The Pilgrimage of The Magi

A Christmas Mystery

Sometimes, a very strange thing can become so familiar that its essential oddness eludes conscious apprehension. If you see the same homeless man ranting in a fentanyl haze every day on the way to work he eventually just becomes a part of the scenery, no matter how out of place he logically is. In fact, were he not to be present one day, that would be something remarkable, at least for a moment. Familiarity quiets inquisitive faculties.

In America, outside the most progressive enclaves, Nativity scenes are still common. Even if you don’t practice Christianity you can probably recall the features and characters typically present. There’s baby Jesus, of course, along with Mary and Joseph. That core element is usually joined by various animals (the scene takes place in a stable), and if it’s really comprehensive, shepherds and the three Wise Men. The latter appear in Christmas art of all kinds, including the famous carol, “We Three Kings.” They’re as much of what we think of the holiday as Santa and the Grinch, but as a legacy from a more religious and reverent past. We look and move on.

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But the story of the Three Wise Men/ Kings is an odd one, a tale that throws some interesting complications into the basic prophecy narrative behind Jesus’ birth. Reading the biblical tale, one quickly discovers how many elements of the traditional view are later rationalizations that serve to fill in gaps in the core story. One is quickly left wondering, “who were these people, really?”

The Wise Men (more on that title in a moment) only appear in the Nativity narrative in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2; none of the other three Gospels mention them. Here is the passage, translated by this author from the UBS Greek New Testament, 4th Edition:

2:1 After the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of King Herod, Magi (Wise Men) from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “where is the one born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and we have come to worship him. 3 And hearing this King Herod was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him. 4 And having called together all the high priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ would be born. 5 And they said to him, “in Bethlehem of Judea, for this has been written of by the prophet [Micah]:”

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,

For from you will come a leader,

Who will shepherd my people, Israel.

7 Then Herod, having secretly summoned the Magi, asked them when the star had appeared. 8 And sending them to Bethlehem, said, “go there and search carefully for the Child, and when you find him, tell me immediately, so that I can come and worship him.” 9 And having listened to the king, they departed, and behold, the star they had seen in the East had gone ahead of them until it came to a stop over where the Child was. 10 Having seen the star, they rejoiced greatly. 11 And coming into the house, they saw the Child with Mary, his mother, and fell and worshiped Him, and opening their treasure boxes gave him gifts- gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they returned to their country by another road.

That’s all Matthew tells us about them. But this short passage begs a lot of questions, especially in terms of what this story doesn’t reveal. To begin with, though they bring three gifts, the exact number of Wise Men is never specified. Commentators over the years seem to have simply reasoned out that one gift per person made sense, but that’s not in the actual text. Second, we don’t have a clear idea when this episode takes place relative to the actual birth of Jesus. Matthew does not mention why Joseph and Mary are in Bethlehem, nor the parts with the inn and the stable and the shepherds and angels; that all comes from Luke. When the Magi arrive, Mary and Jesus (no mention of Joseph) are in a house (oikos), though the whole phrase in which that word appears might be taken as “and entering the household” that is, entering the boundaries of the family regardless of where they happened to be physically. This could mean they showed up the night Jesus was born, or else some time later when the family had moved to a more comfortable location. Some have argued that Herod’s later orders in 2:16-18 to murder all of the boys in Bethlehem under two years old means that that would be the age he calculated Jesus to be, but it’s also unclear how long after the Magi departed that that episode took place. The connection to the night of the Nativity owes itself to a very early extra-Biblical tradition- no later than the mid-second century- represented by the Proevangelium of James (21) and Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho” (78).

