Evil and Sin

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Evil and Sin

Moral Precepts. Mesopotamian society never developed a clearly stated set of divinely revealed moral precepts like the Ten Commandments. Yet, Mesopotamian collections of laws express wrong actions in accord with an unstated moral consciousness. In the ancient Near East, improper conduct included a large canvas of unacceptable behavior: reprehensible actions, misdeeds, and intentional and inadvertent cultic sins. Morally correct and ritually proper behaviors were considered as two sides of the same coin. A person who committed a moral offense or a criminal action, or who accidentally touched an impure object, was considered to have sinned against his or her god. The gods were equally angered by crime, false oath, consumption of ritually impure food, inadvertent contact with an unclean person, or oppression of a widow or orphan. All these transgressions were human violations (Sumerian: namtag) or trespasses against the divine order.

Sin. According to one myth, the Babylonian creation epic Enuma elish, humans were created by the gods from clay mixed with the blood of a rebellious god. Men and women (as opposed to animals) were therefore blessed with the ability to think, but they also possessed an inclination to disobedience and error. There existed no single universal term for sin; rather a series of terms signified offenses of different weights. Serious violations of the proper order (Akkadian: arnu) or even inadvertent transgression that deviated from the moral rules of proper conduct (Akkadian: ikkibu) were considered abominations to the gods. Akkadian egitu were sins of negligence or carelessness. Ikkibu originally referred in Akkadian to taboo actions, but later it became a more general term referring to secular actions such as lying and stealing. Human actions were observed and monitored by the gods. Repelled by a person’s actions, one’s personal god could depart. “How long will you (my personal god) neglect me, leave me unprotected?” lamented the “Babylonian Job.” Without protection from one’s personal god, an individual was liable to the attacks and ravages of demons. Evil spirits—irrational, unpredictable, and life threatening—were released by one’s misdeeds to beset the transgressor. If people followed the proper course of life, the gods rewarded them, and the nation thrived. If they sinned and if the demons were released to attack and plague man, the entire community could experience disorder and even disasters such as plague, earthquake, fire, and invasion, while individual sinners were punished with disease, various forms of failure, and even death.

Unintentional Sins. In the theology of Mesopotamia the gods punished people for their improper actions even if they were unintentional. However, as the gods’ actions were unpredictable, one never knew if they were angered by one’s transgressions or if they were indifferent. It was thought that if one suffered a reversal of fortune, disgrace, illness, or mishap, the gods had to be the cause. The birth of an unwanted or perhaps disabled child led some parents to name such offspring Minaarni, “What is My Sin?” Even if one knowingly did nothing wrong, one’s troubles were interpreted as the result of an unintentional action that had offended a deity. Inadvertent infractions could include such minor activities as stepping in the wrong place or breaking a reed in the marshes. In a hymn to

the god Marduk an ancient poet expressed the view that all people at one time or another commit sins:

Who is he that… has not sinned?
Who is he so watchful that has incurred no sin?
Which is he so circumspect that has committed no wrong doing?
People do not know their invisible faults,
A god reveals what is fair and what is foul. (Foster)

Ancestral Sins. The wrath of the gods could also descend on an innocent person who had committed neither intentional nor unintentional sins. The gods were believed to have long memories and to punish an individual for iniquities committed by parents or ancestors. The deity Marduk could be both fierce and forgiving. In a prayer addressed to Marduk a servant begged forgiveness for the misdeeds of his kin:

Absolve my guilt, remit my punishment,
Clear me of confusion, free me of uncertainty,
Let no guilt of my father, my grandfather, my mother, my grandmother, my brother, my sister, my family, kith, or kin
Approach my own self, but let it be gone! (Foster)

Demons. Demons were thought to be the agents of the great gods, sent to punish mankind for their misdeeds. They might include angry ghosts (Akkadian: etemmu) of the deceased, who could haunt people’s dreams, or evil spirits (Akkadian: utukku lemnutu), who tormented the living with illness. Other demons acted completely without control and often against the will of the gods. These illegitimate demons attacked mankind at any time or in any situation. Lamashtu demons were known for their attacks on pregnant women and infants. Lilu demons were young men who had died unmarried; they entered houses looking for the spouses they were never able to find in life. If an afflicted person was abandoned by his personal protective spirit and overcome by evil demons and if he did not know what had offended the gods, he had to turn to ritual and magic to ward off attacks and counter calamity.

