proportions. Records were made of all decisions; the facts were
set forth, and duly attested by witnesses. Business and marriage
contracts, loans and deeds of sale were in like manner drawn up
in the presence of official scribes, who were also priests. In
this way all commercial transactions received the written
sanction of the religious organization. The temples
themselves--at least in the large centres--entered into business
relations with the populace. In order to maintain the large
household represented by such an organization as that of the
temple of Enlil of Nippur, that of Ningirsu at Lagash, that of
Marduk at Babylon, or that of Shamash at Sippar, large holdings
of land were required which, cultivated by agents for the
priests, or farmed out with stipulations for a goodly share of
the produce, secured an income for the maintenance of the temple
officials. The enterprise of the temples was expanded to the
furnishing of loans at interest--in later periods, at 20%--to
barter in slaves, to dealings in lands, besides engaging labor
for work of all kinds directly needed for the temples. A large
quantity of the business documents found in the temple archives
are concerned with the business affairs of the temple, and we are
justified in including the temples in the large centres as among
the most important business institutions of the country. In
financial or monetary transactions the position of the temples
was not unlike that of national banks. . . .

And so on. We may venture the guess that the learned professor
said more in that last sentence than he himself intended, for his
lectures were delivered in that temple of plutocracy, the
University of Pennsylvania, and paid out of an endowment which
specifies that "all polemical subjects shall be positively