In connection with Hermes Trismegistus may be mentioned the so-called Oracula Chaldaica, which apparently sprang from the same general type of thought.[173] These Oracula Chaldaica, according to W. Kroll, constitute a document of heathen gnosis, which was produced about 200 A.D. Although Kroll believes that there is here no Christian influence, and that Jewish influence touches not the center but only the circumference, yet for the reasons already noticed it would be precarious to use a document of 200 A.D. in reconstructing pre-Pauline paganism. [173] See W. Kroll, _De Oraculis Chaldaicis_, 1894; "Die chaldäischen Orakel," in _Rheinisches Museum für Philologie_, l, 1895, pp. 636-639. A very important source of information about the Greco-oriental religion of the Hellenistic age is found by scholars like Dieterich and Reitzenstein in the so-called "magical" papyri. Among the many interesting papyrus documents which have recently been discovered in Egypt are some that contain formulas intended to be used in incantations. At first sight these formulas look like hopeless nonsense; it may perhaps even be said that they are intended to be nonsense. That is, the effect is sought, not from any logical understanding of the formulas either on the part of those who use them or on the part of the higher powers upon whom they are to be used, but simply and solely from the mechanical effect of certain combinations of sounds. Thus the magical papyri include not only divine names in foreign languages (the ancient and original name of a god being regarded as exerting a coercive effect upon that god), but also many meaningless rows of letters which do not form words at all. But according to Dieterich and Reitzenstein and others, these papyri, nonsensical as they are in their completed form, often embody materials which belong not to magic but to religion; in particular, they make use, for a magical purpose, of what was originally intended to be used in a living religious cult. Indeed the distinction between magic and religion is often difficult to draw. In religion there is an element of interest, on the part of the worshiper, in the higher powers as such, some idea of propitiating them, of winning their favor; whereas in magic the higher powers are made use of as though they were mere machines through the use of incantations and spells. But when this distinction is applied to the ancient mystery religions, sometimes these religions seem to be little more than magic, so external and mechanical is the way in which the initiation is supposed to work. It is not surprising, therefore, if the composers of magical formulas turned especially, in seeking their materials, to the mystery cults; for they were drawn in that direction by a certain affinity both of purpose and of method. At any rate, whatever may be the explanation, the existing magical papyri, according to Dieterich and others, do contain important elements derived from the