Mary's "House" and Magi Question

[Reformed_Rob]

My pastor brought this up today, and I wanted to learn more about this, since this was the subject of his “Catholic polemic” this morning.

How many Magi came to visit Christ?
He said some early Christian writer said it was maybe 14, but popular belief holds it to be 3. Scripture doesn’t say, that he or I are aware of. The did apparently bring 3 types of gifts.

Were the Magi “Kings”?
He said that the Catholic myth was that they were kings. I was not aware that this was a “Catholic myth” This isn’t some infallible tradition is it? I doubt it. My Catholic NAB Bible footnote mentioned that the “King” myth came up by wrongly applying Psalm 72:10 to these Magi. That makes sense to me.

Did the Magi come to the barn/stable or a “house”?
Matthew 2:11 says that they “came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother;” If this is a house rather than a stable, then perhaps the “nativity” scenes are misleading. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding the nativity scenes.

Is there any other mention of the Magi in Scripture?
I’m not aware of them being mentioned in any other of the Gospel writers accounts. This makes our information source quite slim, Scripturally speaking.

Ok, that it!

 

[puzzleannie]

the point? is this preacher trying to make out that the infancy narratives in the gospels are myths? does he habitually attack all of the bible, just parts of it, or Catholic interpretation of the bible. If any of this is true about this preacher, why go to hear him?

 

[Fidelis]

The details of the story of the “3 wisemen” and the visit to a “stable” is part of Christian (not just Catholic) piety and does not have anything to do with Catholic doctrine or teaching. Your pastor is grasping at straws.

 

[Todd_Easton]

There is an article on the Magi in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia that discusses many of these points, www.newadvent.org/cathen/09527a.htm

 

[prodromos]

I’m not even sure if Tradition states how many were the Magi, but they would have had their whole entourage with them on such a long journey. While the shepherds come very soon after Jesus’ birth and find him in the stable, the magi arrive some days or even weeks later by which time most of the people who had come to Bethlehem for the purpose of the census would have left. They would have moved into a room or house by then for the well being of both mother and baby. I suspect Joseph would have found somewhere for them the very next day.

The Nativity scenes and icons pack a whole series of chronological events into one scene, incorporating the important theological points. They are theologically accurate even if they are not historically

Is this helpful?

John

 

[Irish_Melkite]

Rob,

Not trying to be a smart-aleck or anything, but even Walmart hasn’t started pushing Christmas yet . Give the man a calendar, please.

How many Magi came to visit Christ?

Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar are traditionally named, but folks have put other names and numbers to them and many cultures have folktales that tell of someone who traveled with the Magi or was supposed to do so, but was prevented by some circumstance or other, usually with consequences. The “wannabe” Magi are often associated thereafter with gift-giving, at Christmas or Epiphany, in their endless search for the Child Jesus.

Thus, in Italy, one finds “La Befana”, a kindly old witch. Legend says that she was an old woman who lived alone in the hills of Italy. One night, she noticed a bright star in the sky; later, 3 richly garbed men stopped and asked directions to Bethlehem. Told that she knew nothing of such a place, they invited her to join them in their search, but she was too busy.

After the caravan left, Befana thought about how much she missed her child who had died at a young age and regretted declining the invitation. She baked some cakes and cookies for the baby, took her broom (to help the new mother clean) and set out to find the caravan. She became lost and tired. It was then that angels appeared and gave her broom the power of flight, to speed her search. She roamed the world, hunting for the Baby and still does, after all these centuries. And each year, on the eve of Epiphany, whenever Befana comes to a house where there is a child, she flies down the chimney to see if it might be the One she seeks. It never is, but she leaves a gift anyway.

In the late 19th/early 20th century, Henry van Dyke put another of the legends to paper in a short story, titled “The Other Wise Man”. In it, Artaban, a fourth Magi, was late in arriving to meet the others, who had already left. By the time he came to Bethlehem, they and the Holy Family had left to flee Herod’s wrath. Artaban wandered the earth for 33 years, searching. Along the way, he used his gifts for the Child (jewels) to benefit others. When he encountered Christ, face-to-face, on Golgotha, his fortune was gone and he could not ransom Him. He stood before the cross, conscious of his failure. As Christ died and the earth was shaken by a quake, Artaban was struck by a tile falling from a building. While he lay dying, a voice from Heaven spoke to him, saying, “What you did for each of these, you did for Me.”

Were the Magi “Kings”?

They were likely astrologers and astronomers, possibly Zoroastrian priests.

Did the Magi come to the barn/stable or a “house”?

It is entirely likely that, by the time of their arrival, the Family were housed in some sort of quarters.

Is there any other mention of the Magi in Scripture?

Legend among the “Saint Thomas Christians” of India (the Malabarese and Malankarese Catholics and Orthodox) and the Chaldeans and Assyrians (where they likely had their roots) has them encounter Saint Thomas the Apostle some forty years later, when he appeared in those lands to evangelize. According to this tradition, the three, then elderly, were converted and immediately ordained, dying shortly afterwards. The feasts of Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar are kept in the Coptic, Ethiopian/Eritrean, Chaldean, Assyrian, Malabarese, and Malakarese Churches on January 1, 6, and 11.

The Troparion of Christmas in the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, used in Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Rite and in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, reads in part:

Your birth, O Christ our God, has shed upon the world the light of knowledge; for through it those who worshipped the stars have learned from a star to worship You, the Sun of Justice, and to recognize You as the Orient From On High. Glory be to You, O Lord!

Many years,

Neil

 

[Paul_W]

Reformed Rob:

Did the Magi come to the barn/stable or a “house”?
Matthew 2:11 says that they “came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother;” If this is a house rather than a stable, then perhaps the “nativity” scenes are misleading. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding the nativity scenes.

First, keep in mind that many of the Christmas traditions are simply that–stories that have been handed down over the centuries, but which we are not required to believed to remain in good standing in the Catholic Church.

The “manger” is typically presented as a barn-like structure, because that’s something we can relate to. The people live in the house, the animals stay in the barn.

More likely, the place where Jesus was born was more of a cave, hollowed out of the soft stone. The Church of the Nativity is built over this grotto.

But whether He was born X here. . . . . . or **X ** over here, isn’t what really matters. Whether there were three sheep, a cow and a donkey, or two cows and a horse, whether there were 3 magi or 20 . . . these are details that confuse the importance of God becoming man.

(Maybe that’s why I have an elephant in my manger scene. )

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Note Matthew 2:7

Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.

Then

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.

From this some have assumed that Herod added a year for good measure, and concluded that Jesus was about a year old at the time.

Not Church teaching, but a reasonable deduction.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Thanks everyone for the helpful responses. I just wanted to hear some thoughts on this matter. That helps oftentimes.

Puzzleannie,

I wasn’t meaning to imply (nor did my pastor ever imply) that the narrative in the Bible was anything other than factual and true. Is it proper to distinguish those two? Fact and truth? Whatever, he was simply saying that popular worldly ways that we see among Evangelical (not just Catholic) churches around Christmas time are missing the point of what Scripture teaches, both in regard to the chronological facts, and the Incarnation of Christ.
That, and I think it was about the only opportunity in the Scripture passage for the day (he’s preaching through Matthew) that he could make deragotory remarks about Catholicism. He knows I’m hot on the trail of “converting” and is planting the seeds for me to look like a superstitious Romanist when/if that happens.

Alas, the things the pulpit is used for :nope:

Thanks again for the comments. I’ll likely check out those links sometime soon.