The Mythology of Babylonia and Assyria. Donald A. Mackenzie

Читать онлайн.
Название The Mythology of Babylonia and Assyria
Автор произведения Donald A. Mackenzie
Жанр Социология
Серия
Издательство Социология
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066399191



Скачать книгу

the saliva cure for king's evil, which is still, by the way, practised in the Hebrides. Like Pliny, Scot recommended ceremonial spitting as a charm against witchcraft.54 In China spitting to expel demons is a common practice. We still call a hasty person a "spitfire", and a calumniator a "spit-poison".

      The life principle in trees, &c., as we have seen, was believed to have been derived from the tears of deities. In India sap was called the "blood of trees", and references to "bleeding trees" are still widespread and common. "Among the ancients", wrote Professor Robertson Smith, "blood is generally conceived as the principle or vehicle of life, and so the account often given of sacred waters is that the blood of the deity flows in them. Thus as Milton writes:

      Smooth Adonis from his native rock

       Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

       Of Thammuz yearly wounded.

      Paradise Lost, i, 450.

      In Babylonia the river was regarded as the source of the life blood and the seat of the soul. No doubt this theory was based on the fact that the human liver contains about a sixth of the blood in the body, the largest proportion required by any single organ. Jeremiah makes "Mother Jerusalem" exclaim: "My liver is poured upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people", meaning that her life is spent with grief.

      But while most Babylonians appear to have believed that the life principle was in blood, some were apparently of opinion that it was in breath--the air of life. A man died when he ceased to breathe; his spirit, therefore, it was argued, was identical with the atmosphere--the moving wind--and was accordingly derived from the atmospheric or wind god. When, in the Gilgamesh epic, the hero invokes the dead Ea-bani, the ghost rises up like a "breath of wind". A Babylonian charm runs:

      The gods which seize on men

       Came forth from the grave;

       The evil wind gusts

       Have come forth from the grave,

       To demand payment of rites and the pouring out of libations

       They have come forth from the grave;

       All that is evil in their hosts, like a whirlwind,

      Figure III.1. WORSHIP OF THE MOON GOD Cylinder-Seal ol Khashkhamer, Patesi of Ishkun-Sin (in North Babylonia), and vassal of Ur-Engur, King of Ur. (c. 2400 B.C.)

      Figure III.2. WINGED MAN-HEADED LION In Marble. From N.W. Palace of Nimrou

      It is possible, of course, that fire was regarded as the vital principle by some city cults, which were influenced by imported ideas. If so, the belief never became prevalent. The most enduring influence in Babylonian religion was the early Sumerian; and as Sumerian modes of thought were the outcome of habits of life necessitated by the character of the country, they were bound, sooner or later, to leave a deep impress on the minds of foreign peoples who settled in the Garden of Western Asia. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that imported deities assumed Babylonian characteristics, and were identified or associated with Babylonian gods in the later imperial pantheon.

      Moon worship appears to have been as ancient as water worship,