But more fundamentally, who are these people? In the original Greek, the word so often translated as Wise Men is μάγοι (singular μάγος), or Magi (Magus) rendered in Roman characters. This word comes with a veritable geology of meaning. Originally, the word was the Greek approximation of moghu or magu, the Avestan terms for the priestly caste of the Zoroastrian faith, the state religion of the Persian Empire. Herodotus uses it to mean that, but with some ambiguity as to their actual origin and role. R. C. Zaehner, in his classic The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, writes of Magi among neighboring peoples like the Arabs, and even the distant Ethiopians. It may be that these were foreign priests who adopted elements of Zoroastrianism, or the Persian Magi themselves moving in among other nations. Certainly the basic dualist conceptual structure of light/dark and spirit/matter would influence wider religious movements for centuries- Judaism, Gnosticism, Mithraism, Manichaenanism, etc. It is possible that the Biblical Magi were Zoroastrian clergy proper. But by the time the Gospels were written, however, the word Magi had taken on an additional and more pejorative connotation, something like its modern descendant, ‘mage’ or ‘magician.’ This could mean anything from someone who actually conjured demons to a street-corner charlatan, but always with the underlying idea of wisdom (feigned or otherwise) and supernatural power, generally connected to astrology and dream interpretation, among other things. Recall that the exact same word was used for the sorcerer Simon of Samaria, who tried to purchase Apostolic power from Peter in Acts (Σίμων ὁ μάγος, lit. Simon the Magus). Jesus was accused of being a Magus by the enemies of Christianity, a charge still being refuted in the 4th century by apologists like Arnobius (Against the Heathens, 1:43)

This creates a bit of a problem for translators as to how the men who visited the young Christ, meant to be viewed positively, can be understood conceptually as related to something like wizards. Thus, Simon is a Magus while the Magi are ‘Wise Men,’ at least according to the KJV. Some translations, like the older New English Bible and the Living Bible, go with ‘astrologers;’ others, like the Good News Translation, prefer the more euphemistic ‘men who studied the stars.’ The recent trend seems to be to simply transliterate the word, as I have done; they’re just Magi, doing Magi things, whatever those are.

The translation problem flows from an implied theological problem. The Magi are not Jews; they have no connection to the prophecies from Hebrew Scripture relating to the birth of the Messiah. Nonetheless, they seem to have come to the correct conclusions regarding Christ through independent-magical- means. Every other time the word μάγος (or a derivation) appears in the Greek, in Daniel of the Septuagint and in the Book of Acts (8:9; 13:6; 13:8) it has a negative connotation, or at least portrays μαγεύων- practicing sorcery- as an inferior substitute for the power of God. The Wise Men from the East are unique in that they are depicted as acting according to the will of God. Indeed, they are the protagonists of their part of the story, with their foils being the Jewish(ish) King Herod and his whole clerical and bureaucratic hierarchy, all of whom are depicted as being indifferent to the prospect of a Messiah until the Magi show up asking about Him, at which point they dust off Micah, read about Bethlehem, and set about scheming murderously. It is through the Magi that the reader is introduced to Jesus; He enters the story proper when the Wise Men show up to worship him.

The story represented a source of ambiguity for early Christians, at least to judge by the commentary on it. Tertullian, writing around 200, explains in his treatise “On Idolotry” (1:9) that the story of the Magi represents a kind of spiritual transition, where God’s tolerance of well-meaning but extra-ecclesiastical dealings with supernatural forces was at an end, the Magi’s gifts signifying their submission to Christ’s spiritual lordship, giving an example for other pagans. Tertullian gives the oldest account I can find of the significance of the gifts of the Magi- gold for a king, frankincense for God, and myrrh used to anoint the dead. He makes much of the final line “and they returned to their country by another road,” which he takes to mean they have adopted The Way.

A generation later, Origen, the most comprehensive exegete among the early Christians, gave a more thorough rationale for the Magi’s role in Against Celsus (1:60)

It is probable, therefore, that since at the birth of Jesus a multitude of the heavenly host, as Luke records, and as I believe, praised God, saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men, the evil spirits on that account became feeble, and lost their strength, the falsity of their sorcery being manifested, and their power being broken; this overthrow being brought about not only by the angels having visited the terrestrial regions on account of the birth of Jesus, but also by the power of Jesus Himself, and His innate divinity. The Magi, accordingly, wishing to produce the customary results, which formerly they used to perform by means of certain spells and sorceries, sought to know the reason of their failure, conjecturing the cause to be a great one; and beholding a divine sign in the heaven, they desired to learn its signification. I am therefore of opinion that, possessing as they did the prophecies of Balaam, which Moses also records, inasmuch as Balaam was celebrated for such predictions, and finding among them the prophecy about the star, and the words, I shall show him to him, but not now; I deem him happy, although he will not be near, they conjectured that the man whose appearance had been foretold along with that of the star, had actually come into the world; and having predetermined that he was superior in power to all demons, and to all common appearances and powers, they resolved to offer him homage.

