BCAOI
528
2CA0Z
were; II. The Time and Cireumstanoee of their
Visit.
I. Who the Magi were. A. NonrBibltcal Evi- dence, — We may form a coQ|ecture by non-Biblical evidence of a probable meanmg to the word Myo*. Herodotus (I, ci) is our authority for supposing that the Magi were the sacred caste of the Medes. They provided priests for Persia, and, regardless of d3rnastio vicissitudes, ever kept up their dominating religious influence. To the head ol this caste, Nergal Sharesar. Jeremias gives the title Rab-Mag, Chief Magus (Jer., xxxix, 3, 13, in Hebrew original — Sept. and Vulg. translations are erroneous here) . After the downfall of Assyrian and Babylonian power, the religion of the Magi hela sway in Persia. Cyrus completely conquered the sacred caste; his son Cambyses severely repressed it. The Bdagians revolted and set up Gaum&ta, tneir chief, as King of Persia under the name of Smerdis. He was, however, murdered (52 1 b . c.) » and Darius became king. This downfall of the Magi was celebrated by a national Persian holiday called tMyo4>6wta (Her., Ill, Ixiii, Ixxiii, bdcix). Still the religious influence of this priestly caste continued throughout the rule of the Aclueme- nian dynasty in Persia (Ctesias, ' Tersica " , X-XV ); and it is not unlikely that at the time of the birth of Christ it was still flourishing under the Parthian dominion. Strabo (XI, ix, 3) says that the Magian priests formed one of the two councils of the Parthian jEmpire.
B. Biblical EiHdence. — The word fxdyoi often has the meaning of " magician "^ in both Old and New Tes- taments (see Acts, viii, 9; xiii, 6, 8; also the Septuagint of Dan., i, 20; ii, 2^ 10, 27; iv, 4; v, 7, 11, 15). St. Jus- tin (Tryph., Ixxviii), Origen (Cels^ I, bt), St. Augus- tine (Serm. xx, De epiphania) and St. Jerome (In Isa.. xix, 1) And the same meaning in the second chapter of Matthew, though this is not the common inteipreta- tion.
C, Patristic Evidence. — No Father of the Church holds the Magi to have been kings. Tertullian (" Adv. Marcion.", Ill, xiii) says that they were wellnigh kings {fere reges) , and so agrees with wnat we have con- cluded from non-Biblical evidence. The Church, in- deed, in her litiu^, applies to the Magi the words:
- The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer pres-
ents; the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts: and allthe kings of the earth shall adore him (Ps. Ixxi, 10). But this use of the text in reference to them no more proves that they were kings than it traces their journey from Tharsis, Arabia, and Saba. As sometimes happens, a liturgical accommodation of a text has in time come to be looked upon by some as an authentic interpretation thereof. Neither were they magicians: the good meaning of /tiyoi, though found nowhere else in the Bible, is demanded by the context of the second chapter of St. Matthew. These Magians can have been none other than members of the priestly caste already referred to. The religion of the Magi was fundamentally that of Zoroaster and forbade sorcery; their astrolo^ and skill in inter- preting dreams were occasions of their flnding Christ. (See AvESTA, The, Theolooical Aspects of.)
