CHAPTER
9
IF THERE WAS NO love lost between Israel and Persia during the reign of King Herod, it’s because there was so little love to lose. Persia, a powerful empire, had been a periodic oppressor of the Jews. In the first century BC, moreover, Persia was experiencing the first blush of what would prove to be a centuries-long power struggle with that upstart on the geopolitical scene: Rome.
If the Jews and Romans agreed on anything, it was on their contempt for Persia, the empire to the east. And for both Jews and Romans, Persia’s loathsomeness was best symbolized by its “wise men,” or Magi. For the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (a contemporary of Jesus), the doctrine of the Magi was “so utterly incredible, so utterly revolting,” yet so full of “attractive chimeras,” that it was capable of “fascinating men’s minds.”1 Centuries later, the Talmud acknowledged the same attractive power and forbade Jews to seek knowledge from a Magus (the singular of Magi).
The Magi were astronomers who closely tracked the movements of heavenly bodies—the relative position of the stars, the phases of the moon—and claimed to read them as omens of earthly events. Their doctrine “attained an influence so mighty,” said Pliny, that it “held sway throughout a great part of the world, and ruled the kings of kings in the East.”2 The Magi were so revered in Persia that they were considered the true “power behind the throne” and were sometimes made vassal kings of provincial lands.
In the Old Testament, we find Magi—the word is usually translated as “wise men”—serving as advisors to the king in Babylon as well (see Daniel 2:48). One is listed among the eyewitnesses when King Nebuchadnezzar slaughtered the heirs of Israel’s king David and then blinded their father, Zedekiah. Prominent among the names of Babylon’s “officers” is Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, or chief of the Magi (see Jeremiah 39:1–7).
Though the Magi were near neighbors to the Jews in geographic terms, religiously they were light-years away. In many ways they personified the world of the Gentiles—they were foreigners and idolaters who were ignorant and contemptuous of Israel’s ways and Israel’s God. They represented the kind of contamination the law was designed to keep out. God gave the law in order to quarantine the Israelites from the influence of idolatrous people.
So there was a mutual repulsion between the Magi and the Jews—yet there was also a mutual attraction. If Jews had never felt drawn to the wisdom of the Persians, there would have been no need for warnings in the Bible and the Talmud.
As for the Magi themselves: if they had never been tempted to know the God of Israel, why were they watching the sky for signs of a divine “King of the Jews”?
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:1–2)
Now, we’ve already established that Herod was haunted by extreme paranoia. We know, too, that he was an insecure Edomite, reviled by Jews of purer lineage. Furthermore, we’ve seen that his paranoia and insecurity drove him to search the Scriptures for any hint of a threat to his power. Surely his researches had at some point brought him to one of the earliest prophecies of the Messiah, an oracle of Balaam, preserved in the Torah:
I behold him, but not nigh:
a star shall come forth out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab,
and break down all the sons of Sheth.
Edom shall be dispossessed,
Se’ir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed,
while Israel does valiantly.
By Jacob shall dominion be exercised,
and the survivors of cities be destroyed! (Numbers 24:17–19)
To a paranoid Edomite pretender, three lines would have stood out:
a star shall come forth out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
… … … … …
[and] Edom shall be dispossessed. (Numbers 24:17–18)
Could these Magi have seen the star foretold by Balaam? Could they have descried the omen of Herod’s undoing?
It’s possible, too, that the Magi knew the prophecy of Balaam from their interaction with Jews in Persia—and that they had seen its meaning far more clearly than the religious leaders of the Jews. Maybe that’s the reason why they were on the lookout for such a star.
Herod pressed the Magi for details, and he called up the members of his own religious think tank. From these two sources he wanted to pinpoint the place and time of the Messiah’s birth.
The Magi must have impressed Herod as humble seekers and virtuous men. So he tried his best to play-act humility. He told them: “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him” (Matthew 2:8).
They went their way. “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matthew 2:10).
We should linger on that single line. For it captures the very moment when God gave “Joy to the World”—not merely to Israel, but to the whole world: the nations, the foreigners, the Gentiles.
All through the Old Testament there had been hints that such a day would come. The psalmist sang: “All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, / for they have heard the words of thy mouth” (Psalm 138:4). And:
May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles
render him tribute,
may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! (Psalm 72:10)
And the prophet Isaiah foretold a time when Israel would prosper, unafraid of the world and open to the gifts of the nations:
Then you shall see and be radiant,
your heart shall thrill and rejoice;
because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
… … … … … …
Your gates shall be open continually;
day and night they shall not be shut;
that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations,
with their kings led in procession. (Isaiah 60:5, 11)
The Magi went to Jerusalem, and then to Bethlehem, and they were bearing tribute with them. Saint Matthew tells us: “Then, opening their treasures, they offered [Jesus] gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Matthew 2:11).
Christians have long pondered the meaning of the Magi’s gifts. The great Scripture scholar of the third century Origen of Alexandria said succinctly: “Gold, as to a king; myrrh, as to one who was mortal; and incense, as to a God.”3 The symbolism makes the gifts particularly suitable to the baby who was at once king, man, and God.
Gold and incense are familiar to everyone, and their associations with kings and temples are well known; only myrrh requires an explanation for some modern readers. Myrrh is made from the fragrant resin of trees native to many lands in the Middle East. In ancient times, myrrh was used for medicines, perfumes, and—most significantly in this case—embalming fluid. The bodies of the dead were anointed with myrrh to slow decomposition and mask the odor of death (see John 19:39).
Origen’s analysis serves as a good summary, but it’s hardly the last word. Indeed, it’s a necessary and good beginning for our contemplation, but it’s only a beginning.
