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The Basic Aspect of Hittite Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Giuseppe Furlani
Giuseppe Furlani
Affiliation:
University of Florence
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Extract

The religions of ancient Western Asia, though presenting in detail a number of differences, agree in their conception of the relation between man and god. This is the same relation that exists between the servant and his master, or between the subject and his king or prince. According to the religions of ancient Western Asia, man had to serve his god, his king and his master, and this service constituted his religion. In fact, man was created solely to serve god, and all his life therefore was but a series of religious acts in the service of his god. The religious texts of all palaeo-oriental nations afford us ample proofs that this was the fundamental principle of their religion. I refer to Semitic nations, that is, to those who spoke Semitic languages, or to peoples of other tongues: the Sumerians or the Phoenicians, the Hittites or the South Arabs. All these saw divinity in masters, princes, or kings who had man as subject or servant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 1938 , pp. 251 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1938

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References

1 It would be an error to think that this concept is Semitic, in other words, that it is characteristic and exclusive of Semitic nations. It is found also among the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Hurrians, the Elamites, the Persians.

2 That men were created by the gods for their service is mentioned expressly in the Enūma.ēlīš, VI, 32–33: i-na da-mi-šu ib-na α-me-lu-tu|i-mi-id du-ul-li ilū-ma um-taš-šer, with his blood he has made mankind, he imposed (on it) the service of the gods (and) he freed (them), G. Furlani, Il Poema della Creazione (Bologna, 1934), p. 103; R. Labat, Le Poème babylonien de la Création (Paris, 1935), p. 146. The passage must be understood in the sense that Ea forms humanity to free certain gods, guilty of having followed Tiāmat in her foolish rebellion and therefore deserving of the punishment of having to serve the other gods. With the idea of restoring perfect peace in the pantheon without submitting one part of it to the other, the rebel gods to those victorious, Ea created humanity to lay this charge on it, the service of the gods, i.e. the rebel gods. There is not the slightest doubt, therefore, according to this myth, that humanity bears the consequences of a fault, not its own, but of that part of the gods who had rebelled and were defeated. Man must serve the gods because originally a part of the gods had rebelled and were then beaten by Marduk and his followers. This without doubt was the theory of the Babylonians concerning the creation of mankind.

3 With regard to the Babylonians and Assyrians, reference can be made to my book, La religione dei Babilonesi e Assiri, I–II (Bologna, 1928–1929), in which I often have occasion to mention this concept. On the Semites in general see W. W. von Baudissin, Kyrios als Gottesname im Judentum und seine Stelle in der Religions-geschichte (Giessen, 1927 et seq.), and also O. Eissfeldt, Götternamen und Gottesvorstellung bei den Semiten, ZDMG, LXXXIII (1929), 38–36. For the Hittites see A. Götze, Die Pestgebete des Muršiliš, Kleinasiatische Forschungen, I (1929), 161–251, p. 161; G. Furlani, La religione degli Hittiti (Bologna, 1986), 118–125.

4 I quote and follow the latest edition by E. H. Sturtevant and G. Bechtel, A Hittite Chrestomathy (Philadelphia, 1935), 148–174, where the text in cuneiform characters is found in transliteration and in the English version, with a commentary principally of a philological character. I have dealt with this text at some length from the point of view of religion in my article Sul testo hittita “I doveri degli adetti ai templi,” Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Keligioni XIV (1938), 82–130.

5 This is not really the title but the subscription of the first table of the series, which is the only one extant, but it is very probable that this was also the title of the series. For the sub-title see Sturtevant and Bechtel, Chrestomathy, 166 and 167.

6 On purity and on the lustrations of the Hittites see Furlani, Religione, 233–242.

7 On the meaning of ZI, mind, in this and in some other passages of the same text, see Furlani, Sul testo, 127–128.

8 Some of the terms occurring in our text are of uncertain meaning. See on this subject the notes of Sturtevant on the passage.

9 The text says IGI-wa-an-na-an-za, which is a Hittite term written with a Sumerian ideogram supplied with a Hittite ending. The Hittite word should have as root šaku-wanna-, according to Sturtevant, A Hittite Glossary (Philadelphia, 1936), 129. But the meaning is not certain.

10 The text has the verb ḫa-an-ḫa-ni-ya-i preceded by two small oblique wedges, which means that the word is not Hittite but foreign. Sturtevant in Glossary, 41, translates by “observes, is observant.”

11 Pár-ra-an-da. For the meaning of this term cf. Sturtevant, Glossary, 119, and the passages of Friedrich there mentioned.

12 That is to say it dies with him.

13 For the meaning of this term see Furlani, Sul testo, 127–128.

14 This instance of penal co-responsibility, both in the sacred and the profane law of the Hittites, is not the only one in Hittite literature. I shall soon deal with this elsewhere.

15 For the deep anthropomorphic character of the Hittite theology cf. Furlani, Religione, 24–25, and La religiosità degli Hittiti, Scientia, XXXI, 332–339.

16 See on this subject my remarks in Muršiliš II e il concetto del peccato presso gli Hittiti, SMSR, X, 29, n. 2, where I mention other instances of comparisons, or parables, since in certain parts the comparisons resemble parables.

17 This refers to the Second Prayer, published by A. Götze in Die Pestgebete des Muršiliš, 204–219.

18 Second Prayer, X, 3.

19 I have mentioned and discussed this comparison in Muršiliš II, 28. In the Prayer it comes in line X, 4.

20 Second Prayer, X, 5; Purlani, Muršiliš II, 28–29.

21 This comparison is important also for the Hittite doctrine on sin and on confession. For this latter doctrine see R. Pettazzoni, La confessione dei peccati, III (Bologna, 1936), 45; Furlani, Religione, 359.

22 By this I do not mean to affirm at all that the whole of the Hittite religion is to be brought back to this fundamental concept; far from this, I am convinced that still other principles have contributed to form that whole so rich in religious motifs which is the religion of the Hittites of historical times, the only one at present accessible to us. There must certainly have been in their religion a period which had not developed so clear a conception of the relation of service between man and god. There is no doubt that this conception was formed, developed, and better outlined with the progress of time.

23 Furlani, Religione, 347–348.

24 From the Hittite texts published up to the present there is no evidence, as far as I know, that the Hittites considered also the profane laws as coming from god, though this is very probable, for according to the Hittite idea the king is the representative and vicar of god on earth.

25 On sacrifice among the Hittites see Furlani, Religione, 292–346.

26 I have spoken on the judicial activity of the Hittite gods in Il giudizio del dio nella dottrina religiosa degli Hittiti, Revue Hittite et Asianique, V (1935), 30–44.

27 The king has described the interventions of the goddess, in his autobiography, about which, as far as regards religion, see Furlani, Religione, 126–137, and in regard to politics L'apologia di Hattušiliš III di Ḫatti, Aegyptus, XVII (1937), 65–97.