Magi

MAY-jy

Definition

The Magi (Greek magoi, Old Persian magu-) were a Median-Persian priestly caste. Herodotus, in *Histories* I.101, counts them as one of the six tribes of the Medes, and from the Achaemenid period onward they became an established hereditary priesthood within Iranian — that is, Zoroastrian — religion. From the 5th century BCE, Greek and Roman writers stretched the word to mean practitioners of foreign religious and divinatory arts in general. The English word "magic" comes straight from that Greek stretching of the term.

In Tradition

Historians treat the Magi as a Persian-Median priestly institution whose duties included sacrificial ritual, the interpretation of dreams, and watching celestial phenomena for calendar-keeping. The widening of "magoi" to mean a foreign priest or astrologer-magician was a Hellenistic-Roman shift in the word. The New Testament magoi apo anatolon — the "Magi from the East" of Matthew 2 — reflects that wider sense, and modern translators often render the phrase "astrologers," on the reasoning that only astrologers would take such interest in a star-omen.

In Practice

When you meet "Magi" in a Greek, Latin, or Christian source, the first task is telling which sense is meant: the literal Iranian-priesthood sense (Herodotus, Xenophon, and Strabo on Persian religion) or the looser foreign-magician sense of later usage. Holden notes that Matthew's tradition probably draws the term from the Book of Daniel, where its exact meaning is uncertain, and that English translators have tended toward "astrologers" because of the star at the centre of the story. The Magi are not the same as the Chaldaeans (Mesopotamian astrologers); Greek and Latin authors often keep the two apart, though the categories blur within the broader "foreign wise men" usage of late antiquity.

Historical Origin

The earliest Greek mention is in Herodotus, *Histories* I.101, I.107-08, I.120, and I.132, from the mid-5th century BCE. Later treatments appear in Xenophon, Plato (*Alcibiades I* 122a and *Republic* 572e), Strabo XV.3, and Diogenes Laertius I.6-8. The New Testament magoi apo anatolon is at Matthew 2:1-12. Holden, *A History of Horoscopic Astrology* (1996/2006), treats the tradition of translating magoi as "astrologers"; Barton, *Ancient Astrology* (1994), treats the Persian-priesthood basis.

Further Reading

  • James H. Holden, A History of Horoscopic Astrology
  • Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture