Maʹgi (The)
,according to one tradition, were Melʹchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar, three kings of the East. The first offered gold, the emblem of royalty, to the infant Jesus; the second, frankincense, in token of divinity; and the third, myrrh, in prophetic allusion to the persecution unto death which awaited the “Man of Sorrows.”
(Klopstock, in his Messiah, book v., gives these five names: Hadad, Selima, Zimri, Beled, and Sunith.)
Magi, in Camoensʹ Lusiad, means the Indian “Brahmins.” Ammiaʹnus Marcelliʹnus says that the Persian magi derivèd their knowledge from the Brahmins of India (i. 23); and Ariaʹnus expressly calls the Brahmins “magi” (i.7.).
