2. WHO ARE THEY?
• The three Wise Men or Three Kings, were,
in the Gospel of Matthew and Christian
tradition, a group of distinguished
foreigners who visited Jesus after his
birth, bearing gifts
of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They are
regular figures in traditional accounts of
the nativity celebrations of Christmas and
are an important part of Christian
tradition.
3. • Traditional nativity scenes depict three
"Wise Men" visiting the infant Jesus on the
night of his birth, in a manger
accompanied by the shepherds and angels,
but this should be understood as an
artistic convention allowing the two
separate scenes of the Adoration of the
Shepherds on the birth night and the
later Adoration of the Magi to be combined
for convenience. The single biblical
account in Matthew simply presents an
event at an unspecified point after Christ's
birth in which an unnumbered party of
unnamed "wise men" visits him in a house
• not a stable, with only "his mother"
mentioned as present. The New Revised
Standard Version of Matthew describes the
visit of the Magi in this manner:
4. • The Magi are popularly referred to as wise men',"of
the King of Persia". The word magi is the plural
of Latin magus, borrowed
from Greek μάγος magos,as used in the original
Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew ("μάγοι").
Greek magos itself is derived from Old
Persian maguŝ from the Avestan magâunô, i.e., the
religious caste into which Zoroaster was born
(see Yasna 33.7: "ýâ sruyê parê magâunô" = "so I
can be heard beyond Magi"). The term refers to the
Persian priestly caste of Zoroastrianism.[11] As part
of their religion, these priests paid particular
attention to the stars and gained an international
reputation for astrology, which was at that time
highly regarded as a science. Their religious
practices and use of astrology caused derivatives of
the term Magi to be applied to the occult in general
and led to the English term magic, although
Zoroastrianism was in fact strongly opposed
to sorcery.
