Note 287.4 — Chapter XIII · Babylonian, Anatolian, and Aegean Ritual.

We must also bear in mind certain striking differences between the Hellenic and the Babylonian cathartic systems. In certain purification-ceremonies of Hellas, those in which the homicide was purged from his stain, the washing with the blood of the piacular victim was the most potent means of grace.287.4 We may find analogies in Vedic, Roman, and Hebraic ritual, but hitherto none have been presented by the religious documents of Babylon, where, as has been already pointed out, scarcely any mystic use appears to have been made of the blood of the victim.288.1 Again, the Babylonian purification included the confession of sins, a purgation unknown and apparently unnatural to the Hellene;288.2 and generally the Babylonian, while most of its methods, like the Hellenic, are modes of transference or physical riddance of impurity, had a higher spiritual and religious significance; for it includes lamentations for sin and prayers to the divinity that are not mentioned in the record of any Greek “katharsis.”