The religious instinct seems to have been inborn with man. Some form and degree of worship has been found among all primitive people and is cruder or more elevated according to the stage of development. Primitive man felt himself able to cope with many of the conditions around him, but he soon found that the very agencies which helped might also injure him. The sun, whose light and warmth gave life to his growing crops, might also wither them with its intense heat. The rain which renewed and refreshed the fields, might come in torrents and lay them low. Gradually all these agencies were regarded as Beings, which must be importuned. The religion of the Chaldeans taught man how to guard himself against the harmful forces in the world, and every animate and inanimate thing was endowed with a spirit.
A series of tablets treating of this ancient religion was recovered by Rassam, and they fall into three divisions: those treating of "Evil Spirits," others concerning diseases, and last, those devoted to prayers and hymns of praise.
The Accadian conceived of the earth as resembling a huge, inverted bowl. The thickness represented the earth's crust; the hollow beneath was thought of as a bottomless pit, destined to be the final dwelling place of man, and was the abode of demons. Above the earth were two heavens; the higher, supported by a lofty mountain; the lower containing seven kind and friendly planets, which wandered at will through its wide domains. Opposed to these were seven fiery phantoms. Over all dwelt the great Spirit Ana.
"Between the lower heaven and the surface of the earth is the atmospheric region, the realm of Mermer, the Wind, where he drives the clouds, rouses the storms, and whence he pours down the rain, which is stored in the great reservoir of Ana, in the heavenly Ocean. As to the earthly Ocean, it is fancied as a broad river, flowing all around the edge of the imaginary inverted bowl; in its waters dwells Ea, the great Spirit of the Earth and Waters, either in the form of a fish, whence he is frequently called "Ea the fish," or "the exalted fish," or on a magnificent ship, with which he travels around the earth, guarding and protecting it.
"The minor spirits of the earth are not much spoken of except in a body, a sort of host or legion. All the more terrible are the seven spirits of the abyss, the Maskim, of whom it is said that, although their seat is in the depths of the earth, yet their voice resounds on the heights also; they reside at will in the immensity of space, 'not enjoying a good name either in heaven or on earth.' Their greatest delight is to subvert the orderly course of nature, to cause earthquakes, inundations, ravaging tempests."[1]
The Maskim were ever feared and hated as is shown by the following, translated from one of the tablets:
"They are seven! they are seven!—Seven are they in the depths of Ocean,—seven they are, disturbers of the face of Heaven.—They arise from the depths of Ocean, from hidden lurking-places.—They spread like snares.—Male they are not, female they are not. Wives they have not, children are not born to them.—Order they know not, nor beneficence;—prayers and supplications they hear not. Horses grown in the bowels of the mountains—foes of EA—they are throne-bearers of the gods—they sit in the roads and make them unsafe.—The fiends! The fiends! They are seven, they are seven, seven are they!
"Spirit of Heaven, be they conjured! Spirit of Earth, be they conjured!"