Gold statuettes from the Oxus Treasure by Nickmard Khoey

Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin '' magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by

Darius the Great Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his d ...

, known as the Behistun Inscription.

Old Persian Old Persian is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native ...

texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest. Pervasive throughout the

Eastern Mediterranean Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communi ...

and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, ''mágos'' (μάγος) was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek '' goēs'' (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of

magic Magic or Magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces * Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic * Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...

, to include astronomy/ astrology, alchemy, and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for Pseudo-Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the

Chaldea Chaldea () was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BCE, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was ...

n founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words "magic" and "

magician Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-ce ...

". In the Gospel of Matthew, "μάγοι" (''magoi'') from the east do homage to Jesus, a child and the transliterated plural "magi" entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as "kings" and more often in recent times as "wise men"). The singular "magus" appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning ''magician''. Hereditary Zoroastrian priesthood has survived in India and Iran. They are termed Herbad, Mobad (Magupat, i.e. chief of the Maga), and Dastur depending on the rank.

Iranian sources

Chopped gold pieces from the Oxus Treasure by Nickmard Khoey213

The term only appears twice in Iranian texts from before the 5th century BCE, and only one of these can be dated with precision. This one instance occurs in the trilingual Behistun inscription of

, and which can be dated to about 520 BCE. In this trilingual text, certain rebels have magian as an attribute; in the

portion as ''maγu-'' (generally assumed to be a loan word from

Median In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...

). The meaning of the term in this context is uncertain. The other instance appears in the texts of the Avesta, the sacred literature of Zoroastrianism. In this instance, which is in the

Younger Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

portion, the term appears in the hapax ''moghu.tbiš'', meaning "hostile to the ''moghu''", where ''moghu'' does not (as was previously thought) mean "magus", but rather "a member of the tribe" or referred to a particular social class in the proto-Iranian language and then continued to do so in Avestan., p. 36. An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival ''magavan'' meaning "possessing ''maga-''", was once the premise that Avestan ''maga-'' and Median (i.e. Old Persian) ''magu-'' were coeval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit ''magha-''). While "in the

Gathas The Gathas ()"Gatha"
''

as well. But it "may be, however", that Avestan ''moghu'' (which is not the same as Avestan ''maga-'') "and Medean ''magu'' were the same word in origin, a common Iranian term for 'member of the tribe' having developed among the Medes the special sense of 'member of ''the'' (priestly) tribe', hence a priest."^''cf'' Some examples of the use of magi in

Persian poetry Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources h ...

, are present in the poems of Hafez. There are two frequent terms used by him, first one is ''Peer-e Moghan'' (literally "the old man of the magi") and second one is ''Deyr-e Moghan'' (literally "the monastery of the magi").

Greco-Roman sources

Classical Greek

The oldest surviving Greek reference to the magi – from Greek μάγος (''mágos'', plural: ''magoi'') – might be from 6th century BCE Heraclitus (apud Clemens '' Protrepticus'' 2.22.2), who curses the magi for their "impious" rites and rituals. A description of the rituals that Heraclitus refers to has not survived, and there is nothing to suggest that Heraclitus was referring to foreigners. Better preserved are the descriptions of the mid-5th century BCE Herodotus, who in his portrayal of the Iranian expatriates living in Asia Minor uses the term "magi" in two different senses. In the first sense (''

Histories Histories or, in Latin, Historiae may refer to: * the plural of history * ''Histories'' (Herodotus), by Herodotus * ''The Histories'', by Timaeus * ''The Histories'' (Polybius), by Polybius * ''Histories'' by Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), ...

'' 1.101), Herodotus speaks of the magi as one of the tribes/peoples (''ethnous'') of the Medes. In another sense (1.132), Herodotus uses the term "magi" to generically refer to a " sacerdotal caste", but "whose ethnic origin is never again so much as mentioned.". According to Robert Charles Zaehner, in other accounts, "we hear of Magi not only in Persia, Parthia,

Bactria Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, southwe ...

, Chorasmia, Aria, Media, and among the Sakas, but also in non-Iranian lands like Samaria, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Their influence was also widespread throughout Asia Minor. It is, therefore, quite likely that the sacerdotal caste of the Magi was distinct from the Median tribe of the same name." As early as the 5th century BCE, Greek ''magos'' had spawned ''mageia'' and ' to describe the activity of a magus, that is, it was his or her art and practice. But almost from the outset the noun for the action and the noun for the actor parted company. Thereafter, ''mageia'' was used not for what actual magi did, but for something related to the word 'magic' in the modern sense, i.e. using supernatural means to achieve an effect in the natural world, or the appearance of achieving these effects through trickery or sleight of hand. The early Greek texts typically have the pejorative meaning, which in turn influenced the meaning of ''magos'' to denote a conjurer and a charlatan. Already in the mid-5th century BCE, Herodotus identifies the ''magi'' as interpreters of omens and dreams (''Histories'' 7.19, 7.37, 1.107, 1.108, 1.120, 1.128). Other Greek sources from before the Hellenistic period include the gentleman-soldier Xenophon, who had first-hand experience at the Persian Achaemenid court. In his early 4th century BCE '' Cyropaedia'', Xenophon depicts the magians as authorities for all religious matters (8.3.11), and imagines the magians to be responsible for the education of the emperor-to-be. Apuleius, a Numidian Platonist philosopher, describes magus to be considered as a "sage and philosopher-king" based on its Platonic notion.

