In thus comparing the two religions according to their respective
conceptions of divine power, we note two striking phenomena in the
Eastern world. The Mesopotamian gods are magicians, and part of their
work is worked by magic. Marduk and Ea, the wise deity of Eridu, serve
as exorcisers of demons in behalf of the other gods.[176.1] In a
panegyric on the former, the strange phrase occurs, “the spittle of
life is thine,”[176.2] which probably alludes to the well-known
magical qualities of the saliva. Eridu, the home of Ea, was also the
original home of Chaldean magic. When in the early cosmic struggle
between the powers of light and darkness, Tiamat, the mother and queen
of the latter, selects her champion Qingou as leader, she proclaims,
“I have pronounced thy magic formula, in the assembly of the gods I
have made thee great.”[176.3] In magic, great is the power of the
spoken word, the λόγος; and the Word, of which the efficacious force
arose in the domain of magic, has been exalted, as we are well aware,
by higher religion to a great cosmic divine agency, sometimes
personified. It was so exalted in early Babylonian religion. The deity
acts and controls the order of the world by the divine Word. Many of
the Sumerian hymns lay stress on its quasi-personal virtue or “mana”;
and often on its terrible and destructive operation; and in one, as we
have seen, the goddess Nana is identified with the Word of
Enlil.[176.4] In a great hymn to Sin,[176.5] the might of his Word
is glorified in verses that recall the Psalmist’s phrase: “The voice
of the Lord is mighty {177} in operation.” The Word of Bel-Marduk is
said to be stronger than any exorciser or diviner, and is the theme of
a special hymn.[177.1] It is described in another as “a net of
majesty that encompasseth heaven and earth.” The Word of Marduk shakes
the sea,[177.2] as the Hebrew poet declares that “the voice of the
Lord shaketh the cedar-trees.” “The spirit of the Word is Enlil… the
Word which stilleth the heavens above… a prophet it hath not, a
magician it hath not,”[177.3]--that is, no prophet can fully
interpret, no magician can control, the Word. A most potent word is
the name of the divinity, and the partial apotheosis of the name
itself is a strange religious phenomenon, which also originated in the
domain of magic, and has played a momentous part in the Egyptian,
Judaic, Christian, and other high religions.[177.4] It appears also
in Mesopotamian religion. In a hymn to Enlil we find the phrase: “at
thy name, which created the world, the heavens were hushed of
themselves.”[177.5] In the Babylonian poem of creation the primal
state of Chaos is thus described, “no god had yet been created, no
name had yet been named, no destiny fixed.”[177.6] The gods name the
fifty names of Ninib, and the name of fifty becomes sacred to him, so
that even in the time of Gudea a temple was actually dedicated to
Number Fifty.[177.7]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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