Demons in the Ancient Near East
Belief in the existence of evil spirits has prevailed among all the known peoples of the world from the earliest times of which we have any knowledge.1
In general, the notion of a demon in the ancient Near East was of a being less powerful than a god and less endowed with individuality. Whereas the great gods are accorded regular public worship, demons are not; they are dealt with in magic rites in individual cases of human suffering, which is their particular sphere.2
Throughout the Near Eastern world, devils and ghouls brought plagues and epidemics, madness and infertility.3
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1 Demonic Threat and Doom
In order to answer the question of whether Psalm 91 in its original setting had to do with the fear of demons, it is necessary to set out what role spirits and demons were assigned in the Ancient Near Eastern worldview.
The place that demons occupy in a particular culture is in large measure de termined by how people view and deal with evil (catastrophes, disasters, dis eases and wickedness) in that culture. Quite frequently, the various cultures of
1 E. Langton in his monograph Essentials of Demonology, London 1949, 219.
2 Cf. article ‘Demons’ in: Encyclopaedia Judaica (cd rom version 1.0), Jerusalem 1997.
3 Nash, ‘Devils, Demons, and Disease’, 65. In this regard, Mesopotamian culture differs from ours, as rightly noted by R.M. Martinez: ‘Ancient Mesopotamia organized reality in a way that frequently personified epidemic disease as deities of demons.’ And: ‘The peoples of the ancient Near East understood the universe, including diseases, diagnoses, and treatment, in categories that are markedly different from those of today’, ‘Epidemic Disease, Ecology and Culture in the Ancient Near East’, in: The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature, Scripture in Context III (ANETS 8), New York 1990, 425 and 427. For a thorough analysis of diseases caused by ghosts, see the monograph by J.A. Scurlock, Magico Medical Means of treating Ghost induced illnesses in Ancient Mesopotamia (AMD III ), Leiden 2006.
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Michaelthe Ancient Near East found themselves laid low by large scale disasters: ‘War, famine, and epidemic disease have occurred together repeatedly throughout human history’.4 Natural catastrophes such as flooding, droughts, earthquakes and epidemics are generally well documented.5
When such a catastrophe strikes a community or an individual, the ques tion automatically arises of what brought about the disaster where did this evil come from and why is it affecting us (or me)? The question of the origin of evil is one that largely shapes what remedy is sought. ‘It was indeed necessary to pinpoint to their origin if one wished to find a remedy for them’.6 In prin ciple, two reactions are possible in dealing with appearances of evil.
(1) The first possibility is to view calamity as a punishment from God or the gods in retribution for violating some command or for disobedience to the di vine will. To the question as to the origin of the calamity, a clear answer is given: ‘sin’ is the primary reason for the evil that has been suffered. This aware ness is widespread across the various cultures of the Ancient Near East. In a Mesopotamian prayer, for instance, we encounter the following:
1. Éa, Šamaš and Marduk, what are my iniquities? … 16. Release and re move the iniquities of my father and mother! … 19. May my guilt be dis tant, 3,600 leagues away, 20 may the river receive it from me and take it down to its depths … 29. My iniquities are many: I know not what I did … 148. I have continually committed iniquities, known and unknown … 154. Though my iniquities be many … 155. Though my transgressions be seven … 156. Though my sins be many … 7
Examples can also be furnished of this attitude in the Biblical tradition. For example, in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, the people of Israel are warned that in the event of disobedience, the country will be struck by drought, plague, diseases, crop failure and other calamities.8 In this approach, misfor tune comes from God or the gods, and one has to turn to the same God or gods in order to ward off evil. It is clear that the peoples of the Ancient Near East understood that deities control i.e., have the power to send, cease or
4 R.M. Martinez, ‘Epidemic Disease, Ecology and Culture in the Ancient Near East’, in: The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature, Scripture in Context III (ANETS 8), New York 1990, 413.
5 For documentation and discussion, cf. W.C. Robertson, Drought, Famine, Plague and Pestilence: Ancient Israel’s Understandings of and Responses to Natural Catastrophes, Madison 2010, 32–41; and also Martinez, ‘Epidemic Disease’, 413–447.
6 J. Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, Chicago 2001, 186.
7 W.G. Lambert, ‘DINGIR. ŠÀ.DIB.BA Incantations’, JNES 33 (1974), 274–275, cited in: Bottéro, Religion, 188–189.
8 Cf. Robertson, Drought, Famine, Plague and Pestilence, 56–101.
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Michaelwithhold natural disasters. In this view, there is not really a place for demons as causers of calamity: it is God or the gods who act and who can be held re sponsible for such disasters as occur.
(2) The second possibility is that calamity is attributed not to God or the gods but to evil spirits or demons. ‘For the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, sickness and evil had a simple explanation. They were brought by demons’, according to Nash.9 In like vein, Martinez writes: ‘Ancient Mesopotamia or ganized reality in a way that frequently personified epidemic disease as dei ties or demons.’10 Whenever people are mystified as to the why and wherefore of the disaster that has befallen them, it is evident that they will blame evil spirits for it. ‘The only possible reason that could be given to explain attacks by “demons” … was their wantonness and pure malevolence, for the attacks could not be explained through any provocation on the part of their victims.’11
Because the origin of the evil differs in this scenario, the remedy is also differ ent. In a world in which Ancient Near Eastern man has become the plaything of dark and evil powers, he tends to resort to ‘magic, spells and incantations’ in order to ward off, cast out or fight off demons.12
Bottéro calls the first approach to evil exorcistic and the second magical.13 In the exorcistic approach, the help of the gods is invoked to eradicate the evil. In the magical approach, one seeks to remove the evil using magic formulas and rituals (incantations and magic spells, amulets and figurines). We also find such a differentiated approach within Ancient Israel. In the texts of the Old Testament, evil (as punishment or judgement) can be attributed to yhwh (Am. 3:6; II Sam. 24:1) or to Satan (I Chronicles 21:1; Job 1 and 2), yet at the same time we find in the Ancient Israel archaeological field many examples of a magical approach to evil. For example, amulets, figurines, magic dishes, stelae and other apotropaic objects have been found. Old habits evidently died hard and were sometimes more deeply rooted than the ‘doctrine’ on this point (see Chapter 3).14
As Albertz and others have shown, in a given culture different views can co exist as to the source of disaster. These differences are largely related to the ‘multi layered nature’ of religion (Chapter 1, §3.2). God talk and religious beliefs and theological reflexion are necessarily contextual and in certain concordance
9 T. Nash, ‘Devils, Demons, and Disease: Folklore in Ancient Near Eastern Rites of Atonement’, in: The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature Scripture in Context III (ANETS 8), W.W. Hallo (ed.), New York 1990, 57.
10 Martinez, ‘Epidemic Disease’, 425.
11 Bottéro, Religion, 187.
12 Bietenhard, in: NIDNTT 1, 450.
13 Bottéro, Religion, 192–200; cf. also J.A. Scurlock, ‘Magic’, in: ABD 4, 464–468.
14 Robertson, Drought, Famine, Plague and Pestilence, 130–147.
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with changing customs, cultures and social conditions. It is therefore to be ex pected that in the rebellious beliefs of an individual, other interests are central than in the life of a tribe, people or king.
In general, it can be observed that official religion usually paid little heed to the drives and needs of the common man or woman. Official and priestly ac tivities were focused on the maintenance of the daily cult and the preparation and conduct of national festivals and rituals. This cult was aimed at worship ping and serving the gods and was thus theocentric in nature.15 Conversely, the religious practices of the individual and of the family were much more focused on concrete needs of each day.16 These are at the service of the human being and are interwoven with day to day cares and needs. Its rituals are more ‘problem oriented’17 and focus on the elimination of mischief and the suppres sion of suffering and pain.18 Hence, it is mainly in the context of family religion that we find mention of mischief of demonic origin.19
In the present chapter, our interest revolves around the religious convic tions of Ancient Near Eastern man (and woman) concerning demons. Were demons seen as the cause of sickness and disaster? Were demons connected with dramatic events in the life of the family or clan? Was protection against demons part of the domestic religion (and was it a fixed part)? What were peo ple actually afraid of? Moreover, did they represent that fear in terms of spirits or demons?20 A related question is that of what rituals one used to protect oneself. Were there objects or customs that had an apotropaic function?
15 Bottéro, Religion, 114–115.
16 The distinction between official (state) religion and personal or familial piety is elaborated by R. Albertz, Persönliche Frömmigkeit, 1–23, 97–98, and Religionsgeschichte Israels, 41.
17 Scurlock, ‘Magic’, in: ABD 4, 464.
18 Bottéro, Religion, 114, 170.
19 Most authors introduce their discourse of evil spirits and demons when treating of per sonal piety. See e.g. Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, 186–192; and T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven 1976, 12; for a more thorough elaboration see R. Albertz, R. Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant, Winona Lake 2012; E.S. Gerstenberger, Der bittende Mensch: Bittritual und Klagelied des Einzelnen im Alten Testament (WMANT 51), Neukirchen 1980; ‘Theologies in the Book of Psalms’, in: The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (VTS 99), P.D. Miller. P.W. Flint (eds.), Leiden 2004, 603–625.
20 For an analysis of the fundamental human phenomenon of fear, cf. G. Glas, Angst Beleving, structuur, macht, Amsterdam 2001. In that book, Glas also discusses the category of levensangst or bestaansangst (fear of life, or fear of existence), i.e. the existential trepi dation which people have when fearing for their lives or afraid to continue living. Glas calls this the anthropological dimension of fear, bound up with the human condition.
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Michael HeiserIn the next section, we will illustrate Ancient Near Eastern views of demons by drawing from the Mesopotamian incantational texts Utukkū Lemnūtu. The literary tradition of Mesopotamia includes numerous series of incantations against ‘evil demons’. In addition to the Sumerian collections of utukkū de mons (utukkū lemnūtu), there are also collections of asakku demons, which attack and attempt to kill man through severe fevers, and ṭiʾi demons, respon sible for headaches.21 We also have knowledge of the Akkadian incantation series Maqlû and Šurpu. The former contains prayers and incantations against the noxious effects of witchcraft; the latter, incantations for the man who pro fesses his ignorance of why suffering is affecting him or of how he has offended the gods.22
Our choice of the Utukkū Lemnūtu series is justified because it is well documented23 and according to some is one of ‘the most interesting series’24 and provides ‘the fullest description of the evil demons from any Mesopota mian text’. ‘Utukkū Lemnūtu provides rich accounts of demons and ghosts, replete with metaphors and similes, bringing us closer to a general under standing of demons as the agents which most directly affected a patient’s psyche; the very appearance of the demon inspired fear, and the suggestion of the demon’s presence acted as a threat’, writes Geller.25 The texts are more than mere descriptions of applied magic rituals and spells; they provide a theoretical framework for understanding demonic activity in the Mesopotamian worldview.26
The present chapter is concerned with this fundamental dimension of human existence. Although the content and form of expression of that fear can vary from culture to culture, they nevertheless form a commonality between cultures.
21 R.C. Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia II , London 1903, XII XVI .
22 Langton, Essentials of Demonology, 26.
23 Thus also M.L. Thomsen, ‘Witchcraft and Magic in ancient Mesopotamia’, in: B. Ankarloo, St. Clark (eds.), Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Biblical and Pagan Societies, Philadelphia 2001, 4: ‘The field of witchcraft and magic, in particular, is documented by a large amount of incantations and instructions for rituals, providing much valuable information about this aspect of ancient life’; for more background on the unlettered, semi lettered and writ ten amulets, see R.D. Kotansky, ‘Textual Amulets and Writing Traditions in the Ancient World’, in: Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, D. Frankfurter (ed.), Leiden 2019, 507–554.
24 Nash, ‘Devils, Demons and Disease’, 62.
25 M.J. Geller, ‘Freud and Mesopotamian Magic’, in: Mesopotamian Magic Textual, histori cal, and interpretative perspectives, Ancient Magic and Divination I , T. Abusch, K. van der Toorn (eds.), Groningen 1999, 49.
26 M.J. Geller, Healing Magic and Evil Demons: Canonical Udug hul Incantations (Die babylonisch assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen 8), Berlin 2016, 4.
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Michael HeiserUtukkū Lemnūtu:27 Demons in Mesopotamian Religion
The official religion was focused on the ‘maintenance’ of the gods. The com mon man and woman were practically excluded from the daily cultic activities in the temple.28 This was especially the case for women.29 Yet they too had religious needs and struggled with ‘misfortunes and pain’30 and sought ‘elimi nation of suffered evil’.31 Where do we encounter these needs in the texts? We will analyse the texts of Utukkū Lemnūtu with the following questions in mind: What is being said about demons? What are they causing? In which areas are they active? How are they warded off or dispelled? In short: what does faith in demons look like in practice? How is the fear of unpredictable, uncontrollable evil articulated and broached?32
In order to bring some order to bear in our analysis, we shall have to organise our data. In his study on how Ancient Near Eastern man dealt with catastro phes, calamities and evil in practice, Robertson observes that: (1) Ancient Near Eastern man protected his person using amulets and other apotropaic objects and customs; but also (2) sought to protect his home and immediate surround ings and keep them unmolested by demonic influences. Protection was thus primarily focused on people and on their living environment. Also, the fear of demons is expressed in cases of (3) sickness and in (4) curses or imprecations. 33
On the basis of Robertson’s analysis and our own analysis, then, we arrive at the following categories: (1) the home, (2) on journeys, (3) magic and sorcery, and (4) sickness. We will analyse Utukkū Lemnūtu on the basis of these four themes.34
27 For backgrounds and discussion of the text and the history of origin of this series, the reader is referred to the studies by Geller: M.J. Geller, Forerunners to Udug hul: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations (FAS 12), Stuttgart 1985; Evil Demons Canonical Utukkū Lemnūtu Incantations, Helsinki 2007; Healing Magic and Evil Demons: Canonical Udug hul Incanta tions (BAM 8), Berlin 2016. We shall restrict ourselves here to analysing the content of the texts and the role played in them by demons. All references to textual passages from Utukkū Lemnūtu are to the most recent edition of Geller: Healing Magic and Evil Demons (BAM 8), 2016.
28 Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, 202.
29 K. van der Toorn, From her Cradle to her Grave: The Role of Religion in the Life of the Israelite and the Babylonian Woman, Sheffield 1994, 111–133.
30 Bottéro, Religion, 114.
31 Bottéro, Religion, 170.
32 Van der Toorn, ‘The theology of Demons’, 62.
33 W.C. Robertson, Drought, Famine, Plague and Pestilence, 32–41.
34 We are not ruling out that there might be more categories identifiable, but this seems suf ficient for the present study, since we are concerned with an illustrative, not exhaustive, overview of Ancient Mesopotamian man’s understanding of demons.
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2
2.1 The Closed Inner World of the Home Fear of demons and malicious spirits was widespread in the Mesopotamian world. The outside world was full of innumerable, destructive demonic powers which targeted humans.
They are gloomy, their shadow dark, no light is in their bodies, ever they slink along covertly, walk not upright, from their claws drips bitter gall, their footprints are (full of) evil venom.35
Dark forces long to grab the unprotected person in their claws. This fear makes it understandable that we constantly encounter incantations to protect the oc cupants of the house. Thus we read on tablet III :
18 Evil Utukkū, Alû, ghost, Sheriff demon, god, and Bailiff demon, 19 they are evil!
20 May they not approach my body, 21 nor harm my face, 22 nor walk behind me, 23 nor enter my house 24 nor clamber onto my roof, 25 nor enter my sitting room. 26 Be adjured by heaven, be adjured by earth.36
A similar incantation specifically mentions the threshold of the house. This marks the separation between the closed space of the home and the outside world. The threshold is a place where demons lie in wait.37
35 Text 22 i, 31–35, in: J.B. Nies, C.E. Keiser, Historical, Religious and Economic Texts and Antiquities, New Haven 1920; Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, 12.
36 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 18–26, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 100–101; Evil Demons, 197; tab let III , image I , lines 11–20, in: Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 3; cf. also lines 100–107; tablet IV, column VI , 20–25.
37 T. Canaan, Dämonenglaube, 36–39. Cf. also some imprecations against Lamaštu in YOS 11 (1985), nos. 19 and 20. In 19:6, we read of Lamaštu blocking the door so that women cannot go in and out. In 20:7, the threshold is identified as Lamaštu’s abode; see also K.J. Cathcart, ‘The Phoenician inscriptions from Arslan Tash and some Old Testament texts: (Exodus 12; Micah 5:4–5[5–6]; Psalm 91)’, in: On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies, J.K. Aitken, K.J. Dell, B.A. Mastin (eds.) (BZAW 420), Berlin 2011, 87–99, especially 91–92.
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Michael Heiser155 May they not approach my body, 156 may you not cause harm to my face, 157 nor may they go behind me.
158 May they not follow the tracks (threshold) of where I stand.
159 You may not stand where I stand, 160 nor may you sit where I sit, 161 may you not go where I go, 162 nor enter where I enter, 163 May you be adjured by heaven, may you be adjured by earth.38
The term rabiṣu is also mentioned in various incantations. In Mesopotamian texts, this is a malevolent demon, which lingers at the entrance of buildings.39 Barré proposes to translate the term rabiṣu by ‘one who lies in wait’.40 He then points out that in the Old Babylonian period, rabiṣu developed into a ‘malevo lent demon, often qualified as lemnu, “evil”.’ Together with other demons, the rabiṣu is responsible for medical ailments. The fact that this demon haunts the opening of a tent or at the threshold of a house is in keeping with his character as rabiṣu, ‘namely to lurk in ordinary places to spring his ambush.’41
No matter how one tries to ward off demons such as rabiṣu by means of incantations, the menace and fear are by no means always dispelled by com mands or rituals. The fear of demons appears to be deeply rooted, as is appar ent from a few lines on tablet V :
They circle the high, broad roofs like waves,
and constantly cross over from house to house.
They are the ones which no door can hold back nor any lock can turn away,
they always slip through the doorway like a snake
and blow through the door hinge like the wind …
a ghost who always climbs over all the houses.42
38 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 155–163, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 129–130; Evil Demons, 201; and also tablet 6,134; 15,259; 16, 183,194; tablet III , image VI , lines 215–228, in: Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 23–25.
39 Thus S.H.T. Page, Powers of Evil a Biblical study of Satan & Demons, Grand Rapids 19962, 74. Also: ‘A popular and attractive explanation of the figure of speech that sin is personi fied as a demon who lurks in entryways’, 74. Cf. also H. Duhm, Die bösen Geister, 9; A. Jirku, Die Dämonen, 82, etc.
40 For consideration and discussion, cf. M.L. Barré, ‘rabiṣu’, in: DDD , 682–683.
41 Barré, ‘rabiṣu’, in: DDD , 683. Cf. also G.J. Riley, ‘Demon’, in: DDD , 236.
42 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 5, 11–15, 128, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 184–185, 208; Evil Demons, 209, 212; tablet V, image XII , lines 25–35, and Tablet V, image XIV, column IV, lines 16–17, in: Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 53, 69.
