Still more popular was the making of an image of the desired victim of clay or pitch, honey, fat, or other soft material,[359] and either by burning it inflict physical tortures upon the person represented, or by undertaking various symbolical acts with it, such as burying it among the dead, placing it in a coffin, casting it into a pit or into a fountain, hiding it in an inaccessible place, placing it in spots that had a peculiar significance, as the doorposts, the threshold, under the arch of gates, would prognosticate in this way a fate corresponding to one of these acts for the unfortunate victim.
The Exorcisers.
As a protection against the demons and witches, small images of some of the protecting deities were placed at the entrances to houses, and amulets of various kinds were carried about the person. Tablets, too, were hung up in the house,—probably at the entrance,—on which extracts from the religious texts were inscribed. These texts by virtue of their sacred character assured protection against the entrance of demons.[360] But when once a person had come under the baneful power of the demons, recourse was had to a professional class of exorcisers, who acted as mediators between the victims and the gods to whom the ultimate appeal for help was made. These exorcisers were of course priests, and at an early period of Babylonian culture it must have been one of the main functions of priests to combat the influence of evil spirits. It was for this purpose chiefly that the people came to the temples, and in so far we are justified in regarding incantation formulas as belonging to the oldest portion of the Babylonian temple rituals. In the course of time, as the temples in the great religious centers developed into large establishments, the priests were divided into classes, each with special functions assigned to them. Some were concerned with the sacrifices, others presided over the oracles, others were set aside for the night and day watches which were observed in the temple, and it is likely that the scribes formed a class by themselves. To this age of differentiation in priestly functions belongs the special class who may be regarded as the forerunners of the eastern magi or magicians, and who by powers and methods peculiar to them could ward off the dangerous attacks of the demons and witches. The means employed by them may in general be described as forming the complement to those used by the witches,—the reverse side of the picture,—only that they were supposed to be effective against sorcerers, witches, and demons alike. Against the incantation formulas of the witches, incantations of superior force were prescribed that might serve to overcome the baneful influence of the former. The symbolical tying of knots was offset by symbolical loosening, accompanied by formulas that might effect the gradual release of the victim from the meshes of both the witches and the demons; or the hoped-for release was symbolized by the peeling of the several skins of an onion. Corresponding to the images made by the witches, the exorcising priests advised the making of counter images of the witches, and by a symbolical burning, accompanied by certain ceremonies and conciliatory gifts to the gods, hoped to destroy the witches themselves. Since, moreover, the favorite time chosen by the demons and witches for their manifestations was the night, the three divisions of the nights—evening, midnight, and dawn—that correspond to the temple watches were frequently selected as the time for the incantations and the symbolical acts. The address was often made to the gods of night. A series of incantation formulas begins:
I call upon you, gods of the night,
With you I call upon the night, the veiled bride,[361]
I call at evening, midnight, and at dawn.
The formulas themselves, as we shall see, are characterized by their large number rather than by any elements that they have in common. At times they constitute a direct appeal to some god or gods, to some particular spirit, or to the associated spirits of heaven and earth, together with a direct indication of what is desired. An incantation addressed to Nusku, the god of fire, closes:
Fire-god, mighty and lofty one of the gods,
Who dost overpower the wicked and the hostile,
Overpower them (the witches) so that I be not destroyed.