Roman period

Once the magi had been associated with "magic" – Greek ' – it was but a natural progression that the Greeks' image of Zoroaster would metamorphose into a magician too.. The first century Pliny the Elder names "Zoroaster" as the inventor of magic ('' Natural History'' xxx.2.3), but a "principle of the division of labor appears to have spared Zoroaster most of the responsibility for introducing the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds. That dubious honor went to another fabulous magus, Ostanes, to whom most of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed." For Pliny, this magic was a "monstrous craft" that gave the Greeks not only a "lust" (''aviditatem'') for magic, but a downright "madness" (''rabiem'') for it, and Pliny supposed that Greek philosophers – among them Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato – traveled abroad to study it, and then returned to teach it (xxx.2.8–10). "Zoroaster" – or rather what the Greeks supposed him to be – was for the Hellenists the figurehead of the 'magi', and the founder of that order (or what the Greeks considered to be an

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

). He was further projected as the author of a vast compendium of "Zoroastrian" pseudepigrapha, composed in the main to discredit the texts of rivals. "The Greeks considered the best wisdom to be exotic wisdom" and "what better and more convenient authority than the distant – temporally and geographically – Zoroaster?" The subject of these texts, the authenticity of which was rarely challenged, ranged from treatises on nature to ones on necromancy. But the bulk of these texts dealt with astronomical speculations and magical lore. One factor for the association with astrology was Zoroaster's name, or rather, what the Greeks made of it. His name was identified at first with star-worshiping (' "star sacrificer") and, with the ''Zo-'', even as the ''living'' star. Later, an even more elaborate mytho-etymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living (''zo-'') flux (''-ro-'') of fire from the star (''-astr-'') which he himself had invoked, and even that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him. The second, and "more serious" Abteilung I, Band VIII, Abschnitt 1, p. 516 factor for the association with astrology was the notion that Zoroaster was a

n. The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster was Zaratas / Zaradas / Zaratos (''cf.'' Agathias 2.23–5, Clement ''

Stromata The ''Stromata'' ( el, Στρώματα), a mistake for ''Stromateis'' (Στρωματεῖς, "Patchwork," i.e., ''Miscellanies''), attributed to Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215), is the third of a trilogy of works regarding the Christ ...

'' I.15), which – according to Bidez and Cumont – derived from a Semitic form of his name. The

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...

's chapter on ''astronomia'' notes that the Babylonians learned their astrology from Zoroaster. Lucian of Samosata (''Mennipus'' 6) decides to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's disciples and successors", for their opinion.

Christian tradition

The word ''mágos'' (Greek) and its variants appear in both the

Old Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...

and New Testaments. Ordinarily this word is translated "magician" or "sorcerer" in the sense of illusionist or fortune-teller, and this is how it is translated in all of its occurrences (e.g.

Acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...

13:6) except for the Gospel of Matthew, where, depending on translation, it is rendered "wise man" ( KJV, RSV) or left untranslated as ''Magi'', typically with an explanatory note ( NIV). However, early church fathers, such as St. Justin, Origen,

St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afri ...

and St. Jerome, did not make an exception for the Gospel, and translated the word in its ordinary sense, i.e. as "magician". The Gospel of Matthew states that magi visited the infant Jesus to do him homage shortly after his birth (). The gospel describes how magi from the east were notified of the birth of a king in Judaea by the appearance of his star. Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, they visited King Herod to determine the location of the king of the Jews's birthplace. Herod, disturbed, told them that he had not heard of the child, but informed them of a prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. He then asked the magi to inform him when they find the child so that he himself may also pay homage to the child. Guided by the Star of Bethlehem, the wise men found the child Jesus in a house. They paid homage to him, and presented him with "gifts of gold and of frankincense and of myrrh." (2.11) In a dream they are warned not to return to Herod, and therefore return to their homes by taking another route. Since its composition in the late 1st century, numerous apocryphal stories have embellished the gospel's account. Matthew 2:16 implies that Herod learned from the wise men that up to two years had passed since the birth, which is why all male children two years or younger were slaughtered. In addition to the more famous story of Simon Magus found in chapter 8, the ''

Book of Acts The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...

'' () also describes another magus who acted as an advisor of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul at Paphos on the island of Cyprus. He was a Jew named Bar-Jesus (son of Jesus), or alternatively

Elymas Elymas , () also known as Bar-Jesus ( grc, Βαριεσοῦ, arc, Bar-Shuma, la, Bariesu), is a Jew described in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 13, in the New Testament. He is referred to as a ''mágos'', which the King James Bible translates ...

. (Another Cypriot magus named Atomos is referenced by Josephus, working at the court of Felix at

Caesarea Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesare ...

.) One of the non-canonical Christian sources, the

Syriac Infancy Gospel The Syriac Infancy Gospel, also known as the Arabic Infancy Gospel, is a New Testament apocryphal writing concerning the infancy of Jesus. It may have been compiled as early as the sixth century, and was partly based on the Infancy Gospel of Thom ...