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Michael HeiserWe constantly find exorcistic statements in those tablets on which the de mons are summoned to leave:
152 Evil Utukkū demon to your steppe! Evil Alû demon to your steppe!
153 Evil ghost to your steppe! Evil Sherriff demon to your steppe! …
157 Your place is not in the East, 158 your dwelling is not in the West,
159 your food is the food of ghosts … 164 stop encircling (the victim) in the dark in the middle of a city, 165 or surrounding him in the outskirts, 166 (but) go off to the bottom of the Netherworld, and to your obscurity.
167 Be adjured by the great gods, so that you indeed depart.43
Or:
Whatever is evil, be thou removed …
O evil spirit, ev[il demon], evil ghost, evil devil, go forth from the house (and) depart!
By Heaven be thou exorcised!
By Earth be thou exorcised!44
Of course, it cannot always be prevented that a demon or evil spirit should enter the closed space of the house. A little inattention in the ritual prayers, an unexpected visitor, a strange gust of air or draughty wind, can sometimes ren der it inevitable that demons enter the house through cracks and gaps. Against these unwanted invaders, the inhabitants must arm themselves:
evil man, he whose face is evil, he whose mouth is evil, he whose tongue is evil, evil spell, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment and all evil, from the house go forth! Unto the man, the son of his god, come not nigh, get thee hence!
43 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 7, 152–167, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 288–292; Evil Demons, 225; cf. also F.A.M. Wiggermann, Mesopotamian Protective Spirits The Ritual Texts, Cuneiform Monographs I , Groningen 1992.
44 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet E, image 37, lines 50–54, in: Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 171.
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Michael HeiserIn his seat sit thou not, on his couch lie thou not, over his fence rise thou not, into his chamber enter thou not, by heaven and earth I exorcise thee, that thou mayest depart.45
The examples above illustrate how much the fear of threat, disease and disas ter nestled in the depths of the Mesopotamian soul. On every hand, people felt surrounded by evil powers. On occasion, this fear is directed against the evil eye, depicted as an avian figure spreading its wings and fluttering around the house:
The evil eye has secretly entered and flies around, O, swooping down šuškallum net, o, ensnaring huharum net.
She passed by the door of the babies, and created rash among the babies. She passed the door of the woman in childbed and strangled their babies. She entered the storage room and broke the seal.
She dispersed the secluded fireplace and turned the locked house into ruins.
She destroyed the išertum, and the god of the house has gone. Hit her on the cheek, make her turn backward!
Fill her eyes with salt, fill her mouth with ashes! May the god of the house return.46
On other occasions, it is the angered house gods who assert themselves. Worship of the gods of the hearth played an important role in domestic reli gion. They were not only responsible for the health, wealth and reputation of the family but also for their protection. Every self respecting Mesopotamian household possessed such household gods. These familial deities were daily lavished with food offerings and prayers. This was something to which one had to pay close attention, for whoever did not keep them on side was expos ing himself to all kinds of dangers.47 A classic example of this is found in the
45 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet C, image 31, column 2, lines 105–115, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 147.
46 W. Farber, Zur älteren akkadischen Beschwörungsliteratur, ZA 71, (1981–82), 61–63; K. van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (SHCANE 7), Leiden 1996, 121–122; cf. also M.L. Thomsen, ‘The Evil Eye in Mesopotamia’, Journal of the Near Eastern Society, no. 51 (1992): 21–22.
47 K. van der Toorn, From her Cradle to her Grave: The Role of Religion in the Life of the Israelite and the Babylonian Woman, Sheffield 1994, 27–47.
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Mesopotamian literary composition Ludlul bēl nēmeqi. 48 In this text, a promi nent official is speaking, who appears to be affected by evil and heavy suffer ing. In the text, he asks aloud whether his suffering might have been caused because he did not treat his house god with due respect:
2 As I turn round, it is terrible, it is terrible;
My ill luck has increased, and I do not find the right.
I called to my god, but he did not show his face,
I prayed to my goddess, but she did not raise her head.
The diviner with his inspection has not got to the root of the matter,
Nor has the dream priest with his libation elucidated my case …
When I look behind, there is persecution, trouble,
Like one who has not made libations to his god,
Nor invoked his goddess at table.49
The consequences are dramatic, for if a person can no longer count on the protection of his gods, he is vulnerable and given over to the vicissitudes of fate and demons. One calamity after another can strike him without warning:
43 My 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.
Fearful omens beset me …
What is said in the street portends ill for me.
When I lay down at night, my dream is terrifying
Their hearts rage against me, and they (the demons) are ablaze like fire.
They combine against me in slander and lies.50
48 For translation, cf. W.G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Winona Lake 1996.
49 Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, tablet II , lines 2–5; translation by Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 39; cf. also W. Beyerlin, Religionsgeschichtliches Textbuch zum Alten Testament I , Göttingen 1975, 162–163; ANET 434–437; W. Beyerlin, Godsdiensthistorisch tekstboek rond het Oude Testament, Boxtel 1976, 113.
50 Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, tablet I , lines 43–39, 53–54, 68–69; translation by Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 33, 35; cf. also Beyerlin, Religionsgeschichtliches Textbuch I , 161–162; Beyerlin, Godsdiensthistorisch tekstboek, 112.
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MichaelIn the domestic chapel of a Mesopotamian home, figurines to ward off evil were often erected, such as the Kusarikku. This guardian god has a bull like appearance and keeps guard at the door, so that no demon will sneak in or misfortune hit the house. In an incantation to calm a crying child, the baby is reproached: ‘You have awakened the house god, the Kusarikku has woken up.’51 This is remarkable, since the Kusarikku is actually meant to stay awake and to protect the house and its inhabitants.
Owing to these factors, a gloomy pessimism dominated Mesopotamian man. Life was not a funfair, but rather had a dark, if not pitch black, undertone. Any pregnant or postnatal woman could easily fall prey to the well known, feared demoness Lamaštu (cf. Fig. 2.1).52
Lamaštu pitched her tent at the edges of the civilised world, in deserts, marshes and mountains. Her stubborn desire for young children drove her to enter villages and towns. ‘She comes in the window, slithering like a ser pent; she enters a house, she leaves a house (at will).’53 It is particularly un born babies and newborns who bear the brunt of her malice. She levels her arrows at pregnant women, causing miscarriages and cot death. ‘Slipping into the house of the pregnant woman, she tries to touch the woman’s stom ach seven times to kill the baby’, or she ‘kidnaps the child from the wetnurse’. Lamaštu is described as a demoness with the head of a lion, the teeth of a donkey, bare breasts, bloodstained hands, long nailed fingers and feet resem bling the claws of the bird demon Imdugud (Anzû).54 Iconographic images of Lamaštu depict her with donkey’s ears, suckling a piglet and a puppy. She often stands on a donkey and holds a snake in each hand.55 A gruesome monster in deed! It is as if all demonic malice coalesced in a single image. Lamaštu is the personification of evil par excellence. In an Akkadian incantation against Lamaštu, we read:
51 W. Farber, ZA 71 (1981), 63, lines 5; Van der Toorn, Family Religion, 119–120; Van der Toorn, From her Cradle to her Grave, 46–47. Cf. also F.A.M. Wiggermann, Babylonian Prophylactic Figures, Amsterdam 1986.
52 Cf. ‘Lamaštu’, in: GDS , 115–116. For a description of Lamaštu in relation to demons, cf. the contribution of F.A.M. Wiggermann, ‘Lamaštu, daughter of Anu a profile’, in: M. Stol, Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean setting (CM 14), Groningen 2000, 217–249. See also the demoness Lilītu or Ardat Lilī: ‘lilītu’, in GDS , 118–119; Van der Toorn, ‘Theology of demons’, 70–71; M. Hutter, ‘Lilith’, in: DDD , 520; see also B. Maiden, ‘Counterintuitive Demons: Pazuzu and Lamaštu in Iconography, Text, and Cognition’, JANER 18 (2018), 86–110.
53 Van der Toorn, ‘Theology of demons’, 69.
54 ‘Imdugud’, in: GDS , 107–108.
55 See also Figure 151, in: GDS , 181; and O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament, Darmstadt 19843, Fig. 94, 71.
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She is fierce, she is bad, she is […] she is wriggling, she is [a goddess] … Not a physician, she bin[ds …] not a midwife, she wipes off the babe. she keeps counting the months of woman with child, she is continually blocking the door of the woman in labor … she seizes … the babe from the arm of the nurse.56
The fear of evil is often irrational, as we see in the description of the demon Samana. In an incantation from the Old Babylonian period, intended to protect children, young people and prostitutes from attacks by the demon Samana, we come across a description that leaves nothing to the imagination:
Samana (with) a mouth of lions, Teeth of a dragon, Claws of an eagle, Tail of a scorpion, The savage dog of Enlil, The neck slicer of Enki, He with blood streaming jaws of Ninisinna, Divine dog with gaping maw.57
From this perspective, the widespread apotropaic use of amulets and figurines is readily understandable. What else could man do? One could but protect himself by fighting evil with evil. Women could protect themselves against demons such as Lilītu and Lamaštu by wearing amulets on their bodies. The magic power of the amulet would ward off the mischief. An image of the demon Pazuzu can be found on an amulet that was a favourite among women (cf. Fig. 2.2).58
56 YOS 11 (1985), no. 19:1–6, 11; for edition and translation, cf. J.J.A. van Dijk, YOS 11 (1985), pp. 25–26.
57 See study by I.L. Finkel, ‘A Study in Scarlet: Incantations against Samana’, in: FS Rykle Borger, S. Maul (eds.), (CM 10), Groningen 1998, 71–106; J.A. Scurlock, B.R. Andersen, Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine: Ancient Sources, Translations, and Modern Medical Analyses, Illinois 2005, 62–66; and ‘Samana’, in: GDS , 159–160; and K. van der Toorn, ‘The Theology of Demons in Mesopotamia and Israel Popular Belief and Scholarly Speculation’, in: Die Dämonen, 61–83; G. Cunningham, Deliver Me from Evil: Mesopotamian Incantations 2500–1500 BC , (SP 17), Rome 1997, 91; Van der Toorn, ‘The Theology of Demons’, 66.
58 Cf. depiction and explanation of ‘Pazuzu’, in: GDS , 147–148.
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Figure 2 .2
Bronze head of the demon Pazuzu, Neo Assyrian period British Museum
This disgusting looking demon from the depths of the underworld was emi nently suited to protecting the home and the lives of vulnerable women and children. This is why images of Pazuzu in metal or stone were placed at strate gic locations in the house, especially near windows and doorways. The use of Pazuzu amulets is based on the notion that the more grotesque the image, the greater its repellent power. The words on the reverse of Figure 2.2 are: ‘I am the god Pazuzu, son of the god Hanbi, king of the evil demons of the wind.’59
So far, our discourse has been situated in and around the home. Whoever leaves the house, however, puts himself beyond the sphere of influence of the familial gods and ancestors and is thus even more vulnerable.
59 GDS , 148; See also B. Maiden, ‘Counterintuitive Demons: Pazuzu and Lamaštu in Iconography, Text, and Cognition ’, JANER 18 (2018), 86–110.
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2.2
Travelling through Lonely Places
Not only can the house be under attack; there is also danger beyond. Demons prefer to target the lone traveller. They resorted to solitary spots, from where they carried out their attacks:
31 The evil Utukkū demon who murders a healthy victim in the steppe,
32 and the evil Alû demon who covers (his victim) like a garment,
the evil ghost (and) evil Sheriff demon who seize the body,
34 the Lamaštu and Labaṣu demons who infect the body,
35 and the wraith who constantly wanders about in the steppe:
36 (all these) have approached the distraught man, 37 the deposited sacrilege (asakku)-disease in his body.60
The lone traveller was vulnerable. How could he protect himself? In the incan tation texts, people sought to hedge themselves about and protect themselves in advance by naming all kinds of possible situations and places in which they might be attacked:
187 Wherever I go, may I be safe …
Whether you may be my benevolent spirit,
whether you may be my benevolent genius, 193 Marduk is the god who keeps me well.
May wherever my path is be safe.61
108 As for the man, son of his god, 109 do not stand where he stands, 110 do not sit where he sits, 111 do not enter where he goes, 112 do not enter where he enters.
Do not follow him into the house, 114 do not abandon him on the river bank, 115 and do not come across him in the middle of the sea.62
60 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 31–37, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 102–103; Evil Demons, 197–198.
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 187, 191–194, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 135–137; Evil Demons, 202.
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 4, 108–115, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 158–159; Evil Demons, 206.
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Michael HeiserIn the previous section, we have already encountered the demon Rabiṣu, the lurker at the threshold. Not only at the entrance of the house, but also at some distance from the house, demons wait in ambush until someone should pass by:
1 The evil Utukkū demon lurks in the quiet street in secret, spilling out into the thorough fare.
2 The evil Sheriff demon, released from the steppe, takes no pity (even) on the robber.
5 As for the distraught man whom (demons) paralyze like a storm and sprinkled him with bile,
6 that man is constantly out of breath, he churns (within) like a wave.
27 The evil Utukkū demon and Alû demon, who block the street for the one walking about at night.63
If thou would[st] lurk in ambush on earth, thou shalt secure no resting place. Unto the man, the son of his god, come not nigh, get thee hence!64
The exorcistic exclamations ‘get thee hence’, ‘to your steppe’, ‘depart’, ‘clear off outside’, etc., are ones that we regularly encounter in the texts. Those demons that have broken through the protective barrier must be sent away. Where should they clear off to? It is invariably to the desert that they are sent back. That is their domain. They can be found in deserted places, on the edge of the civilised world.
123 Evil Utukkū demon to your steppe!
136 Evil Utukkū demon to your steppe! Evil Alû to your steppe!65
98 As for the Evil Utukkū demon who walks in the steppe, 99 (and) the evil Alû demon who envelops (and) in the steppe, 100 the dangerous Asakku-(demon) who always roams around in the steppe … 66
63
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 7, 1–2, 5, 6, 27, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 250–251, 262; Evil Demons, 220.
64 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet IV, column VI , lines 1–4, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 45.
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 6, 123, 136, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 245, 247; Evil Demons, 218; tablet C, image 33, lines 186–187, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 153.
66
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 7, 98–100, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 275–276; Evil Demons, 223.
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Michael HeiserO evil spirit, get thee forth to distant places, o evil demon, hide thee unto the ruins, where thou standest is forbidden ground, a ruined, desolate house is thy home.67
Why there particularly? In the desert and in deserted places, they are beyond the reach of amulets, figurines and house gods.68 Yet, unavoidably, one has to go out there at times. Were people then completely at the mercy of these evil spirits? Not so. On his journey, man was indeed accompanied by his guardians, as the following text indicates:
68 In order for the good spirit to go on my right, 69 and for the good genius to go on my left, 70 Ningeštinanna, the exalted scribe of the Netherworld, recites the pure incantation in front of me …
137 may the good Utukkū spirit and good luck be present at my side.69
When the traveller is in open country, he is especially vulnerable. A demon can molest him at will and chase him home. In this case, the guardian spirits are called upon to help, as can be deduced from the following incantation:
an evil spirit … hath overcome him, [something] unnamed hath seized upon him, his hand it hath smitten and his hand hath set upon, his foot it hath smitten and his foot it hath set upon, his head it hath smitten and his head it hath set upon; unto a pure field for his fate it hath entered and … the evil spirit let it not enter the house … may the evil spirit that hath seized him stand aside, may a kindly spirit, a kindly guardian be present.70
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet B, image 29, lines 94–99, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 139.
Cf. Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits I , XLI .
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 68–70, 137, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 111, 125; Evil Demons, 199, 201.
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet V, image XVI , column VI , lines 1–25, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 79–81.
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Michael HeiserThese lamassu or šēdu are supposed to accompany the human being. They are directed by the gods ‘to surround its beneficiary “on the right and on the left”. Prayers and similar texts are filled with passages in which the sufferer demands from the great gods the assurance that these daimons will be near him, take care of him, and protect him from his enemies men, sorcerers, and demons alike to guarantee him physical well being, success, and luck in all his dealings.’71
One last point should be made here. Do darkness and the night play a given role in the incantational texts? After all, one can imagine that as soon as day light starts to fail, the Mesopotamian might become more heedful. Are not shadows and untraceable sounds the foreboders of impending doom?
13 With hands extended towards heaven, and nets spread toward the earth,
the (demons) light up the night like daylight
It is they (who) walk about stealthily in the street at night
May you be adjured by Ištar, mistress of the lands, who lights up the night.73
Demons are night beings who have taken up residence in the darkness:
… an evil demon, on a bed by night in sleep, or an evil demon stealing sleep away, ready to carry of the man, or an evil demon, a god that roameth by night, … or an evil demon that like a bat (?) [dwelleth] in caverns by night, or an evil demon that like a board of night flieth in dark places, … or an evil demon that like night hath no brightness, or an evil demon that by night like a pariah dog prowleth in the mud
71 Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 199. Oppenheim extends his discussion of guard ian spirits to Ilu, Lamassu, Ištaru and Šēdu, devoting a particular consideration to each of these four spirits. The precise meaning of these terms is not always philologically or semantically straightforward to grasp, cf. also 199–206. Cf. also Van der Toorn, Family Religion, 98–99, and 80, footnote 76.
72 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 4, 13–14, 70, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 143, 152; Evil Demons, 203, 205; cf. also tablet IV, image IX , column II , line 14, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 35.
73 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 5, 96, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 201; Evil Demons, 211.
74 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet B, image XXVII , lines 19–22, 35, and image XXVIII , line 37, 43–46, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 129–133.
C.
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MichaelYet demons will have to yield to the light of dawn, since they cannot stand the sun or sunlight:
152 Evil Utukkū demon to your steppe! Evil Alû demon to your steppe!
153 Evil ghost to your steppe! Evil Sheriff demon to your steppe!
154 Take your leather pouch, 155 take your daily food rations(s),
156 take your leather bag.
157 Your place is not in the East, 158 your dwelling is not in the West.75
For demons, there is no place in the east where the sun rises nor in the west, where the sun goes down. There is no place at all under the sun for these night beings. ‘Sunrise is no standing place for thee, sunset is no seat for thee.’76 Demons are nocturnal beings; great, then, is the relief when the sun’s first rays are again descried and the threat of the creatures of the night has subsided.77
The night, therefore, is the base from which demons spring their attack. From there, they try to kill people through accident and illness, or a victim might simply come under the spell or charm of magic words and curses. A whole series of incantations deals with the noxious effects of magic and sor cery. We will now review some of those texts.
2.3 Caught in the Net of Magic and Sorcery
It was not only someone leaving behind the protective environment of the house who was at risk of demonic attack: sometimes, people were not even
75 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 7, 152–158, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 288–290; Evil Demons, 224–225.
76 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet A, image XXV, column IV, lines 5–15, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 123–125.
