of Religion. Afterward, in a special sense, the magi were a caste
of priests of the Medes and Persians, deriving the name of Pehlvi; Mag, or
Mog, generally signifies in that language, _a priest_. They are expressly
mentioned by Herodotus as a Median tribe. Zoroaster was not their founder,
{25} but was their reformer, and the purifier of their doctrines. The Magi
of his time were opposed to his innovations; and they, therefore, were
condemned by him. When afterward, however, they adopted his reforms, he
effected their thorough organization, dividing them into APPRENTICES,
MASTERS, and PERFECT MASTERS. Their study and science consisted in
observation of their holy rites, in the knowledge of their sacred forms of
prayer, and liturgies by which Ormuzd was worshipped, and in the ceremonies
attendant on their prayers and sacrifices. They only were permitted to act
as mediators between God and man. To them alone was the will of God
declared. They only could penetrate the future. And they alone predicted
the future to those who sought of them therefor. In later days the name
Magi became synonymous with sorcerer, magician, alchemist, &c.[24]

{26}

The magi of Egypt were the priests, the founders and preservers of the
mysteries of the secret grades of instruction, and of the hieratic and
hieroglyphic writings and sculptures. In secret they were the priesthood.
In public, in religious matters, the same. But in public secular affairs
they seem to be recognised as Magi.

When mythology was invented, most of the gods, if not all of them, were
received as symbolical, physical beings, the poets made of them moral
agents; and as such they appear in the religions of the people of earlier
days. The symbolical meaning would have been lost, if no means had been
provided to insure its preservation. The MYSTERIES, it seems, afforded such
means. Their great end, therefore, was to preserve the knowledge of the
peculiar attributes of those divinities which had been incorparated into
the popular religion under new forms; what powers and objects of nature
they represented; how these, and how the universe came into being; in a
word, cosmogonies, like those contained in the Orphic instructions. But
this knowledge, though it was preserved by oral instruction, was
perpetuated no less by {27} symbolic representations and usages; which, at
least in part, consisted of sacred traditions and fables. "In the sanctuary
of Sais," says Herodotus (l.c.), "rep