Religions of the Ancient Near East by Snell

Author:Snell [Snell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780511987922
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011-01-31T22:00:00+00:00

10 Gods and People

We already participate in the still rather imperfect life of the universe through morality, science and art. Religions are the abbreviated and popular forms of this participation; therein rests their sanctity.

– Ernest Renan, Dialogues 126–7 (in H. Peyre, Sagesse de Renan, 1968, 38)

He had awakened early, as he had planned. He climbed up to the roof, and the patient lamb was still where he had moored her the night before, drowsing near the scattering of grass that grew on the roof. She looked healthy; the gods would care about that.

He looked out over the city again, and all was calm and dark. Only his keen eyesight could discern the two-story buildings near the greater temples and the meandering streets leading down to the river. Because he was in a large city, however, some people could be seen beginning to go about their business, some with small oil lamps to light the way. He did not need a lamp; he only needed his knife.

He drew the lamb over toward the edge of the roof; she seemed to fall back asleep as he laid her down. Then he drew himself up and assumed the attitude of prayer, with both hands in front of his face, which was turned to the wheeling stars overhead. He had been paid in advance by the minister of the king himself; that official needed to know whether it was propitious to begin negotiations of peace with the neighboring kingdom, and he wanted the answer read in a still pulsing sheep's liver. The official was himself still asleep, of course, but the liver expert prepared himself to pose the question.

After his proper prayer, he bent down, ended the lamb's life, and pulled forth her liver. Yes, it seemed to indicate, according to the lore he had learned, it was propitious to proceed.

***

We have preserved a poem that reflects these events, beginning with a description of the quiet and dark city, saying that the great gods too had gone away for the night. And the sun-god, invoked as a judge, also was not available. But the diviner called on stars and the gods represented by them and asked them, “Stand by me! In the extispicy I perform, in the lamb I offer, place the truth!” (Foster 2005: 207–8).

A key question is how people, of both high and low status in Mesopotamian society, communicated with gods and how in general they managed to interact with them. How gods were thought to be evocable and what they might do if invoked helps to define what we mean nowadays by religion. The gods were felt to be potentially present in a variety of ways in the lives of the peoples of Mesopotamia.

Our category of prayer seems to be a basic one, and many kinds of compositions qualify as prayers – invocations of gods by people ranging from kings to illiterate peasants, although the illiterate were not likely to have their prayers recorded. There is the added problem that, as is so frequently the case in Mesopotamia, there seems not to be a general word for “prayer.

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