77 We find the following words on an Assyrian amulet from Arslan Tash from approximately the seventh century bce , intended to protect the family from night demons: ‘Gelangt ist er zu meiner Tür, und beleuchtet hat er die Türpfosten, aufgegangen ist die Sonne! Sie ächz ten, sie gingen weg, und für immer flogen sie davon’‚ in: Beyerlin, Religionsgeschichtliches Textbuch I , 264–265; cf. also: D.S. Sperling, ‘An Arslan Tash Incantation: Interpretations and Implications’, HUCA 53 (1982), 1–10; and W. Röllig, ‘Die Amulette von Arslan Tash’, in: Neue Ephemeris für Semitische Epigraphik II , R. Degen, W.M. Müller, W. Röllig (eds.), Wiesbaden 1974, 17–36; and also K.J. Cathcart, ‘The Phoenician inscriptions from Arslan Tash and some Old Testament texts : (Exodus 12; Micah 5:4–5[5–6]; Psalm 91)’, in: On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies, J.K. Aitken, K.J. Dell, B.A. Mastin (BZAW 420), Berlin 2011, 87–99
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safe at home. In the circle of the extended family, violent, major conflicts can break out. A curse is extant from a father upon his son and his in laws about the proceeds of a piece of land that was provided on loan.78 The father blames his son for not having obtained the agreed share of the harvest, attributing this to the work of a witch or wizard. However, most conflicts and quarrels will have played out in interpersonal relations at work, during festive gatherings, or on other social occasions. We can imagine that failure to comply with agree ments, and dissatisfaction at how someone was treated, could be a continual source of conflict. Nor should we forget the issue of those wronged in love. Being rejected by a man or woman could sometimes give rise to violent emo tions. What about a marital quarrel arising because the man had cast his eye on another woman? Where could the wife take her rage? How could she over come her humiliation? It is not inconceivable that it was women in particular who resorted to the means of sorcery. A woman could make her rival sick with spells or could rob her husband of his potency. ‘Allusions to women using evil magic are in the majority. This is probably due to the social situation of women in Mesopotamia. After her marriage, a woman lived with the family of her hus band and, being a stranger there, she easily fell under suspicion. Women also had few privileges and little means to assert their rights, so witchcraft could be a tempting possibility.’79
Magic and sorcery seem to be mainly the weapons of the weaker parties in society. Divination and exorcism, magic and sorcery, constitute the ‘true foun dation of the religion of the minores, that is, of the great masses of the popula tion, leaving the upper class alone in a position to know and to practice the religion in more depth.’80
The suspicion of bewitching or a curse will come naturally when someone has to cope with certain physical symptoms on top of grave conflicts or linger ing quarrels. Illness, accident, miscarriage or crop failure might be the result of a curse. When dead animals or burnt figurines were found near the house, it was clear that someone had been performing black magic. The fear of magic and sorcery was deeply embedded in the soul of Ancient Near Eastern man and woman.81 Thus, we read on one of the tablets:
78 M.L. Thomsen, ‘Witchcraft and magic in Ancient Mesopotamia’, in: Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, London 2001, 27–28.
79 M.L. Thomsen, ‘Witchcraft and magic’, 30. 80 Bottéro, Religion, 202.
81 M.L. Thomsen, ‘Witchcraft and magic’, 32.
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40 Since a bad fate was (already) in his body,
they deposited harmful poison in his body.
Since an evil curse was (already) in his body,
they deposited the bad effects of sin in his body.
Since the venom of iniquity was (already) upon him,
they wrought evil.
The rogue with an evil face, evil mouth, and evil tongue,
evil spell, hex, magic, evil practices,
which were (all) found in the patient’s body
whom they made groan through witchcraft like a porous pot.
The evil activities which shut the mouth,
the evil spells which seize the tongue
Here, we clearly see the connection of magic and sorcery with disease. The man in question has fallen ill because he has been caught in the net of magic and sorcery. The words and the magic actions have in this case apparently achieved what they were intended to achieve. We find similar words on another tablet, only in this case much more pronounced attention is given to eradicating the evil. It is as if the wrongdoer exuded an aura of evil that could even anchor itself in the closed interior of the house.
Evil man, he whose face is evil, he whose mouth is evil, he whose tongue is evil, evil spell, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, and all evil, from the house go forth! Unto the man, the son of his god, come not nigh, get thee hence! In his seat sit thou not, on his couch lie thou not, over his fence rise thou not, into his chamber enter thou not, By Heaven and Earth I exorcise thee, that thou mayest depart.83
82 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 40–51, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 104–106; Evil Demons, 198.
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet C, lines 105–115, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 147.
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Michael Heiser
In these texts, evil takes on an almost physical form by means of words fraught with magic significance. Magic and sorcery are creative: they call something into being which was not there before something that has an in dependent existence outside the words and ritual actions, and that can only be brought into being or expelled by resorting to exorcism.84
In the perception of Ancient Near Eastern man, the evil of magic and sor cery is caused by demons. They are its executors, as the following text shows:
O evil spirit (or) ghost that hath touched the man in the desert, o pestilence that hath touched the head of the man, the evil mouth (or) evil tongue that hath uttered a spell, the evil spirit that hath looked on the man, the enchantment or evil sorcery of a ban, may they be broken in pieces like a goblet, may they be poured forth like water, may they not break through the mud wall.
O evil spirit to thy desert!
O evil demon, to thy desert!
O they that have no name (their name), unto the breadth of heaven!85
Something we repeatedly encounter in incantations is the image of the net or snare. These play a major role in magic.86 They represent graphically how people experienced the menace of magic and sorcery. One Babylonian demon simply bears the name ‘Hunting Net’.87 In the Maqlû series, we find many references to nets. Witches cast out their nets on the street. Wizards ‘haben gezaubert … wie mit einer Vogelklappe mich niederzuwerfen … wie mit einem Fangnetz mich zu überdecken.’88 Again, in the series Utukkū Lemnūtu, we do encounter nets and snares. Thus it is said of demons:
84 G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments I : Die Theologie der geschichtlichen Über lieferungen Israels, Munich 199210, 277, footnote 87: ‘Die böse Tat war nur die eine Seite der Sache, denn mit ihr war nun ein Böses in Lauf gesetzt, das sich früher oder später gegen den Täter oder seine Gemeinschaft wenden mußte.’
85 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet C, lines 173–189, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 153.
86 O. Keel, Feinde und Gottesleugner, Stuttgart 1969, 196; Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik, 78.
87 Keel, Feinde, 196.
88 Keel, Feinde, 196.
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10 They strike the land,
11 encircling the lands like a net …
13 With hands extended towards heaven, and nets spread toward the earth … 89
20 or whether you are the evil Alû demon who covers the victim like a gill net,
21 whether you are the evil Alû demon who snares the victim like a hunting net 90
They try to ensnare the person so that he can no longer escape:
A snare without escape, set for evil.
A net whence none can issue forth, spread for evil.91
Similar images are also used in the context of diseases and headaches. In the Ṭiʾi series of incantations, ones intended to drive away all manner of head aches, we again encounter the image of the net, as we read:
Incantation:
The evil spirit hath set a net, The evil demon hath set a net, The evil ghost hath set a net, The evil devil hath set a net, The evil god hath set a net, The evil fiend hath set a net, The evil hag demon hath set a net, so that the wanderer hath fallen sick of headache, so that this man hath fallen sick of fever.92
89 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 4, 10–11, 13, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 142–143; Evil Demons, 203.
90 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 8, lines 20–21; Geller, Healing Magic, 298; Forerunners, 80–83, lines 863–864.
91 Miscellaneous Incantations, banishment tablet, image XXXIV, lines 12–14, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits II , 119.
92 Ṭiʾi, tablet VIII , column I , image XV, lines 30–34, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits II , 59.
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Michael HeiserOr again:
a rushing head demon, granting no rest, nor giving kindly sleep. It is the sickness of night and day, whose head is that of a demon, whose shape is as the whirlwind; its appearance is as the darkening heavens, and its face as the deep shadow of the forest. Its hand is a snare, its foot is a trap (?).93
With these images, we are departing the realm of magic and sorcery and have landed in the domain of sickness, where one especially sensed demons at work. It cannot always be prevented that demons should affect the lives of healthy people and destroy them.
2.4 Infected by Sickness and Threatened by Death
Sickness and the fear of becoming ill are predominant themes in the Utukkū Lemnūtu corpus.94 For example, we read:
93 Ṭiʾi, tablet P, images XXV, lines 5–15, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits II , 87.
94 We shall leave aside here the discussion on changing views over time as to the causes of sickness; what we are concerned about here is illustration of demonic activity. For discus sion, the reader is referred to a paper of E. Couto Ferreira, ‘Aetiology of Illness in Ancient Mesopotamia: on Supernatural Causes’ (the article was originally published on the inter net, but is now unfortunately no longer digitally available). Couto Ferreira argues that in Ancient Mesopotamian texts of the third millennium bce , it is above all demons who are regarded as the causes of diseases. Later, and partly due to reflection, sickness came to be connected in the second millennium with punishment by the gods, and in the first millennium with witchcraft and wizardry. However the matter lies, the continuity be tween these historical eras is that sickness is associated with the ‘supernatural’ world of demons, spirits and gods. The matter is not really relevant in these texts of whether causes are natural or supernatural. Thus also J.A. Scurlock, Magico Medical means of treating Ghost induced Illnesses in Ancient Mesopotamia (AMD III ), Leiden 2006, 75: ‘Those look ing for “natural” causes in ancient Mesopotamian texts would have no difficulty in locat ing examples of prescriptions where no ghost, god, or sorcerer appears. The fact that what we would consider a spirit is not mentioned in a particular context is, however, no proof that what we would define as “natural” causes were thought to be at work. Jaundice may sound “natural” to us, but it was thought of by the ancient Mesopotamians as a demon.’ This is also the position taken by Van Dijk, in: J.J.A. van Dijk, A. Goetze, M.I. Hussey, Early Mesopotamian Incantations and Rituals, YOS 11, London 1985, 6: ‘Incantations against an ailment are often designated in the same way, since the illness is considered a personified, demonic power, i.e. a typical “situation god”.’
