But such conditions represented, after all, the exceptional state of affairs. Unless the country was engaged in warfare, or unless some accident had befallen a member of the royal family, the supposition was that the gods were inclined to listen to petitions or to assist the individual in his appeals for help or advice; at all events, it was safe to make the attempt to approach the Divine throne through the mediation of the priest. Again, if some god had shown his anger by punishing an individual with sickness or by overwhelming him with disaster, it was perfectly reasonable to make the attempt to regain his goodwill, ‘to set the deity’s heart at rest,’ as the religious phraseology expressed it.
The extension of the order of ideas which enabled the priests to ascertain the intention of the gods when affairs of State or of the royal household were in question, resulted in the pre- paration of more or less elaborate handbooks covering the interpretation of all unusual pheno- mena, whether occurring in the heavens or on earth. Eclipses, disturbances in the usual order of natural events, the movements of the moon and sun, as well as of the planets and stars, and the
* On the position of the king as standing closer to the gods,
and as originally viewed as the representative or even incarna- tion of a deity, see Frazer, The Golden Bough 2, i. 142 ff., 232, ete.
appearance of the clouds, represent some of the main incidents to which the attention of the priests was directed for the purpose of determining their bearing on the general welfare, as well as on the fate of individuals. Coming to such terres- trial phenomena as enter more particularly into the life of the individual, we find that dreams, for instance, or unusual signs in the case of newborn children,—abnormally large or abnormally small features, monstrosities of all kinds,—were re- garded as revealing the intentions of the deities, or were looked upon as portents of future events. The movements of certain animals,—more par- ticularly of dogs,—the flight of birds, the appear- ance of snakes or of certain insects in the high- ways or in houses, as well as monstrosities among animals, were fraught with meaning, and, in general, it may be said that every incident that had any unusual feature connected with it called for an interpretation. In this way the omen literature representing the record of past experi- ence, and embodying the wisdom of the past in the interpretation of signs of all kinds, assumed in the course of time enormous dimensions—so large that it is quite difficult to obtain an accurate survey of the field covered by the omen texts. For the purposes of this sketch, however, it will be sufficient to characterize, briefly some of the chief classes of this branch of the religious litera- ture of Babylonia and Assyria.
Taking as our first illustration wnusual occur- rences in the movements of the heavenly bodies, it is natural to find special significance attached to eclipses of the sun and moon; and it is also obvious that such occasions were interpreted as having a bearing chiefly on public affairs or on the fate of the royal household, because of the close relations between the gods and earthly rulers— their representatives, in a measure—to which re- ference has already been made. Calendars were drawn up with indications of what the obscuring of the sun or moon, through eclipses or through the movements of clouds, on any particular day of the month portended. Arranged in the order of the months, the days of the month are entered on which, according to past experience, eclipses occurred, and also those on which, according to calculation, they might occur, and then the in- terpretation is set forth for each of the days enumerated. Interchanging with the references to actual eclipses, a record is also made of what the concealment of the sun behind clouds on certain days portended. Selecting from a long text of this nature, covering many tablets, the section devoted to the month of Tishri, the 7th month, we find the following entries * recorded :—
‘If on the 1st day of the month of Tishri the sun is obscured, king against king will declare war.
Tf on the 9th day, Adad } will raise his cry.
If on the 11th day, a disaster will occur, the king of Mar dies:
If on the 13th day, the king of Akkad { dies, and, in the case of an eclipse, [the same fate] is portended for the king of Akkad.
If on the 14th day there is an eclipse of the sun, there will be destructive rains, and the king of Amurru dies.
If on the 15th day, the wealth of the sea perishes.§
Tf on the 16th day, there will be food in plenty in the land, the canals will be full, or [it portends that] the abkallw will burst forth. ||
If on the 18th day, then will be peace for the king; Bel in the country [will proclaim ?] an oracle regarding the land of the enemy.
Tf on the 20th day, the country will be diminished, the throne o Elam will be overthrown.
* Craig, Astrological-Astronomical Teats, pl. 25, obv. 1-17.
+ Adad is the god of storms. The phrase is therefore to be taken as an indication that storms will sweep the land.