The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria
By Morris Jastrow

CHAPTER XV.

THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF BABYLONIA.

The pantheon of a religion presents us with the external phases of the religion in question. In order to penetrate further towards the core of the religion, and to see it at its best, the religious thought as manifested in the national literature constitutes our most valuable guide. The beginnings of Babylonian literature are enveloped in obscurity. We have seen that we are justified in passing beyond the period of Hammurabi[339] for these beginnings, but exactly when and precisely how the literary spirit first manifested itself in Babylonia will probably remain for a long time, if not for always, a matter of conjecture. The great political and religious centers of Babylonia, such as Ur, Sippar, Agade, Eridu, Nippur, Uruk, perhaps also Lagash, and later on Babylon, formed the foci of literary activity, as they were the starting-points of commercial enterprise. This intimate connection of religion with literature left its impress upon all branches into which the Babylonian literature was in the course of time differentiated. In a certain sense all the literature of Babylonia is religious. Even the legal formulas, as embodied in the so-called contract tablets, have a religious tinge. The priests being the scribes, a contract of any kind between two or more parties was a religious compact. The oath which accompanied the compact involved an invocation of the gods. The decree of the judges in a disputed suit was confirmed by an appeal to the gods. The terms in which the parties bound themselves consisted largely of religious phrases, and finally the dating of the tablet often contained a reference to some religious festival or to some event[Pg 246] of religious import—such as the building of a sanctuary. Science, so far as it existed in Babylonia, never loosened the leading-strings that bound it to the prevailing religious thought. The observation of the stars was carried on under the belief of the supposed influence exerted by the heavenly bodies upon the fate of man; and surprising as we find the development of astronomical calculations and forecasts to be, mathematics does not pass beyond the limits of astrology. Medicine was likewise the concern of the priests. Disease was a divine infliction supposed to be due to the direct presence in the body, or to the hidden influence, of some pernicious spirit. The cure was effected by the exorcising of the troublesome spirit through prescribed formulas of supposed power, accompanied by symbolical acts. There is indeed no branch of human knowledge which so persistently retains its connection with religious beliefs among all peoples of antiquity as the one which to-day is regarded as resting solely upon a materialistic basis. As a consequence the Babylonians, although they made some progress in medicinal methods, and more especially in medical diagnosis, never dissociated medicinal remedies from the appeal to the gods. The recital of formulas was supposed to secure by their magic force the effectiveness of the medical potions that were offered to the sufferer.

As for the historical texts, the preceding chapters have illustrated how full they are of religious allusions, how at every turn we meet with the influence exerted by the priests as the composers of these texts. Almost all occurrences are given a religious coloring. That these texts furnish us with such valuable material, and such a quantity of it, is indeed to be traced directly to the fact that the historical literature is also the direct production of the religious leaders and guides of the people, acting at the command of rulers, who were desirous of emphasizing their dependence upon the gods of the country, and who made this dependence the basis of the authority they exerted.[Pg 247]

Such being the general aspect of Babylonian literature, it is not always possible to draw a sharp line separating religious productions from such as may properly be termed secular. For example, the zodiacal system of the Babylonians, which we shall have occasion to discuss, although presenting a scientific aspect, is in reality an outcome of the religious thought; and so at other points it is necessary to pass over into the region of secular thought for illustrations of the religious beliefs. Bearing this in mind, we may set up a fivefold division of the religious literature of the Babylonians in the stricter sense: (1) the magical texts, (2) the hymns and prayers, (3) omens and forecasts, (4) the cosmology, (5) epics and legends. It will be apparent that the first three divisions represent a practical part of the literature, while the two latter are of a more purely literary character. The magical texts, as well as the hymns and prayers and omens, we can well imagine were produced as circumstances called them forth, and one can also understand how they should, at an early age, have been committed to writing. The incantations serving the practical purpose already referred to of securing a control over the spirit, it will be readily seen that such as had demonstrated their effectiveness would become popular. The desire would arise to preserve them for future generations. With that natural tendency of loose custom to become fixed law, these incantations would come to be permanently associated with certain temples. Rituals would thus arise. The incantation would be committed to writing so that one generation of priests might be certain of furnishing orthodox instruction to the other; and, once written, they would form part of the temple archives, finding a place in these archives by the side of the contract tablets, for which the sacred edifices of the country also served as depositories. The large quantity of incantation texts that have been found in Ashurbanabal's library,[340] as well as the variations and contrasts they present[Pg 248] when compared with one another, are probably due to the various sources whence the scribes of the king, who were sent to the libraries of the south, collected their material. It is only reasonable to suppose that each great temple acquired in the course of time a ritual of its own, which, while perhaps not differing in any essential points from that introduced in another place, yet deviated from it sufficiently to impart to it a character of its own. In the case of some of the texts that have been preserved, it is still possible to determine through certain traits that they exhibit in what religious center they were produced. With considerable more guarantee of accuracy can this be done in the case of the hymns and prayers. Addressed as the latter were to certain deities, it stands to reason that they were written for use in the temples sacred to those deities, or, if not to be used, at least composed in honor of certain sanctuaries that contained the images of the deities thus exalted. Again, in the historical inscriptions of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, prayers are introduced, and we are as a general thing expressly told on what occasion they were composed and in what sanctuary they were uttered. We may therefore conclude that those which have been preserved independently also served a practical purpose, and were written, not merely for certain occasions, but for certain places. The practical purpose served by texts containing omens and forecasts derived from the observation of the planets and stars, from monstrosities—human and animal—from strange occurrences, accidents, and the like, is too obvious to require demonstration. But while duly emphasizing the practical purpose that gave rise to the incantation texts, the hymns, the prayers and omens, we must be careful not to press this point too far. The rituals of the various temples once being fixed, the impulse to literary composition would still go on in an age marked by intellectual activity. The practical purpose would be followed by the pure love of composition. The attachment to certain[Pg 249] sanctuaries or certain deities would inspire earnest and gifted priests to further efforts. Accordingly, while we cannot be certain that among the actual remains of magical texts and hymns we may not have specimens that belong to this class, there is no reason to question that such must have been produced. The guarantee for this hypothesis is furnished by the compositions that reflect the cosmological beliefs, the epics and legends that form the second half of the religious productions of Babylonia.

