Transcription
Among the beautiful pageantry of Christmas are images indelibly impressed upon the symbolic landscape of the season: the Silence of the manger scene, the Holy Family pressed in close, the Infant Jesus laying among the straw in a humble trough. Overhead, a huge Starry light shines, heralding the birth of the Messiah. And around the Divine infant and his family are curiously dressed foreigners offering precious and exotic gifts. The manger scene, from the masters of Western Art and music to the diorama-style displays just down the street from my house at the local Cathedral, is a staple of Christian religious mythology and Faith.
But central to that symbolism is a bit of mystery—well, a few Mysteries, if we’re going to be honest. But just who are those strange pilgrims, the Magi? Learned wise men, sometimes even Kings or Zarrian priests from the Far East, following a miraculous star to that manger in Bethlehem? Let’s dive into the myth and the history of the Magi, the very root of our word “magic,” and the star that led them to the Christian Messiah.
If you’re interested in Magic, hermetic philosophy, Alchemy, the occult, or the history of the academic study of esotericism, I’d hope you’d subscribe here to Esoterica and check out my other content and topics in the academic study of Western esotericism. Also, if you want to support my work of providing accessible, scholarly, and free content on topics like this here on YouTube for free, I hope you consider supporting my work over at my Patreon with a one-time donation, with the Super Thanks options you can find just below the video, or by picking up some of the merch from our Channel store. But now let’s turn to those mysterious wise Kings of the East, the Magi, and their Stellar guide in history, Theology, and Legend. I’m Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the Arcane in history, philosophy, and [Music] religion. [Music]
Disentangling myth from history is a fraught task. On the one hand, there is just the technical difficulty of trying to figure out the Roman view, the “what really happened” for the historical Jesus, along with the historical Magi of that period and leading up to this story in the Gospel of Matthew. Often, that historicizing comes across as an attack upon the mythology upon which Faith relies, but that’s the task. This is an academic Channel. However, there is also a second, and to my mind, be very frank, equally important task: it’s to take Faith very seriously—not literally, but seriously. And in that way, I also want to ask in this episode, what did the Magi and the star mean to the early followers of the Jesus movement? To answer that, I want to take a look at the very brief—shockingly brief passage, actually—in the Gospel of Matthew where the Magi appear, the only place really they appear in the Gospels, but also in a bit—to say a good bit more—about how the Magi and their star feature in those very first early years, those first centuries of Christian mythology. So let’s turn to the Gospel, the historical Magi, and the richly symbolic early Christian mythology built up around them and the star they followed.
The Gospels of both Matthew and Luke record birth narratives about Jesus, but only the Matthew Account details the Magi star narrative. There we read, in Chapter 2, following the translation here given by Vanden Eynde and his wonderful magisterial book on the Magi that I’ll recommend at the end of the episode, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king: “Behold, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the one who has been born King of the Judeans? For we saw his star at its rising, and we have come to honor him.’ King Herod panicked when he heard this, and all of Jerusalem panicked with him. He gathered together his chief priests and the scribes of his people and asked them, ‘Where is the Anointed One to be born?’ And they said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written by the prophet: “And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will guide my people Israel.”’ Then Herod summoned the Magi in secret and he interrogated them regarding the time of the Star’s appearing. And as he sent them to Bethlehem, he said, ‘Go and investigate carefully concerning the child, and as soon as you find him, report back to me so that I may too go and honor him.’ They heard the king, and then they set out. And behold, the star that they saw at its rising went on ahead of them, until it came and it stopped over where the child was. When they saw the star, they celebrated with a joy that was exceedingly great. They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling down, they honored him. They opened their chests and offered him gifts: gold, incense, and myrrh. Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they returned to their own land by another route.” And at this point, the Magi exit stage left, and they do not reappear in the entire biography of Jesus, the Holy Family taking off to Egypt directly following this narrative to avoid the wrath of the bloodthirsty Herod.
Of course, there is a ton to unpack here. The first is what actually isn’t said in this narrative. Note that the Magi are never referred to here as wise men or Kings; that’s a later development of the myth that we’ll circle back to here in just a little bit. Also, note that their panic-inducing first stop is in Jerusalem, in their visitation with King Herod. I would argue that this interlude, this first interlude in Jerusalem, is actually the most important part of the narrative, but it often just gets sort of lost in the more manger-centric depictions of the story. The point of these twelve verses isn’t so much, I think, to locate the Infant Jesus, but to pit the false King Herod, the despised Idumean and Roman puppet, with the true Messianic King as detailed by Jewish prophecy and naturally portent in the form of that star, recognized even by non-Jews in the story. And again, more on the star in a moment. It really becomes a character in its own right as the mythology around it develops. But I think the point here is for the author to establish the legitimate Messianic King over and against his earthly rival, King Herod. Lastly, the Magi visit a house, not a manger. They go to a house and not a manger; the manger is more of a Gospel of Luke thing, but these narratives get mushed together—I mean, harmonized; yeah, they get harmonized. And while there are three gifts offered, the number of the Magi isn’t traditionally—we see that there are three of them, each with one gift—but as we’ll see in this developing mythology, the number of the Magi and even the number of their gifts will alter and expand as the mythology develops.
