MAGGOT, the larva of a fly. (See FlaEs).
ma'ji (Lat. Magus, Gr. maYoc), an Accadian term recently brought to light by Assyrian scholars; Accadian being the lan guage of the people of Babylon and Media. The word signifies "august," "reverend" and was the title of their learned and priestly caste. The Semitic nations afterward dominant in Babylonia and Assyria adopted the learning and many of the religious observances of the early inhabitants, as also the name for the learned caste; and out of the Semitic form the Greeks made magos. Under the Persian Empire the magi were not only the "keepers of the sacred things, the learned of the people, the philoso phers and servants of God," but also diviners and mantics, augurs and astrologers. They were held in the highest reverence, and no transaction of importance took place without or against their advice. Hence their almost un bounded influence in both private and public life. Apart from the education of the young princes being in their hands, they were the constant companions of the ruling monarch. Zoroaster, in the course of his great religious reform, reorganized the body of the magi, chiefly by reinforcing the ancient laws as to 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 gar ments, slept on the ground and were altogether subjected to the most rigorous discipline. The
initiation consisted of the most awful and mysterious ceremonies, and was preceded by purification of several months' duration. As far as we can learn the principle of good and evil, as represented by Ormazd and Ahriman, was recognized, and belief in the coming of a savior, in the resurrection and in a future life was held. Gradually, however, their influence, which was all-powerful during the epoch of the Sassanian kings of Persia, began to wane, and, from being the highest caste, they fell to the rank of wandering jugglers, fortune-tellers and quacks, and gave their name to sleight-of-hand and conjuring tricks. But the name seems to have been also current as a generic term for astrologers in the East, as is evidenced by the New Testament narrative of the homage of the Magi to the Infant Christ. According to the narrative (Matt. ii, 1-12) the three wise men came from the East to Jerusalem, led by a star, which at length guided them safely to the place of the Nativity at Bethlehem, where they offered their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. As the "Three Kings" their names be came celebrated in the Middle Ages, and Bede distinguishes them as Kaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. (See also PARSERS; ZOROASTER). Consult Cumont, F. V. M., (Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism) (Chicago 1911) ; id., mysteres de Mithra' (3d ed., Brussels 1913) ; Moulton, J. H., Zoroastrianism) (Lon don 1913).