The Magi and the Star

Matthew’s account of the Magi (magoi) is unique in the Bible and has led to a great many questions about their identity and what we should make of the ‘star’ that prompted their trip in the first place and led them to Christ. Exactly when Christian writers first ascribed the Magi as kings is unknown, but attribution of royalty to the Magi appears to have been established by the onset of the sixth century. Thereafter, the three ‘kings’ become commonplace in European illuminated manuscripts and art. Although it is generally assumed that the Magi were three in number, because they presented three gifts, three is not the only accounting. In the later Eastern sources, especially in Syria, the names of twelve Magi are also listed. But in the West, three names prevailed: Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, with different spellings. By Late Antiquity, it was commonly thought that each of the Magi had a separate country of origin: each one signified one of the three parts of the world—Africa, Asia, and Europe—and that these were linked with the sons of Noah, who fathered the three races of Earth. Writers perpetuated this construct through the medieval period.