This is not to say that the terms ‘religion’ and ‘magic’ possessed any well-defined boundaries for them. As there were men who would dispute upon religious questions, so were there persons who would discuss matters magical. In Chaldea as in ancient Egypt the crude and vague magical practices of primeval times received form and developed into accepted ritual, just as early religious ideas evolved into dogmas under the stress of theological controversy and opinion. Indeed so closely do some of the Assyrian incantations and magical practices resemble those of the European sorcerers of the Middle Ages and of primitive peoples of the present day that it is difficult to convince oneself that they are of independent origin. The literature of Chaldea-especially its religious literature-teems with references to magic, and in its spells and incantations we see the prototypes of those employed by the magicians of medireval Europe. One difference between the priest and the sorcerer was that the one employed magic for religious purposes whilst the other used it for his own ends. LIKE other primitive races the peoples of Chaldea scarcely discriminated at all between religion and magic.
