Pat Poland recalls the story of  Melchoir, Casper and Balthazar – ‘The Three Wise Men from the East’

St. Matthew is the only one of the Four Evangelists to give them a mention. And, almost as quickly as they appeared in the stable in Bethlehem, they melted away into the shadowy mists of time.

But what does tradition tell us about the ‘Magi’, the ‘Three Wise Men’, or the ‘Three Kings’ as they came to be known, and where, reputedly, do their remains lie to this day?

Who. or what, were the ‘Magi’, and what does Matthew say about them? A Magus (plural: Magi) was a member of an educated, priestly caste of ancient Persia (now the Islamic Republic of Iran), well-schooled in astrology, science, and religion.

Matthew relates how:
“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him’.”

He goes on to say how Herod was disturbed by this, and, having consulted with his chief advisers, told the Magi to seek the new-born child in Bethlehem (just nine kilometres away) as the scriptures had prophesied that He would be born there. They should report back to him as soon as possible so that he, too, could go and worship the new king.
But, as we know, Herod had other ideas, and the Magi, having paid their respects to Jesus and presented Him with their gifts, were ‘warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route’.

And that’s it. The Magi, presumably on their camels, presently were merely a cloud of sandy dust on the eastern horizon as they galloped away into the stuff of legend. We are not left with their names, how many there were, or where exactly they came from.

In the West, the church has settled on three visitors (probably because Matthew mentions three gifts) but in the Eastern Church, there are as many as twelve.