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Christmas Stories in Christian Apocrypha

BAS Staff — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 12:00:38 +0000

The presepio (nativity scene) is a centuries-old craft and one of Naples’s best-known traditions. This Neapolitan presepio was displayed in Rome. Photo: Howard Hudson / Wikimedia Commons.

One of the most familiar images of the Christmas season is the nativity scene—the well-known depiction of Jesus’ birth—displayed in an array of public and private settings, including churches, parks, store windows and on fireplace mantles.

The scene, first assembled by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, is iconographic, meaning its various elements are intended primarily to depict theological—not historical, nor even literary—truths. It harmonizes two very distinct stories: Luke’s birth of Jesus in a stable, visited by shepherds, and attended by an angelic host and Matthew’s Magi, who are led by a star to the home of Jesus’ family sometime before Jesus’ second birthday.

To most people viewing the nativity scene, it depicts the birth of Jesus as it happened, with farm animals, shepherds, angels and Magi crowding the Bethlehem stable. But the combination is apocryphal, in the wide sense that the complete scene is not an accurate reflection of what the Biblical texts say about Jesus’ birth and in the narrow sense that such harmonization of Matthew and Luke is a common feature of noncanonical Christian infancy gospels.

Actually, these gospels not only combine the Biblical stories, they enhance them, with additional traditions about the birth of Jesus that circulated in antiquity. Of course most Christians throughout history were unaware of this distinction; before widespread literacy, Christians told the story of Jesus’ birth without awareness of which elements were based on Scripture and which were not.

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The Christian Apocrypha are rich with tales of the birth of Jesus. The earliest and most well-known of these are the stories found in the Protevangelium (or “Proto-Gospel”) of James. Composed in the late second century, this text combines the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke with other traditions, including stories of the Virgin Mary’s own birth and upbringing. The Protevangelium was exceptionally popular—hundreds of manuscripts of the text exist today in a variety of languages, and it has profoundly influenced Christian liturgy and teachings about Mary.

The Protevangelium was transmitted in the West as part of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which added to it tales of the Holy Family’s sojourn in Egypt and, in some manuscripts, stories of Jesus’ childhood taken from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Other Pseudo-Matthew manuscripts incorporate a different telling of Jesus’ birth from an otherwise lost gospel that scholars call the Book about the Birth of the Savior.

In the East, the Protevangelium was translated into Syriac and expanded with a different set of stories set in Egypt to form the Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was later translated into Arabic as the Arabic Infancy Gospel. Another Syriac reworking of the Protevangelium lies behind the Armenian Infancy Gospel. Christians in the East also expanded on Matthew’s Magi traditions creating the Revelation of the Magi, the Legend of Aphroditianus, and On the Star (erroneously attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea), each of which in their own way narrates how the Magi became aware that the star heralded the birth of a king.

FREE ebook: The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition. Download now.

This small tripartite painting, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, is part of a massive altarpiece known as the Maestà. Composed of many individual paintings, the Maestà was commissioned by the Italian city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. It contains elements of the birth of Jesus from Christian Apocrypha, including the cave, the ox, the ass and the midwife. Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

If readers of these apocryphal texts could see the modern nativity scenes, they would be surprised to find the baby Jesus in a stable: In the infancy gospels, the birth takes place in a cave outside of Bethlehem, the same location given also by Justin Martyr (in his Dialogue with Trypho 78), who died around 165 C.E. They might have expected also to see a midwife in the scene; indeed, she does appear regularly in Eastern Orthodox depictions of the nativity, helping Mary bathe the newborn.

As the Protevangelium tells it, Joseph left Mary in the cave and went into Bethlehem to find a midwife. But as Joseph and the midwife approached the cave, they saw a bright cloud overshadowing it. The cloud then disappeared into the cave and a great light appeared, which withdrew and revealed the baby Jesus. Each of the later expansions of the Protevangelium narrate this scene in their own unique way, but they all endeavor to show that Jesus was not born in a natural manner, thus allowing Mary to remain physically a virgin after the birth.

So superhuman is Jesus that some texts report that he could be perceived in multiple forms. The Armenian Infancy Gospel, for example, reports that the Magi each saw him in a different way: as the Son of God on a throne, as the Son of Man surrounded by armies, and as a man tortured, dead and resurrected.

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The apocryphal accounts agree with Luke that the shepherds visited the Holy Family shortly after Jesus’ birth. In the Western texts, the family then moves from the cave to a stable and places the baby in a manger. There an ox and an ass bend their knees and worship him, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 1:3, “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib” (see Pseudo-Matthew 14 and Birth of the Savior 86). Though an apocryphal embellishment, the animals became a common ingredient in subsequent depictions of the nativity and may be observable in nativity scenes today.

Tony Burke challenges the assertion that Christian apocrypha were truly rejected, suppressed and destroyed throughout Christian history. Read more >>

Most often, the cave remains the scene of subsequent events, including the circumcision (from Luke 2:21) and the visit of the Magi. The Magi are typically depicted in art and iconography as three richly-adorned Persian kings. However, Matthew calls them only “magi from the East” (Matthew 2:1) and does not say how many there were. The writers of the apocryphal texts did their best to clarify these matters. In the Revelation of the Magi, there are at least twelve Magi—the same number is given in other Syriac traditions—and they came to Bethlehem in April (not December) from a land in the Far East called “Shir,” perhaps meant to be understood as China. The Armenian Infancy Gospel says there were three kings, and they were accompanied by 12 commanders, each with an army of 1,000 men, which would make for a very crowded stable indeed.

Many of the texts continue the story of the Magi and tell what happened when they returned to their home country: In the Life of the Blessed Virgin (=Arabic Infancy Gospel) they bring back one of Jesus’ swaddling bands, which they worship because it has miraculous properties; in the Revelation of the Magi they share the vision-inducing food (some kind of magic mushrooms?) given to them by the star; and in the Legend of Aphroditianus they return with a painting of Jesus and his mother. None of these apocryphal Magi traditions are featured in nativity scenes today, but some of them influenced medieval art and literature.

Christians of all times and places have delighted in the story of Jesus’ birth, so much that they have yearned to learn more about the first Christmas than is found in the Biblical accounts. The Christmas nativity scene is the outcome of efforts by creative and pious writers to fill in blanks left by Matthew and Luke and to combine multiple traditions, Biblical and non-Biblical, into one enduring image. The nativity scene is a timeless representation of when God became man; it is also a testament to human imagination and the art of storytelling.

This Bible History Daily article was originally published on December 10, 2014.

Tony Burke is an associate professor in the Department of the Humanities at York University and the author of Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha (London: SPCK, 2013). Burke’s research interests include the study of Christian biographical literature of the second century (infancy gospels), children and the family in Roman antiquity, curses and non-canonical Jewish and Christian writings. Follow his work at www.tonyburke.ca.

Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth and a Lunar Eclipse

BAS Staff — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:00:41 +0000

Giotto, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1306.

Both Luke and Matthew mention Jesus’ birth as occurring during Herod’s reign (Luke 1:5; Matthew 2:1). Josephus relates Herod’s death to a lunar eclipse. This is generally regarded as a reference to a lunar eclipse in 4 B.C. Therefore it is often said that Jesus was born in 4 B.C.

But physics professor John A. Cramer, in a letter to BAR, has pointed out that there was another lunar eclipse visible in Judea—in fact, two—in 1 B.C., which would place Herod’s death—and Jesus’ birth—at the turn of the era. Below, read letters published in the Q&C section of BAR debating the dates of Herod’s death, Jesus’ birth and to which lunar eclipse Josephus was referring.

When Was Jesus Born?

Q&C, BAR, July/August 2013

Let me add a footnote to Suzanne Singer’s report on the final journey of Herod the Great (Strata, BAR, March/April 2013): She gives the standard date of his death as 4 B.C. [Jesus’ birth is often dated to 4 B.C. based on the fact that both Luke and Matthew associate Jesus’ birth with Herod’s reign—Ed.] Readers may be interested to learn there is reason to reconsider the date of Herod’s death.

This date is based on Josephus’s remark in Antiquities 17.6.4 that there was a lunar eclipse shortly before Herod died. This is traditionally ascribed to the eclipse of March 13, 4 B.C.

Unfortunately, this eclipse was visible only very late that night in Judea and was additionally a minor and only partial eclipse.

There were no lunar eclipses visible in Judea thereafter until two occurred in the year 1 B.C. Of these two, the one on December 29, just two days before the change of eras, gets my vote since it was the one most likely to be seen and remembered. That then dates the death of Herod the Great into the first year of the current era, four years after the usual date.

Perhaps the much-maligned monk who calculated the change of era was not quite so far off as has been supposed.

John A. Cramer
Professor of Physics
Oglethorpe University
Atlanta, Georgia

FREE ebook: The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition. Download now.

When Was Jesus Born? When Did Herod Die?

Q&C, BAR, January/February 2014

Professor John A. Cramer argues that Herod the Great most likely died shortly after the lunar eclipse of December 29, 1 B.C., rather than that of March 13, 4 B.C., which, as Cramer points out, is the eclipse traditionally associated with Josephus’s description in Jewish Antiquities 17.6.4 (Queries & Comments, “When Was Jesus Born?” BAR, July/August 2013) and which is used as a basis to reckon Jesus’ birth shortly before 4 B.C. Professor Cramer’s argument was made in the 19th century by scholars such as Édouard Caspari and Florian Riess.