So are these birth accounts in the Gospels, Roman views? Is that how it really happened? Most scholars of the historical Jesus, along with myself, are pretty profoundly skeptical of the historicity of these birth narratives. Both accounts are very carefully crafted, though in very different ways, to situate the conception and birth of Jesus within the context of Messianic prophetic expectations of that time, especially being born of Davidic lineage and very specifically being born in Bethlehem—neither of which, I think, were probably true of the historical Jesus. The Gospel writer has kind of fudged this in several important ways, including tracing Jesus’ lineage through Joseph, which doesn’t really work if you—if you want a virgin birth out of all this—nor does tracing the lineage through his mother for that matter. Your Jewishness comes through your mother, but not so much your lineage, in Jewish thinking at that time. Further, most of the scholars of the historical Jesus, and again myself, suspect that he was probably born where most of his life took place, up in the Galilee, and probably not in Judea. Regardless, the nature and location of the birth of Jesus is probably just lost to history. But what remains is the symbolic power of those narratives that early Christians chose to craft and develop, and that the writer of Matthew chose—of all the narrative decisions available to them—to choose the Magi and the star is important and absolutely worthy of scholarly analysis and worthy, frankly, of recognition for its incredible symbolic beauty as mythology, regardless of any historical reality. So let’s start with the star before turning to the Magi and both history and myth.
To grasp the importance of that star, we have to strip away our conception of the night sky and try to adopt one of the time in which this Gospel is being written. At that time, there were two kinds of stars: there were fixed stars and wandering stars. There were no planets or extraterrestrial worlds as we know them these days. For most learned people of the time, the position of these Stars either communicated the Divine will through sign, simum, or they directly determined the future through efficient causation trickling down through the cosmos. In both cases, the stars were the highest visible objects before the realm of the Gods, if they just weren’t well, Gods themselves. And their paths and locations through the sky were anything other than meaningless. And admittedly, while Judaism has had a very complex, fraught relationship with astrology, it’s clear that many Jews did accept the importance of astrology at that time and prior. The little bit later Beit Alpha synagogue actually displays an amazing zodiac mosaic on its floor. Though two specific stars are probably worth mentioning in this context of the Matthew Gospel. The first is the Messianic nature of the star mentioned at Numbers 24:17, what read: “What I see for them is not yet; what I behold will not be soon: a star rises from Jacob, a scepter comes forth from Israel; it smashes the brow of Moab, the foundation of the children of Set.” This verse was and would become loaded down to this very day with Messianic prophetic value, so much so that even a hundred years after the execution of Jesus, the Messianic claimant Shimon bar Kokhba would become known to history as Shimon bar Kokhba, Shimon son of the star, in reference to that very verse. Though most of the rabbis at the time derided him as Shimon bar Kosiba, son of a liar, punting on where he was from, Kosiba with Kokhba, star and Kokhba, liar, warning Rabbi Akiba that grass would grow in his cheeks and the Son of David will not have come. Of course, grass did not grow in the cheeks of Akiba because the Romans flayed him alive and then burned him as his stellar Messiah perished at the Battle of Betar near Bethlehem, interestingly enough, and prompted a truly apocalyptic Roman genocide in the region. Messiah: the game where everyone loses. Regardless, the star prophecy is, I think, pretty clearly a motivation here in the Gospel narrative. But another star is also probably very much alive in the imagination of the writer and the reader of this text at that time. In the months following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, a comet appeared in the skies over Rome, a hairy star as Suetonius has it, which was actually so bright it could even be seen in the late afternoon. And it was taken by many people, common people and elites, as a sign that Caesar had been deified, that deification of Caesar had taken place—a concept readily embraced by his nephew Octavius. After all, Divine Uncle, August nephew. The symbol of the Julian star became central to the state cult around Caesar, appearing on temples and even coinage all the way into the 2nd Century of the Common Era. Thus, for a learned, literate person living in the Roman Empire, pinning a Gospel, which is, by the way, a kind of literature actually associated with Imperial declarations at the time, so it’s already kind of invoking some Imperial idea, the Divine Julian star, of the general astrological worldview of the time and the indigenous Jewish Messianic star prophecy. Given all this, it’s not at all surprising to find a stellar herald of the Messiah in the text. Of course, it’s also possible that the text does recall an actual astrological event sometime around the birth of Jesus, and a lot—a lot of ink has been spilled trying to sort that out: from Halley’s Comet appearing in 12 BCE, the conjunctions of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars in 7 and 6 BCE, a hypernova over in the Andromeda galaxy in 5 BCE (which is going to collide with us in a few billion years), a couple supernova in 4 and 2 BCE, and much else besides. Though honestly, I think that if the author wanted to be specific about the nature of the star, and astrological science at that time was well-developed enough that they could have—if they wanted to—well, they didn’t. And the fact that they didn’t tells me that at least in part the function of the star in this story is primarily, maybe even exclusively, symbolic. And as we’ll see very shortly, the star itself will go on to become a character in the Birth narrative itself. It will outshine all other stars in the sky, including the sun; it actually becomes identified with an angel, and eventually it becomes identified with Jesus. So Jesus Christ, literal Superstar.
