*

pal: Ishtar of Arbela appears to them, and says, “I march in front of Assurbanipal, the king whom my hands made;" and they rejoice. There are a multitude of vindictive passages. We meet with the prayer to the gods: "Mightily may they injure him, and (with) a grievous curse quickly curse him." The literature is full of rhythmic imprecatory charms, transla-: tions of Accadian originals, made as early as 1600 B.C. Exorcisms are used to avert such enchantments. There were different schools of priests, who "disputed at their learned discussions about the pre-eminence of their divinities and the efficacy of their sacrifices."+ Rich gifts are offered to the gods and perfect sacrifices, as "white lambs," are sacrificed. The gods give soundness of heart, soundness of flesh, healthy days, extended years, a scepter of justice, a lasting throne." The sun-god, "the mighty eye," is supplicated to "remove our sin."§ Again we meet with the prayer, "May they pardon my sin, my wickedness, (and) my transgression." The Accadians believed that the gods visited only the highest parts of the earth, hence the lofty eminences upon which they worshiped. The seat of the gods was the "Mountain of the East," the "Mountain of the World," like the Greek Olympus and the Hindu Meru.

The Assyrians believe in future rewards. The good man is escorted to the home of the gods by the guardian deities. That he may better pass through the judgment that awaits him, he is permitted to eat from sacred plates and drink celestial waters from sacred vessels. After having been found without fault before the gods, "the goddess Anat, the great spouse of Anu," protects him "with her sacred hands." Then lau transports him into "a place of delights" in "the land of the silver sky," where he is provided with delicious food and the water of eternal life, and where he sings his song of "thanksgiving." ¶ The Assyrians believe in the efficacy of sacred texts or phylacteries, talismans, and amulets. Sanduarri, king of Kundi and Sitzu, who contends against Esarhaddon, writes the names of the "great gods side by side," and trusts in their power, perhaps wearing them upon his person.* person.** Images of the gods are

*Records of the Past," vol,i, p. 85.

Ibid., vol. xi, pp. 17, 82. Ibid., vol. ix, p. 151, Sayce. **Ibid., vol. iii, p. 112.

Ibid., vol. ix, p. 18.

Ibid., vol. xi, p. 83, Sayce. ¶ Ibid., vol. xi, pp. 161, 162, Havely.

placed on either side of the door to guard, from disease. Holy texts are also used for the same purpose. They are sometimes bound about the statues of the gods or the head of the sick man.* This may be largely an inheritance from the earlier Accadian magic.

Human sacrifices are offered-sometimes the sacrifice of the first-born. Micah vi, 7. "The Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adramelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim." 2 Kings xvii, 31. We have already noticed the recovery of the two cities of Sippara, the cities of Sepharvaim. Important literary treasures have been recovered by this discovery. The Sepharvites and men of Cutha had been transplanted to Samaria by Sargon. 2 Kings xvii, 24-31. Adrammelech was probably "fire-king," an epithet of the sun-god. The latter element of the names is melech, king-the infamous "Moloch." Anammelech was a name of Anunit, a name so changed probably in contempt. Monumental information confirms the statement of Herodotus of the annual auction of young girls at Babylon.

It is a common punishment to throw the criminals into a furnace or den of lions or among wild bulls. This we learn from the annals of Assurbanipal. Thus Daniel is powerfully confirmed. The following judgment of Lenormant, at least, as "regards the foundation of the work," will be appreciated :

The language of the book of Daniel, interspersed as it is in various places with Greek words, proves without doubt that the definitive translation, as we possess it, is posterior to the time of Alexander. But the foundation of the work dates much farther back; it is tinged with a very decided Babylonian tint, and certain features of the life at the court of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors are there pictured with a truth and exactitude to which a writer a few centuries later could hardly have attained.

Portions of three books of magic have been discovered corresponding exactly to the three classes of Chaldean doctors which Daniel names together with the astrologers and divines.†

More horrible cruelty is shown in the following inscription: "If the son(s) of Sippara, of Nipur, and of Babylon, their children to war-horses offering, (let) war-horses upon their children feed, upon the watch the enemy descend, their soldiers are slain,

"Records of the Past," vol. iii, p. 142.

FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXV.-19

"Chaldean Magic," p. 14.

(their) armies and men are slaughtered, the god of famine (devours) his soldiers for food, the face of his soldiers he dismays, and with him goes." (Diomedes, son of Mars and Cyrene, king of the Biscares of Thrace, fed his mares on human flesh. He was slain by Hercules, and was devoured by the same mares, which then became tame.)

Assyrian conquests were carried on with all manner of cruelties. The dead were beheaded and the heads stacked. The bodies were thrown in heaps or left scattered upon the field. The living were mutilated. Eyes were plucked out; hands, ears, noses, cut off; many were flayed alive. Their laws were most severe. Criminals were cast into furnaces, or thrown to lions and mad bulls. Their religion was full of all cruelties. Human sacrifices were offered, and women prostituted in their temples.

