Cultic Practice
"Enlil! his authority is far-reaching; his word is sublime and holy. His decisions are unalterable; he decides fate forever! His eyes scrutinize the entire world!"
A prayer to the god Enlil.The Mesopotamians venerated images of their gods, which it was believed actually held the essence or personality of the deity that they represented; this is evident from the poem How Erra Wrecked the World, in which Erra deceived the god Marduk into leaving his cult statue. A number of written prayers have survived from ancient Mesopotamia, each of which typically exalt the god that they are describing above all others. The historian J. Bottéro stated that these poems display "extreme reverence, profound devotion, the unarguable emotion that the supernatural evoked in the hearts of those ancient believers" but that they showed a people who were scared of their gods rather than openly celebrating them.
Read more about this topic: Religion In Mesopotamia
Famous quotes containing the word practice:
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)