While the star that they followed is complex and probably symbolically overdetermined, who followed it is equally complex. Who were these Magi? Magi, already by the first century, were a complicated and polarizing group in the ancient world: exotic easterners, associated with, at times, the hated Persians, but universally recognized as experts in magic, arcane religious rituals, but more than anything, with the science of the time, of astrology. But to get their symbolic function as it appears in this myth, let’s turn to what we know about the actual historical Magi.
The historical Magi: the term Magus, from the Old Persian *magu*, Magus (though the etymology is opaque here), first appears on the Behistun inscription of Darius the First around 522 BCE, which actually names a Median Magus named Gaumata, the son of Cyrus II, the former king, who the Greek historian Herodotus will actually know him as Smerdis. The term is attested in a wide variety of ancient Near Eastern languages: Old Persian, Elamite, Akkadian, Aramaic, Parthian, and Scythian; and it’s denoted always in the form of Magus or Mago, denoting it as a technical term being transliterated from language to language rather than being translated from Magus to some other term in those languages. It appears that they were a Median priestly group, the exact nature of which is heavily debated now in the literature. Some scholars see them as a priest class, a specific Median tribe, as Herodotus notes, or something perhaps akin to the Israelite Levites, who were uniquely tasked with ceremonial life, or specifically trained ritual experts. However, in this earliest period, they are not yet associated, much less uniquely associated, with the emergent Zarathustrian religion that’s going to come a bit later. At this point, in fact, in the oldest texts, the Gathas in the Avesta, the term for priest in those earliest Zarathustrian texts is *athravan*, not Magus or Mago. So the Zarathustrians already have a technical term for priest at this early period. From surviving documents of this again earliest period, it appears that the Magi were typically associated with receiving ritual foodstuffs, specifically barley and wine. And by the time of Darius I, they’re also functioning basically as the official priests of the Achaemenid kings. Here, their cultic functions include a wide range of sacrifices of livestock, including horses, libation offerings to rivers and mountains, memorizing and reciting scriptures—some of their names indicate that they were specifically memorized, like hapax and Arabic names—now, along with a range of state bureaucratic duties. Their geographic distribution also became incredibly wide, and they are attested at a wide range of cultic functions from Persepolis over in what is now Iran all the way over to the Elephantine Island in Upper Egypt. They do not seem to serve a specific God, however, and the Magi appear in ritual contexts associated with the Persian Ahura Mazda, the Elamite Huban, and overseeing flower stores at the temple at Inanna at Uruk in Babylon. This religious polyvalence has led some to see them as kinds of, I don’t know, religious mercenaries, or a type of religious apparatus of the Persian State, kind of having their finger in the pie of, well, lots of religions. I know that’s a strange image; sorry.
