V. Transition-stages in the History of the Word and of the Order between the close of the 0. T, and the time of the X. T. — In the mean while the title magi was ac- quiring a new and wider signification. It presented it- self to the Greeks as connected with a foreign system of divination, and the religion of a foe whom they had conquered, and it soon became a by-word for the worst form of imposture. The rapid growth of this feeling is traceable perhaps in the meanings attached to the word by the two great tragedians. In iEschylus {Perste, 2i)l) it retains its old significance as denoting simply a tribe. In Sophocles {(Ed. Tyr. 387) it appears among the epithets of reproach which the king heaps upon Tiresias. The fact, however, that the religion with winch the word was associated still maintained its ground as the faith of a great nation, kept it from fall- ing into utter disrepute, and it is interesting to notice how at one time the good and at another the bad side of the v.'ord is uppermost. Thus the /.laytia of Zoroas- ter is spoken of with respect by Plato as a ^tuiv ^epa- TTf/rt, forming the groundwork of an education which he praises as far better than that of the Athenians {AI- cih. i, 122 a). Xenophon, in like manner, idealizes the character and functions of the order {Cyrop. iv, 6, 16 ; (J, C). Both meanings appear in the later lexicogra- phers. The word magos is equivalent to cnraTiiiyv kuI (papnaKivry'ic, but it is also used for the Sreo<nl3>)g Kai BEoXoyoQ Kai iepevg (Hesych.). The magi, as an order, are oi Trapd UtpaalQ (piXoaorpoi Kai (pi\<J^toi (Siudas). The word thus passed into the hands of the Sept., and from them into those of the writers of the N. T., oscil- lating between the two meanings, capable of being used in either. The relations which had existed between the .Jews and Persians would perhaps tend to give a promi- nence to the more favorable associations in their use of it. In Daniel (i, 20; ii, 2, 10, 27; v, 11) it is used, as lias been noticed, for the priestly diviners with whom tlie prophet was associated. Philo, in like manner {Quod oiiinis probus //ie?-, p. 792), mentions the magi with warm praise, as men who gave themselves to the study of na- ture and the contemplation of the divine perfections, worthy of being the counsellors of kings. It was per- haps natural that this aspect of the word should com- mend itself to the theosophic Jew of Alexandria. There were, however, other influences at work tending to drag it down. The swarms of impostors that were to be met ■with in every part of the Koman empire, known as " Chaldivi," " Mathematici," and the like, bore this name also. Tlieir arts were '"artos magicaj." Though philoso- j)hers and men of letters might recognise the better mean- ing of wiiich the word was capable (Cicero, De Divin. i, 23, 41), yet in the language of public documents and of historians they were treated as a class at once hateful and contemptible (Tacitus, .1 mi. i, ,32 ; ii, 27 ; xii, 22, 59), and, as such, were the victims of repeated edicts of ban- ishment. See Lenormant, Ckaldcean Magic (Lond. 1877). YI. The Magi as they ajtpear in the N. T. — We need not ivouilcr, accordingly, to find that tliis is the predom- inant meaning of the word as it ajipears in the N. T. The noun, and the verb derived from it {ftayiia and //a- yit'tu), are used by Luke in describing the impostor, who is therefore known distinctively as Simon IMagus (Acts viii, 9). Another of the same class (Bar-jesus) is de- scribed (Acts xiii,8) as having, in his cognohien Elymas, a title which was equivalent to ]Magus. See Eia'mas. In (ino memorable instance, however, the word retains (probably, at least) its better meaning. In the Gospel
of Matthew, written (according to the general belief of early Christian writers) for the Hebrew Christians of Palestine, we find it, not as cmbod3'ing the contempt which the frauds of impostors had brought upon it through the whole Roman empire, but in the sense which it had had of old, as associated with a religion which they respected, and an order of which one of their own prophets had been the head. In spite of pa- tristic authorities on the other side, asserting that the Mdyoi cnrb dvaroXojv of Matt, ii, 1 were sorcerers whose mysterious knowledge came from below, not from above, and who were thus translated out of darkness into light (Justin Martyr, Chrysostom. Theophylact, in Spanheim, Bub. Erang. xix ; Lightfoot, Hor. Ihb. in Matt, ii), we are justified, not less by the consensus of later interpreters (including even Maldonatus) than by the general tenor of Jlatthew's narrative, in seeing in them men such as those that were in the minds of the Sept. translators of Daniel, and those described by Philo — at once astronomers and astrologers, but not mingling any conscious fraud with their efforts after a higher knowledge. The vagueness of the description leaves their country undefined, and implies that probably the evangelist himself had no certain information. The same phrase is used as in passages where the express object is to include a wide range of country (compare OTTO uva-oXGiv, Matt, viii, 11 ; xxiv, 27 ; Luke xiii, 29). Probabh' the region chiefly present to the mind of the Palestinian Jew woidd be the tract of country stretching eastward from the Jordan to the Euphrates, the land of "the children of the East" in the early period of the history of the O. T. (Gen. xxix, 1 ; Judg. vi, 3 ; vii, 12 ; viii. 10). It shoidd be remembered, however, that the language of the O. T., and therefore probably that of Matthew, included under this name countries that lay considerably to the north as well as to the east of Pal- estine. Balaam came from "the moimtains of the East," i. e. from Pethor, on the Euphrates (Numb, xxiii, 7 ; xxii, 5). Abraham (or Cyrus '?) is the righteous man raised up " from the East" (Isa. xli, 2). The Persian conqueror is called " from the East, from a far country" (Isa. xlvi, 11).