The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

M >> Morris Jastrow >> The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

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O sun-god in the midst[431] of heaven at thy setting,
May the enclosure of the pure heaven greet thee,[432]
May the gate of heaven approach thee,
May the directing god, the messenger who loves thee, direct thy way.
In E-babbara, the seat of thy sovereignty, thy supremacy rises like
the dawn.
May A, the wife whom thou lovest, come before thee with joy;
May thy heart be at rest,[433]
May the glory of thy divinity be established for thee.
O Shamash! warrior hero, mayest thou be exalted;
O lord of E-babbara, as thou marchest, may thy course be directed,
Direct thy path, march along the path fixed for thy course (?).
O Shamash! judge of the world, director of its laws art thou.

In the previous chapter, the hymns addressed to the moon-god in
connection with eclipses have been referred to and short specimens
given. A more elaborate hymn to Sin will further illustrate the
conceptions current about this deity:[434]

O lord, chief of the gods, who on earth and in heaven alone is exalted.
Father Nannar,[435] lord of increase, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, heavenly lord,
Father Nannar, moon-god, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, lord of Ur, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, lord of E-gish-shir-gal,[436] chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, lord of the brilliant crescent, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, whose sovereignty is brought to perfection, chief of
the gods,
Father Nannar, who passes along in great majesty,
O strong Bull,[437] great of horns, perfect in form, with long flowing
beard[438] of the color of lapus-lazuli.
Powerful one, self-created, a product (?) beautiful to look upon,
whose fullness has not been brought forth,[439]
Merciful one, begetter of everything, who among living things occupies
a lofty seat,
Father, merciful one and restorer, whose weapon (?) maintains the life
of the whole world.
Lord, thy divinity, like the distant heaven and the wide ocean, is
full (?) of fear.
Ruler of the land, protector of sanctuaries, proclaimer of their name.
Father, begetter of the gods and of men, establishing dwellings and
granting gifts,
Calling to sovereignty, giving the sceptre, who decreest destinies for
distant days.
Strong chief, whose wide heart embraces in mercy all that exists,
... beautiful, whose knees do not grow weary, who opens the road (?)
for the gods, his brothers,
... who, from the foundation of heaven till the zenith,
Passes along in brilliancy (?), opening the door of heaven,
Preparing the fate (?) of humanity.
Father, begetter of everything, ...
Lord, proclaiming the decisions of heaven and earth,
Whose command is not set aside,
... and granting water[440] for all that has life.
No god reaches to thy fullness.
In heaven who is exalted? Thou alone art exalted.
On earth who is exalted? Thou alone art exalted.
Thy strong command is proclaimed in heaven, and the Igigi prostrate
themselves.
Thy strong command is proclaimed on earth, and the Anunnaki kiss the
ground.
Thy strong command on high, like a storm in the darkness, passes
along, and nourishment streams forth.
When thy strong command is established on the earth, vegetation
sprouts forth.
Thy strong command stretches over meadows and heights, and life is
increased.
Thy strong command produces right and proclaims justice to mankind.
Thy strong command, through the distant heavens and the wide earth,
extends to whatever there is.
Thy strong command, who can grasp it? Who can rival it?
Lord, in heaven is [thy] sovereignty, on earth is thy sovereignty.
Among the gods, thy brothers, there is none like thee.
O King of Kings, who has no judge superior to him, whose divinity is
not surpassed by any other![441]

A more perfect idealization of the mythological notions connected with
the moon-god can hardly be imagined. The old metaphors are retained, but
interpreted in a manner that reflects higher spiritual tendencies. The
moon is still figured as a bull, but it is the idea of strength that is
extracted from the picture and dwelt upon. The writer still thinks of
the moon as an old man with flowing beard, but he uses the figure to
convey the impression of the brilliancy of the great orb. The influence
of the moon upon the change of seasons, upon vegetation,--a belief which
the Babylonians shared with other nations,--leads the writer to extol
the benign feelings of the god towards mankind. The sun-god, through the
glowing heat that he develops, becomes, as we have seen, the warrior and
even the destroyer, the consuming force. The moon-god is the benefactor
of mankind who restores the energies of man weakened from the heat of
the day. Nannar-Sin becomes the giver of life, whose mercies are
extended to all. The gods and the spirits follow the example of mankind
in prostrating themselves before the great orb of night. The
independence of the course that he pursues in the heavens places him
beyond the control of the great judge of the world, the mighty Shamash.
There is no one superior to Sin, no one to whose command he must bend.
With all this, there is a total absence of any allusion to his power of
removing the influence of demons and witches. We have here a hymn
purified from all association with the incantation texts, and there is
every reason to believe that it was composed for use in the great temple
at Ur, which is mentioned in the opening lines.

