Caspar (magus)

Saint Caspar (otherwise known as Casper, Gaspar, Kaspar, Jasper,[1] and other variations) was one of the 'Three Kings', along with Melchior and Balthazar, representing the wise men or Biblical Magi mentioned in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew, verses 2:1-9. Although the Bible does not specify who or what the Magi were, since the seventh century, the Magi have been identified in Western Christianity as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Caspar and the other two are considered saints by the Catholic Church.

Saint

Caspar The Moor
Caspar being handed a covered beaker - from The Adoration of the Magi (Geertgen tot Sint Jans)
Three Magi, Three Kings, Three Wise Men
Venerated inRoman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Anglican Communion
Lutheran Church
CanonizedPre-Congregation
Major shrineShrine of the Three Kings, Cologne Cathedral
Feast6 January (Epiphany)
11 January (Date of his death)
AttributesKing bearing gifts, king on a camel, three crowns
PatronageEpilepsy, thunder, motorists, pilgrims, playing card manufacturers, sawmen, sawyers, travellers, travelling merchants, Cologne, Germany, Saxony

Name origin
Further information: Casper (given name)

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. It is likely that these varied renderings are driven by regional and linguistic differences among scholars in different times, places and tongues. [2][3][4][5][6]

Jasper is traditionally identified as having brought the gold, hence the Persian etymology of Jasper as a given name, meaning 'bringer of gifts' or 'treasurer'.[7][8]

The name Caspar or Casper is derived from "Gaspar" which in turn is from an ancient Chaldean word, "Gizbar", which according to Strong's Concordance means "treasurer".[9] The form "Gizbar" appears in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament Book of Ezra (1:8). In fact, the modern Hebrew word for "treasurer" is still "Gizbar".[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"). [11] The transition from "Gizbar" to "Caspar" and "Kaspar" can thus be summarized as: Gizbar > Gasbar > Gaspar > Caspar > Kaspar (with "C" being a misreading of the manuscript "G" and "K" having the same phonetic value as "C". Another derivation proposed by Gutschmid (1864) could be the corruption of the Iranic name "Gondophares".[12] [13]

Place of origin
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

Who the magi were is not specified in the Bible; there are only traditions. Since English translations of the Bible refer to them as "men who studied the stars", they are believed to have been astrologers, who could foresee the birth of a "Messiah" from their study of the stars.[14]

Caspar is often considered to be an Indian scholar. An article in the 1913 Encyclopædia Britannica[15] states that "according to Western church tradition, Balthasar is often represented as a king of Arabia, Melchior as a king of Persia, and Caspar as a king of India." Historian John of Hildesheim relates a tradition in the ancient silk road city of ancient Taxila that one of the Magi passed through the city on the way to Bethlehem.

Some consider Caspar to be King Gondophares (AD 21 – c. AD 47) mentioned in the Acts of Thomas. Others consider him to have come from the southern parts of India where, according to tradition, Thomas the Apostle visited decades later. The town by name Piravom in Kerala State, Southern India has for long claimed that one of the three Biblical Magi went from there. The name Piravom in the local Malayalam language translates to "birth". It is believed that the name originated from a reference to the Nativity of Jesus. There is a concentration of three churches named after the Biblical Magi in and around Piravom, as against only another three so named in the rest of India.

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. On it can be seen Egrisilla Bragmanni ("Egrisilla of the Brahmans"), and in the explanatory treatise which accompanied the globe, Schöner noted: “The region of Egrisilla, in which there are Brahman [i.e. Indian] Christians; there Gaspar the Magus held dominion”.[16] The phrase hic rex caspar habitavit (here lived King Caspar) is inscribed over the Golden Chersonese (Malay Peninsula) on the mappemonde of Andreas Walsperger made in Constance around 1448. Whether it was a latter day king who took the name of Caspar is also not known.

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.

The Magi are now considered by some not to have been kings. The reference to "kings" is believed to have originated due to the reference in Psalms "The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents; the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring him gifts: and all the kings of the earth shall adore him" Psalm 72:10.

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

Gift to Child Jesus
Caspar is behind the kneeling Melchior in The Magi visiting child Jesus, by Dieric Bouts

Matthew wrote that the Magi brought three gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh. These gifts apparently have deeper significance, the gold signifying the regal status of Jesus, the frankincense his divinity, and the myrrh his human nature. Caspar is traditionally portrayed with a reddish beard in the middle of the three kings, as younger than Melchior and older than Balthasar, and who waits in line behind Melchior to give the gift of frankincense to the Child Jesus.[17] He is often portrayed in the act of accepting his gift from an assistant, or in the act of removing his crown, signs of preparing to be next at the feet of Child Jesus.

