Meg or IMag occurring in names and titles belonging to other peoples, as Mag-Elzer (fire-priest), the father of Artemis among the Phoenicians; Teker-Mag,TekeT the ]\Iagus (on a Cilician coin), etc. When it is considered that the Chaldiean was the older nation, and that the Assyrians derived many of their religious beliefs and in- stitutions from the Chaldasans (Kawlinson, Fire Great Monarchies, i, 308; ii, 228), the probability is that they derived the institution of the magi also. That the in- stitution was originally Shemitic is further confirmed by the Phoenician tradition preserved by Sanchoniathon (ap. Eiiseh. Pi'cep. Evang. i, 10), that Magos was a de- scendant of the Titans, and, with his brother Amynos, made men acquainted with villages and flocks. It must be confessed, however, that the word ^'O has more ob- vious affinities in the Indo-Germanic than in the She- mitic tongues (see above, § i) ; but this can hardly be al- lowed to weigh much against the historical evidence of the existence of the magi in Shemitic nations anterior to their existence among those of the Aryan stock.
That IMagism was not, as commonly stated, a Persian institution, is shown from several considerations : 1. The word does not appear to have existed in the Zend lan- guage; at any rate, it does not occur in the Zend-Avesta. 2. The religious system of the ancient Persians was a system of Dualism, as the most ancient documents con- cur with the monumental evidence to prove (see Raw- linson's Herodotus, i, 42C), but with this Magism had no affinity. 3. In the Zend-Avesta, the Yutus, the practicer of magical arts, is vehemently denounced, and men are enjoined to pray and present offerings against his arts, as an invention of the Dews. 4. Xenophon informs us {Cyrop.Yiii, 1, 23) that the magi were first established in Persia by Cyrus (comp. also Ammian. Marc, xxiii, G ; Porphyr. De absiin. iv, 16, etc.), a statement which can be understood only, as Heeren suggests (I, i, 451 sq.), as intimating that the magian institute, which existed long before this among the IMedes, was introduced by Cy- rus among the Persians also. 5. Herodotus (i, 101) states that the magi formed one of the tribes of the Medes; and he also attributes the placing of the pseudo-Smerdis on the Persian throne to the magi, who were moved thereto by a desire to substitute the Median for the Per- sian ride (iii, 61 sq. ; compare Ctesias, Peraca, c. 10-15; Justin, Hist, i, 9 ; and the Behistun inscription as trans- lated by Sir H. Rawlinson ; see Rawlinson's Herodotus, i, 427). 6. Herodotus mentions that, after this attempt of the magi had been frustrated, it became a usage among the Persians to observe a festival in celebration of the overthrow of the magi, to which they gave the name of Magophonia {payo(poina), and during which it was not safe for any magus to leave the house (iii, 79; Agathias, ii, 25), a usage which could have had its origin only at a time when Magism was foreign to Persian beliefs and institutions. 7. We find no allusion to the magi in connection ^vith any of the Medo-Persian kings men- tioned in Scripture, a circumstance which, though not of itself of much importance, falls in with the supposition that Magism was not at that time a predominant Per- sian institution. The probability is, that this system had its source in Chaldaja, was thence propagated to Assyria, Media, and the adjoining countries, and was brought from Media into Persia, where it came at first into collision both with the national prejudices and with the ancient religious faith of the people. With this ac- cord the traditions which impute to Zoroaster, after he came to l)e regarded as the apostle of Magism, some- times a Parthian and sometimes a Bactrian origin. See ZoKOASTEU. Eventually, however, Magism seems to have been adopted into or reconciled with Zoroasterism, perhaps by losing its original theosophic character, and taking on a more practical or thaumaturgic phase.
III. Profane Accounts of the Order.— The magi were originalh' one of the six tribes (Herod, i, 101 ; Pliny, Hist. Nat. V, 29) into which the nation of the IMedes was divided, who, like the Levites under the Mosaic in-, stitutious, were intrusted with the care of reUgion, an
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