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The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria
By Morris Jastrow

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PRAYERS AND HYMNS.

From what has just been said, it follows that the step from magical formulas to prayers and hymns is but a small one, and does not, indeed, carry with it the implication of changed or higher religious conceptions. While the incantation texts in their entirety may be regarded as the oldest fixed ritual of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, there were occasions even in the oldest period of Babylonian history when the gods were approached in prayer without the accompaniment of magic formulas. Such occasions were the celebration of festivals in honor of the gods, the dedication of temples or of sacred statues, and the completion of such purely secular undertakings as the building of a canal. Gudea, we are told, upon completing a statue to his god Nin-girsu, prayed: 'O King, whose great strength the land cannot endure (?); Nin-girsu! grant to Gudea, who has built this house, a good fate.'[416] As in the earliest, so in the latest, period, the Babylonian kings approach the gods in prayer upon completing their great sacred edifices. The prayers of Nebuchadnezzar are particularly fine—remarkable, indeed, for their diction and elevation of thought. Upon completing the restoration of a temple to Nin-karrak or Gula in Sippar, he prays:[417]

A prayer of the same king addressed to Shamash, upon restoring the great temple at Sippar, E-babbara, runs:[418]

Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions are characterized by the prayer with which they almost invariably close. Whether erecting a sanctuary or building a canal or improving the walls of Babylon, he does not fail to add to the description of his achievements a prayer to some deity, in which he asks for divine grace and the blessings of long life and prosperity.

There were other occasions, too, in which, both in ancient times and in more modern periods, prayers were sent up to the gods. Kudur-mabuk, of the second dynasty of Ur, informs us that he built a temple, E-nun-makh, to Sin in gratitude to the god for having hearkened to his prayer.

The Assyrian kings pray to Ashur or Ishtar before the battle, and offer thanks after the victory has been gained. "O goddess of Arbela!" says Ashurbanabal,[419] "I am Ashurbanabal, the king of Assyria, the product of thy hands, created by thee in[Pg 296] the house of my father. To renew the sanctuaries of Assyria, and to enlarge the cities of Babylonia, ... have I devoted myself to thy dwelling-places, and have steadfastly worshipped thy sovereignty.... Hearken unto me! O thou mistress of mistresses, supreme in battle, mistress of the fray, queen of the gods, ... who speakest good things in the presence of Ashur, the father, that produced thee. Teumman, king of Elam, has arrayed his army and fixed upon battle, brandishes his weapons to proceed against Assyria. Do thou now, O warrior, like ... drive him into the midst of the fray, pursue him with a storm, with an evil wind." Ishtar, the narrative tells us, hearkened to the fervent words of the king. "Be not afraid," says the goddess to her royal subject. Elsewhere the same king prays more briefly to Ashur and Ishtar. "May his corpse [viz., of a certain enemy] be cast before his enemy [i.e., before Ashurbanabal], and his remains be carried off."[420]

Upon ascending the throne, we find Nebuchadnezzar addressing a fervent prayer to the great god Marduk:

The curses also with which so many of the historical texts of Babylonia and Assyria close may be regarded as prayers. We are also justified in assuming that the offering of sacrifices,[Pg 297] which formed at all times an essential feature of the cult, both in Babylonia and Assyria, was always accompanied by some form of prayer addressed to some deity or to a group of deities. In view of all this, no sharp chronological line, any more than a logical one, can be drawn marking off the incantation formulas from the hymns and prayers pure and simple. The conceptions formed of the gods in the incantation texts are precisely those which we have found to be characteristic of them in the period when this phase of the religion reached its highest development. Ea is the protector of humanity, Shamash the lord of justice; and, if certain ideas that in the prayers are attached to the gods—as wisdom to Sin—are absent from the incantations, it may be regarded rather as an accident than as an indication of any difference of conception. The pantheon too, barring the omission of certain gods, is the same that we find it to be in the historical texts, and the order in which the gods are enumerated corresponds quite closely with the rank accorded to them in the inscriptions of the kings. What variations there are are not sufficiently pronounced to warrant any conclusions. All this points, as has been emphasized several times, to the subsequent remodeling of the texts in question. It is true that we find more traces of earlier and purely mythological notions in the incantations than in the hymns and prayers, but such notions are by no means foreign to the latter. Even in those religious productions of Babylonia which represent the flower of religious thought, we meet with views that reflect a most primitive mode of thought. The proper view, therefore, to take of the prayers and hymns is to regard them as twin productions to the magical texts, due to the same conceptions of the power of the gods, an emanation of the same religious spirit, and produced at the same time that the incantation rituals enjoyed popular favor and esteem, and without in any way interfering with the practice of the rites that these rituals involved.[Pg 298]

This position does not of course preclude that among the prayers and hymns that have been preserved there are some betraying a loftier spirit, a higher level of religious thought, and more pronounced ethical tendencies than others. Indeed, the one important result of the dissociation of the address to the gods from the purely practical magic rites was to produce the conditions favorable to a development of higher religious thought. An offering of praise to the gods, whether it was for victory granted or for a favor shown, called forth the best and purest sentiments of which the individual was capable. Freed from all lower associations, such an act proved an incentive to view the deity addressed from his most favorable side, to emphasize those phases which illustrated his affection for his worshippers, his concern for their needs, his discrimination, and not merely his power and strength. In short, the softer and the more humane aspects of the religion would thus be brought out. The individual would address his god in terms betraying his affection, and would couple with him attributes that would reflect the worshipper's rather than the god's view of the purpose and aim of existence. Whatever powers of idealization there lay in the worshipper's nature would be brought into the foreground by the intellectual effort involved in giving expression to his best thoughts, when aiming to come into close communion with a power upon which he felt himself dependent. For an understanding, therefore, of the ethical tendencies of the Babylonian religion, an appreciation of the prayers and hymns is of prime importance; and we shall presently see that, as a matter of fact, the highest level of ethical and religious thought is reached in some of these hymns.