The Assyrian religion was not unlike that of other branches of the Semitic race. There were the same gods worshiped by the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Himyarites, Arabians, and Edomites. Wherever our information is sufficiently full we meet with the same cruelties. The Phoenician religion is defined by Movers as "an apotheosis of the forces and laws of nature, an adoration of the objects in which these forces were seen, and where they appeared most active." "Terror was the inherent principle of this religion," says Creuzer; "all its rites were blood-stained, and all its ceremonies were surrounded by gloomy images. When we consider the abstinences, the voluntary tortures, and, above all, the horrible sacrifices imposed as a duty on the living, we no longer wonder that they envied the repose of the dead. This religion silenced all the best feelings of human nature, degraded men's minds by a superstition alternately cruel and profligate, and we may seek in vain for any influence for good it could have exercised on the nation." Lenormant agrees with these writers when he says: "Round this religious system gathered, in the external and public worship, a host of frightful debaucheries, orgies, and prostitutions. The Canaanites were remarkable for the atrocious cruelty that stamped all the ceremonies of their worship and the precepts of their religion."+"All the atrocities of the Phoenician worship were practiced at Carthage, particu

"Records of the Past," vol. vii, p. 121, Sayce. +" "Ancient Hist. East," vol. ii, pp. 222, 223.

larly the burning of children. These barbarous sacrifices took place every year, and were frightfully multiplied on the occasion of public calamities, in order to appease the wrath of the gods."

The Scripture estimate of the character of the Assyrians is fully confirmed by the monuments. The Scriptures call them "a fierce people,” (Isa. xxxiii, 19,) and their city “a bloody city, full of lies and robbery." Nah. iii, 1. They are violent and treacherous, covenant-breakers, who "despise the cities and regard no man." Isa. xxxiii, 1, 8. Their pride calls down upon them the divine wrath. Ezek. xxxi, 10, 11; Isa. x, 7-14; xxxvii, 24-28; Zeph. ii, 15. Their national emblem is a lion that "tears in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangles for his lioness, and fills his holes with prey, and his dens with raven." Nahum ii, 11-13. When Nineveh repented under the preaching of Jonah, it was by turning from evil and violence. Jonah iii, 8.

The following curse is pronounced against him who removes his neighbors' landmarks:

If a leader, not of low degree, if a citizen shall this plot of land injure or destroy the boundary-stone so that it shall not be conspicuous, shall remove this stone (here) placed, whether an injurious person or a brother, whether as one who would take it away, whether as an evil person, whether as an enemy or any other person, or the son of the owner of the land, shall act falsely, shall tamper with it, into water, into fire shall cast it, with a stone shall break it, from the hand of Merodach-zakir-iskur, and from his seed shall remove it, whether above or below shall break it in pieces, may the gods Anu, Bel, Hea, Ninip, and Gula, the lords of this land, and all the gods whose memorials are made known on this tablet, violently make his name desolate; with unspeakable curse may they curse him; with utter desolation may they desolate him; may they gather his posterity together for evil and not for good; until the day of the departure of his life may he come to ruin, while the gods Shamas and Marduk rend him asunder; and may his name be trodden down.f

Probably the Assyrians believed that such curses had power within themselves, in the very words used, to work out their own fulfillment.

"Ancient Hist. East," vol. ii, p. 280.

+Inscription of Merodach-Baladan IV., "Records of the Past," vol. ix, pp. 35, 36, Rodwell. Cf. Num. xxii, 5, 7.

The following prayer the loyal subject offered in behalf of

The bounds vast and wide of his empire,
And of his rule,

May he enlarge and may he complete;

Holding over all kings supremacy,

And royalty, and empire,

May he attain to gray hairs and old age.

And after the life of these days,

In the feast of the silver mountains, the heavenly courts,

The abode of blessedness;

And in the light

Of the Happy Fields,

May he dwell a life

Eternal, holy,

In the presence of the gods.

Who inhabit Assyria.*

The soul of the departed, like a bird with shining wings, soars away to the skies. In heaven the good man is clothed. in white raiment, and is fed by the gods in the company of the blest with celestial food and ambrosial drinks.

If we cannot deny some beauty to the prayer just given, we must allow a spirit of devotion as the inspiration of the rules for prayer which we take from an old liturgical collection:

Pray thou, pray thou!
Before the couch pray!
Before the throne pray!

Before the canopy pray!

Before the nadni, the dwelling of lofty head, pray!

Before the light of dawn pray

Before the fire pray!

Before the dawn pray!

By the tablets and books pray!

By the fire and . . . pray!

By the hearth pray!

"Records of the Past," vol. iii, pp. 133, 134, Talbot.