If a white dog into a temple enters, the foundation of that temple is not stable.
If a yellow dog into a temple enters, that temple sees plenty.
If a spotted dog into a temple enters, that temple do its gods love.”
Many charms and exorcisms appear in the ancient language of Babylonia, disease being attributed to possession by evil spirits. Specimens follow.
BABYLONIAN EXORCISMS.
“Wasting, want of health, the evil spirit of the ulcer, spreading quinsy of the throat, the violent and noxious ulcer. Spirit of Heaven! remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.
Sickness of the stomach, sickness of the heart, palpitation of the heart, sickness of the head, noxious colic, the agitation of terror, lingering sickness, nightmare. Spirit of Heaven! remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.
Poisonous spittle of the mouth which is noxious to the voice, phlegm which is destructive, tubercles of the lungs. Spirit of Heaven! remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.”
A belief in a future life is expressed in the Poem on the Descent of Istar, the moon-god’s daughter, to Hades, “the land whence none return,” where “the dead outnumber the living;” and further in the so-called Nimrod-Epic, the most ancient approach to epic poetry known to exist, embodying the Babylonian story of Izdubar (identified with Nimrod)—his rejection of the suit of the goddess Istar, and his victory over the human-headed bull sent to revenge the slight. Nimrod is ferried across the waters of the dead to the shores of the regions of the blessed, where he recognizes his ancestor, Samas-napistim, and exclaims:
“Thy appearance is not changed; like me art thou.