Lecture VII. The Sacred Books. 377
Some of the incantations had even to be recited in a whisper,
like certain parts of the Roman missal; and a whole series or
collection is accordingly termed the ritual of“the whispered
charm,”reminding us of the passage in the Book of Isaiah where
the prophet refers to“the wizards that peep and that mutter.”^320
By the side of the“Book of Incantations”—whether it ever
existed or not—there was another sacred book containing hymns
to the gods. Here, again, it is more than doubtful whether
the various collections of hymns compiled for use in the great
sanctuaries of the country were ever combined together and
incorporated into a single volume. The tendency to religious
centralisation and unification in Babylonia was arrested before
it could produce in religion what the seventy-two books of
the“Illumination of Bel”were for astronomy and astrology, a
compilation in which the observations of the past were collected
and brought together.^321 , the real translation may be “when
(enu-ma) Bel,”rather than “Illumination (namaru) of Bel,”
these having been the opening words of the first tablet. Since,
however, it was translated into Greek by Berossos as a work of
“Bel”(Seneca,Quæst. Nat.iii. 29), the name assigned to it in
the text is on the whole to be preferred.
Babylon, despite its political predominance, never succeeded in
absorbing the religious cults of the more venerable sanctuaries
of the country; the historical conservatism of the people was too
strong, and even Nabonidos was forced to lavish gifts on the
shrine of the sun-god at Sippara as well as upon that of Merodach [412]
at Babylon. The priesthood of Babylon were content to be chief
among their peers; there was no monotheistic zeal to sweep
away the rival temples, and the intensely localised character
of Babylonian religion prevented the rise of monotheism. And
(^320) Isa. viii. 19. The beginning, for instance, of the second book of the Maqlû
collection had to be recited in a whisper before a wax image.
(^321) As the title of the latter work is sometimes written UD-MA AN EN-LIL{FNS
as well as UD AN EN-LIL{FNS