It is worth noting, for example, that all three gifts were customary elements of worship in Israel’s holy place. In the Temple the vessels were crafted from purest gold (see Leviticus 24:4-6); the smoke of incense rose with the prayers of the priests (Leviticus 16:12-13); and myrrh was used in the oils for anointing (Exodus 30:23). Thus, we can see in this moment a transfer of high-priestly authority to its rightful place, with Israel’s King Messiah, the Son of David.
Saint Ephrem the Syrian (fourth century) was delighted to note that all the gifts brought by the Magi had first been created by God. So the Magi were simply returning to God what he had first given to the world. The gifts, however, had been profaned by their service to idols in the lands of the Magi; so, said Saint Ephrem, they needed to be purified by contact with the Holy One of Israel.
The gold that had been worshipped
now worshipped you, when the magi offered it.
What had been worshipped in molten images,
now gave worship to you.
With its worshippers it worshipped you.4
And again, according to Saint Ephrem, the Magi brought more to Bethlehem than the gifts in their coffers. The Magi brought themselves, as representatives of all the Gentiles; and the Magi brought the whole cosmos, which they had striven to understand and had mistakenly worshipped. Ephrem was their countryman and was familiar with the fire worship of the Persians. But in Bethlehem, he said, “The Sun rendered worship” to the true God, as the Sun’s “worshippers … worshipped” Christ instead.5 When the Magi worshipped the Christ Child, the Sun was worshipping Jesus through the Magi.
The visit of the Magi is a brief episode in the Christmas story, but we cannot exaggerate its importance. It signals the salvation of the whole world and the restoration of the cosmic order, which had been disturbed with the fall of humanity and the angels.
The early Christians who had converted from idolatry, from “paganism,” had a profound appreciation for the story of the Magi. It is cited repeatedly in the second century by authors as diverse and geographically dispersed as Saint Justin Martyr, Tatian, Julius Africanus, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian of Carthage. It is found as well in the apocryphal Christian literature of the period.
God had extended joy to the world, and the world responded with worship and celebration.
And what of the star?
As far back as the fourth century, Saint John Chrysostom pointed out that it didn’t behave like any other star anyone had ever seen. Most stars, he said, appear to move from east to west, like the sun; but this star “wafted from north to south; for so is Palestine situated with respect to Persia.”
It appeared, moreover, burning bright at midday, Chrysostom added, “and this is not within the power of a star, nor even of the moon.”
And he went on to give more reasons. The star played hide-and-seek with the Magi, Chrysostom said, guiding them to Jerusalem, and then disappearing for a time, and then reappearing. Again, it’s clear that this was no ordinary star.
Finally, as the Magi approached their goal, the star descended from heaven and hovered above the Holy Family’s house.
“This star,” said Saint John Chrysostom, “was not of the common sort, or rather not a star at all, it seems to me, but some invisible power transformed into this appearance.”6
In chapter 7 we saw that the stars in the sky were often identified with angels in heaven. The motif appears in the Bible, and in other Jewish sources from the time of Jesus. The philosopher Philo of Alexandria speculated that the stars “are living creatures, but of a kind composed entirely of mind.”7
Brilliant scientists have spent years combing through ancient chronicles, reconciling calendars, and working out the equations—all so that they could identify the star of Bethlehem with a known astronomical phenomenon: Halley’s Comet, for example, or some once-in-centuries conjunction of planets. Their arguments are ingenious, but I’m not persuaded.
John Chrysostom may have been pre-scientific and pre-critical in his thinking, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that stars don’t do what the star of Bethlehem was said to do. I’m inclined to agree with him that this was yet another appearance of a Christmas angel. In the beginning, God had created the heavens and the earth, and all the angels were caught up in the cosmic drama. Now all find themselves, once again, caught up in its climax.
With John Chrysostom I have to conclude that an angel appeared to the Magi as light and led them to true worship—which, as I’ve said before, is what angels were created to do.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great accepted the angelic interpretation. He observed, too, the great difference between the way God dealt with the shepherds and the way he dealt with the Magi. The shepherds, even though they were uneducated Jews of the lowest rank, were still members of the chosen people, who had heard the proclamation of the truth all their lives. To them God sent angels undisguised, as it were, and the angels spoke to them in plain language. “But a sign and not a voice guided the gentiles,” Gregory explained. “For they were not prepared to make full use of reason to know the Lord.”8
To understand the meaning of Christmas, the simplest of pious field hands were better equipped than the most erudite scholars.
What brought the Magi to the crib in Bethlehem, however, was their ardent disposition to know the truth. That’s something the angels could see—and work with.
Saint Matthew is maddeningly sketchy on details. If Luke had given us the story of the Magi, we would probably know their postal addresses in Persia. But all Matthew tells us is that they came from “the east.”
Scripture doesn’t tell us how many Magi there were. An ancient tradition tells us there were three, but that may have been inferred from the number of gifts. Other ancient traditions even give us names: Caspar (or Gaspar), Balthasar, and Melchior. But Scripture, again, is silent on these details. The Gospel doesn’t even disclose that they were Persian, though we assume that by the simple fact that they were Magi.
The culture’s “insiders” didn’t receive the message of the herald angels. The chief priests were busy with earthly matters in places far from Bethlehem. King Herod and his court were otherwise occupied with their intrigues and indulgence.
What we know about the Magi is mysterious but thrilling. The religious insiders of Herod’s kingdom missed out on Christmas. But outsiders came from afar to pay homage.
Magi—Gentiles, foreigners, who were considered unclean by the Jews—arrived from distant lands, and they joined the worship of humble shepherds.
“And the master said …, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled’ ” (Luke 14:23).
The Magi “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matthew 2:10).