THE MAGI ARE REAL

 

Adoration of the Magi -- 3rd century fresco in Catacombs of St. Priscilla

Were the Magi for real? When I was young, I used to think they were legendary—inserted into the Scriptures as a grandiose tale, a story within a story, a startling splash to emphasize the divinity of Jesus and foreshadow the fact that the Messiah came for all nations, not just Israel. Pa rum pa pa pum, was I mistaken! Nothing in the Bible is fiction, unless it’s an explicit allegory or parable. Why in the world would I ever have dismissed these amazing, godly travelers as mythical? Well, it started with Genesis 6 and the Nephilim. When I first read the Bible through from cover to cover, I hadn’t gotten very far when I was stopped dead in my tracks by a passage that sounded like Jack and the Beanstalk. Um, monsters in the Word of God? Hybrid humans? Wha? The biblical footnotes and commentaries I was using at the time were no help, so I filed Genesis 6 under the category: “Hiccups in the Scriptures,” hoping to find answers later. Maybe the author wanted to incorporate some mysterious origin-story into the Pentateuch to preserve it for future generations? When I read Matthew 2, the Magi threw me back to Genesis 6. Maybe these Nativity scene figures, these lawn statues, these Christmas card fellows were like the Nephilim: fantasticals placed in an historical account to make sure we understood a point being made, akin to a literary device.

Flash forward to my not-so-young days. I began to seriously research the Magi (whom I was always drawn to because I can’t relate to poor shepherds). Conclusion: the wise men were the real deal! In 325 A.D., my saint, the Empress Helena, while finding the True Cross and building shrines in the Holy Land, inquired about the Magi. Folks knew exactly where she needed to go: Persia. Although the Magi are depicted as three different ethnicities in most artwork, it’s actually a lovely symbol of the universality of Jesus’ Redemption and the mission of the Church to baptize all nations. The Western Church has assigned them the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, but Eastern traditions give them other appellations. Once in Persia, St. Helena was led to the burial place of the Magi. (Tradition has it that they preached Christ when they returned to their homeland.) St. Helena transported their remains to Constantinople where her son, the Emperor Constantine, gifted them to the Bishop of Milan, Italy, who built a beautiful church to house them. This Basilica di Sant’Eustorgio became a major place of pilgrimage. In 1164, Frederick Barbarossa conquered Milan and brought the remains of the Magi to Cologne, Germany, where the magnificent Cologne Cathedral was built specifically for the Magi (only took seven centuries to construct). There, the Magi finally stopped journeying.

Would you like your mind further blown? Around 2015, I had the good fortune of meeting a former rector of the Cathedral of Cologne. Here’s what he told me. The Cologne Cathedral is the only Catholic cathedral in the world that does not have a cross on its central steeple. It has a STAR. There are not three skulls, but four (and assorted bones)--thus the lore of “The Other Wise Man.” The Bible never says there were three wise men, only that there were three gifts. These skeletal remains have been scientifically examined, are two thousand years old, and the cloths they were wrapped in contain pollen and flora from all the places they were purported to have rested. Every Epiphany, the golden reliquary of the Magi is placed on display in the cathedral for veneration.

I appreciate the Magi more and more. I ask for their help frequently in prayer. Here are just a few of the reasons I love 'em:
--I am not a “king,” but neither am I a simple peasant. I feel I can find my place at the manger next to them (if only out of admiration).
--Those costly gifts of the Magi may very well have gained the Holy Family passage into Egypt and sustained them in exile.
--I’m tickled how the Magi outfoxed the “fox” (Herod) and returned “home by another way.”
 --Why did these foreigners come from so far to find the King of the Jews, and what can we learn from them? The wise still seek Him. The wise still adore Him.

Oh, and it turns out those Nephilim characters are also as real as rain.

Adoration of the Magi -- Jan De Bray (c. 1658)