5. Among the Hebrews

The ancient Hebrews, surrounded and influenced by two neighboring peoples which were adepts in magic art, also showed a strong tendency to witchcraft, as is clear from the rigid but ineffectual prohibitions in the legal code (Ex. xxii. 18; Deut. xviii. 10-11; comp. II Kings xxi. 6; Isa. viii. 19, 20, Ivii. 3; Micah v. il). Both the divination of the Babylonians and the medical exorcisms of the Egyptians seem to have exercised a strong influence on Israel, and the later development of pre- Christian Judaism favored an increased devotion to these forbidden arts. This is shown by many of the Apoc- rypha and Peeudepigrapha of the Old Testament, especially Tobit iii., vi.; Enoch hzix., the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the late Jewish Testament of Solomon and various other Solomonic legends and incantations connected with the tradition of the queen of Sheba based on I Kings x. 1-10.

6. In India

Throughout the Aryan and non-Aryan peoples which surrounded the Semites of southwestern Asia magic is seen to appear at a relatively early period, although it did not exist in the very beginning. Nor did it disappear with development of civilization and learning, but, on the contrary, increased in extent and refinement. So it was among the Hindus (see BsaHnswrnsM), whose earliest phase of religion, as represented in the Rag Veda, was a simple nature worship free from magic accretion, while the rise of the Brah- manic priesthood produced an extreme formalism with a tendency to exercise power over the gods by means of a correct performance of the prescribed offerings, prayers, and invocations. The Atharva Veda contains a vast number of examples of formulas to be employed in such acts of magic, and the Sutras, or compendiums of ritual for the Brahmanic sacrifice, mark a still further advance in religious formalism. Even the Buddhistic reform was unable to suppress the witchcraft underlying Hinduism, and it was in Buddhism that the popular belief in a cult of magic appropriate to the spirits of earth, trues, mountains, fields, and houses found its most luxuriant development. If this be true of Hindu Buddhism it is still more characteristic of the Mongolian and Tatar neighbors of India, especially the Chinese and the shamanistic tribes of central and northern Asia. In modern China (q.v.) Buddhist bonzes vie with Taoist priests in the practise of magic and divination.

7. In Persia

In Persia (see Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism), in like manner, magic forced itself upon a Mazdaism which was originally free from witchcraft. The Avesta bitterly opposed the magic arts of the "wizards" who derived their skill either from "Turan" or from Babylon, but toward the end of the Acheemenian period, as well as under the Arsacids, magic began to play so prominent a part in the popular religion of the Persians that the name Magian became a designation for the priesthood of Persia. Even the efforts of the Sassanians to restore the ancient pre-Magian faith had only temporary success. As far as this later Persian or Parthian magianism was predominantly astrological or mantic in character, it must be regarded as borrowed from Babylonia, but its magic elements in the narrower sense of the term, such se conjuration and amuleLa, doubtless came from the "Turanian" or Scythian peoples in the north.

Among the ancient Teutons a cult of the divinity of the fields and forte connected with the practise of magic was an important feature of religion at a

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