beings conceived as essentially good and beneficent--a step marking a
great advance in the moral feeling and religious consciousness of the
people. Such beings--gods, in fact--were, above all, Ana and Êa, whom
we saw invoked in the incantation of the Seven Maskim as "Spirit of
Heaven," and "Spirit of Earth." The latter especially is appealed to as
an unfailing refuge to ill-used and terrified mortals. He is imagined as
possessed of all knowledge and wisdom, which he uses only to befriend
and protect. His usual residence is the deep,--(hence his name, _Ê-a_,
"the House of Waters")--but he sometimes travels round the earth in a
magnificent ship. His very name is a terror to the evil ones. He knows
the words, the spells that will break their power and compel their
obedience. To him, therefore, the people looked in their need with
infinite trust. Unable to cope with the mysterious dangers and snares
which, as they fancied, beset them on all sides, ignorant of the means
of defeating the wicked beings who, they thought, pursued them with
abominable malice and gratuitous hatred, they turned to Êa. _He_ would
know. _He_ must be asked, and he would tell.
14. But, as though bethinking themselves that Êa was a being too mighty
and exalted to be lightly addressed and often disturbed, the
Shumiro-Accads imagined a beneficent spirit, MERIDUG (more correctly
MIRRI-DUGGA), called son of Êa and DAMKINA, (a name of Earth). Meridug's
only office is to act as mediator between his father and suffering
mankind. It is he who bears to Êa the suppliant's request, exposes his
need sometimes in very moving words, and requests to know the remedy--if
illness be the trouble--or the counter-spell, if the victim be held in
the toils of witchcraft. Êa tells his son, who is then supposed to
reveal the secret to the chosen instrument of assistance--of course the
conjuring priest, or better, soothsayer. As most incantations are
conceived on this principle, they are very monotonous in form, though
frequently enlivened by the supposed dialogue between the father and
son. Here is one of the more entertaining specimens. It occupies an
entire tablet, but unfortunately many lines have been hopelessly
injured, and have to be omitted. The text begins:
"The Disease of the Head has issued from the Abyss, from the
dwelling of the Lord of the Abyss."
Then follow the symptoms and the description of the sufferer's inability
to help himself. Then "Meridug has looked on his misery. He has entered
the dwelling of his father Êa, and has spoken unto him:
"'My father, the Disease of the Head has issued from the
Abyss.'
"A second time he has spoken unto him:
"'What he must do against it the man knows not. How shall he
find healing?'
"Êa has replied to his son Meridug:
"'My son, how dost thou not know? What should I teach thee?
What I know, thou also knowest. But come hither, my son
Meridug. Take a bucket, fill it with water from the mouth of
the rivers; impart to this water thy exalted magic power;
sprinkle with it the man, son of his god, ... wrap up his head,
... and on the highway pour it out. May insanity be dispelled!
that the disease of his head vanish like a phantom of the
night. May Êa's word drive it out! May Damkina heal him.'"
15. Another dialogue of the same sort, in which Êa is consulted as to
the means of breaking the power of the Maskim, ends by his revealing
that
"The white cedar is the tree which breaks the Maskim's noxious
might."
In fact the white cedar was considered an infallible defence against all
spells and evil powers. Any action or ceremony described in the
conjuration must of course be performed even as the words are spoken.
Then there is a long one, perhaps the best preserved of all, to be
recited by the sufferer, who is supposed to be under the effects of an
evil spell, and from which it is evident that the words are to accompany
actions performed by the conjurer. It is divided into parallel verses,
of which the first runs thus:
"As this onion is being peeled of its skins, thus shall it be
of the spell. The burning fire shall consume it; it shall no
more be planted in a row, ... the ground shall not receive its
root, its head shall contain no seed and the sun shall not take
care of it;--it shall not be offered at the feast of a god or a
king.--The man who has cast the evil spell, his eldest son, his
wife,--the spell, the lamentations, the transgressions, the
written spells, the blasphemies, the sins,--the evil which is
in my body, in my flesh, in my sores,--may they all be
destroyed as this onion, and may the burning fire consume them
this day! May the evil spell go far away, and may I see the
light again!"
Then the destruction of a date is similarly described:
"It shall not return to the bough from which it has been
plucked."
The untying of a knot:
"Its threads shall not return to the stem which has produced
them."
