40 Fun Facts About The Three Wise Men (Magi)

According to the Bible's account, where did the Magi find the young Jesus and Mary when they arrived?

In a house is where the Gospel sets the meeting, with no stable or manger in sight. Nothing in the text says the Magi arrived on the night of the birth.

The Bible never says how many Magi made the journey, so which detail led tradition to settle on three?

The gifts they brought numbered three, so later readers assumed one giver for each. Some Eastern churches count twelve Magi instead.

In which city did the Magi first stop to ask where the newborn child could be found?

Jerusalem was the Magi's first stop, and their question troubled the whole city. The priests and scribes consulted there pointed the travellers on to Bethlehem.

Which constellation contains a row of three bright stars nicknamed the Three Kings or the Magi?

Orion wears the three stars as a belt, a line that has also been called the Three Marys and Jacob's Staff. Their own names are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

Which Monty Python film opens with the Three Wise Men bringing their gifts to the wrong stable?

Life of Brian has its hero born in the stable next door to Jesus on the same night, which briefly fools the visitors.

The carol We Three Kings was written in 1857 by a clergyman from which country?

United States clergyman John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote both words and music for a Christmas pageant at the New York seminary where he taught music.

In the short story The Gift of the Magi, what does Della sell to buy her husband a Christmas present?

Her hair, which reached her knees, goes to a wig maker for twenty dollars. The money buys a chain for the watch that Jim has just sold to buy her a set of combs.

Which gift of the Magi was used in embalming, and so came to be read as a symbol of death?

Myrrh served as an embalming ointment and was burned as a penitential incense at funerals until the 15th century.

Which country stages Three Kings parades in nearly every town on the evening of 5 January?

Spain stages a Cavalcade of Magi with floats in practically every city and village, and its children traditionally open their presents the next morning rather than at Christmas.

Which ruler secretly asked the Magi to report back once they had found the newborn child?

King Herod claimed he wanted to worship the child too, after quizzing the Magi on exactly when the star had appeared. They went home another way and never reported back.

Which of the four Gospels is the only one to tell the story of the Magi?

Matthew alone tells of the Magi, in a dozen verses that never number them, name them or call them kings.

Western tradition names two of the Magi Caspar and Melchior; which name completes the trio?

Balthazar completes the trio, and painters in northern Europe showed him as a Black king from the 12th century, very commonly by the 15th.

Which Christian feast on 6 January chiefly celebrates the visit of the Magi in Western churches?

Epiphany treats the Magi's visit as the moment the child was first shown to the Gentiles, the world beyond Israel.

To which land did Joseph take Mary and the child after the Magi left, on an angel's warning?

Egypt sheltered the family until the king who wanted the child dead had died himself. They then settled in Nazareth rather than return to Judea.

After finding the child, how were the Magi warned not to go back to the king who sent them?

In a dream the Magi were told to avoid the king, so they went home by another road. His furious answer was to order the killing of Bethlehem's youngest boys.

Which title, later fixed above the cross, did the Magi use when asking where the newborn child was?

King of the Jews is the outsiders' title, used by the Magi and later by Pontius Pilate on the cross, while Jesus's own followers hail him as King of Israel.

Which visitors to the manger, told of the birth by angels, never appear alongside the Magi in the Bible?

Shepherds and Magi come from two different Gospels and never share a scene, though nativity sets usually place them side by side at the crib.

Which American author, known for surprise endings, wrote the 1905 short story The Gift of the Magi?

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, and the story reached book form a year later in his collection The Four Million.

A tiny figure of whom is baked into Mexico's rosca de reyes, the ring-shaped bread of Three Kings' Day?

The baby Jesus is hidden in the bread, and whoever finds the figure in their slice must take it to church on Candlemas or host a party that day.

What do many Latin American children leave out in a box for the Magi's camels on 5 January?

Cut grass or other greenery is packed into a box or a pair of shoes on the eve of Three Kings' Day, a meal for the animals after their long journey.

Which German city's cathedral was planned around a gilded shrine said to hold the bones of the Magi?

