y to pass over
into the region of secular thought for illustrations of the religious
beliefs. Bearing this in mind, we may set up a fivefold division of the
religious literature of the Babylonians in the stricter sense: (1) the
magical texts, (2) the hymns and prayers, (3) omens and forecasts, (4)
the cosmology, (5) epics and legends. It will be apparent that the first
three divisions represent a practical part of the literature, while the
two latter are of a more purely literary character. The magical texts,
as well as the hymns and prayers and omens, we can well imagine were
produced as circumstances called them forth, and one can also understand
how they should, at an early age, have been committed to writing. The
incantations serving the practical purpose already referred to of
securing a control over the spirit, it will be readily seen that such as
had demonstrated their effectiveness would become popular. The desire
would arise to preserve them for future generations. With that natural
tendency of loose custom to become fixed law, these incantations would
come to be permanently associated with certain temples. Rituals would
thus arise. The incantation would be committed to writing so that one
generation of priests might be certain of furnishing orthodox
instruction to the other; and, once written, they would form part of the
temple archives, finding a place in these archives by the side of the
contract tablets, for which the sacred edifices of the country also
served as depositories. The large quantity of incantation texts that
have been found in Ashurbanabal's library,[340] as well as the
variations and contrasts they present when compared with one another,
are probably due to the various sources whence the scribes of the king,
who were sent to the libraries of the south, collected their material.
It is only reasonable to suppose that each great temple acquired in the
course of time a ritual of its own, which, while perhaps not differing
in any essential points from that introduced in another place, yet
deviated from it sufficiently to impart to it a character of its own. In
the case of some of the texts that have been preserved, it is still
possible to determine through certain traits that they exhibit in what
religious center they were produced. With considerable more guarantee of
accuracy can this be done in the case of the hymns and prayers.
Addressed as the latter were to certain deities, it stands to reason