There are three principal reasons why the 4 B.C. date has prevailed over 1 B.C. These reasons were articulated by Emil Schürer in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, also published in the 19th century. First, Josephus informs us that Herod died shortly before a Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3, The Jewish War 2.1.3), making a lunar eclipse in March (the time of the 4 B.C. eclipse) much more likely than one in December.

Second, Josephus writes that Herod reigned for 37 years from the time of his appointment in 40 B.C. and 34 years from his conquest of Jerusalem in 37 B.C. (Antiquities 17.8.1, War 1.33.8). Using so-called inclusive counting, this, too, places Herod’s death in 4 B.C.

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Third, we know that the reign over Samaria and Judea of Herod’s son and successor Archelaus began in 4 B.C., based on the fact that he was deposed by Caesar in A.U.C. (Anno Urbis Conditae [in the year the city was founded]) 759, or A.D. 6, in the tenth year of his reign (Dio Cassius, Roman History 55.27.6; Josephus, Antiquities 17.13.2). Counting backward his reign began in 4 B.C. In addition, from Herod the Great’s son and successor Herod Antipas, who ruled over Galilee until 39 B.C., who ordered the execution of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14–29) and who had a supporting role in Jesus’ trial (Luke 23:7–12), we have coins that make reference to the 43rd year of his rule, placing its beginning in 4 B.C. at the latest (see Morten Hørning Jensen, “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew,” BAR, September/October 2012).

Thus, Schürer concluded that “Herod died at Jericho in B.C. 4, unwept by those of his own house, and hated by all the people.”

Jeroen H.C. Tempelman
New York, New York

John A. Cramer responds:

Trying to date the death of Herod the Great is attended by considerable uncertainty, and I do not mean to claim I know the right answer. Mr. Tempelman does a good job of pointing out arguments in favor of a 4 B.C. date following the arguments advanced long ago by Emil Schürer. The difficulty is that we have a fair amount of information, but it is equivocal.

The key information comes, of course, from Josephus who brackets the death by “a fast” and the Passover. He says that on the night of the fast there was a lunar eclipse—the only eclipse mentioned in the entire corpus of his work. Correlation of Josephus with the Talmud and Mishnah indicate the fast was probably Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur occurs on the tenth day of the seventh month (mid-September to mid-October) and Passover on the 15th day of the first month (March or April) of the religious calendar. Josephus does not indicate when within that time interval the death occurred.

Only four lunar eclipses occurred in the likely time frame: September 15, 5 B.C., March 12–13, 4 B.C., January 10, 1 B.C. and December 29, 1 B.C. The first eclipse fits Yom Kippur, almost too early, but possible. It was a total eclipse that became noticeable several hours after sundown, but it is widely regarded as too early to fit other information on the date. The favorite 4 B.C. eclipse seems too far from Yom Kippur and much too close to Passover. This was a partial eclipse that commenced after midnight. It hardly seems a candidate for being remembered and noted by Josephus. The 1 B.C. dates require either that the fast was not Yom Kippur or that the calendar was rejiggered for some reason. The January 10 eclipse was total but commenced shortly before midnight on a winter night. Lastly, in the December 29 eclipse the moon rose at 53 percent eclipse and its most visible aspect was over by 6 p.m. It is the most likely of the four to have been noted and commented on.

None of the four candidates fits perfectly to all the requirements. I like the earliest and the latest of them as the most likely. The most often preferred candidate, the 4 B.C. eclipse, is, in my view, far and away the least likely one.

If Jesus was born in Bethlehem, why is he called a Nazorean and a Galilean throughout the New Testament? Learn more >>

A Different Fast

Q&C, BAR, May/June 2014

John Cramer responds to Mr. Tempelman’s letter to the editor (“Queries and Comments,” BAR, January/February 2014) that Herod’s death occurred between a “fast” and Passover. Mr. Cramer acknowledges that the fast of Yom Kippur fits the eclipse but doesn’t fit the time frame of occurring near Passover. There is, however, another fast that occurs exactly one month before Passover: the Fast of Esther! The day before Purim is a fast day commemorating Queen Esther’s command for all Jews to fast before she approached the king. Purim fell on March 12–13, 4 B.C. So there was an eclipse and a fast on March 12–13, 4 B.C., one month before Passover, which would fit Josephus’s statement bracketing Herod’s death by a fast and Passover.

Suzanne Nadaf
Brooklyn, New York

John A. Cramer responds:

This suggestion seems plausible and, if I recall correctly, someone has already raised it. The consensus, if such exists, seems, however, to be that the fast really should be the fast of Yom Kippur, but resolving that issue requires expertise to which I make no claim. Too many possibilities and too little hard information probably leave the precise date forever open.

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When Did Herod Die? And When Was Jesus Born?

Q&C, BAR, September/October 2014

Regarding the date of the death of Herod the Great, the question of which lunar eclipse and which Jewish fast the historian Josephus was referring to must be considered in light of other data that Josephus reported. Professor John Cramer’s suggestion that an eclipse in 1 B.C.E. would place Herod’s death in that year, rather than the generally accepted 4 B.C.E., cannot be reconciled with other historical facts recorded by Josephus.

As is well known, Herod’s son Archelaus succeeded him as the ruler of Judea, as reported by Josephus (Antiquities 8:459). Josephus also recorded that Archelaus reigned over Judea and Samaria for ten years, and that in his tenth year, due to complaints against him from both Jews and Samaritans, he was deposed by Caesar Augustus and banished to Vienna (Antiquities 8:531). Quirinius, the legate or governor of Syria, was assigned by the emperor to travel to Jerusalem and liquidate the estate of Archelaus, as well as to conduct a registration of persons and property in Archelaus’s former realm. This occurred immediately after Archelaus was deposed and was specifically dated by Josephus to the 37th year after Caesar’s victory over Mark Anthony at Actium (Antiquities 9:23). The Battle of Actium is a well-known event in Roman history that took place in the Ionian Sea off the shore of Greece on September 2 of the year 31 B.C.E. Counting 37 years forward from 31 B.C.E. yields a date of 6 C.E. for the tenth year of Archelaus, at which time he was deposed and Quirinus came to Judea. And counting back ten years from that event yields a date of 4 B.C.E. for the year in which Herod died. (The beginning and ending years are both included in this count, since regnal years for both Augustus and the Herodians were so figured.)

These reports, and the chronology derived from them, provide compelling evidence for the generally accepted date of Herod’s death in the spring of 4 B.C.E., shortly after the lunar eclipse of March 13, regardless of the fact that eclipses also occurred in other years.

Jeffrey R. Chadwick
Jerusalem Center Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah

Read Lawrence Mykytiuk’s BAR article “Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible” >>

There’s More Evidence from Josephus

Q&C, BAR, January/February 2015

In the letter to the editor in BAR, September/October 2014, Jeffrey Chadwick gives the argument for the death of Herod in 4 B.C. [used for determining the date of Jesus’ birth]. For over a century, this has been part of the standard reasoning for the 4 B.C. of Jesus’ birth. However, it does not come to grips with all of the data from Josephus. Elsewhere I have written about this. [An excerpt by Professor Steinmann can be read below.—Ed.]

One cannot simply and positively assert that a few short statements by Josephus about the lengths of reigns of his sons can be used to prove that Herod died in 4 B.C. Instead, one needs critically to sift through all of the evidence embedded in Josephus’s discussion as well as evidence external to Josephus to make a case for the year of Herod’s death.

Andrew Steinmann
Distinguished Professor of Theology and Hebrew
University Marshal
Concordia University Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Read an excerpt from Andrew E. Steinmann’s book From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology (St. Louis: Concordia, 2011), pp. 235–238 [footnotes removed]; see also his article “When Did Herod the Great Reign?” Novum Testamentum 51 (2009), pp. 1–29.

Originally Herod had named his son Antipater to be his heir and had groomed Antipater to take over upon his death. However, a little over two years before Herod’s death Antipater had his uncle, Herod’s younger brother Pheroras murdered. Pheroras had been tetrarch of Galilee under Herod. Antipater’s plot was discovered, and Archelaus was named Herod’s successor in place of Antipater. Seven months passed before Antipater, who was in Rome, was informed that he had been charged with murder. Late in the next year he would be placed on trial before Varus, governor of Syria. Eventually Herod received permission from Rome to execute Antipater. During his last year Herod wrote a will disinheriting Archelaus and granting the kingdom to Antipas. In a later will, however, he once again left the kingdom to Archelaus. Following his death his kingdom would eventually be split into three parts among Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip.

Josephus is careful to note that during his last year Herod was forbidden by Augustus from naming his sons as his successors. However, in several passages Josephus also notes that Herod bestowed royalty and its honors on his sons. At Antipater’s trial Josephus quotes Herod as testifying that he had yielded up royal authority to Antipater. He also quotes Antipater claiming that he was already a king because Herod had made him a king.

