MAGGOT (probably from Welsh macried, mucai, maggot. from mugs, breed. Corn.. Bret.
maga, feed). The footless larva of any true fly. See FLY.
MAGI, (Lat. Magus, Gk. 31d7os. ]Lagos, from OPers. nariu, Av. m0-0, magian, from Assyr. mIul u. magician, soothsayer). The name of the priestly order in ancient Media and Persia. Originally the designation Magi denoted members of a certain Median tribe, as we know from Ilerodutus (i. 101) but the religious associa tion of the name seems to have existed from the earliest times. In Persian history the spirit ual advisers of the Aclilemenian kings are al ways. called Magi. and their Median origin is generally acknowledged. Cyrus the Great was regularly attended by Magian priests: and, if we may believe Xenophon, it was Cyrus who first formally established them, although, as a priestly institution, the Magi must have been in existence before. A festival of the 'slay ing of the Magians' was long celebrated by the Persians in commemoration of the overthrow of the False Sinerdis. a Mag,ns. by Darius. and so of their not having been forced again to assume the Median yoke. The hatred of the sacerdotal caste evinced in this was probably more political and anti-31edian than it was religious or anti clerical. The 'Median Magi were traditionally the priestly masters of the Persians: it was not law ful for a Persian to sacrifice without one of the Magi. and the power of this sacerdotal body must have been considerable in affairs of state as it was in religion.
There seems every reason to believe that Zo roaster was a Magian. if we may judge from ref erences in Pahlavi literature, in the Greek and writers, and in later Persian tradition. Ile was born in the very region of Media where the Magi abounded. (See ZOROASTER.) In ale' Arrsta (q.v.) the name Magus occurs certainly once in an allusion to a 'hater of the Magi' .110-y t Lis). The Parsis or modern Zoroas trians have kept up the tradition of the name, for the higher order of priests are called ()beds, literally 'Magian Masters.' With regard to their
doctrines it may be added that, so far as the Avesta may be presumed to represent the Magian code, and so far as we can judge from Herodotus, Plutarch. and from other writers, the Magi recog nized the principle of good and evil, light and darkness, as represented by Ormazd and Ahri man: they helieved in a resurrection. a future life. and the advent of a saviour: and in certain peculiar rites and customs. especially the preser vation of the elements fire. earth, and water from defilement.
There seems little reason to question that the :Magi exercised considerable influence even out• side of Media and Persia. or that they were con nected or associated with the priesthood of Baby lonia and Chaldea. Allusions in the took of Daniel would imply this: and llab-Mart, in Jere miah xxxix. 3. may denote the 'Chief of the Magi.' although this interpretation is denied hv some scholars. The Magian power was broken by the overthrow of the Persian Empire through Alexander's conquest and the consequent deca dence of the Zoroastrian faith. Magism seems to have waned during the darker period of the Parthian sway. although it became paramount again tinder the Sassanian dynasty. To the conditign of the priesthood during the darker period of the Parthians may be ascribed in some measure the evil sense associated with the word Magi by the Romans and by later Greek writers, although it was scornfully used as early as Sophocles—no doubt with an anti Persian animus. The arts of divination which the Magi must have practiced from the earliest times seem to have brought the word into dis repute as wizard, necromancer, sorcerer, magi cian. Luke likewise uses it as a sorcerer (Acts xiii. II). But the term is employed in. its true sense by Matthew (ii. I), of the wise men who came from the East to Jerusalem to worship Christ. The significance of this must be observed because the Messianic doctrine was an old and established one in Zoroastrianism.