The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

376 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

are written throughout in Semitic Babylonian;^318 and though two
out of the nine books of another collection—that of the Surpu
or“Consuming Fever”—are bilingual, they have been clearly
translated from the more original Babylonian into Sumerian, like
the Latin exercises of to-day.^319 The official canon of the magical
texts, in fact, was long in formation, and did not assume its final
shape until the age of Khammurabi or later, even though its roots
go back to the earliest period of Babylonia, to the age of animism
and the medicine-man, when the Sumerian was still dominant in
the land, and the Semitic nomad or trader was content to learn
from him the elements of civilisation.
The official canon had been collected together from all sides.
Most of the great sanctuaries of the country had probably
contributed to it; in most, if not in all, of them there must
have been magical rituals which had grown up under the care
and supervision of the priesthood, and in which the old beliefs
of the people were disciplined and harmonised with the dogmas
of the State creed. Up to the last, one of the classes into
which the priesthood was divided was known as the Êni or
“Chanters,”whose name was derived from the Sumerianên,
“an incantation.”It is this word which is prefixed to the charms
and incantatory hymns that constitute so integral a part of the
magical texts; and though in course of time it came to denote
little more than“recitation,”it was a recitation which possessed
[411] magical powers, and for which, therefore, a special training
was necessary. A single mistake in pronunciation or intonation,
a single substitution of one word for another, was sufficient to
destroy the charm and necessitate the repetition of the ceremony.

(^318) It has been edited and translated by Tallqvist, Die Assyrische
Beschwörungsserie Maqlû(1894), who calculates that it contained 1550
lines, or more than 9000 words.
(^319) The whole work is in the metrical form characteristic of Semitic Babylonian.
It has been edited by Zimmern,Beiträge zur Kenntniss der babylonischen
Religion; Die Beschwörungstafeln Shurpu(1896).