From a wide assortment of names suggested for the Magimagus (plural magi) A magician; (derogatory) a conjurer or sorcerer, especially one who is a charlatan or trickster.https://en.wiktionary.org › wiki › magusGasparSaint Caspar (otherwise known as Casper, Gaspar, Kaspar, and other variations) was one of the 'Three Kings', along with Melchior and Balthazar, representing the wise men or 'Biblical Magi' mentioned in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew, verses 2:1-9.https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Caspar_(magus)BalthasarBalthazar (also spelled Balthasar, Balthassar, or Baltazar), from Akkadian ??? Bel-shar-uzur, meaning "Bel protects the King" is the name commonly attributed to Balthazar (magus), one of the Three Wise Men, at least in the west.https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Balthazar_(given_name)
Early medieval written legends report that one of the three kings who paid homage to the Christ Child in Bethlehem was from Africa. But it would take nearly 1,000 years for European artists to begin representing Balthazar, the youngest of the three kings, as a black man.
The remains of Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar, as these saintly kings became known in the early middle ages, were brought back from the East by Constantine's mother, St Helena, in the fourth century, and translated to Milan in the fifth.
The story expands the account of the Biblical Magi, recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. It tells about a "fourth" wise man, a priest of the Magi named Artaban, from Persia. Like the other Magi, he sees signs in the heavens that a King had been born among the Jews.
The magi knelt down for the baby Jesus and “offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Their gifts are possibly an allusion to Isaiah's vision of nations rendering tribute to Jerusalem: “A multitude of camels shall cover you.
Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus, cf. Persian: مغ pronounced [moɣ]) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, the men traveled for 12 days by following a star in the desert that led them to baby Jesus in a manger. The three kings represented Europe, Arabia, and Africa, and their coming together was symbolic of unity. The gold offered by one is an acknowledgment of Jesus's royal standing.
The common Christian traditional dating of the birthdate of Jesus was 25 December, a date first asserted officially by Pope Julius I in 350 AD, although this claim is dubious or otherwise unfounded.
Schmitz offers a fine biography of Henry L. Stimson, with a focus on Stimson's service as U.S. secretary of war (1909-1913, 1940-1945) and secretary of state (1929-1933). A lawyer whose public service spanned nearly half a century, Stimson may well be considered "the first wise man," as Schmitz puts it.
The three are often venerated as saints and martyrs, and their supposed relics were transferred from Constantinople (modern Istanbul), possibly in the late 5th century, to Milan and thence to Cologne Cathedral in the 12th century.
John Chrysostom suggested that the gifts were fit to be given not just to a king but to God, and contrasted them with the Jews' traditional offerings of sheep and calves, and accordingly Chrysostom asserts that the Magi worshiped Jesus as God.
Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar have gone down in history as the Three Kings. They are an essential part of every Nativity set and are among the most significant figures. The three men came from the so-called East, now from the Middle East. Their costume, described as oriental, indicates that they came from Persia.
An alternative tradition holds that Mary and Joseph used the gold to pay for the stable, the frankincense to perfume it and the myrrh as an ointment for the new-born baby.
mammon, biblical term for riches, often used to describe the debasing influence of material wealth. The term was used by Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount and also appears in The Gospel According to Luke. Medieval writers commonly interpreted it as an evil demon or god.
In the Bible, Myrrh was commonly used as an anointing oil while Frankincense was commonly used as a perfume. Frankincense which is an incense is a symbol of deity while myrrh as an embalming oil is used as a symbol of death. Both gifts, along with gold were gifts presented to kings at that time.
He is traditionally depicted as black. Melchior, king of Arabia, was 60 and brought a casket of gold in the form of a shrine.
When the wise men arrived in Bethlehem, they “fell down, and worshipped him.” They did not hear Him teach or see Him heal. There was nothing to suggest His divinity, and yet those men fell down and worshipped Jesus. That is faith, real faith. And God has honored their faith by recording it forever in His Word.
According to the Bible, the Wise Men were three middle eastern kings— Gaspar, Melchior, and Baltasar—who felt compelled by God and a new star in the sky to go to Jerusalem and bring gifts to the son of God who was to be born.
The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13–23) and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him.
We often refer to Jesus as Jesus Christ, and some people assume that Christ is Jesus's last name. But Christ is actually a title, not a last name. So if Christ isn't a last name, what was Jesus's last name? The answer is Jesus didn't have a formal last name or surname like we do today.
Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.
The origins of Christmas stem from both the pagan and Roman cultures. The Romans actually celebrated two holidays in the month of December. The first was Saturnalia, which was a two-week festival honoring their god of agriculture Saturn. On December 25th, they celebrated the birth of Mithra, their sun god.
Those bringing gifts to the baby Jesus are three magi or wise men, one of whom is frequently depicted as a black man. His inclusion illustrates the complexities of blackness in different time periods and locations.
Gold means power, green faith and purple justice. All three colors represent the magi.
The gifts of the Magi illuminate the different aspects of Christ's identity. He is king, he is God, and, in his marvelous grace, he died, so that we might live. As the Magi actively pursued Jesus, so too should we follow Christ without hesitation, letting him be our guiding star.