Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

;436 THE FISH OF TOBIAS—DEMONIC POSSESSIONscope for making love to the bride their jealous wrath mightbe appeased, or the danger, at any rate, minimised. Thealternative to appeasement was deception of the demonwhence women sometimes disguised themselves as men, andeven wore false beards !We find, on returning from this semi-folklore excursion.Prof. Langdon asserting that in Sumero-Babylonian religioneach individual is guarded by a divine spirit or god.^ He iscalled the " Man's God," and the man is defined, in a religioussense, as a " Son of God." But this term appHes to no females.This can hardly be attributed to accident, for our sourcesof information mention hundreds, even thousands, of menbewitched, and by demonic force abandoned by their indwellinggods, but never a woman. Women not infrequently figure ascausing the condition of tabu, but never as having fallen to thepowers of devils, or witches, or as being under the protectionof a personal god. They never appear in the private penitentialpsalms.But when we recall the high position occupied by women,not only in Babylonian society, but also in the eye of the civillaw, which regarded their rights, as often as not, equal to thoseof men, and that women are often found as priestesses ofreligious orders, Langdon's statements, resting on recentdiscoveries, create grounds for surprise.To explain the anomaly he conjectures that when the textsrefer to sinners, penitents, or sufferers, the title " son of hisgod " appHes in all probability also to women.The book of Tobit, whether Persian in its source or Aramaicin its original text, furnishes an example of demonic possessionof a woman, a Hebrew of the Hebrews.The Jewish conception of demonic possession resembles,indeed probably descends from, the Babylonian. The " sevendevils " of Matt. xii. 45, Luke xi. 26, and viii. 2, simplyreflect the evil spirits, called in a famous incantation The Seven,who play no small part in Babylonian mythology. 2^ Babylonian Magic (London, 1914), pp. 223-224, and Le Pobne Sumerien,already cited, p. 72, note 3.^ Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 634, 776.