Adoration of the Maji by Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
The Christmas season just ended with the strangest feast of all.
We are so used to seeing the three Kings’ flash of colour tucked into the mostly browns of our Christmas crib that we take their actual presence there for granted. Not so. In the Church’s calendar their arrival is marked twelve days after the Nativity and is celebrated under various names: the arrival of the Magi / of the Three Wise Men / of the three Kings, or the Feast of the Epiphany (meaning “the Sudden flash of Understanding”) that comes, literally, out of the blue. And this group of men certainly does that.
Matthew’s gospel is the only one that mentioned them, and he is so matter of fact; wise men arrive unannounced in Jerusalem from the direction of the sunrise and stir what must have been a very serious political storm in “all” of the city. The last thing Herod I of Judaea, who was a Roman-Jewish client king, wanted was news of someone “born king of the Jews” a genuine home-grown leader of the Jewish people; it would challenge his own stable government answerable to Rome.
Every early reader of Matthew’s gospel would have immediately remembered the political tensions governing that Province of the Empire and realised the socio-military implications of such a claim. Who could forget Rome’s complete destruction of the city and Temple in 70 AD and the terrible slaughter in response to Jewish nationalism? And centuries later, when that political memory was forgotten, and Christianity had spread through the Roman Empire and the implications of this part of Matthew’s narrative was lost, the story of the wise men from afar grew in ways that the Lucan Shepherds’ narrative did not.
Perhaps that’s the point, the shepherds were local and forgettable, the magi group was by definition gentile. Like the newer believers in the Roman Empire, they turned the earliest recognition of Christ outward, and from the very start. He was not just the Messiah, the king of the Jews. He was for the Gentiles, too. (His cost to the Jews is represented by the slaughter of the babies under two.)
The Three Magi, Byzantine mosaic, c. 565, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy
We have no idea of the actual size or political status of this group of men whose arrival worried Herod, nor their country of origin. The word Magus – wise man – is originally old Persian and that makes sense, the great early civilisation of the Babylonians was famed for its Astronomers and Astrologers. And a new star that moved, much less moved ahead of a group would certainly rouse their interest. Think of Halley’s Comet in our time.
However, while wise men might acknowledge their own king, why on earth would they owe fealty to someone in a foreign country? Matthew’s narrative doesn’t explain; they had decided that whatever the star boded was serious, and they came prepared with very valuable gifts. The gospel specifies gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and on that basis, tradition decided there were three Magi. There just as easily could have been a dozen. In Sant’Apollinare (above) dating from about 500 AD, they’re still not royal; they’re wearing the red Phrygian cap that indicates they came from Asia Minor rather than crowns. (These caps had a life of their own; they became the mark of a freedman, and in the end they became Liberty caps of the French Revolution.)
But kings? Their story took another few centuries to develop.
Since several psalms describe the Messiah as being worshipped by kings, and frankincense is traditionally associated with royalty; the men became royal a bit later in the Christian tradition, and stories of them proliferated of them in various churches. They were even individualised into names by around 800 AD – Kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.
Tradition was not finished with them; by the Renaissance they gained greater symbolism as coming from different countries (areas of the world) and representing the three ages of man. Caspar from the Mediterranean coast, was old and white bearded (at 60!) and gave gold, Melchior tended to be middle-aged at 40 and had the frankincense associated even today with Arabia and a dark-skinned 20-year-old, Balthasar was traditionally from North Africa and presented myrrh.
They became increasingly more decorative, gold and glorious.
Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1427)
Not content with becoming both royal and in a sense universal, the three became venerated as saints and martyrs. While Matthew’s gospel had them going home to their own country avoiding Herod, some legends have them as staying in the Holy Land, unable to return after their experience, and eventually becoming bishops and then martyrs there. Their Relics/skeletons were said to have been discovered by Saint Helena in the Holy Land, transferred from Constantinople to Milan somewhere in Fifth Century, and from there, after Milan was besieged they were taken as war booty to Cologne in July 1164. The Romanesque church there which initially housed the bones was of course inadequate for the number of pilgrims seeking their benediction, and through the pilgrims’ generosity the magnificent Gothic cathedral of Cologne was begun in 1248 and work stopped in 1560 (sic). It was finally, finished in C19 and although the towers acted as navigational sights/sites for bombers in WWII, and the great building was hit a number of times, the Cathedral survives to give us joy today.
The Epiphany Shrine or Shrine of the Three Kings, Cologne Cathedral (image by Hermann J Knippertziap)
The Shrine holding the relics behind the altar in Cologne Cathedral is partly opened for viewing of the bones, especially the skulls, each January 6th Feast Day.
Merry Christmas – Just admit it … we’re lost!
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David Rush says:
Sandy Another great article and just so interesting Love the mosaic from Ravenna, one of my all time favourite destinations