Note 176.1 — Chapter X · The Concept of Divine Power and the Ancient Cosmogonies.

In thus comparing the two religions according to their respective conceptions of divine power, we note two striking phenomena in the Eastern world. The Mesopotamian gods are magicians, and part of their work is worked by magic. Marduk and Ea, the wise deity of Eridu, serve as exorcisers of demons in behalf of the other gods.176.1 In a panegyric on the former, the strange phrase occurs, “the spittle of life is thine,”176.2 which probably alludes to the well-known magical qualities of the saliva. Eridu, the home of Ea, was also the original home of Chaldean magic. When in the early cosmic struggle between the powers of light and darkness, Tiamat, the mother and queen of the latter, selects her champion Qingou as leader, she proclaims, “I have pronounced thy magic formula, in the assembly of the gods I have made thee great.”176.3 In magic, great is the power of the spoken word, the λόγος; and the Word, of which the efficacious force arose in the domain of magic, has been exalted, as we are well aware, by higher religion to a great cosmic divine agency, sometimes personified. It was so exalted in early Babylonian religion. The deity acts and controls the order of the world by the divine Word. Many of the Sumerian hymns lay stress on its quasi-personal virtue or “mana”; and often on its terrible and destructive operation; and in one, as we have seen, the goddess Nana is identified with the Word of Enlil.176.4 In a great hymn to Sin,176.5 the might of his Word is glorified in verses that recall the Psalmist’s phrase: “The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation.” The Word of Bel-Marduk is said to be stronger than any exorciser or diviner, and is the theme of a special hymn.177.1 It is described in another as “a net of majesty that encompasseth heaven and earth.” The Word of Marduk shakes the sea,177.2 as the Hebrew poet declares that “the voice of the Lord shaketh the cedar-trees.” “The spirit of the Word is Enlil… the Word which stilleth the heavens above… a prophet it hath not, a magician it hath not,”177.3—that is, no prophet can fully interpret, no magician can control, the Word. A most potent word is the name of the divinity, and the partial apotheosis of the name itself is a strange religious phenomenon, which also originated in the domain of magic, and has played a momentous part in the Egyptian, Judaic, Christian, and other high religions.177.4 It appears also in Mesopotamian religion. In a hymn to Enlil we find the phrase: “at thy name, which created the world, the heavens were hushed of themselves.”177.5 In the Babylonian poem of creation the primal state of Chaos is thus described, “no god had yet been created, no name had yet been named, no destiny fixed.”177.6 The gods name the fifty names of Ninib, and the name of fifty becomes sacred to him, so that even in the time of Gudea a temple was actually dedicated to Number Fifty.177.7