t the
statement of Ashurbanabal as literally true that the literature
collected by him is a copy of what was found in the great literary
archives of the south--and not only found, but produced there. In
imitation of the example set by the south, schools were of a certainty
established in Nineveh, Arbela, and elsewhere for the education of
priests, scribes, and judges; but we have no evidence to show that they
ever developed to the point of becoming intellectually independent of
Babylonian _models_, except perhaps in minor particulars that need not
enter into our calculations. This relationship between the intellectual
life of Babylonia and Assyria finds its illustration and proof, not
merely in the religious literature, but in the religious art and cult
which, as we shall see, like the literature, bear the distinct impress
of their southern origin, though modified in passing from the south to
the north.

FOOTNOTES:

[339] See above, pp. 72, 114, 133 _seq._

[340] See pp. 12-14.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MAGICAL TEXTS.

Turning to the first subdivision of Babylonian religious literature, we
find remains sufficient to justify us in concluding that there must have
been produced a vast number of texts containing formulas and directions
for securing a control over the spirits which were supposed at all times
to be able to exercise a certain amount of power over men. By virtue of
the aim served by these productions we may group them under the head of
magical texts, or incantations. We have already indicated the manner in
which these incantations grew into more or less rigid temple rituals.
This growth accounts for the fact that the incantations generally framed
in by ceremonial directions, prayers, and reflections, were combined
into a continuous series (or volume, as we would say) of varying length,
covering nine, ten, a dozen, twenty tablets or more. It has been
generally assumed that these incantation texts constitute the oldest
division of the religious literature of the Babylonians. The assertion
in an unqualified form is hardly accurate, for the incantation texts,
such as they lie before us, give evidence of having been submitted to
the influences of an age much later than the one in which their
substance was produced. Conceptions have been carried into them that
were originally absent, and a form given to them that obliges us to
distinguish between the underlying concepts, and the manner in which
these concep