Magi

" For he travelled over Babylon and Persia and Egypt, learning from the Magi and the priests.

At its head stood the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans among the Assyrians, the Druids among the Galatians, the Samanaeans among the Bactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, and the Magi of the Persians (who by their magic foretold the birth of the Saviour, coming into the land of Judaea led by a star), and among the Indians the gymnosophists, and other barbarian philosophers besides.

And in the second year of the reign of Darius, whom Herodotus says broke the rule of the Magi, Zorobabel the son of Salathiel is sent to raise and adorn the temple in Jerusalem.

“I too, Magi,” said Astyages, “am very much of your opinion:

The Magi said, “O King, we too are very anxious that your sovereignty prosper:

but now the dream has had a trifling conclusion, and we ourselves are confident and advise you to be so also.

In the first place, set apart for the gods whatever the magi direct, as they interpret the will of the gods.

And then the Medes came in, after they had delivered to the magi what the magi had directed them to set apart for the gods.

Now at peep of day the first thing that Cyrus did was to call the magi and bid them select the gifts ordained for the gods in acknowledgment of such success;

And they expound the story not as our prophets of the Muses set forth each thing with much persuasion, but very arbitrarily.

But another story is sung, admired, in the secret rites by the men called Magi, who hymn this god as the perfect and first charioteer of the most perfect chariot.

But the strong and perfect chariot of Zeus no one of those here ever hymned worthily, neither Homer nor Hesiod, but Zoroaster and the children of the Magi sing it, having learned from him;

With the error of the poets we may join the portents of the Magi and the madness of the Egyptians in the same kind, and then also the opinions of the common folk, which, through ignorance of the truth, dwell in the greatest inconstancy.

It is the custom of the Magi not to bury the bodies of their own unless they have first been mangled by beasts;

And the magi of the Persians have honoured fire, and many of the inhabitants of Asia, and besides them the Macedonians, as Diogenes says in the first book of his Persian Affairs.

And by now the magi boast of demons as ministers of their own impiety, having enrolled them as their own servants, having made them by their incantations into slaves under compulsion.

For this reason the Magi, who happened to be at Athens, sacrificed to him when he was dead, reckoning that his lot had been more than human, since he had rounded out the most perfect number, which nine multiplied by nine composes.

Let it be believed that those eastern Magi honoured the infancy of Christ as king with gold and frankincense, and the infant received the power of Damascus without battle and arms.

Now let those Magi of the East remain, honouring with gold and frankincense the new-born Christ in his infancy, and let the infant have received the strength of Damascus without battle and arms.

and let the Magi not weary themselves over a long journey — I make them a present of their gold.

"But the Magi and the astrologers came from the East.