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Michael Heiser53 dangerous asakku disease, may you not approach him,
54 illness not improving, may you not approach him.
55 Disease, headache, convulsive(-demon), the heavy ‘arms’ of which seize all unwell parts of the body,
headache, toothache, bellyache, ‘heartache’,
disease of the eye, Asakku, and Samanu,
evil Utukkū, Alû, Ghost …
75 I adjure you both by heaven and earth so that you may go!95
The quotation below from an imprecation against evil spirits illuminates something of the reality behind the disease. The terms used suggest an aggres sive morbidity: the man or woman in question is lain low on his or her sickbed, stricken by demons.
31 The evil Utukkū demon who murders a healthy victim in the steppe,
32 and the evil Alû demon who covers (his victim) like a garment,
the evil ghost (and) evil Sheriff demon who seize the body,
34 the Lamaštu and Labaṣu demons who infect the body,
and the wraith who constantly wanders about in the steppe:
36 (all these) have approached the distraught man,
37 they deposited ‘sacrilege’ (asakku)-disease in his body.
38 Since there was (already) an evil oath in his body,
they deposited harmful blood in his body.
Since a bad fate was (already) in his body,
they deposited harmful poison in his body.
Since an evil curse was (already) in his body,
they deposited the bad effects of sin in his body.
Since the poison of iniquity was (already) upon him,
they wrought evil.
The rogue with an evil face, evil mouth, and evil tongue,
evil spell, hex, magic, evil practices,
which were (all) found in the patient’s body
whom they made groan through magic like a porous pot.96
95 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 6, 53–58, 75 in: Geller, Healing Magic, 236–237, 239; Evil Demons, 215–216.
Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 31–49; Geller, Healing Magic, 102–105.
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After all, it can occur without warning that protective measures prove inadequate. For one thing, a house always has cracks in it. People always have their Achilles’ heels. Once the demons have sensed the weak spots and the person in question has been confined to bed, the patient has few recourses other than exorcism:
93 May the Fate demon (Namtar), ‘sacrilege’ (asakku)-disease, magic rites, or [whatever] evil [(magical) practices],
94 be removed from the distraught man’s body.
95 May they not approach my body (as well) but stand aside,
96 nor may they follow behind me.
97 I adjure you by the great gods that you may go away.
98 May they not be detained but let their bond be broken!
113 Evil Utukkū, Alû demon, ghost, Sheriff demon, god, and Bailiff demon,
114 whether it be illness, death, the Lilû demon or Lilith, the asakku disease, or evil fate,
115 depart from before me, go out of the house!97
Sometimes, the help of a priest has to be invoked, who is expected to perform an exorcism by invoking higher gods or powers:
113 May you be adjured by heaven and earth.
114 May you be adjured by Enlil, lord of the lands, 115 be adjured by Ninlil, mistress of the lands, 116 be adjured by Ninurta, the mighty hero of Enlil …
119 May you be adjured by Ištar, mistress of the troops, 120 be adjured by Adad, whose thunder is welcome, 121 be adjured by Šamaš, lord of judgment 122 or be adjured by the great Anunna gods.98
The priest is also aware that he must always be on his guard. If he comes to someone who has been felled by demons, he must be particularly careful and protect himself he is, after all, entering a domain that is under the control of
97 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 93–98, 113–115, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 114–116, 119; Evil Demons, 199–200. 98 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 5, 113–116, 119–122, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 204–206; Evil Demons, 211–212.
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Michael Heiserdemons. They have declared victory over the life of the patient. It only stands to reason that one should invoke the help of the gods and guardians in such situations, as we read in one of the following texts:
100 I am the exorcist and Šangamahhu priest of Ea,
101 I am the purification priest of Eridu,
the incantation which he cast is dedicated to bringing calm.
103 When I go to the patient,
when I push open the door of the [house],
when I call out at his gate,
when I cross the threshold,
when I enter the house, 108 with (the sun god) Šamaš in front of me and (the moon god) Sin behind me,
109 with Nergal on my right, 110 and with Ninurta on my left,
when I approach the patient, and lay my hand on the patient’s head,
112 may the good spirit and good genius be present at my side.99
The body of the person made sick by demons has become an occupied terri tory. Without the intervention of the gods, he is past saving. Indeed, there is a power struggle going on. Demons are determined to take possession of people and to render their lives impossible. While their power seems great, they are actually no match for the power of words spoken on behalf of the gods:
Unto the sick man draw not nigh, unto the sick man come not, by the great gods I exorcise thee that thou mayest depart.100
99 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 100–112, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 116–119; Evil Demons, 200; see for an analysis of the relation between Marduk and the priest: U. Gabbay, ‘Hermeneutics and Magic in the Commentary to Marduk’s Address to the Demons’, in: Mesopotamian Medicine and Magic, Studies in Honor of Markham J. Geller, Leiden 2018, 292–309. On page 301 he explains it the following way: ‘When the āšipu priest recites the first person text of Marduk’s Address to the Demons during an exorcistic ritual, he is effectively introducing himself as a messenger of Marduk or even as Marduk himself … Similarly, when speaking in the first person … the āšipu priest identifies himself with Marduk, the divine exorcist, and obtains the authority for the exorcism’.
100 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet C, image XXX , column I , lines 60–64, Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits, 143.
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Michael Heiser63 Since a (demon) attacking limbs is (already) in the patient’s body, 64 through an effective incantation the word of Ea 65 may those evil ones be uprooted.101
From the latter text, a notion emerges that we often encounter in the texts: that sick people prove to be particularly vulnerable to demonic assault. Of course, not every disease is demonic in origin; one can just as well fall ill without the influence of demons. It is striking, however, that demonic influ ences are especially felt in the disease process. The body’s natural defence mechanisms have lost their power, and because of the sickness, the subject has become extra sensitive to demons:
1 Incantation. The evil Utukkū demon lurks in the quiet street in secret and spill out into the thoroughfare.
2 The evil Sheriff demon, released from the steppe, takes no pity (even) on the robber.
3 (They are) the Lamaštu and Labaṣu demons who spatter (poison) behind a man.
4 Internal illness and ‘heartburn’, disease, headache, and the Alû(-disease) have enveloped a man.
5 As for the distraught man whom (demons) paralysed like a storm and sprinkled him with bile,
6 that man is constantly out of breath, he churns (within) like a wave.
7 He can eat no food nor drink any water, 8 and he has been spending the day in woe.102
Considering the entirety of the incantations from the Utukkū Lemnūtu series, we see that the presence and efficacy of demons is felt especially in sickness.103
When someone fell ill, the priest or exorcist could be summoned. He en tered the patient’s house with an invocation of the highest gods, since the illness entailed that the demons had succeeded in penetrating the circle of protection. Now, his task is to help the sick person through incantations and
101 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 3, 63–65, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 109; Evil Demons, 198.
102 Utukkū Lemnūtu, tablet 7, 1–8, in: Geller, Healing Magic, 256–257.
103 See Geller, Healing Magic, 49: ‘The most complete source for descriptions of such demons and ghosts is UH , and this is also where UH differs from the other major formal incanta tion texts. UH pays little attention to either personal guilt or witchcraft, but disease in UH is brought about by the purely random and uncontrolled activities of demons and ghosts. Perhaps because of the unpredictable nature of its occurrences, disease was viewed as the most intractable and difficult of human problems, which is also why illness became the focus of such a lengthy and complex magical composition like UH .’
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Michaelrituals. Demons are commanded to leave the sick body. The texts of Utukkū Lemnūtu have, in addition to an exorcistic function (expulsion of the demons) also an apotropaic function: they are aimed at a lasting protection of the liber ated patient.
3 Demons and Ancient Near Eastern Religiosity
To a large extent, the life and religiosity of the Mesopotamians was situated in and around the home. This was the domain where the family lived. To keep evil influences at bay, they used amulets, rituals and incantations. People were afraid that demons might enter the house through doors and windows. When they went abroad and had to travel on deserted roads, they were vulnerable to danger and demonic calamity. Having to live together with others did not always go smoothly. When conflicts and quarrels got out of hand, one of the parties might avail themselves of the trusty means of magic and witchcraft. Once someone was under the spell of a curse, help had to be sought. Through magic rituals and incantations, people then sought to eliminate or banish the evil spirits. Sometimes, demons succeeded in breaking through the barrier and making people sick. As a result, people were cast back upon the closed interior of the home. The menace did not remain confined beyond the door of the house, but entered the home by way of disease and caused private family life to come under pressure. With this aspect, we have once again returned to the inner sphere: the house.
What has our review of the texts of Utukkū Lemnūtu yielded as regards de mons? How representative are these findings for the nations around Israel? We shall seek to answer both of those questions in the evaluation that follows.
(1) In the first place, the texts of Utukkū Lemnūtu reveal an unambiguous picture. Mesopotamians, both men and women, and whether living within or outside their family context, lived a threatened existence. Demons were lurk ing everywhere, in their experience. No domain of life was free of menace. In this sense, we can speak of a universal fear nestling in the depths of the Mesopotamian soul.
This was not a feature of Mesopotamia alone. In Ugarit and environs, too, people struggled with their fear of demonic calamity and evil. In his descrip tion of the religion of Ugarit and its cultic practices,104 del Olmo Lete gives the following example of an incantation against the evil eye:
104 G. del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion according to the liturgical Texts of Ugarit (ET W.G.E. Watson), Winona Lake 2004. Cf. also W.F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, London 1968, Chapter 2: ‘Canaanite Religion in the Bronze Age’, 96–132.
C.