The tearing up of some wool:
"It shall not return to the back of its sheep."
The tearing of some stuff, and after each act the second verse:
"The man who has cast the spell," etc.
is repeated.
16. It is devoutly to be hoped, for the patients' sake, that treatments
like these took effect on the disease, for they got no other. Diseases
being conceived as personal demons who entered a man's body of their own
accord or under compulsion from powerful sorcerers, and illness being
consequently considered as a kind of possession, clearly the only thing
to do was to drive out the demon or break the spell with the aid of the
beneficent Êa and his son. If this intervention was of no avail, nothing
remained for the patient but to get well as he could, or to die. This is
why there never was a science of medicine in the proper sense in
Chaldea, even as late as three or four hundred years B.C., and the Greek
travellers who then visited Babylon must have been not a little shocked
at the custom they found there of bringing desperately sick persons out
of the houses with their beds and exposing them in the streets, when any
passer-by could approach them, inquire into the disease and suggest some
remedy--which was sure to be tried as a last chance. This extraordinary
experiment was of course not resorted to until all known forms of
conjuration had been gone through and had proved inefficient.
17. The belief that certain words and imprecations could break the
power of demons or sorcerers must have naturally led to the notion that
to wear such imprecations, written on some substance or article, always
about one's person must be a continual defence against them; while on
the other hand, words of invocation to the beneficent spirits and images
representing them, worn in the same way, must draw down on the wearer
those spirits' protection and blessing. Hence the passion for talismans.
They were of various kinds: strips of stuff, with the magic words
written on them, to be fastened to the body, or the clothes, or articles
of household furniture, were much used; but small articles of clay or
hard stone were in greater favor on account of their durability. As
houses could be possessed by evil spirits just as well as individuals,
talismans were placed in different parts of them for protection, and
this belief was so enduring that small clay figures of gods were found
in Assyrian palaces under thresholds--as in the palace of Khorsabad, by
Botta--placed there "to keep from it fiends and enemies." It has been
discovered in this manner that many of the sculptures which adorned the
Assyrian palaces and temples were of talismanic nature. Thus the winged
bulls placed at the gateways were nothing but representations of an
Accadian class of guardian spirits,--the _Kirûbu_, Hebrew _Kerubim_, of
which we have made _Cherub_, _Cherubim_--who were supposed to keep watch
at entrances, even at that of the Arali, while some sculptures on which
demons, in the shape of hideous monsters, are seen fighting each
other, are, so to speak, imprecations in stone, which, if translated
into words, would mean: "May the evil demons stay outside, may they
assail and fight each other,"--as, in that case, they would clearly have
no leisure to assail the inhabitants of the dwelling. That these
sculptures really were regarded as talismans and expected to guard the
inmates from harm, is abundantly shown by the manner in which they are
mentioned in several inscriptions, down to a very late date. Thus
Esarhaddon, one of the last kings of Assyria (about 700 B.C.), says,
after describing a very sumptuous palace which he had built:--"I placed
in its gates bulls and colossi, who, according to their fixed command,
against the wicked turn themselves; they protect the footsteps, making
peace to be upon the path of the king their creator."
[Illustration: 54.--DEMONS FIGHTING. (From the British Museum.)]
18. The cylinder seals with their inscriptions and engraved figures were
mostly also talismans of like nature; which must be the reason why so
many are found in graves, tied to the dead person's wrist by a
string--evidently as a protection against the fiends which the departed
spirit was expected to meet. The magic power was of course conferred on
all talismans by the words which the conjurer spoke over them with the
necessary ceremonies. One such long incantation is preserved entire. It
is designed to impart to the talisman the power of keeping the demons
from all parts of the dwelling, which are singly enumerated, with the
consequences to the demons who would dare to trespass: those who steal
into gutters, remove bolts or hinges, shall be broken like an earthen
jug, crushed like clay; those who overstep the wooden frame of the house
shall be clipped of their wings; those who stretch their neck in at the
window, the window shall descend and cut their throat. The most original
in this class of superstitions was that which, according to Lenormant,
consisted in the notion that all these demons were of so unutterably
ugly a form and countenance, that they must fly away terrified if they
only beheld their own likeness. As an illustration of this principle he
gives an incantation against "the wicked Namtar." It begins with a
highly graphic description of the terrible demon, who is said to "take
man captive like an enemy," to "burn him like a flame," to "double him
up like a bundle," to "assail man, although having neither hand nor
foot, like a noose." Then follows the usual dialogue between Êa and
Meridug, (in the identical words given above), and Êa at length reveals
the prescription: "Come hither, my son Meridug. Take mud of the Ocean
and knead out of it a likeness of him, (the Namtar.) Lay down the man,
after thou hast purified him; lay the image on his bare abdomen, impart
to it my magic power and turn its face westward, that the wicked Namtar,
who dwells in his body, may take up some other abode. Amen." The idea is
that the Namtar, on beholding his own likeness, will flee from it in
dismay!
