Get Your Tookas to Bet Lehem, Caspar!


It's approximately the year 5 BC, but C is fashionably early, so any Magi better move their tookas to Bet Lehem before the Holy Family goes back to Natzrat!
According to the 8th century chronicle Excerpta latina barbari, a title which translates as "Excerpts in Bad Latin" (which sounds like the title of a Ricky Martin biography with an award that nobody has ever heard of embossed on the cover and a featured segment on NPR that makes you change the station faster than a pledge drive), Gathaspa was one of three Magi to present gifts to the Christ-child. Better known as Caspar or Gaspar today, an 8th-9th century Irish text describes him as the whippersnapper of the three Maagi, young and beardless, and sources disagree on whether he was a king or noble of Tarsus or India. The gift to the child most commonly attributed to Caspar is myrrh, arguably the least popular of the three gifts. A resin derived from myrrh trees (myrrh, meaning bitter), myrrh was used for embalming, as a medicine for a wide variety of ailments, as well as for making holy anointing oil and incense for use in the Temple at Jerusalem. It is a very dumb gift for a baby. Fortunately, Caspar brought it in a very expensive-looking box, so maybe they can hock that for something a little more useful, like toys or a nice stroller.

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