, provides, in its third chapter, a story of the wise men of the East which is very similar to much of the story in Matthew. This account cites Zoradascht (Zoroaster) as the source of the prophecy that motivated the wise men to seek the infant Jesus.

Jewish tradition

In the Talmud, instances of dialogue between the Jewish sages and various magi are recorded. The Talmud depicts the Magi as sorcerers and in several descriptions, they are negatively described as obstructing Jewish religious practices. Several references include the sages criticizing practices performed by various magi. One instance is a description of the Zoroastrian priests exhuming corpses for their burial practices which directly interfered with the Jewish burial rites. Another instance is a sage forbidding learning from the magi.

Islamic tradition

In Arabic, "Magians" ('' majus'') is the term for Zoroastrians. The term is mentioned in the Quran, in sura 22 verse 17, where the "Magians" are mentioned alongside the Jews, the Sabians and the Christians in a list of religions who will be judged on the Day of Resurrection. In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein's

Ba'ath Party The Arab Socialist Baʿath Party ( ar, حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي ' ) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bītār, and associates of Zaki al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused B ...

used the term ''majus'' during the Iran–Iraq War as a generalization of all modern-day Iranians. "By referring to the Iranians in these documents as ''majus'', the security apparatus mpliedthat the Iranians erenot sincere Muslims, but rather covertly practice their pre-Islamic beliefs. Thus, in their eyes, Iraq's war took on the dimensions of not only a struggle for Arab nationalism, but also a campaign in the name of Islam."

Indian tradition

In India, the Sakaldwipiya Brahmins are considered to be the descendants of the ten Maga (Sanskrit मग) priests who were invited to conduct worship of

Mitra ''Mitra'' ( Proto-Indo-Iranian: ''*mitrás'') is the name of an Indo-Iranian divinity from which the names and some characteristics of Rigvedic Mitrá and Avestan Mithra derive. The names (and occasionally also some characteristics) of these t ...

(

Surya Surya (; sa, सूर्य, ) is the sun as well as the solar deity in Hinduism. He is traditionally one of the major five deities in the Smarta tradition, all of whom are considered as equivalent deities in the Panchayatana puja and a m ...

) at Mitravana ( Multan), as described in the Samba Purana, Bhavishya Purana and the Mahabharata. Their original home was a region named as Sakadvipa. According to Varahamihira (c. 505 – c. 587), the statue of the Sun god (Mitra), is represented as wearing the "northern" (central Asian) dress, specifically with horse riding boots. Several Brahmin communities of India trace their descent from the Magas. Several of the classical astronomers and mathematicians of India such are Varahamihira are considered to be the descendants of the Magas. Varahamihira specifies that installation and consecration of the Sun images should be done by the Magas.

Albiruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...

mentions that the priests of the Sun Temple at Multan were Magas. The Magas had colonies in a number of places in India, and were the priests at Konark, Martanda and other sun temples.

Possible loan into Chinese

Victor H. Mair (1990) suggested that Chinese '' wū'' (巫 "shaman; witch, wizard; magician") may originate as a loanword from

*''maguš'' "magician; magi". Mair reconstructs an Old Chinese *'.. The reconstruction of Old Chinese forms is somewhat speculative. The velar final ''-g'' in Mair's *' (巫) is evident in several Old Chinese reconstructions (Dong Tonghe's *''m^ywag'', Zhou Fagao's *''mjwaγ'', and

Li Fanggui Li Fang-Kuei (Chinese: 李方桂, Cantonese: Lei5 Fong1 Gwai3 ej˩˨ fɔŋ˦ gʷaj˧, Mandarin: Lǐ Fāngguì i˨ faŋ˦ gʷej˥˩ 20 August 190221 August 1987) was a Chinese linguist known for his studies of the varieties of Chinese, his rec ...

's *''mjag''), but not all ( Bernhard Karlgren's *''m^ywo'' and Axel Schuessler's *''ma''). Mair adduces the discovery of two figurines with unmistakably Caucasoid or Europoid features dated to the 8th century BCE, found in a 1980 excavation of a Zhou Dynasty palace in Fufeng County, Shaanxi Province. One of the figurines is marked on the top of its head with an incised ☩ graph. Mair's suggestion is based on a proposal by Jao Tsung-I (1990), which connects the " cross potent" Bronzeware script glyph for ''wu'' 巫 with the same shape found in Neolithic West Asia, specifically a cross potent carved in the shoulder of a goddess figure of the Halaf period.''Ming-pao yueh-kan'' 25.9 (September 1990). English translation
Questions on the Origin of Writing Raised by the 'Silk Road'
Sino-Platonic Papers, 26 (September, 1991).

References

External links

*{{citation , last=Lendering , first=Jona , title=Magians , location=Amsterdam , publisher=livius.org , date=2006 , url=https://www.livius.org/articles/concept/magians/.
"Magi from the East"
at ''Gates of Nineveh''

History of astrology Magic (supernatural) Medes Ancient Iranian religion Achaemenid Empire Chaldea