The story of the Three Kings comes from Chapter Two of Matthew’s
gospel, but it is the subsequent legends that have grown around this strange
trio that concern us today. In verse one, Matthew tells us that,
“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.”
Notice that. ‘There came wise
men from the east.’ They are not kings and there are not three of them. These ‘wise
men’ are the Magi, which comes from the Greek word µαγοι ‘magoi’, which is the
plural of ‘magos’, which in turn comes from the Persian Magu, both terms refer
to a class of scholar-priests from Medes (now in modern Iran).
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| The Adoration of the Magi - from the Franks Casket c 800 CE |
It is the root
of our word ‘magic’ as these Magi were astronomers, astrologers, interpreters
of dreams, philosophers and the keepers of ritual; they were occultists that
knew and studied the works of the Ancient Greeks, of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates
and Herodotus, and they used them in their own researches. They observed the
skies, for signs and portents, and according to Matthew “the star, which they
saw in the east, went before them,” which is a little odd, since if the star
was in the east and the Magi were also in the east, then they would have
followed it further to the east, in the opposite direction from Bethlehem, but
that’s by the by.
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| The Adoration of the Magi |
They went first to Herod and then to Bethlehem, where they
presented Mary and Jesus with ‘… gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.’
They were warned in a dream not to return to Herod and so went back to their
own country by another way. That the gifts were gold, frankincense and myrrh
has given rise to the legend that there were three men, each of whom bore a
single gift, but again Matthew does not mention the real number of the Magi,
(indeed, early Christian tradition held that there were twelve of them,
foretokening the number of the twelve apostles).
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| Albrecht Durer - The Adoration of the Magi |
By the second century,
Christians celebrated the visit of the Magi in the feast of the Epiphany (now
January 6th), which means ‘appearance’ or ‘manifestation’, and the Epiphany
predates the feast of Christmas by more than a century. Folk legends began to
grow around the identity of the Three Wise Men; the eldest, Melchior, was a
King of Arabia, white haired and white bearded, with a pale complexion and he
brought the gift of Gold. Caspar came from Chaldea, was younger and had a ruddy
skin, was beardless and brought frankincense. Balthasar was a black King of
Ethiopia, tall and middle-aged, he bore myrrh (in some legends, the
descriptions of Caspar and Balthasar are interchanged).
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| Gentile da Fabriano - The Adoration of the Magi [Detail] |
In other traditions,
their names are Apellius, Amerus and Damascus, another names them Megalath,
Galgalath and Sarasin, whereas a fourth version calls them Ator, Sator and
Peratorus. It was thought that, regardless of their names, they represented the
three (then known) continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, and some thought that they were
descendants of Balaam, a seer and Magi mentioned in the book of Numbers, who
foretold a ‘star out of Jacob’ and who passed the watch for it down through his
line. Bede, amongst others, speculated that the Three Wise Men were descended
from Ham, Japheth and Shem, the three sons of Noah.
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| Gentile da Fabriano - The Adoration of the Magi |
The pomp of their coming,
with horses, camels and mules, in rich array bearing great treasures and
accompanied by servants, gave artists of the Middle Ages an opportunity to
exhibit their skills in a portrayal of the scene.
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| Van Eyck - The Ghent Altarpiece |
In Northern Europe, where oil
painting was developed, artists like Van Eyck, Durer and the German schools
produced richly detailed depictions of the Three Kings in all their splendour.
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| Reliquary of the Magi - Cologne Cathedral |
The Magi became associated with Cologne when Empress Helena, mother of
Constantine the Great, had their bodies brought from the Far East to
Constantinople, and in 1164, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa gave them to
Raynuldus, Archbishop of Cologne, who placed them in a magnificent shrine at
Cologne Cathedral, where pilgrims from across Europe came to venerate these
relics. A popular belief was that to touch them would protect travellers from
injury whilst on the road, and these three saints had special powers of
intercession and protection, against sorcery and sudden death; special rings
were available from Cologne, inscribed with the names of the Magi and other
charms and were thought to be especially efficacious against cramps and falling
sickness.
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| Magi Pilgrim Rings |
The Adoration of the Magi became an integral part of the Christmas
story and they feature widely in Nativity scenes, on Christmas cards and in
Nativity plays and they appear in umpteen carols, most notably ‘We Three Kings
of Orient Are’.
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