Origen is the only commentator to credit the Magi with any specific knowledge of Jewish prophecy, but interestingly, their source is not Micah or Isaiah, but the obscure Balaam from the Book of Numbers. Balaam, like the Magi, was a non-Jew whom God nonetheless chose as an agent of His purposes; Origen would have understood the significance of the connection. But whatever the reasoning, it is clear the Magi required some explaining.

It is thus a bit odd why the story was included. Matthew is considered the most Jewish of the Gospels, written for a Jewish-Christian community, a text that doesn’t bother to explain elements of Jewish religious practice as the Gentile-focused Luke does. Matthew takes great pains to emphasize Jesus’ connection to Jewish prophecy and His fulfillment of the same. So why begin the whole tale with foreign wizards speaking truth to Jewish power?

Modern scholars tend to doubt the whole episode with the Magi ever happened, but for my part, I think the very out-of-place nature of the narrative is a backhand acknowledgment of its basic truth. If you remove the story of the Magi, you could still have Herod discovering the prophecy of Micah, deciding it applied to his own time, and murdering children. So why add the complexity? The logical inference is that Matthew or his editors believed the episode had actually occurred and included it because they understood it to be a necessary and important part of the story, reflecting something that really happened.

There is some evidence that points to something plausibly historical. Scholars generally believe that Matthew was probably composed in either Antioch or Damascus. Richard Bauckham holds as likely the theory of turn-of-the-first century scholar Papias that Matthew was originally written in either Hebrew or Aramaic and then translated and edited into a Greek text by others. Secular scholars date Matthew’s composition to after AD 70, generally on the grounds that in the text Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple, and thus it had to have been written after that fact. This of course stems from the metaphysical assumption that Jesus was not actually able to predict this, which might be true but is not something that can be assumed from the text itself. If one takes the notion that Jesus really was the Messiah as a possibility, then the dates involved can range from perhaps the 40s at the earliest to the 90s at the latest, given that Ignatius of Antioch quotes the Gospel of Matthew in the 110s, which means it must have been in relatively wide circulation by then. This date range makes it entirely possible that Matthew as a younger man and as a part of Jesus’ inner circle may have made the acquaintance of some of the people involved with the Magi’s mission. Someone who was around 20 in the year 1 would be in his 50s or 60s by the time Jesus commenced His ministry, and conceivably still alive in the 40s or 50s when Matthew would have been gathering eyewitness accounts (per Bauckham) for his Gospel. This would explain why Matthew could describe events from the Magi’s point of view, things only they would have known, like Herod’s secret instructions.

But who would they have been? There are enough interesting hints to advance a theory. One key, I believe, is the commentary offered by Justin Martyr. Justin was born around the year 120 or so in Flavia Neopolis in Samaria. He came of age with a knowledge of both Jewish and wider Semitic traditions as well as the Greco-Roman philosophy he embraced in his youth. In his “Dialogue with Trypho” (77-78) he notes the following concerning the Magi:

For at the time of His birth, Magi who came from Arabia worshiped Him, coming first to Herod, who then was sovereign in your land, and whom the Scripture calls king of Assyria on account of his ungodly and sinful character. For you know that the Holy Spirit oftentimes announces such events by parables and similitudes; just as He did towards all the people in Jerusalem, frequently saying to them, 'Your father is an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.' Ezekiel 16:3

… So Herod, when the Magi from Arabia did not return to him, as he had asked them to do, but had departed by another way to their own country, according to the commands laid on them; and when Joseph, with Mary and the Child, had now gone into Egypt, as it was revealed to them to do; as he did not know the Child whom the Magi had gone to worship, ordered simply the whole of the children then in Bethlehem to be massacred. And Jeremiah prophesied that this would happen, speaking by the Holy Ghost thus: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and much wailing, Rachel weeping for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are not.' Jeremiah 31:15 Therefore, on account of the voice which would be heard from Ramah, i.e., from Arabia (for there is in Arabia at this very time a place called Rama), wailing would come on the place where Rachel the wife of Jacob called Israel, the holy patriarch, has been buried, i.e., on Bethlehem; while the women weep for their own slaughtered children, and have no consolation by reason of what has happened to them. For that expression of Isaiah 'He shall take the power of Damascus and spoils of Samaria,' foretold that the power of the evil demon that dwelt in Damascus should be overcome by Christ as soon as He was born; and this is proved to have happened. For the Magi, who were held in bondage for the commission of all evil deeds through the power of that demon, by coming to worship Christ, shows that they have revolted from that dominion which held them captive; and this [dominion] the Scripture has showed us to reside in Damascus. Moreover, that sinful and unjust power is termed well in parable, Samaria. And none of you can deny that Damascus was, and is, in the region of Arabia, although now it belongs to what is called Syrophœnicia.