Speculation regarding the origin of the universe belongs to an early period in the development of culture. There are few people, however primitive their culture, who are not attracted by the spirit of curiosity to seek for some solution of the mysteries which they daily witness; but the systematization of these speculations does not take place until a body of men arises among a people capable of giving to the popular fancies a logical sequence, or the approach at least to a rational interpretation. This process, which resulted in producing in Babylonia compositions that unfold a system of creation, is one of long duration. It proceeds under the influence of the intellectual movements that manifest themselves from time to time with the attendant result that, as the conceptions become more definite and more elaborate, they reflect more accurately the aspirations of the various generations engaged in bringing these conceptions to their final form. When finally these beliefs and speculations are committed to writing, it is done in part for the purpose of assuring them a greater degree of permanence, and in part to establish more definitely the doctrines developed in the schools—to define, as it were, the norm of theological and philosophical thought.

In examining, therefore, the cosmological speculations of the Babylonians as they appear in the literary productions, we must carefully distinguish between those portions which are the productions of popular fancy, and therefore old, and those parts[Pg 250] which give evidence of having been worked out in the schools. In a general way, also, we must distinguish between the contents and the form given to the speculations in question. We shall see in due time that a certain amount of historical tradition, however dimmed, has entered into the views evolved in Babylonia regarding the origin of things, inasmuch as the science of origins included for the Babylonians the beginning, not merely of gods, men, animals, and plants, but also of cities and of civilization in general. Still more pronounced is the historical spirit in the case of the epics and legends that here, as everywhere else, grew to even larger proportions, and were modified even after they were finally committed to writing. The great heroes of the past do not perish from the memory of a people, nor does the recollection of great events entirely pass away. In proportion as the traditions of the past become dimmed, the more easily do they lend themselves to a blending with popular myths regarding the phenomena of nature. To this material popularly produced, a literary shape would be given through the same medium that remodeled the popular cosmological speculations. The task would have a more purely literary aspect than that of systematizing the current views regarding the origin and order of things, since it would be free from any doctrinal tendency. The chief motive that would prompt the literati to thus collect the stories of favorite heroes and the traditions and the legends of the past would be—in addition, perhaps, to the pure pleasure of composition—the desire to preserve the stories for future generations, while a minor factor that may have entered into consideration would be the pedagogical one of adding to the material for study that might engage the attention and thoughts of the young aspirants to sacred and secular lore. While the ultimate aim of learning in Babylonia remained for all times a practical one, namely, the ability to act as a scribe or to serve in the cult, to render judicial decisions or to observe the movements of the stars, to[Pg 251] interpret the signs of nature and the like, it was inevitable that through the intellectual activity thus evoked there would arise a spirit of a love of learning for learning's sake, and at all events a fondness for literary pursuits independent of any purely practical purposes served by such pursuits.

In this way we may account for the rise of the several divisions of the religious literature of Babylonia. Before turning to a detailed exposition of each of these divisions, it only remains to emphasize the minor part taken in all these literary labors by the Assyrians. The traditions embodied in the cosmological productions, the epics and legends of Babylonia, are no doubt as much the property of the Assyrians as of their southern cousins, just as the conceptions underlying the incantation texts and the hymns and prayers and omens, though produced in the south, are on the whole identical with those current in the north. Whatever differences we have discovered between the phases of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, as manifested in the north and in the south, are not of a character to affect the questions and views involved in the religious literature. The stamp given to the literary products in this field, taken as a whole, is distinctly Babylonian. It is the spirit of the south that breathes through almost all the religious texts that have as yet been discovered. Only in some of the prayers and oracles and omens that are inserted in the historical inscriptions of Assyrian kings, or have been transmitted independently, do we recognize the work of Assyrian literati, imbued with a spirit peculiar to Assyria. Perhaps, too, in the final shape given to the tales connected with the creation of the gods and of men we may detect an Assyrian influence on Babylonian thought, some concession made at a period of Assyrian supremacy to certain religious conceptions peculiar to the north. But such influences are of an indirect character, and we may accept the statement of Ashurbanabal as literally true that the literature collected by him is a copy of what was found in the great literary archives[Pg 252] of the south—and not only found, but produced there. In imitation of the example set by the south, schools were of a certainty established in Nineveh, Arbela, and elsewhere for the education of priests, scribes, and judges; but we have no evidence to show that they ever developed to the point of becoming intellectually independent of Babylonian models, except perhaps in minor particulars that need not enter into our calculations. This relationship between the intellectual life of Babylonia and Assyria finds its illustration and proof, not merely in the religious literature, but in the religious art and cult which, as we shall see, like the literature, bear the distinct impress of their southern origin, though modified in passing from the south to the north.[Pg 253]

FOOTNOTES:

Index | Next: XVI. The Magical Texts