with evil news, the Fama of Roman mythology. We must suppose, if the Ionian philosophers identified Word with cosmic reason and first principle, that they were induced and influenced by some well-known semi-philosophical use of the term “Word of the gods” as the personification of divine agency. It is wholly inconceivable that the Greek language permitted a sudden transformation of one of its most ancient and perfectly understood words without adequate cause. The etymology and ordinary meaning of λóγος afford no remote suggestion of a divine agent, a first principle. The philosophers certainly did not seize upon it arbitrarily for the most important term in the expression of their thought.
page 433 note 1 Iliad, 2. 93.
page 433 note 2 Odyssey, 24. 413.
page 435 note 1 Apsū, ocean which flows beneath the earth, is of Sumerian origin, ab-zu, and means “sea of wisdom”.
page 435 note 2 Mummu; see on the philosophical use of this term the discussion below.
page 435 note 3 i.e. the temple of Eridu.
page 435 note 4 Text in Cuneiform Tablets of the British Museum, xiii, 35–7Google Scholar. The lines cited are obv. 8–10.
page 435 note 5 Hence Tiamat is the ummu Hubur pātiḳat kalama, Mother Hubur (the salt-water stream surrounding the earth), fashioner of all things; see King, , Seven Tablets of Creation, 16. 113; 24. 19; 50. 81.Google Scholar
page 436 note 1 See Jensen, , Mythen und Epen, 303Google Scholar; Böhl, , Orientalische Literatür Zeitung, 1916, 266Google Scholar, where the derivation of mummu from 
, to speak, is defended.
page 437 note 1 PSBA. 1898, p. 156, 14Google Scholar. Read [ilu … na-ram ilu] Nin-igi-azay mu-um-mu ba-an bi-n 
-tu …: mummu here refers to the god Nebo, supplied at the beginning of the line.
page 438 note 1 K. 13761, rev. 3, in King, Seven Tablets of Creation, i, 164Google Scholar, and i, 102. See also commentary K. 4406, rev. i, 27–30, in vol. ii, pl. lv. Marduk is more correctly called mar mumme, “the son of Mummu,” i.e. Ea, in Craig, , Religious Texts, i, p. 31, 33.Google Scholar
page 438 note 2 CT. 13, S. 747, rev. 10.
page 439 note 1 I refer to B.M. 82–3–23, 151, published in King, op. laud., ii, pl. liv. Here we have obviously a commentary on S. 747, rev. 10, as Dr. King has also written. For ummu of the commentary read probably [mu]-um-mu.
page 439 note 2 Written ag = nabū. On the root 
â, sá, sà, to proclaim, prophesy, see the writer's Sumerian Grammar, p. 235.Google Scholar
page 441 note 1 Ša baluššu ina šamê la iššakanu milku, i, Raw. 35, No. 2. 6.
page 441 note 2 See Drummond, , Philo Judœus, i, 122.Google Scholar
page 441 note 3 Sukkallu ṣîru ḫāmim kullat parṣê, iv, Raw. 14, No. 3Google Scholar, obv. If, and I Raw. 35, No. 2. 3. See also the writer's Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, 154, 30Google Scholar, where read sukkal-zid, “the faithful messenger,” and Ziramern, Altsumerische Kultlieder, 12, iii, 10.Google Scholar
page 441 note 4 Rikis kalama, Sum. dŭr-dŭr-ur, “He that binds into one,” v, Raw. 43, 30.
page 442 note 1 Said of Ea, RA. 12. 83, 48; of Adad, SBP. 66. 8.
page 442 note 2 Mukîl markas Šamê u irṣitim, said of Nebo, King, Magic, 22, obv. 39; of Ninurta, King, Annals, 255, 2; i, Raw. 29, 3.Google Scholar
page 442 note 3 The word then came to mean a model or perfect construction and was used of cities and palaces; see the literature in Revue d'Assyriologie, 12. 82, n. 1.
page 443 note 1 Jensen, , Mythen und Epen, 495Google Scholar. A Sumerian loan-word tarkullû, ordinary translation of the Sumerian dim-gal, “great band,” has followed the analogy of markasu in the development of Sumero-Babylonian thought. The god Ea is called dimgal-abzu, “the band of the sea” (Thureau-Dangin, , Die Sumerischen und Akkadische Königsinschriften, 40, iv, 31Google Scholar; 132, xii, 16). The goddess Gunura, a form of Ninâ, goddess of irrigation and closely associated with the water god Ea, as his daughter, has also the title dim-gal kalam-ma = tarkulli mâtim (Langdon, SBP. 160, 13). Hence the word dimgul, cognate of dimgal, and generally written 
(ship's cable), also took on this sense. As such it is employed of Enlil, who is umun gú dimgul = bél tarkulliri-[ik-si], “Lord the band of the universe.” Here tarkullu, like markasu, has the meaning “support, guide”, a sense developed from the philosophical import of the word when employed of the water deity Ea and his daughter Gunura. Then dim-gal is employed of Ishtar, who is dim-gal ( = tarkullu) of Babylon, “supporter of Babylon” (SBP. 191, 65). Like markasu the term is then applied to temples. This use of the term is as yet documented only in Sumerian. Eninnû, temple of Ningirsu at Lagash, has the title dim-gal-kalam-ma, “support of the Land” (SAK. 122, i, 1). See also 114, xxiii, 16, é-ninnû, dim-gal mu-gin, “Eninnu as the support (of the Land) I established.” See for the same application of the word 112, xxii, 11.
page 444 note 1 CT. 25. 48, 15, dAzag-gi-banda(da) =iluE-a ša tar-dim-me [cf. CT. 24. 9, 41 = 24. 23, 31, where this title is explained by dupšar aširti, scribe of the sanctuary, hence a god of letters]. In K. 4210 ( = CT. 25. 43), 1. 10, read perhaps [dDim-]gal = d-E-a.
page 444 note 2 King, , Seven Tablets of Creation, i, p. xciv.Google Scholar
page 444 note 3 See Muss-Arnolt, , Assyrian Lexicon, 552–3Google Scholar. Recently Böhl in OLZ: 1916, 266, connected mummu with the logos of Greek philosophy and derived the word from 
whence (according to Böhl) is derived the Babylonian word amātu, “word.”
page 444 note 4 So the sense must be reconstructed from B.M. 82-3-23, 151.
page 445 note 1 Adad is nādin te'uti ana pu-ḫur (?) ilāni, K. 100, 13 (in the writer's Tammuz and Ishtar).
page 445 note 2 The Semitic derivation is probably 
in Babylonian 'amāmu, bellow. The connexion of the ordinary word amātu with this root is uncertain. Ungnad, ZA. 17, 356, derived amātu from 
, Aramaic 
to inform, which is certainly erroneous in view of the word ḫa-'-u-ti, revelation (Craig, RT. 23, 28), a form indicating ḫ, not ḥ in the root. For the present it seems necessary to assume 
bellow, cry, for this word also.
page 445 note 3 The oldest known hymn mentioning the word of Marduk is translated in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, 1912, 156.
page 446 note 1 Name of Enlil's temple in Nippur.
page 446 note 2 Langdon, SBP. 72, 1–4.
page 446 note 3 See Holmes, in Charles, , Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphia, i, 585.Google Scholar
page 447 note 1 Zimmern, , Altsumerische Kultlieder, 199, i, 15fGoogle Scholar. The text will be found edited ahd translated by the writer in PSBA. 1918 (in press).
page 447 note 2 Isaiah lv, 11.
page 448 note 1 Holmes, , “The Wisdom of Solomon,”Google Scholar in Charles, op. laud., i, 549, ch. ix, 1f