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Time is a being who has an existence of itself, who is even regarded sometimes as a material body, and who is endowed with an activity of its own. Cicero says (Nat. Deor. 1.14): “Zeno attributed a divine power (vis divina) to the stars, but also to the years, the months, and the seasons.” We have here a very ancient belief which is found in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. The magic idea of a power superior to man is connected, from the very beginning, with the notation of time. Calendars had a religious significance before acquiring a secular one: their original object was not to secure the measurement of the gliding moments, but to indicate the recurrence of propitious or unpropitious dates separated by periodic intervals. The return of fixed moments therefore have a sacred character. Each portion of time brings on some propitious or unpropitious movement of the heavens, which is anxiously watched, and these motions incessantly modify the earthly world. The centuries and the years, each subject to the influence of a star or a constellation, the seasons which are related to the four winds and to the four cardinal points, the twelve months over which the signs of the zodiac preside, the day and night, the twelve hours, are all personified and deified, as being the authors of all the changes in the universe.
The units of time occur as cosmic powers in Sumero-Babylonian texts. The Sumerian zi-pà incantation which invokes gods to drive away evil forces, once invokes the main divisions of time: “Be (excorcised) by day, month, and year!” (PBS I/2 115.1.13-14) In a Babylonian hymn to Marduk, the units of time are invited to bless Marduk: “Day, month and year, bless Bēl!” (BM 68593 10) The incantation series Šurpu also mentions “day, month and year” right after the list of gods (3.113). These calendrical elements continued to be regarded as cosmic powers capable of driving away forces of evil and bringing about blessings. The Mandaic demons of time were of dangerous nature, but the ancient Mesopotamian notion of the divinity of time is attested in the Mandaic texts. The units of time were considered as having a definite influence, as being endowed with a magic potency, and astrology sought to codify these activities, by placing each division of time under the protection of a star in its system of “chronocratories.”
Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1.14
Hymn to Marduk (BM 68593 10)
Šurpu 3.113
Zi-pà Incantations (PBS I/2 115.1.13-14)
Bibliography
| Cumont 1912, 107-109 | Cumont, Franz. Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans. American Lectures on the History of Religions 8. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1912. |
| Lambert 2002, 189 | Lambert, Wilfred G. “Units of Time as Cosmic Powers in Sumero-Babylonian Texts.” In: C. Wunsch (ed.). Mining the Archives. Festschrift for Christopher Walker on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Babylonische Archive 1. Dresden: ISLET 2002, 189. |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
Cf. Units of time as divine beings (2)
Amar Annus
URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000835.php
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