[Illustration: 55.--DEMON OF THE SOUTH-WEST WIND. (Perrot and Chipiez.)]
19. To this same class belongs a small bronze statuette, which is to be
seen in the Louvre. Mr. Lenormant thus describes it: "It is the image of
a horrible demon, standing, with the body of a dog, the talons of an
eagle, arms ending in a lion's paws, the tail of a scorpion, the head of
a skeleton, but with eyes, and a goat's horns, and with four large wings
at the back, unfolded. A ring placed at the back of the head served to
hang the figure up. Along the back is an inscription in the Accadian
language, informing us that this pretty creature is the Demon of the
South-west Wind, and is to be placed at the door or window. For in
Chaldea the South-west Wind comes from the deserts of Arabia, its
burning breath consumes everything and produces the same ravages as the
Simoon in Africa. Therefore this particular talisman is most frequently
met with. Our museums contain many other figures of demons, used as
talismans to frighten away the evil spirits they were supposed to
represent. One has the head of a goat on a disproportionately long neck;
another shows a hyena's head, with huge open mouth, on a bear's body
with lion's paws." On the principle that possession is best guarded
against by the presence of beneficent spirits, the exorcisms--i.e.,
forms of conjuring designed to drive the evil demons out of a man or
dwelling--are usually accompanied with a request to good spirits to
enter the one or the other, instead of the wicked ones who have been
ejected. The supreme power which breaks that of all incantations,
talismans, conjuring rites whatever, is, it would appear, supposed to
reside in a great, divine name,--possibly a name of Êa himself. At all
events, it is Êa's own secret. For even in his dialogues with Meridug,
when entreated for this supreme aid in desperate cases, he is only
supposed to impart it to his son to use against the obdurate demons and
thereby crush their power, but it is not given, so that the demons are
only threatened with it, but it is not actually uttered in the course of
the incantations.
[Illustration: 56.--HEAD OF DEMON]
20. Not entirely unassisted did Êa pursue his gigantic task of
protection and healing. Along with him invocations are often addressed
to several other spirits conceived as essentially good divine beings,
whose beneficent influence is felt in many ways. Such was Im, the
Storm-Wind, with its accompanying vivifying showers; such are the
purifying and wholesome Waters, the Rivers and Springs which feed the
earth; above all, such were the Sun and Fire, also the Moon, objects of
double reverence and gratitude because they dispel the darkness of
night, which the Shumiro-Accads loathed and feared excessively, as the
time when the wicked demons are strongest and the power of bad men for
weaving deadly spells is greatest. The third Book of the Collection of
Magic Texts is composed almost entirely of hymns to these deities--as
well as to Êa and Meridug--which betray a somewhat later stage in the
nation's religious development, by the poetical beauty of some of the
fragments, and especially by a purer feeling of adoration and a higher
perception of moral goodness, which are absent from the oldest
incantations.
21. At noon, when the sun has reached the highest point in its heavenly
course, the earth lies before it without a shadow; all things, good or
bad, are manifest; its beams, after dispelling the unfriendly gloom,
pierce into every nook and cranny, bringing into light all ugly things
that hide and lurk; the evil-doer cowers and shuns its all-revealing
splendor, and, to perform his accursed deeds, waits the return of his
dark accomplice, night. What wonder then that to the Shumiro-Accads UD,
the Sun in all its midday glory, was a very hero of protection, the
source of truth and justice, the "supreme judge in Heaven and on earth,"
who "knows lie from truth," who knows the truth that is in the soul of
man. The hymns to Ud that have been deciphered are full of beautiful
images. Take for instance the following:--
"O Sun,[AE] I have called unto thee in the bright heavens. In
the shadow of the cedar art thou;" (i.e., it is thou who makest
the cedar to cast its shadow, holy and auspicious as the tree
itself.) "Thy feet are on the summits.... The countries have
wished for thee, they have longed for thy coming, O Lord! Thy
radiant light illumines all countries.... Thou makest lies to
vanish, thou destroyest the noxious influence of portents,
omens, spells, dreams and evil apparitions; thou turnest wicked
plots to a happy issue...."