In the alternating question and answer we have also a valuable
indication of the manner in which the hymn was to be recited or sung.
The whole production appears to be arranged in a dialogue form, the
lines to be alternately read by the reciting priest and the chorus of
priests or worshippers. The same method is followed in other
productions, while in some, as we shall see, the dialogue does not
proceed in alternate lines, but is distributed among a varying number of
sections. We may see in this style of composition one of the natural
outcomes of the method pursued in the incantation texts, where, as will
be remembered, the priest first recites the formulas, and then calls
upon the individual before him to repeat it once, twice, or oftener, as
the case may be. Such a custom leads to recital and responses in the
hymns.

Not many of the hymns rise to such a height as the one just quoted.
There were certain gods only, and after all not many, whose nature was
such as to make an ethical development of the conceptions formed of them
possible. Besides Shamash and Sin, Ea as the god of humanity and Nebo as
the god of wisdom belong to this class. Of Ea, however, no hymns have as
yet been found. This may of course be accidental, and still, if one
bears in mind that in the later periods of Babylonian history Ea enjoyed
a theoretical popularity rather than a practical one, the absence of Ea
hymns might be explained as due to the lack of a fixed ritual in the Ea
temples outside of the incantation texts.[442] Ea's position, like that
of Nusku, was too marked in the magical texts to encourage a conception
of them entirely independent of their power to release victims from the
grasp of the demons.

A hymn to Nebo, which unfortunately is preserved only in part,
illustrates the extent to which polytheistic conceptions may be
spiritualized:[443]

... Lord of Borsippa,
... son of E-sagila.[444]
O Lord! To thy power there is no rival power,
O Nebo! To thy power, there is no rival,
To thy house, E-zida, there is no rival,
To thy city, Borsippa, there is no rival,
To thy district, Babylon, there is no rival.
Thy weapon is U-sum-gallu,[445] from whose mouth the breath does not
issue, blood does not flow.[446]
Thy command is unchangeable like the heavens.
In heaven thou art supreme.

There are still plenty of mythological allusions in this hymn that take
us back to a primitive period of thought, but it is a hymn prompted by
the love and reverence that Nebo inspired. Its direct connection with
the Nebo cult is shown again by the complementary character of each two
lines. The whole hymn was probably adapted in this way to public
worship.

Marduk, by virtue of his relationship to Ea, and by his independent
position as the supreme god of Babylon, occupies a middle ground between
Shamash, Ea, and Nusku on the one side, and such gods as Sin and Nebo on
the other. Some of the hymns addressed to him end in incantations;
others form part of the cult arranged for solemn occasions, when the
praises of the god were sung in connection with sacrificial offerings.

In confirmation of the theory as to the relationship between magical
texts and hymns above advanced, we find scarcely any difference in the
grade of religious thought between these two classes of Marduk hymns.
Both are equally distinguished by their fine diction. A hymn which
celebrates Marduk as the restorer of the dead to life, and yet forms
part of an incantation text, reads:[447]

O merciful one among the gods!
O merciful one who loveth to give life to the dead!
Marduk, king of heaven and earth,
King of Babylon, lord of E-sagila,
King of E-zida, lord of E-makh-tila,
Heaven and earth are thine.
The whole of heaven and earth are thine,
The spell affording life is thine,
The breath of life is thine,
The pure incantation of the ocean[448] is thine,
Mankind, the black-headed race,[449]
The living creatures, as many as there are, and exist on earth,
As many as there are in the four quarters,
The Igigi of the legions of heaven and earth,
As many as there are,
To thee do they incline (?).
Thou art the _shedu_, thou art the _lamassu_.
Thou restorest the dead to life, thou bringest things to
completeness (?).
O merciful one among the gods!

One scarcely detects any difference between such a hymn and those to Sin
and Nebo. The lines are adapted, like the other specimens, for
recitation by two parties. The last line forms a solemn close to a
section of this hymn. In the section that follows, the same character is
maintained till we approach the close, when the exorciser steps in and
asks Marduk to

Expel the disease of the sick man,
The plague, the wasting disease ...

and the various classes of demons, _utukku, alu,_ etc., are introduced.

