the personal aspects of the gods
were less accentuated. The very fact that no particular god could in
many cases be specified entailed, as a consequence, that the views held
of the gods gained in abstractness. The general thought of one's
dependence upon these supernatural powers, without further
specification, superinduced a grouping of the gods under a common
aspect, as the directors of man's fate. In short, the notion of deity,
not indeed as a unit, but as a collective idea, begins to dawn in
Babylonia. At the same time we must beware of exaggerating the force
that this notion acquired. There is not the slightest trace of any
approach to real monotheism in Babylonia, nor can it even be said that
the penitential psalms constitute a bridge leading to such an approach.
The strong hold that astrology at all times, and up to the latest
periods, had upon both the popular and the educated mind was in itself
sufficient to prevent the Babylonians from passing, to any considerable
degree, beyond the stage in which the powers of nature were personified
and imbued with real life. The penitential psalms presuppose this belief
as much as any other branch of the religious literature; they merely
illustrate this belief in the purest form of which, in the course of its
development, it was capable.

A psalm in which this anonymity of the offended god is more strongly
brought out begins as follows.[474] The penitent prays:

O that the wrath of my lord's heart return to its former
condition,[475]
O that the god who is unknown be pacified,
O that the goddess unknown be pacified,
O that the god known or unknown[476] be pacified,
O that the goddess known or unknown be pacified,
O that the heart of my god be pacified,
O that the god or goddess known or unknown be pacified!

The penitent, it will be seen, does not know whether it is a god or a
goddess whom he has offended. He therefore appeals to both. He goes on
to say that he is not even aware of the sin that he has committed:

The sin that I have committed I know not.

And yet he must have sinned or he would not suffer as he does. In
addition to his confession, he imposes the hardship of fasting upon
himself by way of penance:

Food I have not eaten;
Clear water I have not drunk.

The reference to fasting occurs so frequently in these psalms that one
is tempted to conclude that such a bodily castigation was demanded by
the ritual of the Babylonians:[477]