This is both true and finely expressed. For what most inveterate
believer in ghosts and apparitions ever feared them by daylight? and the
last touch shows much moral sense and observation of the mysterious
workings of a beneficent power which often not merely defeats evil but
even turns it into good. There is splendid poetry in the following
fragment describing the glory of sunrise:--
"O Sun! thou hast stepped forth from the background of heaven,
thou hast pushed back the bolts of the brilliant heaven,--yea,
the gate of heaven. O Sun! above the land thou hast raised thy
head! O Sun! thou hast covered the immeasurable space of heaven
and countries!"
Another hymn describes how, at the Sun's appearance in the brilliant
portals of the heavens, and during his progress to their highest point,
all the great gods turn to his light, all the good spirits of heaven and
earth gaze up to his face, surround him joyfully and reverently, and
escort him in solemn procession. It needs only to put all these
fragments into fine verse to make out of them a poem which will be held
beautiful even in our day, when from our very childhood we learn to know
the difference between good and poor poetry, growing up, as we do, on
the best of all ages and all countries.
22. When the sun disappeared in the West, sinking rapidly, and diving,
as it were, into the very midst of darkness, the Shumiro-Accads did not
fancy him as either asleep or inactive, but on the contrary as still
engaged in his everlasting work. Under the name of NIN-DAR, he travels
through the dreary regions ruled by Mul-ge and, his essence being
_light_, he combats the powers of darkness in their own home, till He
comes out of it, a triumphant hero, in the morning. Nin-dar is also the
keeper of the hidden treasures of the earth--its metals and precious
stones, because, according to Mr. Lenormant's ingenious remark, "they
only wait, like him, the moment of emerging out of the earth, to emit a
bright radiancy." This radiancy of precious stones, which is like a
concentration of light in its purest form, was probably the reason why
they were in such general use as talismans, quite as much as their
hardness and durability.
23. But while the Sun accomplishes his nightly underground journey, men
would be left a prey to mortal terrors in the upper world, deprived of
light, their chief defence against the evil brood of darkness, were it
not for his substitute, Fire, who is by nature also a being of light,
and, as such, the friend of men, from whose paths and dwellings he
scares not only wild beasts and foes armed with open violence, but the
far more dangerous hosts of unseen enemies, both demons and spells cast
by wicked sorcerers. It is in this capacity of protector that the god
GIBIL (Fire) is chiefly invoked. In one very complete hymn he is
addressed thus:--
"Thou who drivest away the evil Maskim, who furtherest the
well-being of life, who strikest the breast of the wicked with
terror,--Fire, the destroyer of foes, dread weapon which
drivest away Pestilence."
This last attribute would show that the Shumiro-Accads had noticed the
hygienic properties of fire, which does indeed help to dispel miasmas
on account of the strong ventilation which a great blaze sets going.
Thus at a comparatively late epoch, some 400 years B.C., a terrible
plague broke out at Athens, the Greek city, and Hippocrates, a physician
of great genius and renown, who has been called "the Father of
Medicine," tried to diminish the contagion by keeping huge fires
continually blazing at different points of the city. It is the same very
correct idea which made men invoke Gibil as he who purifies the works of
man. He is also frequently called "the protector of the dwelling, of the
family," and praised for "creating light in the house of darkness," and
for bringing peace to all creation. Over and above these claims to
gratitude, Gibil had a special importance in the life of a people given
to the works of metallurgy, of which fire is the chief agent: "It is
thou," says one hymn, "who mixest tin and copper, it is thou who
purifiest silver and gold." Now the mixture of tin and copper produces
bronze, the first metal which has been used to make weapons and tools
of, in most cases long before iron, which is much more difficult to
work, and as the quality of the metal depends on the proper mixture of
the two ingredients, it is but natural that the aid of the god Fire
should have been specially invoked for the operation. But Fire is not
only a great power on earth, it is also, in the shape of Lightning, one
of the dreadest and most mysterious powers of the skies, and as such
sometimes called son of Ana (Heaven), or, in a more roundabout way, "the
Hero, son of the Ocean"--meaning the celestial Ocean, the great
reservoir of rains, from which the lightning seems to spring, as it
flashes through the heavy showers of a Southern thunder storm. In
whatever shape he appear, and whatever his functions, Gibil is hailed as
an invariably beneficent and friendly being.
