Who were the Magi?

Okay, on to our actual question: Who were they? Well, we do have a few facts, and they’re quite adequate to tell us their identity. They were “from the East,” that is, Persia, present-day Iran and/or Iraq. You can see the word “magic” in their name. Some translations call them “wise men” or even “kings.” They would have been astronomers/astrologers, two fields of study that were basically the same at that time, just as chemistry later on grew out of alchemy. Here’s the thing, and I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t realize this many moons ago (little astronomical joke here)–They would have known about the tradition of a coming Messiah because Babylon, the capital of Persia, had the second-largest population of Jews in the world, lagging behind only Israel. There had been a mass deportation to Babylon of Jews, especially those of the noble and royal classes, when the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Jerusalem in about 600 BCE. You can imagine these conquered people who have seen absolutely horrific carnage at the fall of the city being determined to salvage their heritage by bringing along whatever scrolls they could find in the wreckage. The prophet Daniel was one of those deportees, and the book named after him in the Jewish Bible says specifically that he was put in charge of all of the wise men at the Babylonian court after he interpreted the king’s dream. In the process of doing so he also saved the lives of all the court wise men, so that class would have revered Daniel. Then the Persian king Cyrus allowed any Jews who wanted to return to Israel to do so after he conquered the Babylonian empire about 60 years later, but many opted to stay. They became the “Diaspora,” or “dispersed” Jews, with most of them keeping to their beliefs and religious practices, living in their own communities. Because they would still have had that connection to the great prophet and governor Daniel, there must have been an ongoing connection between the Magi in general with the Jews and their Scriptures. These facts explain why the Magi seemed to know all about the person they were seeking: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.”

And what of the star? Well, that’s a whole ‘nother topic, with tons of theories attached. Was it a comet, the planet Jupiter conjoining with Saturn/Venus/something else, or a supernova? We just don’t know; I’ve gone down a ton of rabbit holes about the different ideas, and they all have some seeming legitimacy. Isn’t it strange that this object shows up all over the place in Christmas literature, music and decorations, and yet no one much questions it? Usually there’s a star over the stable, often with its long lowest ray actually touching the roof. Alas, just like the bejeweled figures of the wise men arranged around the manger, the star doesn’t belong in this scene. If you read the story carefully, you’ll find it goes like this: The Magi see the star (whatever it may be) and recognize its significance as a portent, but they’re not sure exactly where the intended person has been born (although they seem to know that it’s somewhere in Palestine), so they come to Jerusalem and ask the reigning monarch, Herod. He’s the one who tells them to go to Bethlehem after gathering all available scholars to find out where this birth should have taken place. (Although this is by no means a funny story, there is a bit of ironic humor when we are told, “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him” [Matthew 2:3]. You’d better believe that if Herod wasn’t happy, nobody was happy!) Herod puts on quite the hypocritical show, saying, “When ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may worship him also.” (Matthew 2:8) As the Magi set out for Bethlehem the star “goes before them” until it actually points to the place where the Christ child is. What on earth can that possibly mean? Again, theories abound. When they see the star they rejoice and come into the house to worship the Child and offer their gifts. Then, being warned by God not to go back to Herod, they return to their home country another way. And that’s the last we hear of them. Herod, enraged when he realizes that they’re not coming back, carries out the so-called “Massacre of the Innocents” that’s portrayed in “The Coventry Carol.”

Were there three of them? Again, probably not. That number is taken from the gifts they brought, but there’s no reason to think that the gifts and the people had to match. (If you’d like to read my post about those three items, go here.) And the names: Melchior the Persian, Balthasar the Arabian, and Gaspar the Indian, are also non-biblical. Those names became associated with the Magi during the Middle Ages. Someone apparently thought that they could represent the three countries to the east that had the greatest reputations for magical arts. Regardless of how many of the actual Magi there were, they would have needed an entire caravan with servants and guards and, we hope, camels. We know that these mysterious figures were wealthy and devout, and that they were willing to go to huge efforts to find the new king whose sign they had seen. And . . . that’s about it. These mysterious figures vanish, and all we’re left with is the image of them falling down and worshiping before a child somewhere in the humble streets of Bethlehem.

The great 20th-century poet T. S. Eliot was fascinated with the Magi, too. You can read his beautiful poem “The Journey of the Magi” here. The old man telling the story says, in a masterpiece of understatement, “It was (you might say) satisfactory.”

The carol “We Three Kings” is of course about the Magi. Here’s a nice performance (with an unbelievable bass singer):

Out of all the ideas I’ve read and watched (including a two-hour presentation that I paid for) about the star that the Magi followed, I’m kind of in the comet camp. Here’s a YT video with very few views but a nice low-key presenter who put this material together mainly for his own church. He’s approaching the subject very much from an Evangelical Christian perspective, just to be clear, and uses a book called The Great Christ Comet by a biblical scholar named Colin R. Nicholl as his primary source, but he’s obviously done a lot of work on his own.

© Debi Simons