Justin, alone among early commentators, gives the Magi a particular place of origin, “Arabia,” which he connects through prophetic symbolism to Damascus; the end of demonic power in Damascus signifies the wider significance of these Arab holy men coming to worship Christ. Damascus is also a plausible location where the Gospel of Matthew was composed. But what might “Arabia” have signified to Justin and his readers in terms of geography.

During the first century AD there was a powerful Arab state just to the east of Judea. The Nabataean kingdom was originally founded by Bedouins some centuries earlier. By the time of Justin it was a Roman client state, but during the time Jesus was born it was a crossroads of trade and culture and a regional power, as well as a military and economic rival to Herod’s kingdom. They had gone to war in the past, and at the time of Jesus’ birth both were jockeying for position, playing Rome off each other.

Giving a Nabataean origin to the Magi puts a lot of pieces into very plausible places. The state was at the height of its power around the turn of the millennium, having gone so far as to conquer Damascus before acquiescing to Roman demands to withdraw. Matthew can give the (to us) vague place of origin for the Magi as “the East” because it would have been obvious to his readers what he was referring to, just was when an American says ‘Asian’ it’s understood he’s referring to East Asia in particular. Herod, as it happened, was of at least partial Nabataean Arab ancestry himself and his dynasty was new and insecure- he’d gotten his job as a Jewish king through the patronage of Mark Antony, an old friend. By the year 1, that relationship was obviously gone, and one could imagine Herod feeling a bit lonely on the throne, knowing that the powerful Nabataean King Aretas III was always eager to expand his reach.

Then one day a Nabataean embassy composed of Magi shows up in his capital, eager to discuss important religious matters. The later idea that the Magi were kings may originate in their being representatives of a king. They tell him that their astrological calculations indicate that the King of the Jews has been born and they’re here to find him. Herod is pretty sure there’s already a king of the Jews, but consulting the prophetic books he discovers that there’s a plausible argument to be made for some future usurper to claim he’s in charge on the grounds that he’s actually related to previous and more Jewish kings. The city is in an uproar over this; Herod’s questionable status as a Jew and his subservience to foreign, gentile powers have made him unpopular. Herod can’t kill these men for starting rumors, as they are ambassadors, plus, he doesn’t yet know who they have in mind to back against him. So he feigns respect for their mission, claiming to want to know as soon as possible who the real king is so he can give him the attention he deserves. But they don’t return to him, and his plans to quietly eliminate the threat are thrown away in favor of a frightful but ineffective massacre. Going home by the way they came would presumably involve the most direct route to the capital- Petra- due east, but going another way could take them to Damascus, outside of Herod’s authority, whereupon they could turn south. The memory and some of the personnel involved may have lingered in Damascus in such a way as to be available for either Matthew or his editors.

A final note: I was 90-95% finished researching this when I discovered that, quite unknown to me, a Catholic priest named Fr. Dwight Longnecker (future patron saint of craft beer?) had actually written a book about this topic where he seems to have come to very similar conclusions to my own, The Arabian Origins of the Magi. I have purposely avoided reading the book because I want to see how closely I come to his theories without knowing them to start with, and I think that might serve as a useful measure of how solid our respective chains of reasoning are. If you know him, I’d be grateful for your passing this on to him.

Edit: a helpful reader informed me he was on Substack. DWIGHT LONGENECKER https://substack.com/@dwightlongenecker918309

I should also note that, while I included digital links for my references, my patristic sources are all from the book versions. I was lucky enough to purchase, years ago, the complete Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers series from Hendrickson Publishers. The series is now out of print and quite expensive. If any of my publisher readers wants to release a reference series that- judging by eBay prices is quite in demand- I encourage you to look into it.

Merry Christmas