The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

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]

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 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]

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, 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.

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.