These talismans represent the later and more elaborate magic which can be traced to the influence of the Cabala, a theosophical work embodying the Gnostic traditions of past ages. The ideas contained in them are chiefly to be found in the “ Sepher Yetzirah,” or “ Book of Formation,” which is held by some authorities to be the oldest philosophical treatise to be found in the Hebrew language. The same authority tells us it is referred to by both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and therefore this work or a similar predecessor is at least as old as a.d. 200.