Saturday, December 23, 2017

The Three Kings of the Orient.




Anne Murray - We Three Kings [with lyrics] -
https://youtu.be/BaheOgdGKJQ

"Legends are told about them and they have been given names. This is how they are often described:
• Gaspar (or Caspar), who has brown hair and a brown beard (or no beard!) and wears a green cloak and a gold crown with green jewels on it. He is the King of Sheba. Gaspar represents the Frankincense brought to Jesus.
• Melchior, who has long white hair and a white beard and wears a gold cloak. He is the King of Arabia. Melchior represents the Gold brought to Jesus.
• Balthazar, who has black skin and a black beard (or no beard!) and wears a purple cloak. He is the King of Tarse and Egypt. Balthazar represents the gift of Myrrh that was brought to Jesus".

"When the Wise Men found Jesus and Mary, they would have been living in a normal house in Bethlehem, because by this time Jesus would have been aged between one and two. Then they gave their gifts to him. The gifts seem quite strange to give to a baby, but Christians believe that they had the following meanings:
• Gold: is associated with Kings and Christians believe that Jesus is the King of Kings.
• Frankincense: is sometimes used in worship in Churches and showed that people would worship Jesus.
• Myrrh: is a perfume that is put on dead bodies to make them smell nice and showed that Jesus would suffer and die.
The gifts are also all thin"
https://www.whychristmas.com/story/wisemen.shtml

The legend has been recorded by Courtenay in his Historie du Christianisme a Ceylan, and we are told: "There is also a tradition that one of the Magi, who came to adore the Lord, was a native of Ceylon. He was king of Jaffna, and bore at home the name of Peria Perumal. This must be the Black Magus, for Perumal is a Tamil name, pretty common even to this day in South India and Ceylon. This Roi-Mage, they say, joined Saint Thomas in India and there won the crown of martyrdom together with the Apostle, at Mylapore. They were buried in the same grave".
http://www.island.lk/2000/12/23/satmag01.html

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