Lecture VII. The Sacred Books. 381
“Direct the law of the multitudes of mankind!
Thou art eternal righteousness in the heavens!
Thou art of faithful judgment towards all the world!
Thou knowest what is right, thou knowest what is wrong.
O sun-god, righteousness hath lifted up its foot!
O sun-god, wickedness hath been cut down as with a knife!
O sun-god, the minister of Anu and Bel art thou!
O sun-god, the judge supreme of heaven and earth art thou!
O lord of the living creation, the pitiful one (who directest)
the world!
O sun-god, on this day purify and illumine the king the son
of his god!
Whatever worketh evil in his body let it be taken away!
Cleanse him like the goblet of the Zoganes!
Illumine him like a cup of ghee;
like the copper of a polished tablet let him be made bright!
Release him from the ban!”^323The last words illustrate that strange mixture of spiritual
thought and the arts of the sorcerer to which I have more than
once alluded. The hymns to the sun-god were not yet emancipated
from the magical beliefs and ceremonies in which they had had
their origin; they were still incantations rather than hymns in
the modern sense of the word. The collection to which they
belonged must have been used by the class of priests known as
“Chanters”or“Enchanters,”who had succeeded to the sorcerers
and medicine-men of the pre-Semitic past; and the fact explains
how it is that in many of them we have an alternating antiphonal [416]
service, portions of them being recited by the priest and other
portions by the worshipper. In some instances, indeed, the verses
seem to have been alternately intoned by the priest and the
assistant ministers, like the canticles or psalms in the Christian
worship of to-day. The practice had its origin in the magical
(^323) WAI.iv. 28, No. 1.