To cope with evil spirits the Babylonian used magic. He put up a small image of a protecting god at the entrance to his house and wore charms upon his person. If he felt ill, he went to a priest, who recited a long incantation supposed to drive out the "devil" afflicting the patient. The reputation of the Babylonian priests was so widespread that in time the name "Chaldean" [12] came to mean one who is a magician. Some of their magical rites were borrowed by the Jews, and later by the Romans, from whom they entered Christian Europe. Another Babylonian practice which spread westward was that of divination, particularly by inspecting the entrails of animals slain in sacrifice. This was a very common method of divination among the Greeks and Romans. [13] [Illustration: EGYPTIAN SCARAB The beetle, as a symbol of birth and resurrection, and hence of immortality, enjoyed much reverence in ancient Egypt. A scarab, or image of the beetle, was often worn as a charm and was placed in the mummy as an artificial heart.] ASTROLOGY Astrology received much attention. It was believed that the five planets, comets, and eclipses of the sun and moon exerted an influence for good or evil on the life of man. Babylonian astrology likewise extended to western lands and became popular among the Greeks and Romans. Some of it survives to the present time. When we name the days Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we are unconscious astrologers, for in old belief the first day belonged to the planet Saturn, the second to the sun, and the third to the moon. [14] Superstitious people who try to read their fate in the stars are really practicing an art of Babylonian origin. EGYPTIAN ANIMAL WORSHIP Less influential in later times was the animal worship of the Egyptians. This, too, formed a heritage from the prehistoric past. Many common animals of Egypt--the cat, hawk, the jackal, the bull, the ram, the crocodile--were highly reverenced. Some received worship because deities were supposed to dwell in them. The larger number, however, were not worshiped for themselves, but as symbols of different gods. MONOTHEISM IN PERSIA In the midst of such an assemblage of nature deities, spirits, and sacred animals, it was remarkable that the belief in one god should ever have arisen. The Medes and Persians accepted the teachings of Zoroaster, a great prophet who lived perhaps as early as 1000 B.C. According to Zoroaster, Ahuramazda, the heaven-deity, is the maker and upholder of the universe. He is a god of light and order, of truth and purity. Against him stands Ahriman, the personification of darkness and evil. Ahuramazda in the end will overcome Ahriman and will reign supreme in a righteous world. Zoroastrianism was the only monotheistic religion developed by an Indo- European people. [15]