former more
accessible to the popular beliefs in incantations and in the power of
demons than they would otherwise have been. Not that the Jews (as little
as any other people) were ever entirely free from superstitious
practices; but, living in an atmosphere charged, so to speak, with magic
and astrology, it was inevitable that even the best among them should be
infected by customs that they daily witnessed. In the Babylonian Talmud,
the references to evil spirits are numerous. Specific incantations are
introduced, and an elaborate system of angelology and demonology forms a
feature of Talmudical Judaism in which, by the side of Persian
influences,[1610] we may detect equally strong traces of Babylonian
ideas. In the upper strata of the ruins of Nippur, hundreds of clay
bowls were found, inscribed with Jewish inscriptions, in the Aramaic
dialect that was spoken by the Babylonian Jews.[1611] Similar bowls were
found elsewhere in the mounds of the Euphrates Valley.[1612] These bowls
indicate the presence of Jews in various parts of the country.[1613]
Placed in the graves as a protection for the dead against evil spirits,
the inscriptions contain formulas of denunciation against the demons
that constitute a striking parallel to the incantation texts of ancient
Babylonia. Some of the demons are identical with those occurring in
these texts, and by the side of the inscriptions, there are
illustrations[1614] and magical designs to which parallels exist on the
Babylonian tablets.

This custom of endeavoring to secure protection for the dead through the
power of the curses and propitiatory phrases inscribed on bowls
continued in vogue as late as the ninth century at the least, and
perhaps considerably later. There are indications also that Babylonian
ideas found an entrance into the Jewish Kabbala,--the strange mystic
system of the middle ages, the sources of which are to be sought in the
apocalyptic chapters of Ezekiel and Daniel.

Christianity as well as Judaism felt the fascination of the mystic lore
of Babylonia. Gunkel[1615] has demonstrated the Babylonian origin of the
myth embodied in the twelfth chapter of Revelations. This myth is but
another form of the Marduk-Tiamat contest, which, it will be recalled,
is the chief episode in the Babylonian creation 'epic.'[1616] More
significant is the influence exerted by the religious ideas of Babylonia
upon the various Gnostic sects that arose within the Christian Church.
That