The Assyrians made occasionally a religious use of fasting.  The evidence on this point is confined to the Book of Jonah, which, however, distinctly shows both the fact and the nature of the usage.  When a fast was proclaimed, the king, the nobles, and the people exchanged their ordinary apparel for sackcloth, sprinkled ashes upon their heads, and abstained alike from food and drink until the fast was over.  The animals also that were within the walls of the city where the fast was commanded, had sackcloth placed upon them; and the same abstinence was enforced upon them as was enjoined on the inhabitants.  Ordinary business was suspended, and the whole population united in prayer to Asshur, the supreme god, whose pardon they entreated, and whose favor they sought to propitiate.  These proceedings were not merely formal.  On the occasion mentioned in the book of Jonah, the repentance of the Ninevites seems to have been sincere.  “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them:  and he did it not.”

The religious sentiment appears, on the whole, to have been strong and deep-seated among the Assyrians.  Although religion had not the prominence in Assyria which it possessed in Egypt, or even in Greece—­although the temple was subordinated to the palace, and the most imposing of the representations of the gods were degraded to mere architectural ornaments—­yet the Assyrians appear to have been really, nay, even earnestly, religious.  Their religion, it must be admitted, was of a sensuous character.  They not only practised image-worship, but believed in the actual power of the idols to give protection or work mischief; nor could they rise to the conception of a purely spiritual and immaterial deity.  Their ordinary worship was less one of prayer than one by means of sacrifices and offerings.  They could, however, we know, in the time of trouble, utter sincere prayers; and we are bound therefore to credit them with an honest purpose in respect of the many solemn addresses and invocations which occur both in their public and their private documents.  The numerous mythological tablets testify to the large amount of attention which was paid to religious subjects by the learned; while the general character of their names, and the practice of inscribing sacred figures and emblems upon their signets, which was almost universal, seem to indicate a spirit of piety on the part of the mass of the people.

The sensuous cast of the religion naturally led to a pompous ceremonial, a fondness for processional display, and the use of magnificent vestments.  These last are represented with great minuteness in the Nimrud sculptures.  The dresses of those engaged in sacred functions seem to have been elaborately embroidered, for the most part with religious figures and emblems, such as the winged circle, the pine-cone, the pomegranate, the sacred tree, the human-headed lion, and the like.  Armlets, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings were worn by the officiating priests, whose heads were either encircled with a richly-ornamented fillet, or covered with a mitre or high cap of imposing appearance.  Musicians had a place in the processions, and accompanied the religious ceremonies with playing or chanting, or, in some instances, possibly with both.