Li-Mejdel, with a confidence by no means justi- fied by known facts, is often pointed out as the birthplace of Mary Magdalene. This hamlet, and a handful of squalid hovels at Abu Shusheh above the stream of er-Rubadiyeh, with a few tents of the humbler Arabs, are all the dwellings of men now found in this once densely punelaied district.
Literatore.—Stanley, SP p. 383; Thomson, Land and Book, fi. 304; Henderson, Palestine, 157, 160; Robinson, BRP ii. 896; Baedeker, Pal. and Syr. 255; Buhl, GAP 225f.; Guérin, Galilée, i, 203 1f.; Neubauer, Géog. du Talmud, 216ff.; also Literature cited under DaLManuTHa, W. EwIna.
MAGBISH (v3:>; B Μαγεβώς, A Μαγεβίς, Luc. Maapels).—The name of an unknown town, pre- sumably in Benjamin, whose ‘children’ to the number of 156 are said to have returned from the Exile, Ezr 2”. The name is omitted in MT of the parallel passage Neh 755 and in B of the LXX, but A has Μαγεβώς and Luc. May§els. See Smend, Listen, 15. A name which Ryle (Zzr. and Neh.
. 270) considers to be identical with it occurs in Neh 10” in the list of those who sealed the covenant, namely Magpiash (#y22>, B Βαναφής, A Μαιαφής). J. A. SELBIE.
MAGI
MAGDALA.—See MAGADAN. MAGDALENE.—See Mary, No. V.
MAGDIEL (>x32).—A ‘duke’ of Edom, 3n 364 =1Ch 1* (in Gn A has Μετοδιήλ, in 1 Ch B has Μεδιήλ, A Μαγεδιήλ).
MAGI (μάγοι; AV and RV ‘wise men’).—In Jer 39°18 one of the Chaldean officers sent by Nebuchadrezzar to Jerus. is called Rab-mag (23°21; probably a title, like Rab-saris or Rab- shakeh, not a proper name: the title Rab-mag, or ‘chief of the Mab’ (cf. Dn 2), may well be that of Nergal-sharezer, whose name immediately pre- cedes it). The traditional account of the Magi is that ney were a Median race (Her. i. 101; Amm. Marc. 23. 6; Agathias, 2. 26; see also Parsi tradition in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. xvii), who acted as priests of the Persians (Her. i. 132; Soz. HE ii. 9, ete.), but whose persistence as a race is frequently attested and occasionally causes violent conflicts (e.g. Her. i. 120, iii. 65, 73, 79).
This view raises two difficulties—(1) How do the a come to occupy an important place (cf. that in Justin, XI. xiii. 3; Q. Curt. v. i. 22) under the Chaldeans? It has been suggested that, as Media reached a high level of civilization before its neigh- bours (cf. Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. 1), one effect of this may be seen in the influential part played by Median priests in various countries. It is no more difficult to imagine the Medes as exercising great influence at the court of Nebuch- adrezzar, than to find them in Cappadocia (Strabo, xv. 733), in Cilicia (Movers, Phdn. 1. 240), or Persis (Strabo, xv. 727), the introduction of the Magi priesthood in the last case being expressly aseri to Cyrus the conqueror of the Medes (Xen. Cyr. VII. i. 23).
(2) If the Magi are identified with the Median riests of Zoroastrianism, how are we to account or the fact that the officials of a religion whose
sacred books contain strong invective against magic (see J. ἃ. Miiller in Herzog’s RZ’ viii. 676) should yet come to give their name to magicians in general? For, in classical writers, the Magi appear, not only as performing the duties of a national priesthood, but as occupying themselves with the interpretation of dreams (e.g. Her. i. 107, 120, vii. 19: for this other works than the Avesta would have had to be consulted, as is admitted b
Spiegel, Hran. Alterth. iii. 594), as well as wit
natural science and medicine (cf. Plin. HN xxx. 1), while Zoroaster himself is described as the inventor of astrology (Just. i. 1; Suid. s.v. Zwpo- dorpys). It is true that μάγος occurs often in an idealizing sense (e.g. Philo, de Spec. Legg. 792, Quod omnis probus liber, 876; Plato, Alcib. 1. 122; Aristotle in Diog. Laert. fr. 8; Cic. Div. 1. 41; Dio Chrysost. Orat. 36, etc.), but its use for a magician is to be found already in Soph. Qed. Tyr. 387. In the Sept. μάγος is the equivalent of nyt, a charmer or astrologer (Dn 33: 9. so Theod. Dn pass.); in at it represents 2x, a necro- mancer (the secondary use of this word for the familiar spirit which abides with such a necro- mancer, produces the strange rendering τὴν ἔχουσαν μάγον in 1 S 287); in Symm. it stands for o'e=>0, interpreters of signs (see Hatch and Redpath, Concord. to Sept. s.v. μάγοι). The expression μαγικὴ τέχνη in Wis 177 (of Egyp. conjuring) is parallel to Gn 418 Symm., Philo Mos. 616, etc. (Herzog, RE viii. 682); and shows the transition in the sense of the word, from the practices of a local priesthood to similar actions wherever performed, as completely effected (cf. non-ethnic sense of *Chaldwans’ in Dn ss.). Ought we therefore to take advantage of Jer 39°, and assume that
204 MAGI
the Magi were either (α) a Babylonian, or possibly an Assyrian, race, or (δ) not a race at all, pat that Magi is only a general name for a priestly caste of ‘magical’ tendencies, who corrupted a purer religion in Media and Persia? (a) As regards the former supposition, Jer 39, though it gives us the earliest allusion to the Magi, says nothing as to their relation to the Chaldeans. It is true that Ctes. Pers. 46 (15), Nicol. Damase. fr. 66, etc., speak of the Chaldwans in such a way as apparently to identify them with the Magi, while the distinctions drawn in Diog. Laert. fr. 6, Porphyr. Vit. Pyth. 6, do not succeed in removing the impression that the two were frequently confused; but if once a simi- larity of occupation between Magi and Chaldeans were aammihead, this would account for the identi- fication easily enough (Spiegel, 111. 588). (6) The second view suggested is tempting (cf. modern view of Druids: Rhys, Celtic Britain, 68), but the con- nexion between Magism and Media is too strongly attested tomakeiteasy. The absence of the name Magi from the Avesta (Spiegel, lii. 585) does not show that they belong to a different religion from the Zoroastrian, since the racial name may have been treated as a title of scorn (Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. li). But the full discussion of the question does not belong to this place, where it is merely necessary to indicate the importance of Jer 39° in the controversy. (See Pauly, RE? iv. 1374; Zéckler in Herzog, ΚΕ" ix. 127; Schrader, COT? 110, 114).