Caspar (magus)

Caspar (otherwise known as Casper, Gaspar, Kaspar, Jasper, Kasper,[1] and other variations) was one of the 'Three Kings', along with Melchior and Balthazar, representing the wise men or Biblical Magi mentioned in Matthew 2:1-9.

While it is generally accepted that Casper/Kaspar/Gaspar/Jasper was one of the Biblical Magi or 'three wise men' who were said to have visited the infant Jesus – bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh – there is some debate in academic literature over the rendering of his name.

[10] By the 1st century B.C., the Septuagint gave a Greek translation of "Gizbar" in Ezra 1:8 as "γασβαρηνου" ("Gasbarinou", literally son of "Gasbar").

The town by name Piravom in Kerala State, Southern India has for long claimed that one of the three Biblical Magi went from there.

There are some who consider that Caspar's kingdom was located in the region of Egrisilla in India Superior on the peninsula that forms the eastern side of the Sinus Magnus (Gulf of Thailand) by Johannes Schöner on his globe of 1515.

Some late medieval depictions of Caspar as an African king may have been influenced by accounts of the hajj pilgrimage of the Malian ruler Mansa Musa.

These gifts apparently have deeper significance, the gold signifying the regal status of Jesus, the frankincense his divinity, and the myrrh his human nature.

Following his return to his own country, avoiding King Herod, it is purported that Caspar celebrated Christmas with the other members of the Magi in Armenia in 54 AD.

The homeland of King Caspar in the Aurea Cersonese , the Golden Peninsula, near Java in the Indian Ocean, on the map of Andreas Walsperger , c. 1448
Johannes Schöner on Gaspar magus, or Saint Caspar: "The region of Egrisilla, in which there are Brahman [i.e. Indian] Christians; there Gaspar the Magus held dominion," Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio .
Caspar is behind the kneeling Melchior in The Magi visiting child Jesus , by Dieric Bouts .
The relics of the Magi kept in the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral , Germany