The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

368 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

or explaining them in accordance with the orthodox creed; so
too in ancient Babylonia, the primeval animism of the people
was tacitly recognised by the religion of the State, and given an
official sanction. There was no declaration of hostility towards it
such as was made by the religion of Israel; on the contrary, the
old incantations were preserved and modernised, and the sanctity
with which they had been invested allowed to remain unimpaired.
At the same time, they were harmonised, so far as could be, with
the official creed. The gods of the State religion were introduced
into them, and to these gods appeal was made rather than to“the
spirit of heaven”and“the spirit of earth.”The spirits and ghosts
[402] of the night existed, indeed, but from henceforth they had to be
subservient to the deities of the official faith. It was no longer the
medicine-man, but the priest of the Semitic deity, who recited
the incantation for the suppliant and the sufferer.
We can almost trace the growth of what I will term the Book
of Incantations down to the time when it assumed its final form.
It was no Book, however, in the proper sense of the term, and
it is doubtful whether all the collections which might have been
comprised in it were ever combined together. But it is convenient
to speak of it in the singular, so long as we remember that this is
merely a mode of speech.
As a matter of fact, each great sanctuary seems to have had
its own collection. These were added to from time to time; some
of them were amalgamated together, or parts belonging to one
collection were incorporated into another. Spells which had been
found effective in warding off disease or preventing evil, were
introduced into a collection which related to the same subject,
whatever may have been their source, and the list of gods invoked
was continually being enlarged, in the hope that some one at least
among them might give the sufferer relief. The older collections
were modified in accordance with the requirements of the State
religion, and the animism that inspired them accommodated to
the orthodox belief; while new collections came into existence