When Archelaus replaced Antipater as Herod’s heir apparent some two years before Herod’s death, Antipater may have been given the same prerogatives as Archelaus had previously enjoyed. After Herod’s death Archelaus went to Rome to have his authority confirmed by Augustus. His enemies charged him with seemingly contradictory indictments: that Archelaus had already exercised royal authority for some time and that Herod did not appoint Archelaus as his heir until he was demented and dying. These are not as contradictory as they seem, however. Herod initially named Archelaus his heir, and at this point Archelaus may have assumed royal authority under his father. Then Herod revoked his will, naming Antipas his heir. Ultimately, when he was ill and dying, Herod once again named Archelaus his heir. Thus, Archelaus may not have legally been king until after Herod’s death in early 1 B.C., but may have chosen to reckon his reign from a little over two years earlier in late 4 B.C. when he first replaced Antipater as Herod’s heir.

Since Antipas would eventually rule Galilee, it is entirely possible that under Herod he already had been given jurisdiction over Galilee in the wake of Pheroras’ death. This may explain why Herod briefly named Antipas as his heir in the year before his death. Since Antipas may have assumed the jurisdiction over Galilee upon Pheroras’ death sometime in 4 B.C., like Archelaus, he also may have reckoned his reign from that time, even though he was not officially named tetrarch of Galilee by the Romans until after Herod’s death.

Philip also appears to have exercised a measure of royal authority before Herod’s death in 1 B.C. Philip refounded the cities of Julias and Caesarea Philippi (Paneas). Julias was apparently named after Augustus’ daughter, who was arrested for adultery and treason in 2 B.C. Apparently Julias was refounded before that date. As for Caesarea Philippi, the date of its refounding was used to date an era, and the first year of the era was 3 B.C. Apparently Philip chose to antedate his reign to 4 B.C., which apparently was the time when Herod first entrusted him with supervision of Gaulanitis.

Additional support for Philip having been officially appointed tetrarch after the death of his father in 1 B.C. may be found in numismatics. A number of coins issued by Philip during his reign are known. The earliest bear the date “year 5,” which would correspond to A.D. 1. This fits well with Philip serving as administrator under his father from 4–1 B.C. He counted those as the first four years of his reign, but since he was not officially recognized by Rome as an independent client ruler, he had no authority to issue coins during those years. However, he was in position to issue coinage soon after being named tetrarch sometime in 1 B.C., and the first coins appear the next year, A.D. 1, antedating his reign to 4 B.C. While the numismatic evidence is not conclusive proof of Herod’s death in 1 B.C., it is highly suggestive.

Given the explicit statements of Josephus about the authority and honor Herod had granted his sons during the last years of his life, we can understand why all three of his successors decided to antedate their reigns to the time when they were granted a measure of royal authority while their father was still alive. Although they were not officially recognized by Rome as ethnarch or tetrarchs until after Herod’s death, they nevertheless appear to have reckoned their reigns from about 4 B.C.

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on January 7, 2015.

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Herod the Great—The King’s Final Journey

Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew

Herod’s Horrid Death

How Early Christians Viewed the Birth of Jesus

How December 25 Became Christmas

The Magi and the Star

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The post Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth and a Lunar Eclipse appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Why Did the Magi Bring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh?

BAS Staff — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 12:00:15 +0000

Were the gifts of the magi meant to save Jesus from the pain of arthritis? It’s possible, according to researchers at Cardiff University in Wales who have been studying the medical uses of frankincense.

Since the early days of Christianity, Biblical scholars and theologians have offered varying interpretations of the meaning and significance of the gold, frankincense and myrrh that the magi presented to Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew (2:11). These valuable items were standard gifts to honor a king or deity in the ancient world: gold as a precious metal, frankincense as perfume or incense, and myrrh as anointing oil. In fact, these same three items were apparently among the gifts, recorded in ancient inscriptions, that King Seleucus II Callinicus offered to the god Apollo at the temple in Miletus in 243 B.C.E. The Book of Isaiah, when describing Jerusalem’s glorious restoration, tells of nations and kings who will come and “bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord” (Isaiah 60:6). Although Matthew’s gospel does not include the names or number of the magi, many believe that the number of the gifts is what led to the tradition of the Three Wise Men.

FREE ebook: The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition. Download now.

The traditional gifts of the magi—gold, frankincense and myrrh—may have had symbolic as well as practical value. Researchers believe the medicinal uses of frankincense were known to the author of Matthew’s gospel.

In addition to the honor and status implied by the value of the gifts of the magi, scholars think that these three were chosen for their special spiritual symbolism about Jesus himself—gold representing his kingship, frankincense a symbol of his priestly role, and myrrh a prefiguring of his death and embalming—an interpretation made popular in the well-known Christmas carol “We Three Kings.”

Still others have suggested that the gifts of the magi were a bit more practical—even medicinal in nature. Researchers at Cardiff University have demonstrated that frankincense has an active ingredient that can help relieve arthritis by inhibiting the inflammation that breaks down cartilage tissue and causes arthritis pain. The new study validates traditional uses of frankincense as an herbal remedy to treat arthritis in communities of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where the trees that produce this aromatic resin grow. Did the magi “from the East” know of frankincense’s healing properties when they presented it to young Jesus?

Based on Strata, “The Magi’s Gifts—Tribute or Treatment?” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2012.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in December 2011.

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Lost Syriac Text Gives Magi’s View of the Christmas Story

The Three Magi

What Was the Star that Guided the Magi?

Ancient Medicine

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The post Why Did the Magi Bring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Who Was Jesus’ Biological Father?

BAS Staff — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 11:00:45 +0000

Was Joseph Jesus’ biological father or adoptive father? Joseph is a major figure in the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. Along with Mary, he is depicted at Jesus’ birth in this 16th-century painting by Lorenzo Lotto. Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Was Joseph Jesus’ biological father? If not, who was Jesus’ biological father?

The annunciation stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke recount that Jesus was conceived without the participation of a human male. Ancient views on the biology of conception—based on Aristotelian theory—differed from our modern understanding of genetics and biology. For Jesus to have been considered fully human by our modern standards—and not a semi-divine or special being—he would have needed complete human DNA. While Mary would have supplied the X chromosome, who supplied the essential Y chromosome? God? Joseph?

Andrew Lincoln of the University of Gloucestershire tackles these questions in his article “How Babies Were Made in Jesus’ Time” in the November/December 2014 issue of BAR. Starting with the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, he examines what early Christians thought about conception and explains how views about this subject have changed over time.

Who was Jesus’ biological father? As modern readers, we might wonder how the product of a virginal conception could truly be human—since the Y chromosome did not come from a human father. Andrew Lincoln explains that this issue would not have been troubling to an ancient audience or to the writers of the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke:

Their understanding of conception, shaped by a patriarchal culture, would have been some variation of the dominant Aristotelian theory. On this view, the male semen provides the formative principle for life. The female menstrual blood supplies the matter for the fetus, and the womb the medium for the semen’s nurture. The man’s seed transmits his logos (rational cause) and pneuma (vital heat/animating spirit), for which the woman’s body is the receptacle. In this way the male functions as the active, efficient cause of reproduction, and the female functions as the provider of the matter to which the male seed gives definition. In short, the bodily substance necessary for a human fetus comes from the mother, while the life force originates with the father.

Those who heard the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke would have considered Jesus to be fully human since his mother supplied all of his bodily substance. Lincoln clarifies: “In terms of ancient biology, even without a human father, Jesus would have been seen as fully human. His mother, Mary, provided his human substance, and in this case God, through the agency of the divine Spirit, supplied the animating principle instead of a human father.”

FREE ebook: The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition. Download now.

According to the New Testament, was Joseph Jesus’ biological father or just his adoptive father?

The annunciation stories in Matthew and Luke claim that Jesus was conceived without a human father, but later in the Gospel of Luke, Joseph is listed as Jesus’ parent and father (Luke 2:27, 33, 48; 4:22). Indeed, through Joseph’s lineage, Jesus is shown to have descended from King David (Luke 3:23–38). Do these accounts contradict the annunciation stories?

The traditional way of reconciling these seemingly incongruous accounts is that Joseph was Jesus’ adoptive father.

In his article, Lincoln offers another way: He posits that knowing the genre of the Gospels helps make sense of this apparent contradiction. As a subset of ancient Greco-Roman biography, the Gospels can be compared to other Greco-Roman biographies, such as Plutarch’s biographies of Theseus, Romulus and Alexander the Great. In these examples, the central character is given two conception stories, one natural and the other supernatural.

Read “Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible” by Lawrence Mykytiuk from the January/February 2015 issue of BAR >>

Dual conception stories for the same figure was not uncommon in Greco-Roman biographies, and Lincoln suggests that this was a way of assigning significance and worth to those “who were perceived to have achieved greatness in their later lives.” In this genre, those who accomplished great things in their adult lives deserved an equally great—even supernatural—conception story.

Lincoln’s approach is certainly intriguing—especially when applied to the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. To read Lincoln’s entire treatment of the matter and learn more about what early Christians thought about conception, read the full article “How Babies Were Made in Jesus’ Time” by Andrew Lincoln in the November/December 2014 issue of BAR.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on November 3, 2014.

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Three Versions of the Family Tree of Jesus

Can Scholars Take the Virgin Birth Seriously?

How Early Christians Viewed the Birth of Jesus

Did Sarah Have a Seminal Emission?

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Where Was Jesus Born?

Megan Sauter — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 11:00:46 +0000

Where was Jesus born? In the Bible, Jesus’ birthplace is identified as Bethlehem. This scene from the Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel in Padua by the Italian artist Giotto shows Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the Bethlehem stable. The three wise men, along with their caravan, and angels gather around the child. Above the stable, Haley’s comet streaks across the sky. Haley’s comet was sighted in 1301, three years before Giotto painted this scene.

When the Christmas season draws near each year, the Nativity story is revisited in churches and households around the world. Passages from Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2, the infancy narratives in the Gospels, are read and sung—and even acted out in Christmas pageants.

Where was Jesus born? In the Bible, the answer seems straightforward: Bethlehem. Both Matthew 2 and Luke 2 state that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea.

However, Biblical scholarship has called the identification of Bethlehem as Jesus’ birthplace into question: If Jesus was indeed born in Bethlehem, why is he called a Nazorean and a Galilean throughout the New Testament, and why is Bethlehem not mentioned as Jesus’ birthplace outside of the infancy narratives in the Gospels? This has caused some to wonder if Jesus was actually born in Nazareth.

In the November/December 2014 issue of BAR, Philip J. King addresses this question—where was Jesus born—in his Biblical Views column “Jesus’ Birthplace and Jesus’ Home.” He takes a close look at what the Bible says about the towns of Bethlehem, traditionally Jesus’ birthplace, and Nazareth, Jesus’ home.

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While Bethlehem in Judea was known in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament as being the birthplace of King David and the birthplace of the future messiah, the small village of Nazareth in Galilee was much lesser-known, not even warranting a mention in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud or in the writings of Josephus. King explains, “Nazareth derives its importance entirely from its relationship to the life and teaching of Jesus.”

The contrast between Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David, and Nazareth, a small agricultural village, is obvious. Yet both sites were significant in the life of Jesus.

So if Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as the Gospels of Matthew and Luke attest, why was he called a Nazorean? To see what Philip J. King thinks—and for more information about the Biblical towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth—read the full column “Jesus’ Birthplace and Jesus’ Home” in the November/December 2014 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Subscribers: Read the full column “Jesus’ Birthplace and Jesus’ Home,” by Philip J. King in the November/December 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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The Birth of Jesus

The Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke—Of History, Theology and Literature

How Early Christians Viewed the Birth of Jesus

Different Ways of Looking at the Birth of Jesus

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on November 17, 2014.

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Gospel of John Commentary: Who Wrote the Gospel of John and How Historical Is It?

BAS Staff — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 11:00:42 +0000

The evangelist John rests one hand on his gospel book, in this 83-inch-tall marble sculpture carved by Donatello in about 1415 for a niche in the facade of the Cathedral of Florence. Scholars writing Gospel of John commentary often grapple with the question: Who wrote the Gospel of John? Photo: Erich Lessing

The Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, tell the story of the life of Jesus. Yet only one—the Gospel of John—claims to be an eyewitness account, the testimony of the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved.” (“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true” [John 21:24]). “Who wrote the Gospel of John?” is a question that remains unanswered, though noted theologians throughout the ages maintain that it was indeed the disciple John who penned the famous Biblical book.

Gospel of John commentary is easy to find—some of the most famous theologians in history have closely examined the text and underscored its importance from as early as the beginning of the third century. It is believed that Origen, an Alexandrian Christian scholar and theologian, wrote his Gospel of John commentary while in Alexandria at some point after 218 A.D. St. Augustine—a famous fourth century church father—contributed no fewer than 124 tractates in his Gospel of John commentary, while St. Thomas’s Gospel of John commentary of the 13th century is still highly regarded today by modern scholars.

We may never know for certain who wrote the Gospel of John, any more than we can know who wrote the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. We do know that John is a gospel apart, however. Early Matthew, Mark and Luke are so alike in their telling that they are called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning “seen together”—the parallels are clear when they are looked at side by side. Matthew and Luke follow the version of events in Mark, which is thought by scholars to be the earliest and most historically accurate Gospel. John, however, does not include the same incidents or chronology found in the other three Gospels, and the fact that it is so different has spurred a debate over whether John’s Gospel is historical or not, something that has been noted in Gospel of John commentary for hundreds—even thousands—of years.

Several hypotheses have attempted to explain why so much of Jesus’ life not portrayed in the Synoptics is present in John and vice versa. One hypothesis claims that John recorded many of the events that occurred before the arrest of John the Baptist, while the Synoptics all have Jesus’ ministry beginning only after the arrest. Another holds that John was written last, by someone who knew about the other three Gospels, but who wished to write a spiritual gospel instead of an historical one. This would mean that the person who wrote the Gospel of John would not have been a contemporary of Jesus, and therefore would not have been an eyewitness as the author claims. There is also the possibility that the author of John did not know of Mark and hence did not have the same information.

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One of the facts in dispute among the four Gospels is the length of Jesus’ ministry. According to the Synoptics, it lasted only about a year, while John has Jesus ministering between two and three years. The Jesus of John’s telling also knew Jerusalem well and had traveled there three or four times. The Synoptics, however, have Jesus visit Jerusalem only once. In John, Jesus had friends near Jerusalem, including Mary, Martha and Lazarus of the town of Bethany, which is just outside of the city on the east slope of the Mount of Olives.

The author of John also knew Jerusalem well, as is evident from the geographic and place name information throughout the book. He mentions, among others, the Sheep Gate Pool (Bethesda), the Siloam Pool and Jacob’s Well. The geographic specificity lends credence to the John’s account.

Another aspect of John that may be more historically accurate than the Synoptics is the account of the crucifixion and the events that led up to it. The Synoptics say that Jesus’ Last Supper was the Passover meal—held that year on a Thursday evening (Jewish holidays begin at sunset)—and they would have us believe that the Sanhedrin, the high court, gathered at the beginning of a major holiday to interrogate Jesus and hand him over to the Romans. John, in contrast, has Jesus handed over for crucifixion on “the day of Preparation of Passover week, about the sixth hour.” According to John, the Last Supper is not a Passover meal (because the holiday that year did not start until Friday evening), and Jesus is crucified and buried before Passover begins. In John’s account Jesus becomes the Passover sacrificial lamb, which was offered the afternoon before the Passover holiday. Some scholars suggest that John may be more historical regarding the crucifixion than the other three Gospels.

Given John’s familiarity with Jerusalem and its environs, it is very possible that he had visited the Pool of Siloam, which he mentions in connection with the story of the curing of the blind man (a story that appears only in John’s Gospel). It is that pool that has only recently been uncovered, as described in the accompanying article.

For more on the question of John’s historical reliability, see D. Moody Smith, “John: Historian or Theologian?” Bible Review, October 2004.

Based on “How Historical is the Gospel of John?” Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2005.

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The Canonical Gospels

The Un-Gospel of John

John the Baptist’s Cave

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This Bible History Daily article was originally published in March 2012.

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Jesus as Lord of the Dance

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Sun, 26 May 2024 04:00:42 +0000

A page from the Qasr el-Wizz Codex. Credit: Péter Hubai, A Megváltó a keresztről: Kopt apokrifek Núbiából (A Kasr El-Wizz kódex) (Cahiers Patristiques, Textes Coptes; Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2006); from http://alinsuciu.com/2012/10/04/george-hughes-translation-of-a-coptic-apocryphal-manuscript-the-qasr-el-wizz-codex/ (accessed 8/7/2014).

Early Christian worship was diverse and frequently intense. Some aspects, such as the charisms (“spiritual gifts”) described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, might take on very different forms from meeting to meeting; others, such as baptism and the Eucharist, developed more standardized forms even as the movement spread. Yet even these core rituals encompassed radically different practices and meanings. Some groups, for example, used water rather than wine in the Eucharist, in keeping with a broader emphasis on moderation in food and abstention from sex.

Other ancient Christian rituals are less familiar, sometimes because they were associated with groups eventually labeled as heretical and persecuted. Thus, the ritual of the Bridal Chamber, as practiced by Valentinians, can only be reconstructed through brief and uncertain references in texts such as the Gospel of Philip.

Perhaps the most famous of these “alternative” rituals is the dance of Jesus and the apostles as portrayed in the Acts of John, a vivid and imaginative second-century description of the apostle’s missionary journey. In one section, the apostle John recalls how, on the night before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus commanded the apostles to form a circle around him, and to dance as he sang a hymn to which they responded in a series of “Amens.”

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Most scholars agree that this fascinating text functioned as an etiology (a foundational narrative) for a ritual of dance. Like the Eucharist, it is instituted on Jesus’ last night with the apostles, and the event is described as a “mystery.” Because the apostles are enjoined to keep silent about their dance, and terms such as “Ogdoad” (the eighth heaven) are used in the corresponding hymn, some have argued that the ritual was “gnostic,” and that its disappearance was linked to the persecution and eventual disappearance of such groups under the Christian Roman Empire. Indeed, a clear allusion to the dance scene from the Acts of John is found in the psalms of the Manichaeans, archetypical heretics who were liable to capital punishment and the burning of their books.

“New” evidence has complicated this picture, namely the recent publication of a Coptic manuscript (see image above), dated to approximately the ninth century, containing a very similar dance scene. The manuscript was discovered in an abandoned monastery at Qasr el-Wizz—a settlement in Nobadia, the northernmost of the three medieval Christian kingdoms of Nubia—during rescue excavations in the 1960s (the site is now under Lake Nasser near the southern borders of Egypt). One of the texts, which scholars call the Dance of the Savior, features a dance similar to the one in the Acts of John. As the apostles circle around, Jesus addresses the cross in a series of short hymns, proclaiming the glory and triumph of the crucifixion.

