magus

n. one of the Magi, one of the wise men who came from the East to worship the baby Jesus (Biblical)

n. Zoroastrian priest of ancient Media and Persia; magician, sorcerer

The Magi (singular Magus, from Latin, via Greek μάγος ; Old English: Mage; from Old Persian maguš and Proto-Kurdish mâgî) were a tribe from ancient Media, who — prior to the conquest of the Medes by the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BC — were responsible for religious and funerary practices. Later they accepted the Zoroastrian religion, not without changing the original message of its founder, Zarathustra (Zoroaster), to what is today known as Zurvanism, which would become the predominant form of Zoroastrianism during the Sassanid era (AD 226–650). No traces of Zurvanism exist beyond the 10th century. The best known Magi are the "Wise Men from the East" in the Bible, whose graves Marco Polo claimed to have seen in what is today the district of Saveh, in Tehran, Iran. In English, the term may refer to a shaman, sorcerer, or wizard; it is the origin of the words magic and magician.
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Noun
1. a magician or sorcerer of ancient times
(hypernym) sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer
2. a member of the Zoroastrian priesthood of the ancient Persians
(hypernym) priest, non-Christian priest

n. magician, performer of magic tricks; sorcerer, wizard, whiz

Magi [plural of Old Persian magus a wise man from the verbal root meh great; cf Sanskrit maha; cf Avestan mogaha, Latin plural magus, Greek magos, Persian mogh, Pahlavi maga] An hereditary priesthood or sacerdotal caste in Media and Persia. Zoroaster, himself a member of the Society of the Magi, divides the initiates into three degrees according to their level of enlightenment: the highest were referred to as Khvateush (those enlightened with their own inner light or self-enlightened); the second were called Varezenem (those who practice); and the third, Airyamna (friends or Aryans). The ancient Parsis may be divided into three degrees of Magi: the Herbods or novitiates; the Mobeds or masters; and the Destur Mobeds or perfect masters -- the "Dester Mobeds being identical with the Hierophants of the mysteries, as practised in Greece and Egypt" (TG 197).
Pliny mentions three schools of Magi: one founded at an unknown antiquity; a second established by Osthanes and Zoroaster; and a third by Moses and Jambres. "And all the knowledge possessed by these different schools, whether Magian, Egyptian, or Jewish, was derived from India, or rather from both sides of the Himalayas" (IU 2:361). According to Shahrestani (12th-century Islamic scholar) the Magi are divided into three sects: Gaeomarethians (Kayumarthians), Zarvanian (Zurvanian), and Zoroastrians. They all share the common belief that in this manifested universe the dualism of light and darkness is at work and that the final victory of the light is the day of resurrection.
to be continue "Magi2 "