The Magi are also well attested in Greek literature as early as the *Persi* of Aeschylus and even about 500 BCE in a fragment of the wonderfully contentious philosopher Heraclitus. The most sustained discussion of the Magi in history, frankly, is from Herodotus, the Greek historian, where we learned that they were the direct counselors of kings of Persia. They interpreted dreams, and they performed libations and sacrifices, including the horse sacrifice, which again may be a sort of Indo-Persian kind of religion, religious um, ritual, like the *asvamedha* found in the Rig Veda. All of which, again, these functions agree with other ancient Near Eastern sources. Other sources like Marcellus confirm the role of the practice of what appears to be sky burial; that is, the dead being cleaned by vultures upon death. Xenophon recounts that the Magi were the tutors of the Persian kings, and they performed a range of ceremonies, including the coronation of new kings. Ctesias Rufus has the Magi carrying sacred flames before battle and chanting hymns alongside the Persian warriors—again, more monthly horse sacrificing, like the *asvamedha*—and guarding the tombs of dead Persian kings. Aristotle ascribes to them a dualistic religion with Zurvan or Ahriman ruling in goodness and Hades or Angra Mainyu in the role of the evil God. Images of them officiating are attested in grand monumental inscriptions, little golden figurines, and seal stamps found all over the Persian Empire, prior to the Persian Empire and well into the Sasanian period and beyond. Certainly by the Parthian and Sasanian period, they are known for keeping alight sacred flames and had consolidated a religious ceremonial monopoly in the region. And as we’ve seen, very little can be known about the exact religious beliefs of the western Magi in the earliest period. It appears that they do, however, at some point come as a group to become disciples of the newly emergent Prophet Zoroaster, or the newly adopted Prophet Zoroaster. Now this is a very thorny issue in Zoroastrian studies and Zoroastrian scholarship, so some scholars regard the Magi as having always been Zoroastrian; others even make them out to be anti-Zoroastrian at first, acolytes of the indigenous but heavily syncretized Median Mazda worship. Some of them see them as kind of religious mercenaries and functionaries of the state religion of a highly syncretized version of Zoroastrianism and Persian religion or Persian religious interest more generally. As we’ve seen by Xerxes the First, they’re functioning in an official capacity in the state, especially tending to sacred fires, offering libations, including the—the juice of the Haoma plant, livestock, and probably horse sacrificing along with a range of ceremonial and frankly just bureaucratic functions in the Empire. But when and to what degree they become associated with the emergent religious or religious reforms of Zoroaster isn’t exactly clear. However, by 520 BCE, Darius the First had definitely begun to introduce a kind of Zoroastrian prioritizing that Ahura Mazda was the highest of the Gods, but he didn’t dismiss other gods, such as the Elamite Huban, the Sun God Mithra, which was very popular, or again the fertility goddess Anahita, again very popular—all of whose devotion continued well through the Persian Empire, not to mention lots of other versions of Christianity and Judaism, Buddhism too. What seems to have happened is that the Magi class of priests would eventually accept to syncretize the Zarathustrian doctrine sometime in the first half of the 4th Century BCE and continue to work within its—the ecumenical policy within the state’s Persian policy of religious toleration. Now that wouldn’t always work, but as we’ll see, in general, the Persians were quite religiously tolerant and tolerant in general. Now this is not the place to discuss the Zoroastrian religion in general. If you want a general introduction to Zoroastrianism, check out Philip’s channel, Let’s Talk Religion; he has a great video on the topic, and I think he’s going to remake it pretty soon. But I do want to mention that we do know a little bit about a few actual Magi from roughly this time period, though mostly from periods after the period of the composition of the Gospel of Matthew. The best documented Magi we know of was Kartir, who served as chief priest during the reign of four Sasanian kings during the 4th Century of the Common Era—again, a bit beyond our timeframe, but I think worth mentioning because we do know something about an actual Magi. And he’s known from at least four inscriptions and a handful of narratives. He was perhaps a eunuch; he’s always depicted as beardless. And Kartir would emerge under the tolerant rule of Shapur I and become Mobed, or high priest, during the reign of Hormizd I, who died shortly thereafter. However, with the rise of Bahram I, the Zoroastrians led by Kartir seem to have asserted Zoroastrian hegemony and curtailed the more tolerant position of Shapur I, which was centuries old. This shift would eventually lead to the imprisoning of the Prophet Mani of the Manichaean religion, Manichaeism, and his eventual execution, perhaps at the bequest of Kartir himself. He definitely appears as…
The bad guy in the surviving Manan accounts of the events further he seems that he this moment he executed a kind of I don't know, Inquisition in the area controlled by the Persians, which sought to suppress the various religions active in that region. Carer brags about suppressing Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and various other kinds of duus religions. Again, in a Royal inscription, he he he he brags about this, though frankly it's not even clear that it was ever carried out. He might be he might be lying. The Babylonian talid was being composed at exactly this time, and it really never mentions any sort of State cenan religious repression, so who knows if this really happened. However, the policy of religious toleration would be reinstituted by Nara and Cartier. Aside from the inscriptions and his frankly infamy and Manakian religious texts, would all fade into relative historical oblivion after this point.
While it's not exactly the most flattering account of omegas, we don't see carer bragging about I don't know, all the cool esoteric astrological knowledge he has. It's a bit narcissistic and inquisitorial, as well. It's still one of the best-preserved accounts we have of a magi from classical Antiquity, and as much as the term applies to Sasanian Persia, of course, Zarrianism would continue to produce Magi, I mean, really ingenious scholars in the history of Uzer asterism, including the composers of incredible religious texts like the ding card there around the the 10th or 9th century of the Common Era. However, by the turn of the Common Era, getting back to our time near the composition of the Gospel of Matthew, the image of the Magi were basically settled into the minds of those living in the Eastern Mediterranean as an elite group of exotic Eastern wise men, heavily associated with magic, dualism, and especially especially astrology.
