Biblical Magi their authenticity. In the Eastern churches, Ethiopian Christianity, for instance, has "Hor", "Karsudan", and "Basanater", while the Armenian Catholics have "Kagpha", "Badadakharida" and "Badadilma". Many Chinese Christians believe that one of the magi came from China. The phrase "from the east" (ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν), more literally "from the rising [of the sun]", is the only information Matthew provides about the region from which they came. The Parthian Empire, centered in Persia, occupied virtually all of the land east of Judea and Syria (except for the deserts of Arabia to the southeast). Though the empire was tolerant of other religions, its dominant
Biblical Magi pious forgery. A competing tradition asserts that the biblical Magi "were martyred for the faith, and that their bodies were first venerated at Constantinople; thence they were transferred to Milan in 344. It is certain that when Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (Barbarossa) , the relics there were transferred to Cologne Cathedral, housed in the Shrine of the Three Kings, and are venerated there today." The Milanese treated the fragments of masonry from their now-empty tomb as secondary relics and these were widely distributed around the region, including southern France, accounting for the frequency with which the Magi appear on