[CHAPTER XI.]
The Religious Temperament of the Eastern and Western Peoples.
The relation of the individual to the deity more intimate in Mesopotamia than in Greece—The religious temper more ecstatic, more prone to self-abasement, sentimentality, rapture—Humility and the fear of God ethical virtues in Babylonia—The child named after the god in both societies—In some Semitic communities the deity takes a title from the worshipper—Fanaticism in Mesopotamian religion, entire absence of it in the Hellenic
[CHAPTER XII.]
Eschatologic Ideas of East and West.
General resemblances between Mesopotamian and early Hellenic rites of tendance of dead—Mesopotamian theory of the lower world gloomier—The terror of the spectre stronger in the East than in the West; yet both fear the miasma of the dead—In both, the literary evidence clashes somewhat with the evidence from the graves—Certain important differences in tendance of dead—Water essential in later Babylonian, wine and the triple libation in early Hellenic—Hero-cult strong in early Hellas, at least very rare in Mesopotamia—Hellenic idea of re-incarnation not yet found in Babylonian records—The evocation of ghosts, and the periodic meals with or in memory of the dead, common to both peoples—General All Souls’ festival—But in Babylonia no popular belief in posthumous punishments and rewards—The powers of the lower world more gloomy and repellent than in Hellas—No mysteries to develop the germs of a brighter eschatologic faith
[CHAPTER XIII.]
Comparison of the Ritual.
In the second millennium all Semitic communities had evolved the temple, and Babylonia the idol—In Greece, temple-building was coming into vogue, but the cults still aniconic—The pillar and the phallic emblem common in early Greece, very rare in Mesopotamia—Sacrifice both in East and West of two types, the blood-sacrifice and the bloodless, but in Hellas νηφάλια ἱερά in early vogue, not yet found in the East—Incense unknown to the pre-Homeric Greeks—The distinction between Chthonian and Olympian ritual not found at Babylon—Communion-sacrifice and sacrament in early Greece, not found as yet in Mesopotamia—Vicarious piacular sacrifice common to both regions, but human sacrifice rife in early Greece, not found in Mesopotamia—Mystic use of blood in Greek ritual, immolation or expulsion of the scape-goat not yet discovered in Mesopotamia—The death of the divinity in Babylonian ritual—Mourning for Tammuz—In other Semitic communities—In Hittite worship, Sandon of Tarsos—Attis of Phrygia—Emasculation in Phrygian ritual, alien to Babylonian as to Hellenic religious sentiment—Death of divinity in Cretan ritual, and in Cyprus—In genuine Hellenic religion, found only in agrarian hero-cults, such as Linos, Eunostos; these having no connection with Tammuz—Babylonian liturgy mainly a service of sorrow, Greek mainly cheerful—A holy marriage at Babylon, on Hittite relief at Boghaz-Keui, in Minoan and Hellenic ritual—A mortal the consort of divinity, an idea found in many races widely removed—Greek evidence—Consecrated women in Mesopotamia, two types—Their functions to be distinguished from the consecration of virginity before marriage mentioned by Herodotus—Other examples of one or the other of these customs in Asia Minor—Various explanations of these customs offered by anthropology—Criticism of different views—Their religious significance—Ritual of purification—Cathartic use of water and fire—Preservation of peace during public purification—Points of agreement between Hellas and Babylonia—Points of difference, Babylonian confessional—Value of Homer’s evidence concerning early Hellenic purification—Babylonian magic in general contrast with Greek—Astrologic magic—Magic value of numbers, of the word—Babylonian exorcism—Magic use of images—No severance in Mesopotamia between magic and religion—Babylonian and Hellenic divination
[CHAPTER XIV.]
Summary of Results.
[INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS.]