Compare this now with some passages in a prayer addressed to
Marduk:[450]

A resting-place for the lord (of E-sagila) is thy house.
A resting-place for the lord of E-makh-tila is thy house.
E-sagila, the house of thy sovereignty, is thy house.
May the city speak 'rest'[451] to thee--thy house.
May Babylon speak peace to thee[452]--thy house.
May the great Anu, the father of the gods, tell thee when there will
be rest.
May the great mountain, the father of the gods,[453] tell thee when
there will be rest.

...

Look favorably upon thy house,
Look favorably upon the city, O lord of rest!
May he restore to his place the bolt Babylon, the enclosure E-sagila,
the edifice E-zida,[454]
May the gods of heaven and earth speak to thee, O lord of rest.

Here we have specific references to Marduk. Everything about the city of
Babylon is associated with the god. The great gods pay homage to Marduk.
The whole hymn, conceived as a royal prayer to the god, clearly formed
part of the ritual prepared for the great Marduk temple at Babylon. The
hymn closes, as so many others, with a prayer on behalf of the king. The
god is asked

To establish firmly the foundation of the throne of his sovereignty,
So that he may nourish (?) mankind to distant days.

'Rest,' in the liturgical language, implied cessation of anger. Marduk,
as the 'lord of rest,' was the pacified deity; and since it was a
necessary condition in obtaining an answer to petitions that the god
should be free from anger, the city, the temple, and the gods are
represented as unitedly speaking to him--appealing to him to be at
'rest.' The production might, therefore, be called a 'pacification
hymn.' The god has shown his anger by bringing on misfortune of some
shape. His divine associates are no less anxious than his human subjects
to pacify the mighty god.

Passing on to another god, a hymn to the storm-god, Ramman, enables us
to specify the great terror that the god, as the general source of
disturbances in the heavenly phenomena, inspired. The god is
addressed[455] as

The lord who in his anger holds the heavens in his control,
Ramman in his wrath the earth has shaken.
The mighty mountain--thou dost overturn it.
At his anger, at his wrath,
The gods of heaven mount up to heaven,[456]
The gods of earth enter the earth.
Into the foundation of heaven Shamash[457] enters.

The illustrations adduced will suffice to show the manner in which the
Babylonians conceived the relationship between mankind and the gods. The
element of fear alternated with that of love, and no matter how near the
gods were felt to be, one was never certain of their good will.

Another feature of some of these hymns which calls for special mention
is the introduction of the deity as himself or herself taking part in
the dialogue. A hymn addressed to Ishtar, as the morning and evening
star,[458] belongs to this class.[459] It begins with a glorification of
the goddess as the source of light, of being, and of earthly blessings.
The worshipper speaks:

O light of heaven who arises like fire over the earth, who art fixed
in the earth,
Thou art exalted in strength like the earth.
As for thee, a just path be graciously granted to thee
When thou enterest the house of man.
A hyena on the hunt for a young lamb art thou,
A restless lion art thou.
A destructive handmaid, the beauty of heaven,
A handmaid is Ishtar, the beauty of heaven,
Who causest all being to emanate, O beauty of heaven,
Associate (?) of the sun, O beauty of heaven!

At this point the goddess speaks, through the officiating priest, who
acts as the mediator:

For determining oracles[460] I have been established, in perfection
have I been established.
For determining oracles of my father Sin, I have been established, in
perfection have I been established.
For determining oracles of my brother Shamash, I have been
established, in perfection have I been established.
Me has my father Sin fixed, to determine oracles I have been
established,
Shining anew in heaven, for determining oracles I have been
established, in perfection have I been established.

From the regular repetition of the refrain at the end of each line, one
is tempted to conclude that these utterances of the goddess were to be
recited by an officiating priest with the assistance of a chorus of
priests, to whom the refrain was assigned, or it may be that the lines
were alternately recited by the priest and the chorus. In the section
that follows, this alternative character of the lines is more clearly
indicated:

Full of delight is my majesty, full of delight is my supremacy,
Full of delight do I as a goddess walk supreme.
Ishtar, the goddess of morning am I,
Ishtar, the goddess of evening am I,
(I am) Ishtar,--to open the lock of heaven belongs to my supremacy.
Heaven I destroy, earth I devastate,[461]--such is my supremacy.
The destroyer of heaven, the devastator of the earth,--such is my
majesty.
To rise up out of the foundation of heaven,
Whose fame shines among the habitation of men,--such is my supremacy.
Queen of heaven that on high and below is invoked,--such is my
supremacy.
The mountain I sweep away altogether,--such is my supremacy.
The destroyer of the mountain walls am I, their great foundation am
I,--such is my supremacy.