Again, it was also during this period that the Magi probably now became used with State Zorranism and again became strongly associated with the occult Sciences, especially astrology, which had been both indigenously developed in Persia but also imported in a big way from India. For the Greeks, however, the religious rituals of the frankly hated Persians were typically denoted as what the Magi do, in the word Maga. This anti-Persian bigotry led to the dysphemism such that malevolent supernatural causation, for lack of a better phrase honestly, entered their language as it did ours, as the term Maga, magic. Yet the Greeks had to admit the reality of the Persian genius held secret by the Magi. In this conception of the Eastern Magi with esoteric knowledge of the stars and the Occult was absolutely current during the time of the composition of the Gospel of Matthew, and it survives down to us in terms like mat and megus, as someone who's a wielder of supernatural power. Thus, again, the question to me is how are the Magi functioning in this story?
The Gospel of Matthew, for all of its alleged Jewishness, is actually very much concerned with its contention, its contention with the wider Jewish community of the time of its composition, and I suspect the Magi are functioning very much in that context, specifically. Ally, I think it's meant to be very much ironic that non-Jewish Magi are literally able to read the signs in the sky of some kingly portent, which the Jews, especially Herod, the king of the Jews, is just thrown into a panic about his duration. Further, that the star eventually takes the Magi to the true king of the Jews is also functioning as a literary bookend to the execution of Jesus, whose very implement of execution would actually bear the sign, mockingly proclaiming him King of the Jews. Thus, the Magi inaugurate at the very beginning of Jesus's life a non-Jewish recognition of his Messianic, even divine nature as a legitimate King of the Jews, but, and I think this is very important, but also as a universal Messianic King over Gentiles as well, vouchsafed by the universally recognized wisdom of the Magi.
Of course, those 12 verses in the Gospel of Matthew would be by no means the last appearance of the Magi in Christian mythology or even in the New Testament. They appear as bad Magi later in the book of Acts. In fact, if you've ever seen a nativity scene, you've probably seen elements of the Magi narrative that developed in the centuries after after the composition of the Gospel of Matthew. For instance, the representation as wise men or Kings, for instance, that's nowhere to be found in the Gospel of Matthew specifically. There are two tracks here by which the Magi narrative is expanded in early Christian history and mythology. The first vector has their role in the nature of the star they followed greatly expanded in infancy gospels and lives of Mary biographies in what is now called the apocryphal literature of that time. And the second vector is the theological meaning of the Magi and their star in the patristic literature, what it means theologically. Let's take a brief tour of each.
Apocrypha literature are texts composed in the early centuries of Christianity that basically act as they're like Jesus fan fiction. You like the stories of the Gospels, but you want more, and so you you make more up. There are legends and stories about the figures of the early Jesus movement, often told in the form of Greco-Roman novels, very much like the form of Luke-Acts, frankly, of course. With the early life of Jesus being very scantily recorded, where in the world did he go? Maybe India? He didn't go to India in what became the four canonical Gospels. Tales of Jesus's early life, including his birth, they they bound people love these stories. In fact, one of these tales, Jesus turning clay chunks into birds and throwing them into the air, it appears to be taken from the apocryphal infancy Gospel of Thomas or some similar source. That story of Jesus turning the clay into birds that ends up in nothing less than the Quran, so that's a thing. Now, are these stories historically reliable? No, probably not. But frankly, neither are the Gospel accounts of Jesus's birth or his trial, for that matter, probably. But they do tell us about the Magi and the star, what the Magi and the star meant to early Christians, and that information is to me and scholars incredibly important in itself.
For instance, in the Protoevangelium of James, this is from the latter half of the 2nd Century, it further emphasizes the kingship of Jesus along with the Magi directly making their way to Bethlehem. They don't stop in Jerusalem in this one. I think that's frankly how it plays out in most people's minds when they actually think of the birth story. They don't really talk about the part where it stops off and they chat with Herod for a minute. And it focuses on how the star outshines every other star in the sky, something that doesn't happen in the Gospel of Matthew. Thus showing the ascendency of Jesus above all other earthly Kings. Again, this is a neat new detail kind of developed out of Matthew, but not really there. Further, the Magi are led not to a house in this document but to a cave to present their gifts to the infant King. The cave here is probably serving as a kind of literary bookend as the title of being King of the Jews that I mentioned a moment ago, Jesus being born and eventually buried in a kind of cave or rock-cut tomb.
