Where is he that is born King of the Jews?
for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. (Matthew 2:2).
We meet
the so called wise men, who came from the remote and mysterious Orient to
worship the newborn King of Judah, on the very first pages of the Gospel. We
feel warm and relaxed whenever we mention those wise men, or Magi. They bring
about the memories of a happy and serene Christmas holiday. Those three old men
wearing funny hats made a long way to honor Baby Jesus and bring him their
gifts. We can't help thinking about gifts that will make our loved ones happy,
about the coziness of a family reunion, and the twinkling lights on the
Christmas Tree.
With that
said, the Bible in general and the Gospel in particular has a strongly negative
attitude towards wizards and pagan diviners. The book of Deuteronomy warns, There shall not be found among you any one
that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth
divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer,
or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all
that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these
abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee (Deuteronomy
18:10-12). The attitude expressed in the New Testament is no less harsh.
Suffice it to say that Apostle Paul strikes Elymas the Sorcerer blind for
opposing his preaching of Christ on Cyprus (see Acts 13). Simon Magus receives
a serious warning from Apostle Peter who scolds him in no unclear terms for his
attempt to buy the apostolic power with money. Why, then, are the strict
prohibitions of the Old Testament inapplicable to the Wise Men of Christmas ?
Who were
those Magi? These wise old men came from afar to worship Baby Jesus. They have
been venerated as saints in the West since ancient times to the point that they
even have commemoration dates (January 1 for Casper, January 6 for Melchior,
January 11 for Balthazar, and January 6—the Epiphany—for the three wise men
together). Their relics initially rested in Constantinople, then they were
transferred to Milan, and finally to the Cologne Cathedral, where they rest
today.
Unfortunately,
we don't know their exact origins and how many of them there really were. There
are a number of guesses as to who those mysterious travelers from the Orient
were.
According
to Greek historian Herodotus, the Magi (μάγοι in
Greek, meaning wizards or sorcerers) simply belonged to a Median tribe called
the Magi, which carried out the functions not unlike those of the tribe of
Levi. Others claim that the Magi is a caste of learned priests and prophets in
the Persian Empire who studied medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and other
sciences. Prophet Daniel is known to have been appointed the chief Magus, i.e.,
the chief sage in Babylon. Then the king
made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over
the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men
of Babylon. (Daniel 2:48).
The exact
number of the wise men who arrived in Jerusalem and the point of their
departure isn’t clear, either. Various medieval sources contain information
about 2, 4, 6, 8 wise men, while Syriac tradition mentions 12 wise men who had
a large retinue. Finally, Origen’s version about three wise men gained
traction, primarily because they are said to have brought three gifts: gold,
frankincense, and myrrh.
The
country of the wise men’s origin is also unclear because the phrase we have
seen his star in the east can be interpreted in multiple ways. When the Greeks
and Romans spoke about the East, they didn’t always mean any exact geographical
region. Hence, ancient Greeks would often mistake Ethiopia, which is located in
the south, in the East Africa, for India, which is located in the east. The
wise men are said to have arrived from the mysterious Tarshish or the legendary
land of Ophir, or Arabia and the Kingdom of Sheba, based on the words of Psalm
72, The kings of Tarshish and of the
isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. (Ps.
72:10). Some Holy Fathers, including Saint Maximus of Turin (5th century),
conjectured that the wise men or at least one of them possibly hailed from
Ethiopia or India. That is why one of the wise men is often traditionally
portrayed as a black man. Bede the Venerable (+735) already provides us with
the names of the three wise men, which were later incorporated into the church
tradition of the Western Church: Casper, who is a beardless young man,
Melchior, who is an old man with a long beard, and Balthazar, who is black. The
same Bede the Venerable wrote that the wise men were the descendants of Shem,
Ham and Japheth and thus represented all human race and all human wisdom
seeking the truth and finding it in Christ.
There is
another, no less ingenious hypothesis of some Holy Fathers who consider the
three wise men to be the descendants of the diviner (another good wizard, mind
you) and prophet Balaam who blessed Israelites instead of cursing them and who
foresaw a certain star:
I shall see him, but not now:
I shall behold him, but not nigh:
there shall come a Star out of Jacob,
and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,
and shall smite the corners of Moab,
and destroy all the children of Sheth. (Num.
24:17)
Blessed
Jerome of Stridon and Saint Ambrose of Milan followed the tradition attributed
to Origen and assumed that Balaam’s descendants passed from one generation to
the next generation a legend about a certain star that would point at the
newborn Messiah who would bring many children of Sheth to repentance. It is no
surprise, then, that the wise men were so happy when they saw the star and
embarked on the distant and dangerous journey to honor the Messiah: their
ancestors had been waiting for that star for many centuries.
As far as
the star itself is concerned, there are even more guesses with regard to its
origin and nature. This question bothered the curious minds of ancient
Christian exegetes and contemporary scholars alike. Thus, St. John Chrysostom
suggested that the star was in fact an Angel of the Lord who took the image of
the star for the sake of the Oriental stargazers who were interested in
astronomy and astrology. Saint John stressed the superior knowledge of the
ancient Jews who, having learned monotheism from God, were able to have
apparitions of angels, whereas the Oriental sages who hadn’t been instructed by
the light of true worship of God, were led to Christ by a star, as it is sung
in the Orthodox Christmas hymns. It must be noted that the wise men, having
worshipped Christ, didn’t return to King Herod as he had asked them to, willing
to kill the newborn King. Instead, being
warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed
into their own country another way (Matthew 2:12). We see that the three
wise men, having recognized Baby Jesus as the Messiah, are immediately deemed
worthy of having a revelation in a dream. Allegedly, the wise men, after they
learned the Truth, did no longer need to study astrology. They returned to
their homeland as Christians and were later baptized and even made bishops by
Apostle Thomas.
Contemporary
scholars generally assert that the appearance of the Bethlehem Star was nothing
other than a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of
Pisces, which took place in the year 7 BC. The Biblical science and Orthodox
calendar also place the year of birth of the Savior into the same period.
Therefore,
we don’t know for sure both the exact number and the origin of the mysterious
wise stargazers and the origin and the nature of the Bethlehem Star but it
doesn’t matter. What really matters is the fact that humans are looking for the
truth, yearning to acquire it and serve it, for serving the truth is the
genuine liberation of the human race. [Y]e
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32).
Indeed, it’s exciting to read about several wise men from the East who
undertook such a long journey to worship the Baby born in a miserable cave in a
small town of Bethlehem, unknown to the rest of the world, and to bring Him
gifts. Nowadays, the whole world remembers and loves those mysterious Magi,
respects their humility before the Baby and his Most Pure Mother, and rejoices
with them. They found the Messiah—the Anointed One anticipated by the
patriarchs and prophets of old, the Mighty King whom Virgil had dreamed of in
his Fourth Eclogue and the Peacemaker whom Moses prophesied:
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until
Shiloh come;
and unto him shall the gathering of the
people be. (Gen.
49:10).
By John Nichiporuk,
a Bachelor of Theology,
specialized in Biblical Studies.
The Catalog Of Good Deeds, 2018
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