The hymn closes with a prayer that the anger of the god be appeased:

May thy heart be at rest, thy liver[462] be pacified.
By the great lord Anu, may thy heart be at rest.
By the lord, the great mountain Bel, may thy liver be pacified.
O goddess, mistress of heaven, may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress of heaven, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress of the E-anna,[463] may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress of the land of Erech, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress of the shining Erech, may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress of the mountain of the universe, may thy liver be
pacified.
O supreme mistress, queen of E-tur-kalama,[464] may thy heart be at
rest.
O supreme mistress, queen of Babylon, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress, whose name is Nana, may thy heart be at rest.
O mistress of the house, lady of the gods, may thy liver be pacified.

FOOTNOTES:

[416] Inscription D, col. v. ll. 2-7.

[417] Abel-Winckler, _Keilschrifttexte_, p. 33, col. iii. ll. 52-58.

[418] Ball, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._ xi. 124 _seq._

[419] _Annals_, Cylinder B, col. v. ll. 30-46.

[420] Without proper burial,--the greatest misfortune that could happen
to the dead.

[421] _I.e._, life.

[422] _I.e._, called to the throne.

[423] See p. 296.

[424] The prayers and hymns of the Babylonians are only beginning to
receive the attention they deserve at the hands of scholars. Sayce,
_e.g._, in the specimens attached to his _Hibbert Lectures_, pp.
479-520, does not even distinguish properly between pure hymns and mere
incantations. Now that Dr. Bezold's great catalogue of the Koujunjik
collection of the British Museum is completed, the opportunity is
favorable for some one to study the numerous unpublished fragments of
hymns in the British Museum, and produce in connection with those that
have been published a comprehensive work on the subject. Knudtzon's
_Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott_ may serve as a model for such a
work.

[425] IVR. 28, no. 1.

[426] Some specification of the kind of vessel meant.

[427] Inscriptions were written on various metals,--gold, silver,
antimony, lead, copper, etc.

[428] IVR. 20, no. 2.

[429] See above, p. 286.

[430] Published by Bertin in the _Revue d'Assyriologie_, no. 4, and
translated by Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 573. I adopt Sayce's
translation, Bertin's publication being inaccessible to me.

[431] Probably 'horizon.'

[432] Lit., speak to thee of peace.

[433] _I.e._, may thy anger depart.

[434] IVR. 9.

[435] 'The illuminator,' one of the names of Sin. See above, p. 75.

[436] The name of Sin's temple at Ur.

[437] A metaphor descriptive of the moon, because of the resemblance of
the crescent to a horn.

[438] The moon-god is pictured with a long beard on the seal cylinders.
See p. 76.

[439] _I.e._, unlike other products, the moon's fullness is
self-created.

[440] A reference perhaps to the supposed influence of the moon on the
tides.

[441] The rest of the hymn--some dozen lines--is too fragmentary to
warrant translation.

[442] We have, however, a list (IIR. 58, no. 5) giving many titles and
names of Ea that must have been prepared on the basis of Ea hymns.

[443] IVR. 20, no. 3.

[444] _I.e._, of Marduk.

[445] This weapon plays a part in some of the Babylonian myths.

[446] The weapon is miraculous--It kills instantly, but without causing
blood to flow. The reference is to the lightning stroke.

[447] IVR. 29, no. 1.

[448] Perhaps a reference to Ea.

[449] Name for the inhabitants of Babylonla, and then used in general
for mankind. _Cf._ p. 281.

[450] IVR. 18, no. 2. Badly preserved.

[451] _I.e._, call upon thee to be pacified.

[452] _I.e._, salute thee.

[453] Bel.

[454] The strongly fortified city of Babylon is compared to a bolt and
the temple to an enclosure.

[455] IVR. 28, no. 2.

[456] _I.e._, fly to a safe place.

[457] _I.e._, the sun is obscured.

[458] See above, p. 84.

[459] Delitzsch, _Assyrische Lesestuecke_ (3d edition), pp. 134-136.

[460] The portents taken through observation of the position of Ishtar
or Venus in the heavens were of especial value.

[461] Phrases introduced to illustrate the power, not the function, of
Ishtar.

[462] The liver as the seat of the emotions.

[463] _I.e._, house of heaven. Name of Ishtar's temple at Erech.

[464] _I.e._, court of the universe. Name of one of Ishtar's temples.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PENITENTIAL PSALMS.