RITUAL TO EXPEL A SPIRIT

There were many methods to prevent an attack by a ghost or demon, including wearing an amulet, making a representative figurine, drinking a magic potion, making an offering, and reciting an incantation to exorcise the unwanted spirit. The following excerpts from a first millennium b.c.e. magical text describe part of a ritual and incantation:

If a ghost has seized a man (and) continually follows him or if an alu-demon or a mukil resh lemutti-demon has seized him, or generic evil continually seizes him or [pursues him], you take dirt from an abandoned town, dirt from an abandoned house, dirt from an abandoned temple, dirt from a tomb, dirt from fnundations(?), dirt from an abandoned canal, (and) dirt from a road. You mix (them) together with ox blood. You make a figurine of generic evil. You clothe it with the skin of a lion. You thread carnelian (and) put it on its neck. You provide [it] with a waterskin and give it travel provisions.
… For three days, (by) day, the exorcist… sets up a censer (filled with burning) juniper before Shamash; by night, he scatters emmer flour before the stars of the night. For three days, before Shamash and the stars, he repeatedly recites (the following) over it: “Ghost (or) whatever is evil—from this day forward, you are extracted from the body of so-and-so, son of so-and-so; you are expelled; you are driven away and banished. The god who put you in place, the goddess who put you in place—they have removed you from the body of so-and-so, son of so-and-so, the patient.” … “I am so-and-so, son of so-and-so; I kneel in exhaustion. For me, whom an obligation has bound as a result of the anger of god and goddess, an utukku-deman, a rabisu-demon, a ghost (and) a lilu-demon have weighed out paralysis, convulsions, limpness of the flesh, vertigo, arthritis (and) insanity, and daily they cause me to have convulsions. Shamash, you are the judge and I have brought you my life. I kneel for judgment of the case concerning the sickness which has seized me. Judge my case; make a decision about me. Until you cause my case to be decided, you shall not give [a decision] for [any other] case. After you have caused my case to be decided, (and after) my obligation has let me go (and) fled [from] my body, wherever I put my trust, let (those) gods come to agree with what you say. [May the heavens be pleased with] you; may the earth rejoice in you.”

Source: Jo Ann Scurlock, “Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Mesopotamian Thought,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 volumes, edited by Jack M. Sasson (New York: Scribner. 19951, III: 1883–1893.

Divine Punishment. In a world ruled by authoritarian leaders, unjust or arbitrary punishment was not uncommon. In a similar manner personal misfortune might not be the result of sin or misguided actions but instead the result of a capricious decision by a god or demon. The sufferer in the poem Ludlul bel nemeqi, “Let me Praise the Lord of Wisdom,” claims to be righteous. He realizes that he has committed an offense against the deity, but he does not know what he has done wrong. Crime and moral transgression, breaches in the common code of conduct, and even inadvertent contact with things considered to be magically impure could cause divine punishment. But the righteous sufferer in Ludlul bel nemeqi can find no cause for the gods’ punishment.

He suffers social rejection. His friends abandon him. His family recoils from his presence, and even his slave mocks his former position. In the end his only answer is to assume that the gods acted without any justifiable motive. Convinced that the gods were ultimately benevolent, the sufferer, like the biblical Job, believes that his only recourse is to submit to his deity and offer praise:

My (personal) god has forsaken me and disappeared,
My goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance.
The benevolent angel who (walked) beside me has departed,
My protecting spirit has taken to flight, and is seeking someone else.
My strength is gone; my appearance has become gloomy;
My dignity has flown away, my protection made off. …
… I have become a slave. …
If I walk the street, ears are pricked (up). …
My friend has become foe. …
In his savagery my comrade denounces me. …
My slave has publicly cursed me in the assembly.
When my acquaintance sees me, he passes by on the other side.
My family treats me as an alien.
The pit awaits anyone who speaks well of me,
While he who utters declamation of me is promoted. …
I have no one to go at my side, nor have I found a helper. … (Lambert)

Pessimism. Babylonian theologians sought explanations for mankind’s suffering and woe, but they had no satisfactory answer. They recognized that the gods wished them to render homage, to provide them with goods and services, and to offer prayer. It was expected that once these duties had been fulfilled, the gods would respond with favor. But in practice it was apparent that the gods did not always do so. There could be no moral justification for an attack by demons. The thief could prosper; crime could pay, and the strong did oppress the weak. To solve this dilemma, the theologians declared that the gods created both good and evil and that one had to adjust to life in an unjust world. Thus, even if one were pious, devoted to one’s god, and kept all of the divine ordinances, the gods could still bring disgrace and torment. In the Babylonian Theodicy, a sufferer complains to a friend that he lives in a crazy topsy-turvy world, one in which piety and devotion are not rewarded:

Just one word would I put before you.
Those who neglect the god go the way of prosperity,
While those who pray to the goddess are impoverished and dispossessed.
In my youth I sought the will of my god;
With prostration and prayer I followed my goddess.
But I was bearing a profitless corvée as a yoke.
My god decreed instead of wealth destitution.
A cripple is my superior, a lunatic outstrips me.
The rogue has been promoted, but I have been brought low. (Lambert)