in various passages in different ways. In fact
they actually conceived of a very large number of these demons, and
their visions of the other evil spirits are innumerable. According to
the incantation of Shamash-shum-ukin fifteen evil spirits had come into
his body and

"'My God who walks at my side they drove away.'

"The king calls himself 'the son of his God'. We have here the most
fundamental doctrines of Babylonian theology, borrowed originally from
the religious beliefs of the Sumerians. For them man in his natural
condition, at peace with the gods and in a state of atonement, is
protected by a divine spirit whom they conceived of as dwelling in their
bodies along with their souls or 'the breath of life'. In many ways the
Egyptians held the same doctrine, in their belief concerning the
_ka_[418] or the soul's double. According to the beliefs of the
Sumerians and Babylonians these devils, evil spirits, and all evil
powers stand for ever waiting to attach (_sic_) (? attack) the divine
genius with each man. By means of insinuating snares they entrap mankind
in the meshes of their magic. They secure possession of his soul and
body by leading him into sin, or bringing him into contact with tabooed
things, or by overcoming his divine protector with sympathetic
magic.... These adversaries of humanity thus expel a man's god, or
genius, or occupy his body. These rituals of atonement have as their
primary object the ejection of the demons and the restoration of the
divine protector. Many of the prayers end with the petition, 'Into the
kind hands of his god and goddess restore him'.

"Representations of the seven devils are somewhat rare.... The Brit.
Mus. figurine represents the demon of the winds with body of a dog,
scorpion tail, bird legs and feet" (S. Langdon, "A Ritual of Atonement
for a Babylonian King," _The Museum Journal_ [University of
Pennsylvania], Vol. VIII, No. 1, March, 1917, pp. 39-44).

But the Babylonians not only adopted the Egyptian conception of the
power of evil as being seven demons, but they also seem to have fused
these seven into one, or rather given the real dragon seven-fold
attributes.[419]

In "The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia"[420] (British Museum),
Marduk's weapon is compared to "the fish with seven wings".

The god himself is represented as addressing it in these words: "The
tempest of battle, my weapon of fifty heads, which like the great
serpent of seven heads is yoked wit