The True Story of the Magi Through the History of Painting

Introduction

The Magi, you think you know them. Three kings, camels, crowns, gifts, a star. A lovely Christmas picture. But what does the biblical text really say, and where do all these details you see on cards and nativity scenes actually come from? This talk, given at the Tabernacle as part of the "Soirées du 72" series, goes back to the source: Matthew 2, then traces sixteen centuries of painting to show how a simple biblical account became, over time, loaded with traditions, symbols, politics, and even relics. You'll discover why one of the Magi became Black, why there may not have been three of them, and why Cologne Cathedral was built around their memory.

Message outline

1. The biblical text: what Matthew 2 really says

• Only one gospel speaks of the Magi: Matthew 2.1-12. Luke tells of the birth in detail but says nothing about the Magi.
• Jesus was born under the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. The conclusion follows: Jesus was born no later than 4 BC. The discrepancy comes from a medieval adjustment to the calendar, completed by Pope Gregory XIII.
• The Greek says "when Jesus had been born," not "Jesus was being born." So the Magi arrived some time after the birth. In verse 11, they enter a house, not a stable.
• The Greek word is magoi, translated "magi." In Herodotus, these are members of a Persian tribe. In the book of Daniel, they are royal astrologers. The text says they came from "the East," with no further detail: ancient Arabia, Persia, or Babylon are the three most commonly proposed options.
• The text never gives them the title of king. It gives neither their number nor their names.
• As for the star, the most plausible hypothesis remains a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in 7 BC, associated in antiquity with royalty.
• The gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh), are rare and precious. Their value is what later gave rise to the idea that the Magi must have been wealthy, and therefore kings.
• Matthew writes for a Jewish audience. From the very start of his gospel, he plants an idea that will become central: pagans come to pay homage to Christ. Jesus is not only the Savior of Israel, he is the Savior of the nations. It's the same gospel that ends with the sending out to all the nations.

2. What the history of art added to the account

• The oldest known depiction is found in the Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome (Capella Greca, 3rd-4th century). Three men walking, something in their hands, before a seated woman with a baby. Extremely bare, very close to the text.
• On other 4th-century frescoes and sarcophagi a fourth figure appears, pointing to the star: the pagan prophet Balaam, whose oracle announces "a star shall come out of Jacob, a scepter shall rise out of Israel" (Numbers 24.17). Art is already making a theological connection.
• Camels also appear in the 4th century (the cemetery of Saint Agnes, Rome). This is plausible: the Magi traveled, and they would have needed to carry baggage.
• The number three becomes fixed with Origen (3rd century), aligned with the three gifts. But John Calvin, in the 16th century, still vigorously opposes this fixation. Eastern traditions speak of twelve magi, or even a royal Persian caravan with three thousand horsemen and five thousand foot soldiers.
• The names Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior appear around the year 500 in a Greek manuscript, then on the mosaic at Ravenna (Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, around 565). It is the first dated image where the three names appear.
• The Phrygian caps they wear on Roman mosaics point to Persia: it is a visual code meaning "they come from the East."
• Between the 10th and 12th centuries, the camels are replaced by horses, associated with power. The Magi receive crowns. A new motif appears: the magus who removes his crown to lay it before the child. This gesture is neither biblical nor historical, it is political. It is the visual message of the era: secular power must submit to spiritual power. The French goldsmith Nicholas of Verdun (1150-1205) gives a clear example of this on a champlevé enamel.
• The Venerable Bede, in the 8th century, interprets the three magi as the three ages of life (youth, adult, elder) and the three continents known in the Middle Ages (Africa, Asia, Europe). The idea takes seven centuries to take hold in painting.
• It is not until around 1461 that a Black magus appears in a Flemish painting. Then Memling (1470-1472, Prado), a disciple of Memling, Mantegna: from 1500 on, the scene is fixed across all of Europe. Three ages, three continents, a Black magus, a middle-aged magus, an elder. Albrecht Dürer paints himself as a magus around 1504.
• The gifts, too, have been interpreted. Pope Leo the Great (5th century) gives the reading that would become classic: gold is offered to Christ the King, frankincense to Christ the God, myrrh to Christ the mortal man (it was used for embalming). This is the reading taken up by all the Anglican Advent-season hymns.

3. Why Cologne Cathedral exists

• According to the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (13th century), it was Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, who supposedly found the relics of the Magi in the 4th century and had them transferred to Constantinople.
• From there, Bishop Eustorgius of Milan is said to have brought them to Milan in 344 and deposited them in the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio. Today, you can see an immense empty sarcophagus there.
• Empty, because in 1164 the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa sacked the city of Milan. His chancellor, Rainald of Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne, brought the relics back to Cologne.
• The Archbishop of Cologne was one of the seven prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire. The relics became one of the greatest treasures of the Middle Ages. People no longer spoke of the "three magi kings," but of the "Kings of Cologne," and everyone understood.
• The city became a pilgrimage center. A successor of Rainald of Dassel decided to rebuild the cathedral around the reliquary. It is the reliquary that explains the cathedral, not the other way around.
• The reliquary itself is the work of Nicholas of Verdun. It is almost a miniature basilica, a wooden core covered with gold, silver, and copper, with 222 precious stones in the 13th century. Today 138 of the original stones remain, plus 166 added during restorations.
• In 1903, after a long dispute between the two archbishops, the Archbishop of Cologne sent some bones and pieces of clothing back to Milan.

4. What Matthew really meant to say

• For Matthew, the coming of the Magi serves above all to help his Jewish readers understand that their Messiah is also the Messiah of the nations.
• The contrast with Luke is striking: in Luke, it is shepherds, poor and marginal, to whom the angel appears. In Matthew, it is wealthy and powerful foreigners. Two worlds converge on the same child to worship him.
• Jacques Ellul, in L'homme et l'argent (Money and Power), offers a meditation on the shepherds and the Magi through the lens of money that is worth reading slowly.
• Even in the popular traditions that have drifted from the text, the galette des rois, the roscón de reyes in Spain, the cavalcade at Sant'Eustorgio in Milan, something of the original worship still remains. That is not nothing.

Key takeaways

• Only one gospel recounts the episode of the Magi: Matthew 2.1-12. Everything else, the number three, the names, the crowns, the camels then the horses, the Black magus, the ages, was added by tradition and by art history.
• Jesus was born no later than 4 BC, under the reign of Herod the Great. The discrepancy comes from a medieval adjustment to the calendar.
• The Magi are not kings in the biblical text. They were given crowns starting in the 11th century, in the midst of the battle between pope and emperor, to show that secular power must submit to spiritual power.
• The three ages and three continents, imagined by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, take seven centuries to become established in painting, starting in 1461.
• The gifts carry a theological meaning fixed by Leo the Great: gold for the King, frankincense for the God, myrrh for the mortal man.
• Cologne Cathedral was built around a goldsmith's reliquary by Nicholas of Verdun, said to contain the skulls of the three Magi brought back from Milan in 1164.
• For Matthew, the fundamental meaning of the episode is universality: pagans from the East worship the King of the Jews. The Savior of Israel is also the Savior of the nations.

Personal application

1. Read Matthew 2.1-12 again with fresh eyes. Make a list of what is really in the text and what you thought was there. What did your image of the nativity scene lead you to add?
2. The Magi are foreigners, pagans, astrologers. The first homage paid to Jesus in Matthew's gospel does not come from Israel's religious leaders, but from outside. Who is it, in your life, that you would not expect to come and worship Christ, and whom you risk looking down on?
3. Christian painting was, for centuries, as much a tool of political propaganda as a support for faith. When you look today at the images circulating in Christian circles, can you tell what comes from the biblical text and what comes from other agendas?
4. Take time to meditate on the three gifts using Leo the Great's key: gold for the King, frankincense for the God, myrrh for the mortal man. What do you yourself bring to Jesus that acknowledges that he reigns, that he is God, and that he suffered?
5. Read the closing pages of L'homme et l'argent (Money and Power) by Jacques Ellul if you can find it. Let yourself be unsettled by the contrast between the shepherds and the Magi, the poor and the rich, all kneeling before the same child.

Related verses

• Matthew 2.1-12 (NIV)
• Micah 5.2 (NIV)
• Numbers 24.17 · The star of Jacob (NIV)
• Isaiah 60.3 (NIV)
• Psalm 72.10 (NIV)
• Malachi 4.2 · The sun of righteousness (NIV)
• Matthew 28.18-20 · To all the nations (NIV)
• Luke 2.8-20 · The shepherds (NIV)

Frequently asked questions

Were there really three of them, and were they really kings?

The biblical text does not say so. It simply speaks of magoi who came from the East, with no number and no royal title given. The number three is modeled on the three gifts (gold, frankincense, myrrh) and becomes fixed with Origen in the 3rd century. Eastern traditions, such as the one recorded by Michael the Syrian in the 12th century, speak of twelve magi, or even a Persian escort of several thousand men. The title "king" arrived even later, from the 10th-11th century on, in the context of the political battle between pope and emperor, to show that kings bow before Christ. This is theologically defensible, since Matthew 2 strongly echoes a royal theme and the Old Testament foretells kings coming to worship the Messiah (Isaiah 60.3, Psalm 72.10). But it is not in the original text.

Where does the idea that one of the Magi was Black come from?

It goes back to the Venerable Bede in the 8th century. Bede sees in the three magi an image of all humanity: the three ages of life, the three continents known in the Middle Ages (Africa, Europe, Asia). The idea is a beautiful one, and it echoes Matthew's universal intent. But it is not until around 1461 that it appears in painting, in a Flemish work. It then spreads very quickly: from 1500 on, throughout Europe, painters depict a young Black magus (Caspar), a middle-aged magus with a black beard (Balthazar), and a white-haired elder (Melchior). Seven centuries separate the theological insight from its visual spread.

Why Cologne Cathedral, and not Bethlehem or Milan?

Because an Archbishop of Cologne, Rainald of Dassel, chancellor to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, brought the supposed relics of the Magi from Milan (sacked by the emperor), back to Cologne in 1164. These relics became one of the greatest religious and political treasures of the Middle Ages. They drew an unending stream of pilgrims, and with them wealth, to Cologne, to the point that people no longer spoke of the "three magi kings," but of the "Kings of Cologne." It was in order to properly house the reliquary crafted by Nicholas of Verdun that it was later decided to completely rebuild the cathedral to its present dimensions. The cathedral was built around the reliquary, not the other way around. In 1903, Cologne eventually sent some bones back to Milan to settle the old dispute.