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MichaelBanishment of the demons of strength. May Baʿlu’s [word/breath] cast you out, cast you out and out you go at the voice of the officiant like the smoke through the skylight, like a snake through the foot of the wall; like mountain goats towards the summit, like a lion towards the den. The wand is ready and the wand approaches!
May your back suffer evil and suffer harm in your constitution! May you eat bread of the time of fasting, drink, squeezing out the beer of abstinence, in the heights, in the pools, in the shadow of the sanctuary!
And then may the wizards also cast out the demons: Horanu his associates and the lad his friends.105
In the rest of the spell, the man undergoing exorcism is called upon not to let the demon have the better of him. He is not to run away, but to free himself from his illness. In the Canaanite texts, devotees turn to the gods for ‘well being, health and a long life’, and they beg for protection against evil. This disaster could take various forms. A danger was posed by the dead, who returned to the world of the living and were perceived as a threat, and by monsters from sea and land. ‘Dämonen und böse Geister haben auch die Ugariter geplagt.’106
In addition to spirits and demons that cause sickness and mischief, there are some gods in Ugarit who have demonic traits. Yet it is unclear to what extent they played a role in the world of personal experience. The deity Mot comes to mind here.107 The absence of Mot from the Ugaritic pantheon and as an
105 KTU 1.169, after del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion, 385.
106 O. Loretz, Ugarit und die Bibel Kanaanäische Götter und Religion im Alten Testament, Darmstadt 1996, 90. Cf. also the remarks by J.C. de Moor, ‘The invincible evil’, in: The Rise of Yahwism the roots of Israelite Monotheism (revised edition), Leuven 1997, 88–91.
107 J.F. Healey, ‘Mot’, in: DDD , 598–603. Cf. also J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan ( JSOTS 265), Sheffield 2000, 185–197; M.S. Smith, The Early History of God, San Francisco 1999, 53, 72–73; O. Loretz, Ugarit und die Bibel, 73–78. For discussion, cf. Chapter 7, §9
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Michael Heiserelement in proper names suggests that he was not a deity who was the subject of human worship. After studying the relevant texts, Healey comes to the fol lowing conclusion: ‘He is, rather, to be regarded as a demonic figure, wholly evil and without redeeming features.’108
Another deity frequently mentioned in the Ugaritic corpus is Rešep.109 In ritual texts, Rešep is portrayed as a chthonic (earthly) deity, guarding the door of the underworld. Rešep can be dangerous, because he spreads plagues and diseases with his bow and arrows.110 Despite his combative character, he is a popular deity both in personal and familial piety and in official religion. According to Day, Rešep has some demonic traits in the Old Testament, but Blair disputes this.111
Finally, Ugarit was also familiar with the night demon Deber,112 a causer of ‘plague’ or ‘illness’, and Qeteb, who causes ‘destruction’ and ‘ravaging’.113
The fear of demons did not leave Egypt unaffected, either. According to Brunner, there was a feeling among the common man and woman there of lostness and of being at the whim of evil powers.114 The fear was widespread, since gods and spirits were so numerous and the dividing line between them was fluid. This fear is also understandable, because the vast majority of soci ety lived in poverty and life expectancy was not high. The achievements of medical science were available only to the elite. ‘Many people suffer mutilation through disease and through accidents, which renders them unable to perform useful work because most labor is heavy and physical.’115 This, combined with the ubiquity of gods, spirits and demons,116 made people seek the reason for the doom afflicting them. Man seeks security and guidance in a direct relation
108 J.F. Healey, ‘Mot’, 600.
109 P. Xella, ‘Resheph’, in: DDD , 700–703.
110 J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 198.
111 J.M. Blair, De Demonising the Old Testament, An Investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber, Qeteb and Reshef in the Hebrew Bible (FAT 2,37), Tübingen 2009, 41–53, 194–212. In an in triguing article, H. Niehr outlines his belief that the reception and demonisation of the deity Rešep became a given in the Old Testament, ‘Zur Entstehung von Dämonen in der Religionsgeschichte Israels’, in: Die Dämonen, 84–107; for discussion, cf. Chapter 7, §7.
112 G. del Olmo Lete, ‘Deber’, in: DDD , 231–232. This, too, is contested by Blair, De Demonising the Old Testament, 30–35, 96–176.
113 Evidence is scant, according to Blair, De Demonising the Old Testament, 35–41, 177–193. Cf. discussion in Chapter 7, §8 and 9.
114 Brunner, Altägyptische Religion, 103, 134.
115 Shafer, Religion in Ancient Egypt, 134.
116 G. Foucart, ‘Demons and spirits (Egyptian)’, in: Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 4, J. Hasting, J.A. Selbie (eds.), Edinburgh 1908, 584–590; H. Bonnet, Reallexikon der ägyp tischen Religionsgeschichte, Berlin 1952, 148; H. Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion, New York 1948, 4. Cf. also H. Brunner, Altägyptische Religion: Grundzüge, Darmstadt 1989, 9–34.
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Michael Heisership with the divine. He expects protection and salvation from his god. The fear of illness and death can be related to a snake bite or threat from a croco dile, or to illness or other forms of calamity. After all, a person is vulnerable and dependent on his god. According to Brunner, this need for protection and security is a feature of the human condition.117 After all, as Meeks puts it, ‘[t] he world, Egypt, gods and man were bound to be threatened or attacked by de mons wanting to gain power over them.’118 It appears that superhuman beings sometimes reveal themselves in a curiously accidental manner.
According to an older study by Canaan, the population of the Arabian Peninsula also felt itself to be surrounded by supernatural powers.119 These are the jinn, responsible for evil, sickness and mischief. They dwell in the darkness and surround the house ‘to injure all those who fall into their hands.’120 In gen eral, the desert is the favoured haunt of demons, but they can also be found in caves and crevices, in cemeteries and in dark places.
(2) Secondly, it is clear from the incantations that the fear of and threat posed by demons was taken very seriously. Without resorting to incantations, amulets and magic rituals, one could not withstand the threat.
A corpus known as the Execration Texts has come to light from Egypt.121 These imprecatory texts consist of inscriptions found on pots and figurines (cf. Fig. 2.3).
The small pieces of pottery on the image are inscribed with execration texts in hieratic script, parts of standard formulas against conceivable enemy of Egypt. The general nature of the formulas indicates that they had a broad pro tective function, rather than responding to a specific threat. The inscriptions were buried as part of a ritual designed to magically neutralize dangers.
In these kind of texts, sometimes a prayer is offered for the deceased, for his protection against hindrances and dangers, so that he will be able to attain the D. Meeks, ‘Demons’, in: The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egypt, D.B. Redford (ed.), Oxford 2001, 375.
117 Brunner, Altägyptische Religion, 104.
118 D. Meeks, ‘Demons’, 378; cf. also D. Kurth, ‘Suum cuique. On the Relationship of Demons and Gods in Ancient Egypt’, in: Die Dämonen. Die Dämonologie der israelischen jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt Demons: The Demonology of Israelite Jewish and Early Christian Literature in Context of their Environment, A. Lange, H. Lichtenberger, K.F.D. Römheld (eds.), Tübingen 2003, 45–60; Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion, 4, 28.
119 T. Canaan, Dämonenglaube im Lande der Bibel, Leipzig 1929.
120 Langton, Essentials of Demonology, 6.
121 D.P. Silverman (ed.), Ancient Egypt, London 1997, 145–146.
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Michael Heiserafterlife without problems.122 In the accompanying ritual, curses against a hos tile person or evil spirit are written on a pot or a miniature statue, after which it is broken and burned and (sometimes) buried with the deceased. These magic rituals served ‘to destroy the malign spirit by breaking, burning and burying its named image.’123 Sometimes, in letters to the deceased, the latter are invited to assist those still living against these evil spirits.
The ancient Egyptians had limited access to the state cult in the temple. For this reason, the common people sought to express their religious commitment in a different manner besides. The purchase and wearing of amulets, the pos session of stelae (made of wood or stone) and votive images of a deity provided the Egyptian not only with the possibility of expressing his piety and devotion to the gods, but also with a means of dealing with evil spirits and of warding off demons.124 For example, amulets can be hung around the neck or in the living room to drive away hostile and aggressive demons. An amulet depict ing the Egyptian demon Bes was particularly popular with pregnant women (cf. Fig. 2.4).
122 Cf. A.B. Lloyd, ‘Psychology and Society in the Ancient Egyptian cult of the dead’, in: W.K. Simpson (ed.), Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (Yale Egyptological Studies 3), New Haven 1989, 128.
123 Silverman, Ancient Egypt, 146.
124 Shafer, Religion in Ancient Egypt, 52–53; A.H. Gardiner, ‘Magic (Egyptian)’, in: Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 8, J. Hasting, J.A. Selbie (eds.), Edinburgh 1908, 262–269.
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Figure 2 .4 The dwarf god Bes, with his body of a dwarf, leonine head, and feather headdress, who wards off demons and enemies by his horrifying appearance
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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Michael Heiser
Figure 2 .5 Plaster amulet depicting demons on the recto and Baal on the verso, 7th century bce (WiBiLex)
This ugly and dwarf like appearance of a lion human figure was, owing to his horrifying nature, a tried and tested means of warding off evil and ‘to protect the pregnant and birthgiving mother.’125 Images of Bes have been found on the walls of children’s rooms and at the head of beds. His ugly form is eminently suitable to deterring evil spirits. Hence, a stele of Bes is often found close to the door giving access to the house.126
Another example of apotropaic magic is found in a plaster amulet from Arslan Tash in north western Syria (cf. Fig. 2.5).
