Magi
Priests of ancient Persia, and the cultivators of the wisdom of Zoroaster. They were institutied by Cyrus when he founded the new Persian empire, and are supposed to have been of the Median race. Schlegel says (Philosophy of History), "they were not so much a hereditary sacerdotal caste as an order or association, divided into various and successive ranks and grades, such as existed in the mysteries -the grade of apprenticeship-that of mastership-that of perfect mastership." In short, they were a theosophical college; and either its professors were indifferently " magi," or magicians, and "wise men or they were distinguished into two classes by those names. Their name pronounced
Mogh" by the modern Persians, and "Magh" by the ancients signified "Wise," and such is the interpretation of it given by the Greek and Roman writers. Stobæus expressly calls the science of the magi, the service of the gods, so Plato. According to Ennemoser, "Magiusiah, Madschusie, signified the office and knowledge of the priest, who was called "Mag, Magius, Magiusi," and afterwards magi and Magician." Brucker maintains that the primitive meaning of the word is "fire worshipper,"
worship of the light," an erroneous opinion. In the modern Persian the word is "Mog," and "Mogbed signifies high priest. The high priest of the Parsees at Surat, even at the present day, is called, "Mobed." Others derive the word from Megh," "Meh-ab" signifying something which is great and noble, and Zoroaster's disciples were called Meghestom." Salverte states that these Mobeds are still named in the Pehivi dialect "Magoi." They were divided into three classes: - Those who abstained from all animal food; those who never ate of the flesh of any tame animals; and those who made no scruple to eat any kind of meat. A belief in the transmigration of the soul was the foundation of this abstinence. They professed the science of divination, and for that 66 66 Magia purpose met together and consulted in their temples. They professed to make truth the great object of their study; for that alone, they said, can make man like God "whose body resembles light, as his soul or spirit resembles truth." They condemned all images, and those who said that the gods are male and female; they had neither temples nor altars, but worshipped the sky, as a representative of the Deity, on the tops of mountains; they also sacrificed to the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and winds, says Herodotus, meaning, no doubt that they adored the heavenly bodies and the elements. This was probably before the time of Zoroaster, when the religion of Persia seems to have resembled that of ancient India. Their hymns in praise of the Most High exceeded, according to Dio Chrysostom, the sublimity of anything in Homer or Hesiod. They exposed their dead bodies to wild beasts. It is a question "whether the old Persian doctrine and wisdom or tradition of light did not undergo material alterations in the hands of its Median restorer, Zoroaster; or whether this doctrine was preserved in all its purity by the order of the magi." He then remarks that on them devolved the important trust of the monarch's education, which must necessarily have given them great weight and influence in the state. They were in high credit at the "Persian gates "-for that was the Oriental name given to the capital of the empire, and the abode of the prince-and they took the most active part in all the factions that encompassed the throne, or that were formed in the vicinity of the court. In Greece, and even in Egypt, the sacerdotal fraternities and associations of initiated, formed by the mysteries, had in general but an indirect, though not unimportant influence on affairs of state; but in the Persian monarchy they acquired a complete political ascendency. Religion, philosophy, and the sciences were all in their hands, they were the universal physicians who healed the sick in body and in spirit, and, in strict consistency with that character, ministered to the state, which is only the man again in a larger sense. The three grades of the magi alluded to are called by Herber the "disciples," the "professed," and the " masters." They were originally from Bactria, where they governed a little state by laws of their own choice, and by their incorporation in the Persian empire, they greatly promoted the consolidation of the conquests of Cyrus. Their fall dates from the reign of Darius Hystaspes, about 500 B.C., by whom they were fiercely persecuted; this produced an emigration which extended to Cappadocia on the one hand, and to India on the other, but they were still of so much consideration at a later period, as to provoke the jealousy of Alexander the Great. (See Persia.)