It will be recalled that both in the Ishtar hymn and in the one to
Marduk above quoted, great stress is laid upon pacifying the deity
addressed. Starting from the primitive conception that misfortunes were
a manifestation of divine anger, the Babylonians never abandoned the
belief that transgressions could be atoned for only by appeasing the
anger of the deity. But within this limitation, an ethical spirit was
developed among the Babylonians that surprises us by its loftiness and
comparative purity. Instead of having recourse merely to incantation
formulas, the person smitten with disease or pursued by ill fortune
would turn in prayer to some god at whose instigation the evil has come
and appeal for the pacification of the divine wrath. But while the
origin of the so-called penitential psalms is thus closely bound up with
the same order of thought that gave rise to the incantation texts, no
less significant is the divorce between the two classes of compositions
that begins already at an early stage of the literary period. The
incantations, it is true, may be combined with compositions that belong
to a higher order of religious thought. We have seen that they have been
so combined, and yet the dividing line between the two is also sharply
marked. Zimmern, to whom, more than to any one else, the interpretation
of these penitential psalms is due, has suggested[465] that national
misfortunes rather than private grievances may have given an impetus to
this class of literary productions. It is true that historical
references are found in some of the hymns, and it is also significant
that not only do these psalms occasionally embody a prayer for the
king,--thus giving to them a national rather than a personal
character,--but the kings are called upon in times of distress to
accompany their libations to the gods with the recitation of a 'lament
to quiet the heart,'[466] as the Babylonians called this class of hymns.

One can easily see how such events as defeat in war would be ascribed to
divine wrath, and not to the workings of evil spirits or witches; and
while the personal tone that pervades most of the penitential psalms
makes them applicable to conditions affecting the individual as well as
the nation, the peculiar fitness of such psalms for occasions of
national importance was a powerful factor in bringing about their sharp
separation from the incantation formulas.

Just as in the hymns we found that the mere contemplation of the
attributes of the gods, apart from the manifestation of these attributes
in any particular instance, led to a loftier interpretation of the
relationship existing between the gods and mankind, so the thought that
evil was due in the last instance to the anger of some god led to
greater emphasis being laid upon this relationship. The anger of the god
prompted both the individual and the nation to greater zeal in securing
the deity's love. To an even greater extent than in the hymns is the
element of love introduced into the penitential psalms, and when not
directly expressed, is so clearly implied as to form the necessary
complement to the conception of the divine wrath. These psalms indeed
show the religious and ethical thought of Babylonia at its best. Their
ethical phase manifests itself more particularly in the conception of
sin which is unfolded in them. The misfortunes of life, more especially
those which could not so readily be ascribed to the presence of evil
spirits, filled the individual with his sense of guilt. In some way,
known or unknown to him, he must have offended the deity. The thought
whether the deity was justified in exercising his wrath did not trouble
him any more than the investigation of the question whether the
punishment was meted out in accordance with the extent of the wrong
committed. It was not necessary for the deity to be just; it was
sufficient that some god felt himself to be offended, whether through
the omission of certain rights or through an error in the performance of
rites or what not. The two facts which presented themselves with
overpowering force to the penitent were the anger of the deity and the
necessity of appeasing that anger. Beyond this conclusion the
Babylonians and Assyrians did not go, but this reasoning also sufficed
to bring the conviction home to him that his misfortunes were the result
of some offence. The man afflicted was a sinner, and the corollary to
this position was that misfortunes come in consequence of sin. Through
the evils alone which overtook one, it became clear to an individual
that he had sinned against the deity. Within this circle of ideas the
penitential psalms of Babylonia move. They do not pass wholly outside of
the general Semitic view that sin is a 'missing of the mark,'--a
failure, whether voluntary or involuntary, to comply with what was
demanded by the deity under whose protection one stood. But one became
conscious of having 'missed the mark' only when evil in some
form--disease, ill luck, deluge, drought, defeat, destruction, storms,
pecuniary losses, family discords, the death of dear ones--came to
remind the individual or the nation of the necessity of securing the
favor of the deity again. Still within this sphere there were great
possibilities of ethical progress, and some of the Babylonian psalms
breathe a spirit and are couched in a diction that have prompted a
comparison with the Biblical psalms.[467] Thrown, as the sinner felt
himself to be, upon the mercy of the angry deity, it mattered little
what had called forth this wrath or whether the deity was conceived as
acting in accordance with just ideas. The thought that would engage the
entire attention of the penitent would be the appeasement of his god. To
effect this, he would not stop short at exaggerating his own guilt. He
would manifest a contrition of spirit that would not be the less sincere
for being, perhaps, out of proportion to the character of his sin when
judged by our standards.