24. When the feeling of helplessness forced on man by his position in
the midst of nature takes the form of a reverence for and dependence on
beings whom he conceives of as essentially good, a far nobler religion
and far higher moral tone are the immediate consequence. This conception
of absolute goodness sprang from the observation that certain beings or
spirits--like the Sun, Fire, the Thunderstorm--though possessing the
power of doing both good and harm, used it almost exclusively for the
benefit of men. This position once firmly established, the conclusion
naturally followed, that if these good beings once in awhile sent down a
catastrophe or calamity,--if the Sun scorched the fields or the
Thunderstorm swamped them, if the wholesome North Wind swept away the
huts and broke down the trees--it must be in anger, as a mark of
displeasure--in punishment. By what could man provoke the displeasure of
kind and beneficent beings? Clearly by not being like them, by doing not
good, but evil. And what is evil? That which is contrary to the nature
of the good spirits: doing wrong and harm to men; committing sins and
wicked actions. To avoid, therefore, provoking the anger of those good
but powerful spirits, so terrible in its manifestations, it is
necessary to try to please them, and that can be done only by being
like them,--good, or at least striving to be so, and, when temptation,
ignorance, passion or weakness of will have betrayed man into a
transgression, to confess it, express regret for the offence and an
intention not to offend again, in order to obtain forgiveness and be
spared. A righteous life, then, prayer and repentance are the proper
means of securing divine favor or mercy. It is evident that a religion
from which such lessons naturally spring is a great improvement on a
belief in beings who do good or evil indiscriminately, indeed prefer
doing evil, a belief which cannot teach a distinction between moral
right and wrong, or a rational distribution of rewards or punishment,
nor consequently inculcate the feeling of duty and responsibility,
without which goodness as a matter of principle is impossible and a
reliable state of society unattainable.
25. This higher and therefore later stage of moral and religious
development is very perceptible in the third book of the Magic
Collection. With the appreciation of absolute goodness, conscience has
awakened, and speaks with such insistence and authority that the
Shumiro-Accad, in the simplicity of his mind, has earnestly imagined it
to be the voice of a personal and separate deity, a guardian spirit
belonging to each man, dwelling within him and living his life. It is a
god--sometimes even a divine couple, both "god and goddess, pure
spirits"--who protects him from his birth, yet is not proof against the
spells of sorcerers and the attacks of the demons, and even can be
compelled to work evil in the person committed to its care, and
frequently called therefore "the son of his god," as we saw above, in
the incantation against the Disease of the Head. The conjuration or
exorcism which drives out the demon, of course restores the guardian
spirit to its own beneficent nature, and the patient not only to bodily
well-being, but also to peace of mind. That is what is desired, when a
prayer for the cure of a sick or possessed person ends with the words:
"May he be placed again in the gracious hands of his god!" When
therefore a man is represented as speaking to "his god" and confessing
to him his sin and distress, it is only a way of expressing that silent
self-communing of the soul, in which it reviews its own deficiencies,
forms good resolutions and prays to be released from the intolerable
burden of sin. There are some most beautiful prayers of this sort in the
collection. They have been called "the Penitential Psalms," from their
striking likeness to some of those psalms in which King David confesses
his iniquities and humbles himself before the Lord. The likeness extends
to both spirit and form, almost to words. If the older poet, in his
spiritual groping, addresses "his god and goddess," the higher, better
self which he feels within him and feels to be divine--his Conscience,
instead of the One God and Lord, his feeling is not less earnest, his
appeal not less pure and confiding. He confesses his transgression, but
pleads ignorance and sues for mercy. Here are some of the principal
verses, of which each is repeated twice, once addressed to "my god,"
and the second time to "my goddess." The title of the Psalm is: "The
complaints of the repentant heart. Sixty-five verses in all."