On the left hand side (the front) of the amulet, we see a demon depicted as a crouched, winged sphinx (the ‘strangleress of the lamb’) and a demon in the form of a she wolf (‘crusher [of bones]’), devouring a man. On the right hand side (the back) is a probable depiction of the god Baal, who was looked upon to hold in check or drive out the demons.127
125 See H. te Velde, ‘Bes’, in: DDD , 173.
126 Robertson, Drought, Famine, Plague and Pestilence, 136.
127 Cf. R. Schmitt, ‘Apotropäische Riten’, in: Bibellexikon; O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalisch en Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament, Darmstadt 19843, 73–74 (Fig. 2.3 = Fig. 97a and 97b); J. van Dijk, ‘The Authenticity of the Arslan Tash Amulets’, in: Iraq 54 (1992), 65–68; see for analysis A. Berlejung, ‘There Is Nothing Better than More! Texts and Images on Amulet 1 from Arslan Tash’, JNSL 26 (2010), 1–42; she concludes on page 33: ‘The plaque
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(3) In the third place, it is striking how great a role is played by disease in the texts of Utukkū Lemnūtu. To cause disease is the main aim of demonic activity.128 This is no different in Ugarit, where demons inflict sickness.129 Also among Arab people, the jinn are responsible for disease and death. ‘Wenn der böse Geist jemanden befällt, so erkrankt er.’130 Demons are not restricted to one technique, but rather can cause all sorts of diseases: ‘Die Hauptkrankheiten … sind Nervenstörungen, wie Hysterie, Epilepsie, Melancholie, Neurasthenie, Apoplexie, ferner alle Konvulsionen und Lähmungen, außerdem Fieber und das Dahinsiechen.’131
(4) Fourthly, we note that there is often a power struggle involved. Demons can only be combated with the help of and in the name of gods who are more powerful than they. Indeed, the exorcist was well aware of this: ‘In attacking the powers of evil it was of no avail for the magician to rely solely on his own strength; it was necessary for him to call to his aid some divine authority to support him in his combat.’132 It is therefore not uncommon for long lists of gods to be included in the incantations. Magic words have no power in them selves, but receive their authority from above: they are ‘only of avail when used in conjunction with supernatural aid … No demon could withstand the au thority of these mystic words if only they were rightly employed, particularly if used in the proper place, and with the proper intonation, and by a properly qualified priest.’133
(5) Fifthly, demons are primarily an issue in familial religiosity. ‘At the mar gins of this conception and official organization of the religious universe, the faithful exhibit their own religious feelings in a much freer and more fluid way in the customs of the family cult or in expressions of personal piety … This popular level of religious feeling also undoubtedly constructs its own pantheon
communicates with the images on the obverse the message of latent dangers, and with the image on the reverse the promise of active divine help. The texts stress this basic asser tion and specify some aspects: they call the names of the divine and demonic forces who fight for their influence in the house, they contain the performative formulas which make the demons disappear, and they recall the oaths and/or patron client contracts between the humans and several deities, which creates a system of complex loyalties between the threatened humans and the benevolent gods. The images and texts of the amulet reflect (“retrospectively”) the culturally accepted hierarchies and loyalties between endangered humans, endangering demons and protective gods.’
128 Geller, Healing Magic, 4.
129 Cf. e.g. ‘More on demons in Ugarit’, J.C. de Moor, K. Spronk, UF 16 (1984), 237–250.
130 Canaan, Dämonenglaube, 45.
131 Canaan, Dämonenglaube, 45.
132 Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits II , XXI
133 Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits II , XXIII XXIV.
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Michaelin which many more or less neutral elements that surround existence attain “divine” nature. The “genies” and “demons” now take on a new significance’, del Olmo Lete writes on Ugaritic religion.134
The reason why they take on such ‘new significance’ is that this level of reli gion is one more bound up with the problems of daily life. After all, the inter ests of ordinary citizens are not identical with the interests of the king or the state. This is why we encounter spirits and demons particularly at the level of the family and the individual.
(6) Sixthly, we see an existential fear of threat to human life by demons. This fear is mainly visible in two domains of life that are marked by rites of pas sage: birth and death.135 It is understandable that it was particularly around the birth of a child that a fear of imminent danger was felt. Because of the high mortality rate of children and mothers, the moment of birth was a tense event, and both mother and child were vulnerable.
In Egypt, for example, there were prayers and magical spells to guide the process of childbirth. Amulets were made bearing spells ‘to protect the infants against all manner of life’s possible dangers, including random accidents’.136 The fear that spirits of the deceased might menace or smite her child, made a mother as she put an amulet on her child pray: ‘Du gehst auf, o Re, du gehst auf. Wenn du diesen Toten gesehen hast, wie er zu NN . Hingeht und die Tote, das Weib … nicht soll sie mein Kind in ihren Arm nehmen. Mich rettet Re, mein Herr. Ich gebe dich nicht her, ich gebe meine Last nicht dem Räuber und der Räuberin aus dem Totenreiche.’137
The need for protection was felt not just at the commencement but also at the end of human life. After all, the deceased is dependent on those still alive for how he fares after death. They are responsible for the cult of the dead, which must not be broken off. It is at this point that the fear of spirits and demons is most clearly visible. In fact, the defenceless deceased is menaced on his way to the hereafter by jenseitige Wesen. Bird catchers with nets appear to capture the soul of the deceased. There may be gatekeepers who are reluc tant to open to him the door to the hereafter. ‘Überall lauern Gefahren des Schreckens ist kein Ende.’138 The threat menaces not only the deceased; living
134 del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion, 45.
135 Cf. S. Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion, London 1992, Chapter 4, ‘Surviving Life Protection of the Body’, 105–140, and Chapter 5, ‘Surviving Death Transfiguration’, 141–172.
136 Shafer, Religion in Ancient Egypt, 176–178.
137 Quotation taken from A. Erman, Die Religion der Ägypter Ihr Werden und Vergehen in vier Jahrtausenden, Berlin and Leipzig 1934, 305.
138 Brunner, Altägyptische Religion, 134.
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relatives, too, could be disturbed by his ghost if he is not buried with the right prayers and rituals. ‘The living believed that there were malicious dead people who could haunt them and bring about any number of woes that might seem to the outsider to have natural causes.’139
(7) We see in the seventh place that in certain images are recurrent in the incantations. There were nets and snares in which a person could become entangled.140 In a society in which hunting was an integral part, nets and snares speak to the imagination. People could, just like a bird or deer, become intricated in a net or trap. This image represents palpably the fear of losing freedom of movement, the fear of becoming entangled and not being able to break free from evil. A trap net could suddenly snap shut. In like manner, man could be struck by a suddenly emerging danger. Nets and traps play an impor tant role in magic.141
(8) In the eighth place, there is regular mention of night and the desert in the corpus.142 Thus, we read:
The evil Udug demon or evil Ala demon obstruct the man walking in the street at night and the evil ghost or evil Galla demon block the man walk ing at night in the thoroughfare, an overpowering storm sparing nothing.143
As for the man walking home at night, (the demon) approached the vic tim and touched his hand.144
The dark, then, is associated with demonic menace. In the nocturnal black ness, sickness and evil take on an even grimmer aspect. At night, man is cast back on his own resources. His loneliness and vulnerability are felt even more strongly in the dark. Furthermore, we encounter many references to the des ert: the locus par excellence where demons felt ‘at home’. The desert, being an inhospitable place, is an area full of danger and the threat of death for the lonely traveller.
139 Shafer, Religion in Ancient Egypt, 152.
140 Geller, Forerunners, 34–35, line 256; 80–83, lines 863–864, and Utukkū Lemnūtu, in: Devils and Evil Spirits, Thompson, tablet VI , line 18; tablet XVI , image XXIII , line 335.
141 Keel, Feinde und Gottesleugner, Tübingen 1969, 194–198.
142 Cf. e.g. Geller, Forerunners, 28–29, line 158; 30–31, lines 186 and 198, and Utukkū Lemnūtu, in: Devils and Evil Spirits, Thompson, tablet IV, image IX , column II , line 14; tablet B, image XXVII , lines 19–35.
143 Geller, Forerunners, 64–65, lines 692–694.
144 Geller, Forerunners, 66–67, lines 708–709.
C. Vreugdenhil -
from Brill.com08/08/2021 05:32:55PM by
MichaelThe evil Udug is standing in the desert, the evil Ala demon is covering (its victim) in the steppe, the virulent Asag demon is pouncing in the wilderness.145
The desert is the site of graves, of predators and vultures. It was better to stay away from it whenever one could.
From our analysis of Utukkū Lemnūtu and texts from the Umwelt, it can be concluded that for Ancient Near Eastern man, the threatening presence of evil spirits and demons was a reality. The fear of demons made an indelible im pression on the people of the time. Who were these people? They were regular flesh and blood folk.
Reviewing the Utukkū Lemnūtu material, we are struck that there are hardly any invocations of secondary religion in it. The need which these texts describe is often acute, and demonic menace is given immediate voice in the wording. We have encountered almost no theological meditation in these texts; man is never called upon to make a decision of faith. There is no mention of a concep tion of truth that must be kept distinct from other truth claims, nor is there any framing of exclusivity or rejection of discrepant views or practices. Physical man, with his primary need, is at the centre of these texts, and that is what dis tinguishes them from official religion. The religiosity of Ancient Near Eastern man was, unlike that official religion, rather practical in nature and concerned with particular quotidian problems.
When the people of Israel took up residence in the Land of Canaan, they came face to face there the religious views and ritual practices of other peo ples. What did people think about demons in ancient Israel? The next chapter is devoted to that question.
145 Geller, Forerunners, 74–77, lines 797–799, and Utukkū Lemnūtu, in: Devils and Evil Spirits, Thompson, tablet B, image XXVII , line 18, up to image XXVIII , line 45.
Gerrit C. Vreugdenhil - 9789004427891
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Michael Heiser