Is it possible to identify the first-century man named Jesus behind the many stories and traditions about him that developed over 2,000 years in the Gospels and church teachings? Visit the Jesus/Historical Jesus study page to read free articles on Jesus in Bible History Daily.

Dance scene from the Monastery of Antony the Great at Old Dongola. Click for a larger view. Credit: D. Zielińska, courtesy Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology Archive.

The presence of the dance scene in a Coptic text from the Qasr el-Wizz monastery suggests that ritual dance enjoyed a place in established, orthodox Christianity, not only in medieval Nubia, where the manuscript was found, but also in late Roman Egypt, where it was originally composed. Indeed, while apocryphal texts are themselves generally associated with heresy, I have argued that many non-canonical texts such as the Dance of the Savior were produced and promoted by bishops, and employed liturgically in places like churches and martyr shrines. In the Christian Roman Empire, liturgical dancing was a part of common events such as saints’ festivals. Some polemicists saw this as an inappropriate expression of piety, uncomfortably close to pagan traditions like pantomime or Dionysian revelries. But it was also related to imperial celebrations: In 630 C.E. the emperor Heraclius is said to have danced in front of the Cross when it was returned to Jerusalem from Persian captivity, presumably in imitation of King David’s dance before the Ark of the Covenant.

The role of dance in the medieval Nubian liturgy is uncertain. The victorious cross, which is celebrated in the Dance of the Savior, was a central theme in Old Nubian literature and art; as in Roman Egypt, it was probably associated with royal authority. A painting recently discovered by a team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology during their excavations of the Monastery of Anthony the Great at Old Dongola, capital of the central Nubian kingdom Makuria, suggests that dance played an important role there as well (see second image). Some of the dancing figures are masked, and others play musical instruments. The accompanying Old Nubian inscriptions are still being deciphered. While it is unlikely that this practice was directly related to the ancient traditions of Jesus’s dance with the apostles, apocryphal texts such as the Dance of the Savior offers legitimation for similar rituals in diverse pre-modern cultural contexts.

Paul Dilley is an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa with a joint appointment in the departments of religious studies and classics. His research specialty is ancient Mediterranean religions, including early Christianity. His blog, www.hieroilogoi.org, covers digital resources for the religions of Late Antiquity. Follow him on Twitter @BabelAlexandria.

Learn about the Nag Hammadi codices and Gnostic Christianity in Bible History Daily.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on August 8, 2014.

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The Virgin Mary and the Prophet Muhammad

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Tue, 14 May 2024 13:00:36 +0000

The Virgin Mary and the prophet Muhammad have a lot in common within their respective Christian and Islamic traditions, according to author Mary Joan Winn Leith. Photo: Detail of Fra Filippo Lippi’s “The Annunciation,” courtesy National Gallery, London.

With another Christmas season upon us and Christmas carols in the air, I am struck anew at how much, within their respective traditions, the Virgin Mary and the prophet Muhammad have in common. I hasten to note that I am not suggesting that Mary and Muhammad are of equal importance in their traditions—just that there are some interesting commonalities; and, of course, both Islam and Christianity honor Mary as the virgin who miraculously conceived and gave birth to Jesus, but I want to pursue a different angle here.

The similarities I have in mind first occurred to me when I was teaching the Qur’an’s Sura 97 (al-Qadr, “Destiny”). This is the Sura that extolls the holiest night of the Muslim calendar, the Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Destiny) when Muhammad received the first revelation of the Qur’an. The connection I see between Mary and Muhammad centers on the significance of the Word of God in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Basic to all three religious traditions is the understanding that God, impelled by compassion, reveals to humans the way to salvation. The traditions use different theological terminology (redemption, salvation, eternal life, etc.), but in essence, God’s revelation gives humans the knowledge and means to overcome the sorrow, pain and death that constitute the human condition. All three traditions describe this revelation as the Word of God.

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From the Jewish and Muslim perspective, this is quite straightforward. Both the Torah, given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and the Qur’an, disclosed by God in visions to Muhammad, are literally words from God. The Christian revelation is also the Word of God, but in Christianity the Word of God happens not to be a text but a person—Jesus. For example, the Gospel of John famously opens with the explanation, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). For Christians, Jesus is the “Word” that became flesh, or, to use another Christian term, Jesus is the “incarnation” (the “enfleshment”) of God. In a very real sense, then, both Mary and Muhammad are the mediators, the “middle person” (“middleman” doesn’t work here) between God and humanity.

Both are the bearers of a message from God that cannot be delivered to humans on earth without the agency of a human body. Mary literally bears the Word of God in her womb and—to use the archaic sense of the word—Mary is “delivered” of the Word of God when she gives birth to Jesus. Similarly, the earthly human capacity for hearing and speech allows Muhammad to bear and deliver the Word of God to the people of Mecca and Medina. It is significant, I think, that neither “deliverer” is considered to be divine, yet, from the earliest centuries of their respective religions, each was accorded a unique status hovering in the liminal area between human and divine.

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In a detail of Jean Patinir’s “Rest on the Flight to Egypt,” the farmer, the soldiers and both the bare and the wheat-filled field are seen. The soldiers, looking for Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, believed no one was hiding in the wheat-filled field.

Because Mary and Muhammad in their roles as mediators by definition experienced a direct encounter with the divine, both faiths came to believe that they must have enjoyed an exceptional degree of purity. Mary’s purity of course, is her virginity, a physical state which Christians, under the influence of Greco-Roman thought, associated with spiritual perfection and sinlessness. As for Muhammad, his purity had nothing to do with sexuality; after all, he married a number of wives, including even some widows. Muhammad’s exceptional purity has to do with knowledge, which initially may seem to be a peculiar form of purity. However, it is an article of faith in Islam that the words of the Qur’an are God’s, not Muhammad’s, and the proof of this among Muslims is the conviction that Muhammad could not read or write; he was, so to speak, a virgin from the point of view of education. No human father contributed to the incarnation of Jesus, and no human artistry had any role in the creation of the Qur’an.

Beyond the complexities of theology and belief, surprisingly similar legends—neither story is in the Bible or the Qur’an—arose around Mary and Muhammad stemming from the fact that both had to flee for their lives. According to medieval tradition, as Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus fled from King Herod barely ahead of his soldiers, they came upon a farmer sowing his field. “Please don’t tell the soldiers you saw anyone come by,” they begged. The farmer, however, was too frightened to help them. When the soldiers arrived and asked whether the farmer had seen the fugitives, the farmer told the truth; “I saw them as I was sowing this field.” The soldiers, seeing the field, turned back. The wheat field was ready for harvest so they concluded that no one could have passed by anytime recently (see image above). Muhammad had to elude Meccan authorities who wanted to prevent him from making the Hijra (emigration) to Medina where he would found the first fully Muslim community (and whose date serves as the zero point on the Muslim calendar). Muslims love to tell the story of Muhammad and his companion Abu Bakr who had scarcely entered a cave to hide when the Meccans rode up. Having inspected the cave entrance, the pursuers rode on; the huge spider web across the mouth of the cave told them that no one had entered it in years.

This illustration depicts the Muslim tradition of the “Miracle of the Cave,” when Muhammad and Abu Bakr hid in a cave to elude Meccan authorities during the Hijra. The spider webs covering the cave entrance led the authorities to believe no one was in the cave. Photo: Desmond Stewart, Early Islam (Great Ages of Man), (New York: Time, Inc., 1967).

Finally, let me return to the Christmas carols and to Sura 97 that I mentioned at the start of this essay. Consider these lines from “Silent Night”:

Silent night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright…
Sleep in heavenly peace…
Heavenly hosts sing alleluia.

Or these from “Little Town of Bethlehem”:

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie…
But in those dark streets shineth the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Here is how the Qur’an describes the Night of Destiny:

Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Destiny.
Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Night of Destiny is!
The Night of Destiny is better than a thousand months.
The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.
(The night is) Peace until the rising of the dawn.

The peace of the season to all!

Mary Joan Winn Leith is chair of the department of religious studies at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. At Stonehill, she teaches courses on the Bible and the religion, history and culture of the Ancient Near East and Greece. In addition, she offers a popular course on the Virgin Mary. Leith is a regular Biblical Views columnist for Biblical Archaeology Review.

This Bible History Daily article was originally published on December 16, 2014.

The Nag Hammadi Codices and Gnostic Christianity

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 18:15:59 +0000

The Nag Hammadi texts were contained in 13 leather-bound volumes discovered by Egyptian farmers in 1945. Dated papyrus scraps used to strengthen the bindings of the books helped date the volumes to the mid-fourth century A.D. Photo: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA.

Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, the Gnostic view of early Christianity had largely been forgotten. The teachings of Gnostic Christianity—vilified especially since they were declared heretic by orthodox Christianity in the fourth century—had been virtually erased from history by the early church fathers, their gospels banned and even burned to make room for the view of Christian theology outlined in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

But when two peasants discovered the Nag Hammadi texts, a 13-volume library of Coptic texts hidden beneath a large boulder near the town of Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, the world was reintroduced to this long-forgotten and much-maligned branch of early Christian thought, Gnostic Christianity, from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge.” The Nag Hammadi codices are 13 leather-bound volumes dated to the mid-fourth century that contain an unprecedented collection of more than 50 texts, including some that had been composed as early as the second century.

