MA'GI. The origin of this term has recently been brought to light by Assyrian -scholars. In Accadian, the language of the early Scythian or Turanian inhabitants of Babylonia and Media, imga signifies " august," " reverend," and was the title of their learned and priestly caste. These Accadians had made great advances in astronomy, or rather astrology, and were much addicted to divination and similar mysterious arts. The Semitic nations, afterwards dOminant in Babylonia and Assyria, adopted not only the learning and many of the religious observances of the early inhabitants, but also a number of the special forms, and among others the name for the learned caste, modify ing it to suit their own articulation; and out of the Semitic form the Greeks made magos. Lnder the Persian empire the mani rose to the very highest importance. They were not only the "keepers of the sacred things, the learned of the people, the philosophers and servants of God," but also diviners and mantics, augurs and astrologers. They -called up the dead, either by awful formulas which were in their exclusive possession, -or by means of cups,' water, etc. They were held in the highest reverence, and no transaction of importance took place without or against their advice. Hence their almost unbounded influence in privat,e as well as in public life, and, quite apart from the education of the young princes being in their bands, they also formed the constant companions of the ruling monarch. Of their relirious system itself, the articles .GumntEs and RARSEES will give a fuller account. foroaster (q.v.), Zerdasht, reorgan
ized, in the course of his great religious reform, also the body of the magi, chiefly by reinforcing the ancient laws about their manner and mode of life, which was to be one of the simplest and severest, befitting their sacred station, but which had become one of luxury and indolence, and by reinstituting the original distinction of the three classes of herbeds (disciples), mobeds (masters), and destur mobeds (complete masters). The food, especially of the lower class, was to consist only of flour and vegetables; they wore white garments, slept on the ground, and were altogether subjected to the most rigorous discipline. The initiation consisted of the most awful and mysterious cere monies. Purifications of several months' duration had to precede it, and it was long before the stage of the disciple's "being led into the realms of the dead" was proceeded with.
Gradually, however, their influence, which once had been powerful enough to raise them to the throne itself (Sassanides), began to wane. and if formerly a number of 80,000 delegates of magi had to decide on the affairs of state and religion, this council in later times dwindled down to the nuinher of seven; and from being the highest caste, the priests of God, and the " pure of mind, heart, and hand," they fell to the rank -of wanderino- ju7tders, fortune-tellers, and quacks, and gave the name to the art of sleight-of-han'd aria performance of conjuring tricks.