The Gospel narrative omits to mention the number of the Magi, and there is no certain tradition in this matter. Some Fathers speak of three Magi; they are very likely influenced by the number of giits. In the Orient tradition favours twelve. Early Christian art is no consistent witness: a painting in the ceme- tery of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus shows two; one in the Lateran Museum, three; one in the cemetery of Domitilla, four; a vase in the Kircher Museum, eight (Biarucchi, "Elements d'arch^olojrie chr^tienne", Paris, 1899, 1, 197). The names of the Magi are as uncertain as is their number. Among the Latins, from the seventh century, we find slight variants of the names, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar; the Martyroloey mentions St. Gaspar, on the first, St. Melchior, on the joxth^ and St. Balthasar, on the eleventh of January
rActa 88., 1, 8, 823, 664). The Syrians have Larvan-
dad, Hormisdas, Gushnasaph, etc.; the ArmenianB,
Kasba, Badadilma, etc. (cf. Acta Sanctorum, May,
I^ 1780). Passing over the purely legendary no-
tion that they represented the three families
which are descended from Noe, it appears they all
came from the east" (Matt., ii, 1, 2, 9). East of
Palestine, only ancient Media, ^ersia, Asi^yria, and
Babylonia haa a Magian priesthood at the time of the
birth of Christ. From some such part of the Parthian
Empire the Blagi came. They probably crossed the
Syrian Desert, lying between the Euphrates and
Syria, reached either Qaleb (Aleppo) or Tudmor
(rahnyra), and journeyed on to Damascus and south-
ward, by what is now the great Me^ca route (darb el-
hajf *'the pilgrim's way'0> keeping the Sea of Galilee
and the Jordan to their west till they crossed the ford
near Jericho. We have no tradition of the precise
land meant by the east ^'. It is Babylon, according
to St. Maximus (Homil. xviii in Epiphan.) and Theo-
dotus of Ancyra (Homil. de Nativitate, I, x); Persia,
according to Clement of Alexandria (Strom., I, xv) ana
St. Cyril of Alexandria (In Is., xlix, 12); Arabia, ac-
cording to St. Justin (Cont. Tryphon., Ixxvii), Ter-
tullian (Adv. Jud., ix), and St. Epiphanius (Expos,
fidei, viii).
II. Time and Circumstances op their Visit. — The visit of the Maei took place after the Presentation of the Child in the Temple (Luke, ii, 38). No sooner were the Magi departed than the angel bade Joseph take the Child and its Mother into Egypt (Matt., ii, 1 3) . Once Herod was wroth at the failure of the Magi to return, it was out of all question that the presenta- tion should take place. Now a new difficulty occurs: after the presentation, the Holy Family returned into Galilee (Luke, ii, 39). Some think tnat this return was not immediate. Luke omits the incidents of the Maffi, flight into Egypt, massacre of the Innocents, and return from Egypt, and takes up the story with the return of the Holy Family into Galilee. We pre- fer to interpret Luke's words as indicating a return to Galilee immediately after the presentation. The stay at Nazareth was very brief. Thereafter the Holy Family probably returned to abide in Bethlehem. Then the M&gi came. It was "in the days of king Herod " (Matt., ii, 1), i. e. before the year 4 b. c. (a. u. c. 750), the probable date of Herod's death at Jericho. For we know that Archelaus, Herod's son, succeeded as ethnarch to a part of his father's realm, and was deposed either in his ninth (Joscphus. Bel. Jud., II, vii, 3) or tenth (Josephus, Aiitiq., aVII, xviii, 2) year of office during the consulship of Lepidus and Airun- tius (Dion Cassius, Iv, 27), i. e., a. d. 6. Moreover, the Magi came while King Herod was in Jerusalem (w. 3, 7), not in Jericho, i. e., either the beginning of 4 B. c. or the end of 5 b. c. Lastly, it was probably a year, or a little more than a year, aft«r the birth of Christ. Herod had found out from the Magi the time of the star's appearance. Taking this for the time of the Child's birth, he slew the male children of two years old and under in Bethlehem and its borders (v. 16). Some of the Fathers conclude from this ruthless slaughter that the Magi reached Jerusalem two years after the Nativity (St. Epiphanius, "Haer.", LI, 9; Juvencus, '* Hist. E\'ang.", I, 259). Their conclusion has some degree of probability; yet the slaying of children two years old may possibly have been due to some other reason — for instance, a fear on Herod's part that the Magi had deceived him in the matter of the time of the starts appearance or that the Magi had been deceived as to the conjunction of that appear- ance with the birth of the Child. Art and archaeology favour our view. Only one early monument repre- sents the Child in the crib while the Magi adore; in others Jesus rests upon Mary's knees and is at times fairly well grown (see Comely, "Introd. Special, in N. T.", p. 203).