In another document, Pseudo-Matthew, a Latin Gospel-like text from the sixth or sth Century of the Common Era, the Magi are again led to a cave, but now two years after Jesus's birth. It took them a couple of years to get there. This Pseudo-Matthew text has them traveling from the East, but remember it never tells you how long it took them to get there. It just says that they traveled from the East. Pseudo-Matthew has the star appearing upon Jesus's birth, and it takes them two years to get to Jesus. He's already a toddler by the time they get there, and they seek out the King born to us as opposed to the King born only to the Judeans. Thus greatly expanding Jesus's kingship to both Jews and Gentiles like the Magi alike. Along with the traditional three gifts, they also bring Jesus gold coins, though the text here is probably pretty corrupt, and this is probably symbolic, acting as a kind of Royal tribute to the toddler King Jesus.
The 6th Century Armenian infancy gospel based on an early Syriac text gives us actually the exact date when the Magi arrive: January the 8th. Also, we learn that the Magi are also Kings, along with the names of the Kingdom that they're kings of: Melchior is the King of Persia, Gaspar is the King of India, and Balthazar is the King of Arabia. So you can break out with your "We Three Kings" on your carolling rounds next time, thanks to the Armenian infancy gospel. However, they go on a 9-month journey, the star appearing at Jesus's conception and then an angel telling them to get going, and boy do they go with their 12,000 troop army. I imagine the music and the pilgrimage montage of the Magi here is um definitely the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army." This is why when they arrive to Herod, all of Jerusalem is said to have been thrown into a panic; they think they're about to be under a siege. The Armenian infancy gospel is by far the most detailed of these Magi narratives, with in-depth conversations with Herod, secret esoteric documents passed down from Adam to Seth and and given to Jesus on the second day of their visitation. They stay there three days in this one. These documents somehow survive the flood, and they're given over to the infant Jesus, who can somehow read them, I guess he is Jesus. Upon reaching Jesus, by the way, they and their armies actually dance and joy, so it's not just the three Magi dancing; it's I don't know, 12,000 troops or so. Jesus is actually here um given a much fuller array of treasures, and they're all meant to sort of enthrone the infant as a Messianic King. As they depart from the the holy family, they're actually given over to ecstatic visions of the life and Messianic future of Jesus. Though this gospel does end with a somewhat depressing note, we're actually told that the three kingly Magi were not children of the kingdom and that they were going to denounce the Savior, despite all this other stuff, perhaps teaching that no amount of good deeds, mystical visions, or kingly wisdom can prove as a substitute for the simple faith in the Messiah.
In the positively surreal revelation of the Magi, which was preserved in a single Syriac copy of the 8th Century over there in the Vatican Library, which there are all kinds of silly conspiracy theories about, that tells this experience of the Magi's encounter from their own perspective. Again, we have the Magi as kings, but now there are 12 of them, probably mirroring the tribes of Israel, the disciples, or the Zodiac, maybe all of them. And they emerge from the most easternmost part of the world, a land called Shear, perhaps this is from the Hebrew word for song, a land that is dominated by ritual purifications by bathing and other strange and interesting wonderful rituals. In their land is also a cave of treasures of hidden mysteries, which will be eventually mirrored by the same cave that they encounter the baby Jesus in. Though in this tale, the star they follow is the outstanding character, because the star is none less than Jesus himself in this story. While the Magi are ritually purifying themselves through immersion, the star appears to them and only them, shining brighter than the sun. They follow the star into the cave of treasures in their own land, where it becomes the form of a person and speaks to them about his, well, Jesus's literal star, the Jesus's literal impending Advent. Gazing upon the star, they're given ecstatic visions of the life of Jesus and his Messianic redemptions of the world, and we're even told that this star hovered above the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, so it's really the beginning to the end of everything. The star leads and literally clears the path for them on their journey West; it flattens mountains, it drives away snakes, it allows them to pass over rivers effortlessly; it also multiplies food for them along the way, all invoking images of Mosaic and Jesus-like miracles as they make their way west over to the cave at Bethlehem. They meet Herod, now demoted as a mere governor of the region, take that Herod, and they request to see the "Messiah, lifegiver who gives himself to death for the sake of the whole world." Herod proves useless, and they follow the star again, which is now descends down and is flanked by two angels into the cave where the Jesus is. The Jesus they remove their crowns; they place them below the feet of Jesus, who speaks to them—he's talking to them as like a two-year-old, I suppose—and tells them of the impending Darkness on the day of his crucifixion as a sign to come, and he commissions them to go back to their land, to land of Shear, to spread the gospel among their people, with the star again appearing again leading them back to their distant homelands. Again, these are positively lovely tales, well, with the exception of that kind of sad one where what we know that they're going to apostasies, but they all serve to me the exact same purpose in some sense, to exalt the Magi so as to exalt the kingly Messianic status of Jesus, that and just to fill out the otherwise thin narrative of the Gospel of Matthew. And as I pointed out a minute ago, if you've heard carols or seen nativity scenes or Nativity dioramas, you've probably heard elements of these tales already. They've made their way into Christian Christmas legends, regardless of their historical or doctrinal validity. So take that, historical and doctrinal validity. I'll leave a link in the description to a great collection of Christian Apocrypha if you want to check out some of these or many of the other wonderful forms of Jesus fanfiction from that time, so have fun with all that stuff. I love that apocryphal stuff.
