Note 293.2 — Chapter XIII · Babylonian, Anatolian, and Aegean Ritual.

But before prejudging the question, some salient and peculiar developments of Babylonian magic ought to be considered. One great achievement of Mesopotamian civilisation was the early development of astrology, to which perhaps the whole world has been indebted for good and for evil, and which was associated with magic and put to magic uses. Astrological observation led to the attachment of a magic value to numbers and to certain special numbers, such as number seven. Whether the Judaic name and institution of the Sabbath is of Babylonian origin or not, does not concern our question. But it concerns us to know that the seventh days, the 14th, the 21st, and 28th of certain months, if not of all, were sacred at Babylon, and were days of penance and piacular duties when ordinary occupation was suspended.293.2 We can discern the origin of the sanctity of this number: the observation of the seven planets, and the division of the lunar month into four quarters of seven days. The early Greeks, doubtless, had their astrological superstitions, as most races have had; the new moon is naturally lucky, the waning moon unlucky; but no one can discover any numerical or other principle in the Hesiodic system, which is our earliest evidence of Hellenic lucky and unlucky days. His scheme is presented in naïve confusion, and he concludes humorously, “one man praises one day, one another, and few know anything about it.”294.1 His page of verse reflects the anarchy of the Greek calendars; and we should find it hard to credit that either Hesiod or the legislators that drew up those had sat attentively at the feet of Babylonian teachers. But a few coincidences may be noted. Hesiod puts a special tabu on the fifth day of the month; in fact, it is the only one in his list that is wholly unlucky, a day when it would seem to be best to do nothing at all, at least outside the house, for on this day the Erinyes are wandering about.294.2 Now, a Babylonian text published by Dr. Langdon contains the dogma that on the fifth day of Nisan “he who fears Marduk and Zarpanit shall not go out to work.”294.3 This Babylonian rule is the earliest example of what may be strictly called Sabbatarianism, abstinence from work through fear of offending the high god. Such would probably not be the true account of Hellenic feeling concerning the “forbidden days,” which were called ἀποφράδες or μιαραί.294.4 The high god had issued to the Hellene no moral commandment about “keeping the Sabbath-day holy”; his reluctance to do certain work on certain days rested on a more primitive sentiment concerning them. Thus it was unlucky both for himself and the city that Alcibiades should return to the Piraeus when the Plynteria were going on; for this latter was a cathartic ceremony, and evil influences were abroad. Nor, as Xenophon declares, would any one venture to engage in a serious work on this day.295.1 Nor were these μιαραὶ ᾑμέραι, like the seventh days of the Babylonian months, necessarily days of gloom when offended deities had to be propitiated; on the contrary, the day of Χόες was a day of merry drinking and yet μιαρά: in fact, we best understand the latter phrase by translating it “tabooed,” rather than “sad” or “gloomy.”295.2