Our free eBook Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries brings together the exciting worlds of archaeology and the Bible! Learn the fascinating insights gained from artifacts and ruins, like the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where the Gospel of John says Jesus miraculously restored the sight of the blind man, and the Tel Dan inscription—the first historical evidence of King David outside the Bible.

The Nag Hammadi codices, detail Photo: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA.

Once the Nag Hammadi codices had been translated and published by a team of scholars led by Claremont Graduate University’s James M. Robinson, the documents showed that Gnostic Christianity was not the depraved cult described by orthodox Christian writers but rather a legitimate religious movement that offered an alternate testament to Jesus’ life and teachings.
The Nag Hammadi texts, which represent a range of attitudes and beliefs in Gnostic Christianity and include everything from competing gospels to apocalyptic revelations, all assert the primacy of spiritual and intellectual knowledge over physical action and material well-being. The Apocryphon of John, for example, is the most important tractate of classic Sethian Gnosticism. In it the risen Jesus reveals to John, son of Zebedee, the truth of creation.

The Nag Hammadi codices contain more than 50 early Christian texts, including the Gospel of Thomas. The forgotten gospel preserves sayings of Jesus that were not included in the canonical Gospels. Photo: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA.

According to this Gnostic myth, the God of the Hebrew Bible is actually a corrupted lower deity. Only through the intervention of Sophia (Wisdom) can gnosis be revealed and salvation attained. Thus, while adherents of Gnostic Christianity certainly acknowledged the role of Jesus in their faith, their theology placed greater significance on the intellectual revelation of his message than on his crucifixion and resurrection.

Also among the Nag Hammadi texts was the fully preserved Gospel of Thomas, which does not follow the canonical Gospels in telling the story of Jesus’ birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, but rather presents the reader with an early collection of Jesus’ sayings. Although this mystical text was originally believed to one of the early texts of Gnosticism, it now seems to reveal yet another strand of early Christianity.
From a historical perspective, the Nag Hammadi codices provide a clearer picture of the diverse theological and philosophical currents that found expression through early Christianity. Indeed, Gnosticism and its classically inspired philosophical ideals permeated not just early Christian thought but also the Jewish and pagan traditions from which Christianity arose. The Nag Hammadi codices, widely regarded as one of the most significant finds of the 20th century, revealed this complex religious milieu and offered an unparalleled glimpse into alternative visions of early Christianity.

——————
Based on “Issue 200: Ten Top Discoveries,” Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August September/October 2009.

The apocryphal Acts of John describe the dance of Jesus and the apostles. How widespread was the ritual of dance in Christian worship? Read “Jesus as Lord of the Dance: From early Christianity to medieval Nubia” in Bible History Daily.

^{This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in March 2011.}

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Witnessing the Divine

Biblical Archaeology Society Staff — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 15:31:29 +0000

Read Robin M. Jensen’s article “Witnessing the Divine” as it originally appeared in Bible Review, December 2001.—Ed.

Joseph, Mary and the three magi gaze at the newborn babe in Italian artist Andrea Mantegna’s “Adoration of the Magi” (c. 1500). The magi proffer precious gifts: a fine Chinese porcelain bowl filled with gold coins; a censer (for frankincense) made of Turkish tambac ware (an alloy of copper); and a green agate vessel, presumably filled with myrrh. Photo: Collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum.

The magi lend an exotic and mysterious air to the Christmas story. The sweet domesticity of mother and child and the bucolic atmosphere of shepherds and stable are disturbed by the arrival of these strangers from the East. The background music changes from major to minor. Sentiment gives way to awe, perhaps even fear.

Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, the legend of the magi has fired the imagination of Christians since the earliest times. In art, the adoration of the magi appeared earlier and far more frequently than any other scene of Jesus’ birth and infancy, including images of the babe in a manger. The artistic evidence suggests that the early church attributed great theological importance to the story of Jesus’ first visitors—an importance not overtly stated in this enigmatic gospel account of omens and dreams, astrological signs and precious gifts, fear and flight. To understand how the earliest Christians interpreted the message of the magi, we must look to early Christian literature (theological treatises, sermons and poetry)—and art.

“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the East came to Jerusalem asking: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage.”

So opens the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the only biblical account of this nocturnal visit. In vivid contrast to Luke’s gospel,^a Matthew omits any mention of Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem to be registered, a crowded inn, a sheltering manger, or watching shepherds startled by an angel’s announcement of the messiah’s birth. Instead, the first gospel focuses on the journey of these eastern emissaries, who see an unusual star rising, interpret it as an omen that they should investigate, and follow its path first to King Herod of Judea and then to Bethlehem, where it appears to stop above a house in which a child had recently been born. Entering the house, the men pay homage to the babe and offer him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then they leave, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, who has hatched an evil plot that will lead to the slaughter of innocent children, the weeping of their mothers.

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Three shadowy figures (shown here, compare with photo of the Catacomb of Priscilla) approach the Virgin and child, seated at right. Dating to the mid-third century C.E., this fresco from the Catacomb of Priscilla is the earliest known image of the magi, which later became the most common scene of Jesus’ birth and childhood in early Christian art. Photo: Scala/Art Resource.

As shown in this photo, the painting appears above an arch in the oldest section of the catacomb, the Capella Graeca, which is lined with benches—perhaps for ancient funerary meals. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

The earliest extant portrayal (see photo of fresco from the Catacomb of Priscilla) of the magi, dated to the mid-third century, appears above an arch in the Catacomb of Priscilla, in Rome.¹ As in almost all the early images of the magi, they are shown as three men, identical in size, dress (although the color of their clothing varies in the catacomb painting) and race. Each carries a gift. It is difficult to discern the presents in the faded catacomb painting, but usually in art one of them carries a wreath and the others a bowl, jug or box-shaped object. The magi advance in a line toward the child seated on his mother’s lap. In many early images, they appear to point or gaze at a star overhead. Sometimes their camels appear behind them, as in a fourth-century sarcophagus relief in the Vatican Museums (see photo of fourth-century sarcophagus). The early images almost always appear in funerary settings—on catacomb walls and sarcophagi. The magi scene is among the first narrative images to appear in Christian art, and predates most other New Testament scenes as well as any other representation of Jesus’ nativity (a unique fresco [not shown] of Balaam and the Virgin with child in the Catacomb of Priscilla may be the exception). The complex composition and emphasis on narrative detail provide further evidence of the import the story held.

Angels flank the enthroned Mary and Jesus in this sixth-century mosaic from Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. The magi, followed by wreath-carrying female martyrs, press toward them. The names of the magi do not appear in the New Testament, nor does the number. The Gospel of Matthew speaks simply of “magi from the East.” By the second century, they were identified as three; by the fifth, they were identified as kings and, in the West, given the names Balthassar, Melchior and Gaspar, which appear above the magi (perhaps as a late addition) in this mosaic. Here, Balthassar is shown with a long brown beard. Melchior is a clean-shaven youth. Gaspar has long gray hair; over time, he would become the balding man who kneels before the babe in countless Renaissance images. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

By the fifth century, Christian art had spread from catacombs and sarcophagi to vast public spaces, and the magi began to appear in the mosaic decorations of the first great basilicas. These mosaics share the same basic composition seen in earlier funerary art. In a sixth-century mosaic from the church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, in Ravenna, Italy, for example, the magi appear as extravagantly dressed triplets, bearing their gifts in fluted vessels as they press forward, gazing up at the star.^b Before them, the baby Jesus is seated on Mary’s lap, flanked by angels.

The magi of the Ravenna mosaic may be distinguished only by their hair (one has long brown hair and a beard; one is a clean-shaven youth; the third is an elderly man, his hair greying) and their names (most likely a later addition), which are inscribed above them: Balthassar, Melchior and Gaspar (often spelled Caspar).

Neither their names, their number (three), their physical descriptions nor the date of the magi’s arrival appears in the Bible. Over time these cherished traditions were added to the brief gospel narrative, probably first through oral tradition. By the fourth century, the magi’s arrival was celebrated as the Feast of Epiphany on January 6 (12 days after Jesus’ birth on December 25).² (Even today, in some parts of the Christian world, January 6, rather than December 25, is a time for exchanging presents, in commemoration of the gifts of the magi.)

Their assumed number was undoubtedly derived from the three gifts presented to Jesus in Matthew. The number wasn’t always taken for granted, however. A wall painting in the Roman catacomb of Domitilla shows four magi; one in the catacomb of Peter and Marcellinus depicts two. A variety of Syrian documents name twelve.³
The names and nationalities of the magi also varied throughout the world, especially in the East.⁴ An Armenian infancy gospel^c from about 500 lists them as Melkon, King of Persia; Gaspar, King of India; and Baldassar, King of Arabia—and is thus closest to the Melchior, Caspar (or Gaspar) and Balthassar of the medieval Latin church.

As this Armenian infancy gospel indicates, the “magi,” a Greek term that might be taken as “sages” or “astrologers” (perhaps even “priests”), had come to be identified with royalty. In 490, the Byzantine emperor Zeno claimed to discover the remains of these “kings” somewhere in Persia and brought them to Constantinople. The relics eventually reached the West during the Crusades—first traveling to Milan and then subsequently to Cologne by Frederick Barbarossa in 1164. Today, they reside in Cologne, in a magnificent reliquary shrine built for them in the late 12th century. There they are known to pilgrims and tourists as the “Three Kings of Cologne.”⁵

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It took centuries for these traditions to develop, however. In one of the earliest extrabiblical accounts of their journey, the apocryphal infancy gospel known as the Protevangelium of James, the magi remain unnamed and unnumbered.^d This text, which was probably composed in Syria in about the mid-second century, only expands slightly on Matthew by describing the place where Jesus was born as a cave, rather than a house. (This detail will be familiar to modern pilgrims to Bethlehem who have been ushered into the small cave beneath the Church of the Nativity, where tradition locates Jesus’ birth.) The Protevangelium also elaborates on the appearance of the star: The magi tell Herod that all the other stars dimmed in comparison.⁶
The early church fathers interpreted the magi story in light of Old Testament prophecy. Christians understood the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures (the Septuagint) to be a sacred text that contained types and figures pointing to the coming of Jesus as Messiah.

Justin Martyr (died c. 165), in his dialogue with a Jew named Trypho, interprets the magi as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy regarding the coming of the messiah. Justin cites Isaiah 8:4, where the prophet predicts that “before the child knows how to call ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.” For Justin, the magi were priests of an eastern cult and practitioners of magic and astrology. The wealth of Damascus and spoils of Samaria represented the sorcery and idol-worship that the pagan magi gave up when they worshiped Jesus. The magi’s visit to the crib was thus their moment of conversion and the renunciation of their misguided, idolatrous practices. And so Justin reads Matthew’s story as a sign to the world that Christianity was the true and pure faith.⁷

The fresco shown here depicts the three youths who refused to worship an idol in the Persian court (Daniel 3). They were thrown into a fiery furnace, where they were saved only by invoking the name of the Israelite God. In this painting, a Persian official stands to their right, pointing at the idol, which is shown as an imperial bust. Photo: Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra.

In this fresco, the three magi appear almost identical to the three youths. These fourth-century paintings appear together in the Catacomb of Marcus and Marcellianus in Rome. According to the second-century church father Justin Martyr, the magi were pagan sorcerers and astrologers from the East. When they saw the babe, they renounced their pagan ways. Like the three youths, they recognized the true God and refused to commit idolatry. Photo: Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra.

Writing from Carthage a generation after Justin, the apostolic father Tertullian expanded on Justin’s arguments, suggesting that the magi’s dream instructing them to go home by another route was not only to be understood literally, but as an admonition to forsake their former idolatrous habits and practices.⁸
This popular interpretation is reflected in art, which often links the three magi with the three Hebrew youths in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) and with Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6)—all easterners (Daniel and the Hebrew youths lived in the Persian court) who used their gifts of prophecy, dream interpretation and perhaps even magic to resist the evil of pagan idolatry. In art, the magi and these figures are connected in two ways: First, the magi, like the three youths, are usually garbed in the clothing that Romans associated with Persians and other easterners: short, belted tunics, cloaks pinned at one shoulder, soft pointed boots and peaked caps.⁹ Second, images of the magi are often paired with the three youths or Daniel, as in the fourth-century catacomb of Marcus and Marcellianus, in Rome (see photos, above), where paintings of the magi and the three youths are grouped together. In at least one image, the three youths from Daniel and the magi are conflated: On a fourth-century sarcophagus relief from St. Gilles, France, three men in eastern dress turn away from an idol and toward a star (see photo, below).¹⁰

The parallel between the three youths and the three magi is made sharper in a fourth-century sarcophagus relief from St. Gilles, in Arles, France. Here, three eastern men turn away from a Persian official standing beside an idol and point toward the Star of Bethlehem. Photo: Sarcophages Chretiens de la Gaule.

The magi’s special role as witnesses to the true faith was also noted by the church father Origen, who read the magi’s stories in light of the prophecies of Balaam. According to Origen, after the star appeared to the magi, they noticed that their magic spells faltered and their power was sapped. Consulting their books, they discovered the prophecy of the oracle-reader Balaam, who saw a rising star “com[ing] out of Jacob” (Numbers 24:17) that indicated the advent of a great ruler of Israel. The magi thus conjectured that this ruler had entered the world. So, the magi traveled to Judea to find this ruler, and based on their reading of Balaam’s prophecy, the appearance of the comet and their loss of strength, they determined that he must be superior to any ordinary human—that his nature must be both human and divine.¹¹ The magi, for Origen, are not simply Jesus’ first visitors, but the first to recognize Jesus as messiah.

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Whether or not Matthew intended to link Balaam’s star with the magi’s, the early church certainly did. Balaam’s figure may be barely discerned behind Mary and Jesus in the painting (see photo of fresco from the Catacomb of Priscilla) of the Adoration from the Catacomb of Priscilla. He also appears on the fourth-century funerary epitaph of a woman named Severa, where Balaam stands behind Mary, pointing at the star as the magi approach (see photo of inscription from fourth-century funerary plaque).¹²
By the third century, biblical interpreters were finding echoes of Psalm 72 in the narrative of the three gift-bearing visitors: “May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all kings fall down before him, may all nations serve him” (Psalm 72:10–11). The magi were identified as these kings of “all nations” who worshiped the Christian messiah, bowing down to give him homage. They became a potent sign that Christ’s salvation was predicted and open to the whole world. The rising of the new star marked the coming of the new age envisioned in the Old Testament.

“Severa—may you live in God” reads the inscription on this fourth-century funerary plaque from the Catacomb of Priscilla, in Rome. Severa appears at left; at right is the familiar magi scene, with an unusual addition: A man standing behind Mary points out the star. Although some believe that this is Joseph, others think it is the prophet Balaam, who predicted that a rising star coming out of Jacob would herald a great ruler of Israel (Numbers 24:17). Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

The passage from Psalms cemented the magi’s identification as kings and led to a fresh understanding of their origins.¹³ The earliest writers had understood the magi to come from one region (usually identified as Persia).¹⁴ But in the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon historian and theologian known as the Venerable Bede recorded a later tradition that the three magi signified the three parts of the world—Africa, Asia and Europe—and that they thus might be linked with the sons of Noah, who fathered the three races of Earth (Genesis 10).

This development is also reflected in art. In the earliest sarcophagi reliefs and catacomb paintings, the magi appear to be three of a kind, all in “eastern” dress. Gradually, however, each acquires distinguishing characteristics. As we have seen, in the sixth-century mosaic from Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, the magi are represented as being different ages, with different color hair. By the 14th century, one of the three would appear as black (see photo of Andrea Mantegna’s “Adoration of the Magi”).¹⁵ As “kings” of all nations, the men also wear elaborate golden crowns in many later paintings (see the cover of this issue).¹⁶

This 15th-century Nativity scene includes the Trinity: God the Father appears at top, surrounded by a host of cherubim; the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends on golden rays; and the Son is cradled in the wings of angels. Early Christian writers noted that the magi were the first witnesses to the Trinity. Their affiliation with the Trinity, suggests author Robin Jensen, might explain why they are almost always depicted as three. This illumination appears in the prayerbook Les Très Riches Heures, produced by the Limbourg Brothers for the French Duke of Berry. It is now in the Musée Condé, in Chantilly, France. Photo: Giraudon/Art Resource, NY.

What may be the most impressive and influential understanding of the magi weaves together many of the interpretations expressed by the church fathers: that the magi were the world’s first witnesses to the Trinity. This explains their appearance in almost all artistic images and literary traditions as three men, different, but alike.

The fourth and fifth centuries (when many of the images of the magi shown here were made) were a time of great theological debate—first over the relationships of the three persons of the Trinity, and subsequently about the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ. As the first visitors to recognize who this newborn child was, and what his birth would mean to the whole world, the witness of the magi was not insignificant to these controversies. Their three gifts seemed to demonstrate their prescient understanding of the three distinct persons who shared a single “nature” within the Trinity, as well as the different roles of the two separate but inseparable natures in the single person—the incarnate Jesus.

The second-century church father Irenaeus of Lyons alluded to this role of the magi in his allegorical interpretation of the magi’s gifts. According to Irenaeus, the magi offered Jesus myrrh (used for anointing corpses) to indicate that he was to die and be buried for the sake of mortal humans, gold because he was a king of an eternal kingdom, and frankincense (burnt on altars as divine offerings) because he was a god.¹⁷

Pope Leo the Great, whose writings on the divine and human nature of Jesus influenced the final formula for the orthodox Chalcedonian creed (451), wove together the ideas of Irenaeus (on Jesus’ nature) and Justin (on the renunciation of idolatry) when he emphasized that the conversion of the magi provides proof of Jesus’ two-fold nature (human and divine) as well as his status as king (both Davidic and heavenly). In addition, Leo hints that the journey of the magi to Jesus could be interpreted as an allegory of the journey of the individual soul to God, as the star’s light still might penetrate both the human mind and heart, showing it the way to truth. In his sermons on the Epiphany, Leo wrote:

How did it come to be that these men, who left their home country without having seen Jesus, and had not noticed anything in his appearance to enforce such systematic adoration, offered these particular gifts? It was the star that attracted their eyes, but the rays of truth also penetrated their hearts, so that before they started on their toilsome journey, they first understood that the One who was promised was owed gold as royalty, incense as divinity, and myrrh as mortal . . . and so it was of great advantage to us future people that this infant should be witnessed by these wise men.¹⁸

Centuries later, artists would depict what the magi were believed to have witnessed—the Trinity made manifest at the Nativity. The birth scene in the early-15th-century manuscript known as Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry, illuminated by the Limbourg brothers, includes God the Father in a cloud; the Spirit in the form of a descending dove; and the Son, the newborn babe lying on a bed of hay (see photo of early-15th-century Nativity scene).