Of course, the account of the Magi and their star wasn't going to be just grist for the mill of ancient Jesus fanfiction writers; it was also going to have a much more boring task to play, to underwrite patristic theology. I I kid. I really actually love studying the early church fathers. I I really do. I'm being honest, but that's that's also because I'm Jewish, and it's just like reading a bunch of manuals for role-playing games that I don't ever ever want to play. But as early as Ignatius of Antioch, theological speculation on the nature of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus were already in currency. In a bit of an oblique reference to the birth of Jesus, Ignatius kind of breaks into a into a hymn, which is I think really worth quoting in full. It's not terribly long, and it's frankly incredibly beautiful, a bit metal. It says: "A star shone forth in Heaven above all the other stars, the light of which was inexpressible, while its novelty struck men with astonishment, and all the rest of the stars with the sun and the moon formed a chorus to this star, and its light was exceedingly great above them all, and there was agitation felt to whence this new spectacle came, so unlike everything else in the heavens. Hence every every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the Old Kingdom abolished; God himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God; henceforth all things were in a state of tumult because he mediated the abolition of death, mediated the abolition of death." It's pretty impressive. As we'll continue to see, this is a core theological concern about the star inaugurating a kind of apocalyptic period, marking the beginning of the end of this fallen sinful world and the arrival of a new one. Further, it's also worth mentioning that one of the things that that's destroyed in the tumult of Ignatius of Antioch's hymn is precisely Maga, magic, somewhat ironic considering that the central role of the Magi for recognizing the star in the first place, a point that could not have been on accident for the learned Ignatius. Finally, the star is revealed to be something just more than any normal stellar object; it's holy, supernatural, even kind of quasi-divine in nature. This is going to matter immensely because if the star heralded or worse did dictate the coming of the Messiah, then astrological influence would prove decisive in God's divine plan, something absolutely anathema to early Christian theologians but gffs for the meal of early pagans who deeply dislike Christianity, like Celsus. And it's precisely to those two later points, the diminution of the Magi and the non-astral and non-astrological nature of the star, that subsequent theologians like Justin Martyr take up and write about at length.
For Justin Martyr—not not me, I'm still here for a while—the star is actually part and parcel of a Messianic prophecy, specifically initiating a kind of ironic reversal in Israelite history altogether, carefully knitting together verses from the prophets. Justin understands the Magi and their star as Eastern Assyrian Kings returning to visit the king of Israel with gifts, thus reversing the historical destruction of the 10 tribes that constituted Israel there in the north, the so-called 10 lost tribes in 722 BCE. Thus, Israel is restored, and the Messianic King is crowned by the very Easterners that destroyed the 10 Northern tribes with the Treasures of the Magi, so Mario coin sound. Further, Justin has little respect for the Magi; this is a theme we'll see over and over again by these theologians. They don't really like the Magi; they're just part of a prophetic mechanism, and according to Justin, they were even under demonic control until the visitation by the Infant Jesus, who redeemed them. For Justin Martyr, the wisdom of the Magi or the prophecies of the Jews, for that matter, are just they're just worthless without the knowledge that is redeemed through the salvific power of Christ; otherwise, their wisdom is just folly. Thus, the wise men from the East, they're not wise at all, that is until their conversion experience honoring the Infant Jesus. Further, Justin and the hymns of Ephraim the Syrian both reject that the star of the Magi is truly a star at all, and thus it is not the object of astrological speculation, much less astrological influence on the birth and life of Jesus. Rather, the star is an announcer and guardian of the birth of Jesus; it's much more akin to an angel, especially in Ephraim, than a stellar object. Again, with the backwards, dark, and blind Magi finding redemption in their encounter with Jesus by symbolically crowning and enthroning the Messianic infant, again reversing the traditional harms the Nations had done to Israel. This is this sort of like symbolic reparations to Israel and the crowning of Jesus as the king of Israel. Interesting. The star here acts as a guardian of the Infant Jesus from the murderous King Herod, only to preserve him from the murderous Pilate, though again, rather than as an infant needing astral Angelic protection, the adult Jesus will willingly go to his fate for the Redemption of, well, all sinful people.
