Lecture VII. The Sacred Books. 369
which breathed the later Semitic spirit, and were drawn up
under the supervision of the Babylonian priesthood. Hymns
and even penitential psalms were embodied in them, like the
verses of the Bible or the Quran, which are still used as charms
in Christian and Mohammedan countries; and it is sometimes
difficult to distinguish between the hymn that served merely as
an incantation and the hymn that was chanted in the service
of the gods. Indeed, incantatory formulæ are not unfrequently
intermixed with the words of the hymn or psalm, producing that [403]
grotesque and embarrassing medley of exalted spiritual thought
and stupid superstition which so often meets us in the religious
literature of Babylonia. How late some of the collections are in
the history of Babylonian religion, may be judged from the fact
that a time came when the old Sumerian language was no longer
considered necessary to ensure the efficacy of the charm, and
collections of incantations were made in the Semitic language of
later Babylonia.
Criticism will hereafter have to sift and distinguish these
collections one from the other, and, above all, determine the
earlier and later elements contained in each. At present such
a task is impossible. Few, if any, of the collections have
come down to us in a perfect state; there are many more,
doubtless, which future research will hereafter bring to light; and
as long as we are dependent solely on the copies made for the
library of Nineveh, without being able to compare them with
the older texts of the Babylonian libraries, the primary condition
of scientific investigation is wanting. Nevertheless there are
certain collections which stand out markedly from among the
rest. They display features of greater antiquity, and the animism
presupposed by them is but thinly disguised. It is comparatively
easy to separate in them the newer and older elements, which
have little in common with each other. Most of them point to
Eridu as the source from which they have been derived, though
there are others the origin of which is probably to be sought at