The prayers of Nebuchadnezzar represent, perhaps, the best that has been attained in this branch of religious literature. Returning, for a moment, to the dedication prayer to Marduk, addressed by the king on the occasion of his mounting the[Pg 299] throne,[423] one cannot fail to be struck by the high sense of the importance of his station with which the king is inspired. Sovereignty is not a right that he can claim—it is a trust granted to him by Marduk. He holds his great office not for purposes of self-glorification, but for the benefit of his subjects. In profound humility he confesses that what he has he owes entirely to Marduk. He asks to be guided so that he may follow the path of righteousness. Neither riches nor power constitute his ambition, but to have the fear of his lord in his heart. Such a plane of thought is never reached in the incantation texts. For all that, the original dependence of the prayers and hymns upon incantation formulas, tinges even the best productions. Some of the finest hymns, in which elevated thoughts are elaborated with considerable skill, reveal their origin by having incantations attached to them. Again, others which are entirely independent productions are full of allusions to sickness, demons, and sorcerers, that show the outgrowth of the hymns from the incantations; and none are entirely free from traces of the conceptions that are characteristic of the incantation texts. The essential difference between these two classes of closely related texts may be summed up in the proposition that the religious thought which produced them both is carried to a higher point of elaboration in the hymns. The prayers and hymns represent the attempt of the Babylonian mind to free itself from a superstitious view of the relationship of man to the powers around him; an attempt, but—it must be added—an unsuccessful one.

It is rather unfortunate that many of the hymns found in the library of Ashurbanabal are in so fragmentary a condition. As a consequence we are frequently unable to determine more than their general contents. The colophons generally are missing,—at least in those hymns hitherto published,[424]—so[Pg 300] that we are left in the dark as to the special occasion for which the hymn was composed. Without this knowledge it is quite impossible to assign to it any definite date except upon internal evidence. In the course of time, the hymnal literature of the great temples of Babylonia must have grown to large proportions, and, in collecting them, some system was certainly followed by the priests engaged in this work. There is evidence of a collection having been made at some time of hymns addressed to Shamash. Some of these were intended as a salute upon the sun's rising, others celebrated his setting. These hymns convey the impression of having been composed for the worship of the god in one of his great temples—perhaps in E-babbara, at Sippar. We have several hymns also addressed to Marduk, and one can well suppose that at the great temple E-sagila, in Babylon, a collection of Marduk hymns must have been prepared, and so for others of the great gods. But, again, many of the hymns convey the impression of being merely sporadic productions—composed for certain occasions, and without any reference to a possible position in a ritual.

Of the hymns so far published, those to Shamash are probably the finest. The conception of the sun-god as the judge of mankind lent itself readily to an ethical elaboration. Accordingly, we find in these hymns justice and righteousness as the two prominent themes. A striking passage in one of these hymns reads:[425]

After a break in the tablet, the hymn continues:

The following lines now reveal the purpose of the hymn. It is a prayer for the life of the king:

The next few lines are a distinct echo of the incantation formulas, and show how readily prayer passes from a higher to a lower stage of thought:

The same incantation occurs at the close of another hymn to Shamash, addressed to the sun upon his rising.[428] The colophon furnishes the opening line of the next tablet, which also begins with an address to Shamash. We have here a clear indication of a kind of Shamash ritual extending, perhaps, over a number of tablets, and to which, in all probability, the hymn just quoted also belongs.

The opening lines of the second hymn read:

[Pg 302] It would be difficult to believe, but for the express testimony furnished by the hymn itself, that a production giving evidence of such a lofty view of the sun-god should, after all, be no more than an incantation. The same is the case, however, with all the Shamash hymns so far published. They either expressly or by implication form part of an incantation ritual. Evidently, then, such addresses to Shamash are to be viewed in no other light than the exaltation of Nusku in the 'Maklu' series,[429] and which we have found were in many cases elaborate, beautiful in diction, and elevated in thought. So—to give one more example—a hymn addressed to the sun-god at the setting, and which is especially interesting because of the metaphors chosen to describe the sun's course, is proved by the colophon to be again an incantation. It belongs to a series—perhaps, indeed, to the same as the specimens furnished:[430]

In the previous chapter, the hymns addressed to the moon-god in connection with eclipses have been referred to and short[Pg 303] specimens given. A more elaborate hymn to Sin will further illustrate the conceptions current about this deity:[434]

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[Pg 305] 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,[Pg 306] 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]

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[Pg 307] 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]

[Pg 308] 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

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

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

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[Pg 309] hymn closes, as so many others, with a prayer on behalf of the king. The god is asked

'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 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[Pg 310] 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:

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

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[Pg 311] the priest and the chorus. In the section that follows, this alternative character of the lines is more clearly indicated:

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

[Pg 312]FOOTNOTES:

Index | Next: XVIII. Penitential Psalms