Cologne received the relics in 1164, and the gilded triple sarcophagus made for them still stands behind the high altar of its cathedral.

Which Renaissance artist left unfinished the Adoration of the Magi that now hangs in the Uffizi?

Leonardo da Vinci took the commission from Augustinian monks in 1481 but left Florence a year later, with little more than the underdrawing done.

Which medieval traveller claimed to have been shown the tombs of the three Magi at Saveh in Persia?

Marco Polo wrote that he was shown three tombs at Saveh, south of modern Tehran, when he passed through in the 1270s.

In New Orleans, which season of parades and king cake begins on Three Kings' Day, 6 January?

Carnival in New Orleans runs from 6 January until the midnight before Ash Wednesday, so the feast of the Magi starts the countdown to Mardi Gras.

Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, an opera about the Magi, was written for which medium?

Television was its stage: NBC commissioned the opera and broadcast it live on Christmas Eve 1951, the first one composed for the small screen in America.

Frankincense, the incense among the Magi's gifts, is harvested as what kind of natural substance?

Tree resin is the raw material: frankincense is hardened sap tapped from Boswellia trees two or three times a year, and the last taps give the best tears.

The word magi goes back to a term for the priestly caste of which ancient Persian religion?

Zoroastrianism had priests famed abroad for reading the stars, and the same Old Persian word later gave English both magic and magician.

In the traditional reading of the Magi's gifts, gold stands for kingship and frankincense for what?

Deity is the usual reading of the incense, though each of the gifts was also an ordinary offering of the kind made to a king.

Which Florentine banking family is portrayed in Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi?

The Medici appear as prominent figures in the panel, and the man in a yellow cloak at its far right is widely taken to be Botticelli himself.

Which broom-riding old woman brings children gifts on 5 January after declining to join the Magi?

La Befana told the Magi she was too busy with her chores to come along, and now she delivers gifts across Italy on the night of 5 January.

Which Shakespeare comedy takes its title from the eve of the Magi's feast, when Christmas ends?

Twelfth Night is named for the last night of Christmas revels, and Malvolio's hatred of merrymaking mirrors the Puritans who opposed the holiday.

Which astronomer linked the Star of Bethlehem to conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC?

Johannes Kepler calculated in 1614 that the two planets had met three times that year, and wrongly argued that such a meeting could kindle a new star.

Which painter of a comet-like Star of Bethlehem later lent his name to a Halley's Comet probe?

Giotto had watched Halley's Comet in 1301 and painted it above the Magi in the Scrovegni Chapel, so Europe named its 1986 mission to the comet after him.

From which Italian city were the relics of the Magi carried off to Germany under Frederick Barbarossa?

Milan had kept the relics in the church of Sant'Eustorgio until 1164, when the emperor took them and gave them to his chancellor, an archbishop.

Which Old Testament prophet did the scribes cite to direct the Magi's search towards Bethlehem?

Micah's verse naming Bethlehem let the priests and scribes answer the king at once, though the Gospel's wording blends it with a line from 2 Samuel.

In which Italian city is a sixth-century mosaic thought to be the first artwork to name the three Magi?

Ravenna's Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo shows the named Magi leading a procession of 22 virgins towards the Madonna and Child.

According to tradition, which emperor's mother found the bones of the Magi on a pilgrimage to Palestine?

Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, made her pilgrimage in the 320s and is also credited with recovering the True Cross on the same journey.

Which poet, a recent convert to Anglo-Catholicism, wrote Journey of the Magi in 1927?

T. S. Eliot tells the 43-line poem from the point of view of one of the Magi, who looks back on the journey with regret rather than joy.

Which Eastern Christian tradition often counts twelve Magi rather than the familiar three?

Syriac Christians know the Magi by names such as Larvandad, Gushnasaph and Hormisdas, approximations of typical Persian names.

The word magi comes from magoi in the original text of the New Testament, written in which language?

Greek magoi could mean teachers, physicians, astrologers or sorcerers, so English Bibles vary between wise men, Magi and astrologers.