Righteous 1st century

Magi who adored Christ

Also known as Melchior · Caspar · Balthasar

Wise men from the East who followed the star and worshiped the newborn Christ with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Feast Day

December 25

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Commemorated as

The Holy Magi who Adored Christ

Life

The Magi are the wise men described in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, who came from the East, followed a star to Bethlehem, and worshiped the newborn Christ, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates them together with the Nativity of Christ on December 25, while the Western Church associates them especially with the feast of Epiphany on January 6.

The Gospel account records that the Magi arrived in Jerusalem from the East asking for the newborn king of the Jews, having seen his star. King Herod directed them to Bethlehem; there they found the Christ Child, knelt and paid him homage, and presented their three gifts. Warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their own country by another route.

Scripture itself gives the Magi neither names nor a fixed number. The number three became traditional in the West, drawn from the three gifts, and from the seventh and eighth centuries Latin sources name them Caspar (also Gaspar or Jasper), Melchior, and Balthasar. Some Eastern Christian traditions reckon a larger number, the Syriac tradition numbering them at twelve. The Orthodox Church venerates them as righteous saints.

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The Star and the Journey

In Orthodox interpretation the Star of Bethlehem is understood not as an ordinary astronomical event but as a supernatural sign, by tradition an angel sent by God to lead the Magi to the Christ Child. The star drew the wise men from the East first to Jerusalem and then onward to Bethlehem, where, according to the synaxarion, they came to worship Jesus Christ in the cave of his birth.

Medieval tradition further elaborated the identities of the three named Magi, assigning them distinct ages and homelands: Melchior depicted as older and from Arabia, Caspar as middle-aged and from Persia, and Balthasar as young. These details belong to later legend rather than to the Gospel text, which records only that the wise men came from the East.

The Gifts

The three gifts named in the Gospel are gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Orthodox commentary has long read them as bearing prophetic meaning: gold offered to Christ as king, frankincense as to God, and myrrh in token of his human nature and burial.

Later Tradition

By one tradition preserved in the East, the Magi were later baptized by the Apostle Thomas and became bishops. The Church honors them as saints and martyrs. Relics venerated as those of the Magi were enshrined at Cologne Cathedral in the late twelfth century, where they remain a focus of Western devotion.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints