Magi

Magi (ˈmeɪdʒaɪ; singular magus ˈmeɪgəs; from Latin magus) denotes followers of Zoroastrianism or Zoroaster. The earliest known use of the word Magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, pre-dating the Hellenistic period, refer to a Magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest.Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos, was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic, to include astrology, alchemy and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for (Pseudo‑)Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words magic and magician.μάγοι from the east visit Jesus in Chapter 2 of the Gospel of Matthew, and the transliterated plural magi entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as kings and more often in recent times as wise men). The singular magus appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician.

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