The Greek word 'Magoi'

Mr. Timothy T. Dickens (ttd3@columbia.edu)
Wed, 6 Nov 1996 15:45:03 -0500 (EST)

On 11/6/96 Carl W. Conrad wrote:

As no one else has yet attempted to deal with this not-uncomplicated
question, I thought I would give it a stab. It IS a question that readers
of the Greek text of Matthew inevitably would like to ask, whether or not
the answers are ready to hand. After doing a little bit of exploring, the
best info I could come up with is in the condensed version of Pauly
Wissowa's AUSFUERLICHE LEXIKON DER ANTIKE, namely "DER KLEINE PAULY."The
article on "Magoi" there indicates that there's more etymological info in
the above-cited entry from LJS than was obvious: i.e.: the Magoi were a
tribe of the Medes, to the west of the ancient Persians, and described at
some length by Herodotus in Bk 1 of his Histories (1.140) as being a
priestly caste with some distinctive religious practices that aren't
necessarily if at all related to the Persian (who spoke an Indo-European
language, Old Avestan, later Persian, ancestor of the modern Farsi still
used in Iran) Zoroastrians. Says Kleine Pauly (translated): "Aristotle (or
Antisthenes of Rhodes?) could explain in the lost treatise entitled
MAGIKOS, that the Iranian Magi do not know Magic at all.

TTD: Carl, without question the information you've given me is resourceful,
but as I stated earlier, I am interested in knowing if 'Magos' is Greek or
not. If it is not Greek (Indo-European in origin) then what language is the
word magos borrowed from?

Tim Dickens