Notes on the Epiphany

Adoration of the Magi, "Leiden Saint Louis Psalter,"
(England, 12th c.) [Leiden University Library]

“‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage’.” — Matthew 2:2

I

Observing the star of the one born “king of the Jews,” magi come to pay him homage.  Led by “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars,” [1] they come to pay homage to the star come out of Jacob (cf. Num 24:17).  These stargazing Gentiles, these wise men from the land of the sunrise, come to give gifts to the newborn king of Israel.  

They come to Jerusalem in the time of Herod, Rome’s client king in Judea. [2]  Herod, whose brutality evinced his insecurity, is troubled to learn of their search for “the one born king of the Jews.”  And with Herod, “all Jerusalem” is in turmoil, much as the city will later be when her king comes to her, fully grown, “and mounted on a donkey” (Mt 2:3; cf. Mt 21:10).  Herod shrewdly gathers the chief priests and scribes to take counsel “against the Lord, and against his Anointed” (Ps 2:2), using the Scriptures and the strangers in his effort to find the child and to destroy this new threat to his power.  Desperate to maintain an always slipping grip on power, Herod seeks vainly to destroy the newborn Messiah, who “shall live as long as the sun and moon endure” (Ps 72:5).

Upon setting out from Jerusalem, the wise men see again “the star that they had seen at its rising” now “stopped over the place where the child was” (Mt 2:9).  Having found the child “with the help of the Scriptures,” [3] they rejoice with a great joy (v. 10).  The wise men are overjoyed because they have been led beyond their ken to the Truth in person, to the Christ, “the desire of all nations” (Hag 2:7). [4]  Joyfully, they kneel down and pay homage to the child.  In their gifts and their obeisance, the magi anticipate the day when

          All kings shall bow down before him,

              and all the nations do him service. (Ps 72:11)

          They shall bring gold and frankincense,

               and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. (Isa 60:6)

Yet the wise men, like Balaam—that soothsayer from the East who said of the star to come out of Jacob, “I see him, but not now” (Num 24:17)—catch only a glimpse of the coming King.  They “see (but not now) the one whose kingship would not be visible historically until he had hung on the cross beneath the title The King of the Jews and would not be communicable until he had been elevated to God’s right hand through the resurrection.” [5]  The light of the resurrection will reveal Jesus of Nazareth to be “the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Mt. 1:10).

II

Detail of Miniature of the Adoration of the Magi
(England, early 13th c.) [British Library]

“Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince of this world; so was her child-bearing, and so was the death of the Lord.  All these three trumpet-tongued secrets were brought to pass in the deep silence of God.  How then were they made known to the world?  Up in the heavens a star gleamed out, more brilliant than all the rest; no words could describe its lustre, and the strangeness of it left men bewildered.  The other stars and the sun and moon gathered round it in chorus, but this star outshone them all.  Great was the ensuing perplexity; where could this newcomer have come from, so unlike its fellows? […] The age-old empire of evil was overthrown, for God was now appearing in human form to bring in a new order, even life without end.  Now that which had been perfected in the Divine counsels began its work; and all creation was thrown into a ferment over this plan for the utter destruction of death.”

— Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 19 [6]

III

“…were we led all that way for

Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.”

— T.S. Eliot, from “Journey of the Magi”

[1] Dante, Paradiso, 33.145.

[2] Cf. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Brazos, 2007), p. 38: “Jesus is born into time, threatening the time of Herod and Rome.”

[3] Raymond E. Brown, “Magi and the Star,” in An Adult Christ at Christmas: Essays on the Three Biblical Christmas Stories–Matthew 2 and Luke 2 (Liturgical Press, 1978), p. 14.

[4] Cf. Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives (Image, 2012), p. 97:  “...the wise men from the east are a new beginning.  They represent the journeying of humanity toward Christ.  They initiate a procession that continues throughout history.  Not only do they represent the people who have found the way to Christ: the represent the inner aspiration of the human spirit, the dynamism of religions and human reason toward him.”

[5] Brown, op. cit., p. 14.

[6] English translation from Andrew Louth, ed., The Apostolic Fathers: Early Christian Writings (Penguin, 1987).