Death

According to tradition St Caspar became a martyr, and some consider that the other two Magi also met with the same fate. The relics of the Magi were found in Persia by St Helena, but were later brought to Constantinople and then to Milan in Italy. From there they reached Germany, where they are now housed in the Cologne Cathedral.[18]

The relics of the Magi kept in the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral, Germany.

Caspar is commemorated on the Feast of Epiphany along with the other members of the Magi but is also commemorated in Catholicism with his feast day, 11 January. 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. Caspar died on January 11, 55 AD aged 109.

Veneration

In some parishes, it is traditional to bless chalk for each family so that they may mark the first initial of each of the three Magi over their doors as a blessing for protection.

See also

References
  1. British Library register entry for Historiated Initial With The Adoration Of the Magi, In A Book Of Hours (1500): "According to tradition, there was one old magus, named Caspar or Jasper..."
  2. Jean-Pierre Isbouts, "Who were the three kings in the Christmas story?", National Geographic (2018): "Later tellings of the story identified the magi by name and identified their lands of origin: ...Gaspar (also called 'Caspar' or 'Jaspar')".
  3. Jean-Pierre Isbouts, Who's Who in the Bible: A reference guide (2013), p114, ISBN 1426211597.
  4. Excerpta Latina Barbari,page 51B, line 49: "At that time in the reign of Augustus, on 1st January the Magi brought him gifts and worshipped him. The names of the Magi were Bithisarea, Melichior and Gathaspa.".
  5. British Library register entry for Historiated Initial With The Adoration Of the Magi, In A Book Of Hours (1500): "According to tradition, there was one old magus, named Caspar or Jasper..."
  6. Hugo Kehrer (1908), Vol. I, p. 70 Online version Kehrer's commentary: "Die Form Jaspar stammt aus Frankreich. Sie findet sich im niederrheinisch-kölnischen Dialekt und im Englischen. Note: O. Baist page 455; J.P.Migne; Dictionnaire des apocryphes, Paris 1856, vol I, p. 1023. ... So in La Vie de St. Gilles; Li Roumans de Berte: Melcior, Jaspar, Baltazar; Rymbybel des Jakob von Märlant: Balthasar, Melchyor, Jaspas; ein altenglisches Gedicht des dreizehnten oder vierzehnten Jahrhunderts (13th century!!) Note: C.Horstmann, Altenglische Legenden, Paderborn 1875, p. 95; ... La Vie des trois Roys Jaspar Melchior et Balthasar, Paris 1498"-->]
  7. Nicholas Penny, National Gallery Catalogues (new series): The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume II, Venice 1540–1600, 2008, National Gallery Publications Ltd, ISBN 1857099133, p104.
  8. "H1489 - gizbar - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (KJV)". Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  9. "H1489 - gizbar - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (KJV)". Blue Letter Bible. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  10. "Klein Dictionary, גִּזְבָּר". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  11. Taylor, Bernard Alwyn (2009). Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint (in Greek). Hendrickson Publishers. p. 106. ISBN 978-1-56563-516-6.
  12. Metzger, Bruce M. (1 July 2019). New Testament studies (philological, versional, and patristic). BRILL. p. 29. ISBN 978-90-04-37928-2.
  13. von Gutschmid, A. (1864). "Die Königsnamen in den apokryphen Apostelgeschichten. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniß des geschichtlichen Romans". Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. 19: 161–183. ISSN 0035-449X. JSTOR 41249661.
  14. Drum, Walter. "Magi." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 2 May 2015
  15. "Magi". Encyclopædia Britannica. 21 June 2023.
  16. “Egrisilla regio in qua sunt christiani Bragmanni. ibi Gaspar magus fertur habuisse dominum”, Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio, Nuremberg, 1515, Tract.II, fol.54 . Schöner’s 1515 globe is reproduced in Chet van Duzer, Johann Schöner’s Globe of 1515: Transcription and Study, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, Transactions, Volume 100.
  17. Giffords, Gloria Fraser, Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530-1821, University of Arizona Press, 2007 ISBN 9780816525898
  18. "Concerning The Magi And Their Names". Archived from the original on 20 April 2009. Retrieved 2 May 2015.

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