John Chrysostom, on the other hand, the most important, I would say, theologian for the East, whose liturgy is still used in the Eastern Church, also argues that the star of the Magi isn't a typical star; if it's a star at all, its movements are erratic, as if it's driven by some Divine intelligence, and he even goes so far as to insist that at the time it could even outshine the sun, one of those elements we saw already in some of the apocryphal birth stories. Further, Chrysostom follows the more apocryphal tradition, as we've seen, that the star appeared well before the birth of Jesus, so that the appearance of the star with Jesus would actually teach them that they're not visiting any kind of normal regular Earthly King. This need for the education of the Magi is another slight on the idea that the Magi are wise men; they're not, for these Church fathers. Rather, Chrysostom actually calls them Barbarian Persians in need of Salvation that frankly only Jesus can offer. Interestingly enough, and I think this is clever, he has the Barbarians teaching the Jews that a king had been born as witnessed by this star, but it's the blind and stupid Jews who teach the Persians that the king is indeed the king of the whole world, the Messianic King of Kings. Thus, again, all of this is really to showcase the theological commitment to supersessionism of the theologians of this period and now kind of that Christianity had come to educate so-called Pagan wisdom; it was not really wise at all and to complete and overcome Jewish legalism and Jewish blindness to their own prophecy. The Jewish priests and scribes and the Magi, the Persian Magi of the Gospel of Matthew, are being played against one another in some sense, though with the Magi giving over their Treasures as a sign of them relinquishing their paganism for service with Christ, while the Jewish Herod and his priests and scribes go on a bloodthirsty rampage. So the seeds of anti-Semitism, that's uh that's cheery. The 7th Century Maximus Confessor also makes it abundantly clear that the star was not it wasn't a star at all. Again, the anti-astrology pmic here is pretty strong.
But it, it was an angel. He's very clear. Maximus is very clear that it was an angel sent as a power from above that completely abolished the deception of astrology and annihilated the darkness of such ignorance. So he really takes it to astrology again. Maximus has the Magi as being virtually demonically possessed, and in fact, they're possessed by Demons of the air, and they're only Redeemed by their visitation with the infant Christ. With the, again, the transfer of their gifts simultaneously ridding themselves of their Pagan ways and DEP possessing themselves, but also crowning and enthroning the infant as the ponor, the world King. This repeated theme of the conversion of the Pagan Magi, but there were cant Jewish Rampage of Herod of course, would set the stage for the conversion of the Gentiles. It's, it's a huge idea inaugurated by Paul that the Magi in some sense are the first converted Gentiles, but also the Trope of the stubborn Jews unwilling to see, much less accept Jesus as the Messiah. A Trope that, a Trope that's absolutely harmed no one at all in history ever. That has never hurt any. All right, I didn't really expect this to become a nearly hour-long deep dive onto the Magi, but here we are.
As you can see, these 12 verses in the gospel of Matthew have been the GRS for a meal of fanfiction, theological speculation, esoteric interpretations of Christianity, diaramas—everyone loves diaramas—art, Christmas carols. I mean, help, some of you have probably even dressed up as Magi for like Christian pageant and stuff. But as we've seen, the Magi and their star had only a very tenuous, even frankly stereotype connection to the actual Magi of ancient Media and Persia and their connection to State Zarrianism. We never get any mention of the Zarrian character. In fact, they were probably just stock characters for the gospel of Matthew, kind of like, I don't know, Gandalf—like Wizards with like beards and pointy hats are for, for everything.
However, writers of the Christian Apocrypha, along with early Christian theologians, had an absolutely positive field day with these mysterious visitors from the East and their equally mysterious Star. All in all, producing a wonderful collection of lore, hymns, tall tales, anti-astrology polemics, and theological speculations on the Magi and the star that led them on their way. Vanden Eykel's recent book on the Magi was indispensable for putting this episode together, and it is well worth your picking up if you're interested in these characters and their star. It's honestly the best kind of writing; it's accessible, it's scholarly, and it's poignant—just a great book. If you ever want a real deep dive on topics in Zarrianismo, in my opinion, is the massive two-volume collection of articles on those topics as part of the Encyclopedia Iranica, edited by Mahaj Moami. It can be a little tough to find, but if you do find it, it's only like 70 bucks for two massive volumes, and it is the single best academic resource I found on topics in Zarrian studies. I'll come back to Zarrianism at some point in the future, but it's a great collection. It can, however, be a bit technical and specialized, but again, an amazing resource. Though the entire Encyclopedia Iranica and its articles are fantastic, and you can find it all online for free. I'll put a link in the description.
But really, I want everyone to have a wonderful Christmas. If you observe, I hope that no one gets any coal, and may we all find our shining star to guide us on the paths of wisdom, joy, and peace to all. Until next time, I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and thank you for watching Esoterica, where we explore the Arcane and history, philosophy, and religion.