The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

The incantations naturally shade off into prayers. Frequently they are prayers pure and simple. Powerful as the sacred formulas were supposed to be, the ultimate appeal of the sufferer is to the gods. Upon their favor it ultimately depends whether the mystic power contained in the sacred words uttered shall manifest itself to the benefit of the supplicant or not. While it is proper, therefore, to distinguish incantations from prayers, the combination of the two could scarcely be avoided by the priests, who, rising in a measure superior to the popular beliefs, felt it to be inconsistent with a proper regard for the gods not to give them a superior place in the magical texts. The addition, to the sacred formulas, of prayers directly addressed to certain gods may be put down as due to the adaptation of ancient texts to the needs of a later age; and, on the other hand, the addition of incantations to what appear to have been originally prayers, pure and simple, is a concession made to the persistent belief in the efficacy of certain formulas when properly uttered. Such combinations of prayers and incantations constituted, as would appear, a special class of religious texts; and, in the course of further editing,[415] a number of prayers addressed to various deities were combined and interspersed with incantation and ceremonial directions which were to accompany the prayers.