The promise of salvation is represented by paired scenes of Jesus raising the dead (left) and the magi approaching the babe (right) on this fourth-century sarcophagus, from the Vatican’s Museo Pio Cristiano. As the first to recognize Jesus as messiah, the magi, according to the early church, were also the first to recognize the promise of eternal life through resurrection. This hopeful message of the magi accounts for their frequent appearance in funerary settings. Photo: Courtesy of Robin M. Jensen.

Gifted with power to divine oracles and read stars, the magi recognized the child as the messiah, as both human and divine, king and child, intimately present and cosmically meaningful, mortal and eternal. For the early church, the magi themselves came to represent the Trinity. A final image of the magi, paired on a fourth-century marble sarcophagus with a scene of Jesus raising the dead (see photo, above), reinforces why their image appears so early and so frequently in funerary settings. In recognizing the promise of a messiah who was both human and divine—and eternal—the magi provided a message of hope for both the living and the dead.

“Witnessing the Divine” by Robin M. Jensen originally appeared in Bible Review, December 2001. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily in December 2012.

Robin M. Jensen is the Luce Chancellor’s Professor of the History of Christian Art and Worship at Vanderbilt University. Her books include Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity (Baker Academic, 2012) and Understanding Early Christian Art (Routledge, 2000).

Notes:

a. On the variations in the gospel accounts of the Nativity, see “Where Was Jesus Born?” Bible Review, February 2000, a debate between Steve Mason and Jerome Murphy-O’Connor.

b. For more on the mosaics of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, see Dennis Groh, “The Arian Controversy: How It Divided Early Christianity,” Bible Review, February 1994.

c. An infancy gospel is an apocryphal (noncanonical) gospel that recounts stories about Jesus’ and Mary’s parents as well as about Jesus’ birth and childhood.

d. See Ronald Hock (article) and David Cartlidge (captions), “The Favored One,” Bible Review, June 2001.

1. The painting appears in the catacomb’s Capella Graeca. A short, general discussion of the art is found in Neil MacGregor, Seeing Salvation: Images of Christ in Art (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2000); and an older and finely detailed collection was done by Henri Leclercq, “Mages,” in the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 10.1 (1920), pp. 980–1070.

2. On the development of the feast of Epiphany (which means “appearance” or “manifestation”), and the relative place of the Nativity, the baptism of Jesus, the miracle at Cana and the arrival of the magi as celebrated on this day, see Thomas Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo, 1986), pp. 144–147, in which Talley shows that the development of January 6 as a celebration of the visit of the magi emerges when the date of the Feast of the Nativity is firmly established as December 25 (rather than January 6), and generally should be dated no earlier than the late fourth century. The Latin-speaking West shows this development earlier than the Greek or Syriac-speaking East, as shown by Augustine’s sermons and Prudentius’s hymn written for the feast of the Epiphany. See Augustine, Sermons 199, 200, 201, 202, 203 and 204; Prudentius, Hymn 12.

The determination of the 12 days between Jesus’ birth and the magi’s arrival in Bethlehem was most likely due to the reconciliation of the two different dates for Christmas in the first centuries (December 25 and January 6). Still, not everyone agreed, and different calculations remained. For instance, see Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 51.22.17, who not only argues that the magi took two years to arrive, but that they arrived on what he claimed to be the “very day of Epiphany”—the eighth day before the Ides of January, or 13 days after the increase of daylight (probably January 6 or 7, depending on which calendar he was using).

3. The unidentified author (Pseudo John Chrysostom) of the fifth- or sixth-century Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, Homily 2.2 (Patrologia Graeca 56:637–638) gives this number, probably on the basis of an apocryphal gospel attributed to Seth. This Syrian tradition had a parallel in parts of the Armenian Church. Also see the seventh- or eighth-century Chronicle of Zuqnin in which 12 magi are described as seeing different faces in the star, each a different age. Leo’s enumeration appears in Sermon 31.1, 36.1.

4. The eastern literature (Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian and Persian) contained the greatest variety in names. The first documented appearance of the names in the West seems to be in the Excerpta latin barbari, ed. Theodore Mommsen, Monumenta Germaniae Historica: AA 9, Chronica minora 1 (Berlin, 1892), p. 278 (cited by R. McNally, “The Three Holy Kings in Early Irish Writing,” in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, ed. Patrick Granfield and Josef Jungmann, [Münster/Westfalen, 1970], vol. 2, p. 670, n. 14). A detailed study of the names of the magi is by Bruce Metzger, “Names for the Nameless in the New Testament: A Study in the Growth of Christian Tradition,” Kyriakon, vol. 1, pp. 79–85. See also Hugo Kehrer, Die Heiligen Drei Könige in Literatur und Kunst, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1908–1909; reprint: Hildesheim, 1976), vol. 1., p. 68ff; and A. Bludau, “Namen der Namenlosen in den Evangelien,” Theologie und Glaube 21 (1928), p. 275ff.

5. Richard C. Trexler, The Journey of the Magi: Meanings in History of a Christian Story (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press), pp. 44–52. In 1903 the cardinal of Cologne sent some of the relics back to Milan.

6. Protevangelium James 21.1–3, in New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 1, ed. Edgar Hennecke and Wilhelm Schneemelcher (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), p. 386.

7. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 77.4, 78.1. Although it might seem a stretch to the modern reader, Justin identifies Herod with the king of Assyria.

8. Tertullian, On Idolatry 9. This reading is repeated in the sixth century in a sermon of Caesarius of Arles, who (in his Sermon on the Epiphany, 194) describes the journey of the magi as a spiritual pilgrimage of conversion. See also Tertullian, Adversus Marcion 3.13.

9. Their outfits are also the standard costume worn by the popular mystery gods Orpheus and Mithras in late antiquity. Concerning their dress, see Thomas Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), p. 84. Here Mathews also makes this point about Orpheus. Mathews also cites Franz Cumont’s analysis of their dress as replicating that of captive barbarians. See Cumont, “L’adoration des Mages et l’art triumphal de Rome,” Memorie della Pontificia Accademia Roma di Archeologia 3 (1932–1933), pp. 81–105. On Orpheus’s role in Christian art, see Robin Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London and New York: Routledge, 2000); and M. Charles Murray, Rebirth and Afterlife: A Study of the Transmutation of Some Pagan Images in Early Christian Art (Oxford: BAR, 1981), pp. 37–63. On the comparison with Mithras, see Leroy A. Campbell, Mithraic Iconography and Ideology (Leiden: Brill, 1968).

10. Mathews (Clash, pp. 79–81) makes this point and argues against earlier analyses that the parallelism between the two sets of three orientally dressed characters was simply a case of mistaken identity. We also might recall that the three youths in the furnace were not alone. From a traditional Christian perspective, the fourth figure who appeared “like a God” (Daniel 3:25) was a precursor of Christ.

11. Origen, Contra Celsus 1.49–50. Also see Origen’s Homilies on Numbers 13.7, 15.4 on Balaam; as well as his commentary On Genesis 14.3 (in which he sees Abimelech, Ochozath and Philcol as prefiguring the magi).

12. On the story of Balaam as background to the Gospel Matthew, see Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 190–196. Also see Jerome’s Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 1.2.

13. Tertullian, for instance, in his treatise Adversus Marcion 3.13, reads Psalm 72 in this way, and understands the magi “as like kings” (fere reges). On their royal status, see also Caesarius of Arles.

14. Prudentius, for example, speaks of the magi as Persian. See Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.15; and John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 6.2.

15. See a discussion of this in The Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. Jean Vercoutter, Jean Leclant, Frank M. Snowden and Jehan Desanges (New York: Morrow, 1976), vols. 2 and 3.

16. Some art historians have claimed that the magi are supposed to look like defeated and tribute-bearing barbarians, offering their homage to an earthly ruler. See Cumont, “L’adoration des Mages et l’art triumphal de Rome,” pp. 81–105; and André Grabar, Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 44–45. This interpretation is often applied to the mosaics from Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (c. 430) and Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, where Jesus and Mary are seated on a throne. However, as Mathews argues in Clash of Gods, one may argue that the image of Jesus enthroned suggests the transcendence of imperial power rather than the ratification of it.

17. Irenaeus, Adversus omnes Haerses 3.9. In the fifth century, Leo the Great repeats this interpretation in Sermon 33, 34, 36 where he speaks of the One Person with a “three-fold function”: God, mortal human, and king. Compare Fulgentius of Ruspe (a North African writer, c. 467–533), Letter to Ferrandus 20.

18. Leo, Sermon 34.4 (my paraphrase). I have discovered that Otto Georg Von Simson made this same connection in Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948; reprint Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1987), p. 89.

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