Magi

Magi. Originally a Median tribe (according to Herodotus, the Magoi were one of six Median tribes) responsible for all ritual activity regardless of religious boundaries, e.g. to which god a sacrifice was offered. As Zoroastrianism spread across the Iranian plateau so it became part of their responsibility. In this way, it is thought, Zoroaster's teachings were integrated into the general traditions of the region. It was the magi who thereafter carried Zoroastrianism through the Empire. During the Achaemenid era, Babylon was a major administrative centre, and it is likely that it was there that the magi became involved in the beliefs and practices subsequently named after them, magic, and also astrology. It was this reputation which motivated the writer of Matthew's Gospel (see below) to relate a story about magi (the word used in the Gk. is magoi, and so the later Christian legend of kings does not do justice to the text). Zoroaster himself used two different terms to refer to a priest: zaotar, an officiating priest, and a manthran, who composes sacred manthras. As Zoroastrianism developed, the magi became ever more important in the work of the Zoroastrian ‘church’. Naturally words change with time, magus (singular) became mobed, under a supreme head, the Mobedan Mobed. In post-Sasanian Iran, the high priest took the title hudnan pesobay, leader of the faithful, a title recalling Muslim titles. In modern times a high priest, dastur, is generally associated with a ‘cathedral’ fire temple (Atash Bahram, Atas) whose liturgical life he oversees with a team of priests, mobeds, under him. There are two initiatory rites for priests, navar and maratab. A priest who has undertaken the first of these, and is therefore qualified to perform some of the minor rites, is known as an ervad. The mobeds and the ervads have essentially liturgical roles, with little sense of any teaching or pastoral duties. Purity is necessary so that the duly empowered priest can, in devotion, through concentration on the ritual, generate ritual power (amal) so that the heavenly forces are present. Because of the centrality of the concept of purity, one term for priest is yozdathrager, ‘Purifier’.

The Christian appropriation of the Magi reveals little knowledge of the above. According to Matthew 2. 1–12, they were guided by a star to Bethlehem, bearing gifts for the new-born Jesus. Acts 13. 6 ff. uses the word to mean magic-workers, and Ignatius of Antioch understood the word in that sense, arguing that magic yielded up its power when Jesus was born. Origen inferred that they were three in number from the gifts, and Tertullian suggested that they were kings. By the 6th cent., they were named Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. What were claimed to be their relics were taken to Europe and are now in Cologne Cathedral.