2024-01-06 10:00:00
The Epiphany It is one of the central celebrations of the Catholic cult. With this name it is remembered that on January 6, supposedly, the three Wise Men appeared before the baby Jesus, as a sign of recognition of his power. With that gesture, the pagan world recognized and accepted that this baby was of divine origin and was called to be the Savior of humanity.
Since ancient times, the Epiphany measured the popularity of the Christian faith. However, the tradition of “the three wise men” In some way, it is a myth of collective construction in which history was interwoven with legend.
The first document that refers to them is the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (II:11), but the disciple of Christ did not mention their names or specify their origin; He much less referred to “kings” as monarchs. He only wrote that they were magicians who “oriented themselves” to reach the Child by following a star that “rose in the East.” That is, as the Sol that “is born” in the East and “falls” in the West, a star “guided” them.
That is, the historiographic explanation of the appearance of these kings followed the logic that guided the desire for expansion and conquest of the great powers of the time, which were generally “solar”, in the sense that they undertook the adventure heading from East to West.
A comet, the moon or a supernova: the theories regarding the Star of Bethlehem that guided the Three Wise Men
During the first centuries of Christianity, not much was known regarding the Three Wise Men, but some traditions were passed from tablet to wall, from papyrus to palimpsest.
Mateo probably knew that Gasparthe white-bearded Persian sorcerer, gave Jesus nuggets of gold, purple, muslin, and linen cloth; Melchior, the young magician who is believed to have come from India, offered him incense and spices (cinnamon, cinnamon, spikenard); and Balthazaran Arab prince, gave her myrrh, precious stones and pearls.
True story of the Three Wise Men
At the end of the 13th century, Jacques de Voragine wrote in The golden legend the symbolic interpretation that we repeat to this day: gold represented the royalty of Christ; the incense, the divinity of it; and the myrrh that Baltasar held in his hands, which “the other Sons [léase “príncipes orientales”] “They had to die.”
The three “oriented themselves” following the star of Bethlehem to kneel before the new world order: Christianity. Thus, in a poor stable in Bethlehem (Bethlehem), the three men recognized the mystery of the divine origin of the baby – for some already several months old – before whom they presented their credentials.
Matthew was the first to simplify history in favor of Number Threean extremely precious figure in the Christian world.
Three descendants of the three descendants of Noah (Shem, Ham and Japheth) represented the three ages of life (old age, middle age and youth), three social sectors (clergy, nobility and work) and the three “races” (Semitic, Arab-Africans, Europeans) that populated the pre-monotheistic world known until then (three straight lines according to the cartography imposed by the Orbis Terrarum since the 6th century) to kneel and bow down to the new world axis.
Such is the reading that Catholic theologians circulated throughout Europe from the 3rd century and, at least, well into the 16th century.
In principle, we owe Tertullian for having cushioned the bad reputation that the three Magi had until the third century of our era. Some documents spoke of them as “Persian magicians” and linked them to astrology (in fact, a stellar conjunction was their entire compass on the pilgrimage to the West). It was then that the first emeritus Christian to write in Latin, the Carthaginian Tertullian decided to call them “Kings of the East” instead of “Wise Men”.
The Three Wise Men were four
However, despite all his efforts, the Father of the Western Church – Tertullian – might not prevent, in the 6th century, in his first pictorial representation on the walls of the Italian church of San Apollinare Nuovo, in Ravenna, they will be photographed dressed as Persian illusionists. Within everything, each one appears there with the name with which the West wanted to remember them: Gaspar, Melchior and Baltasar.
It was never known exactly what they looked like physically, until in the 1400s the Belgian painter Petrus Christus gave them an image that quite contradicted the above, but which ended up being the most accepted although it increased the myth and confusion. In his painting, Melchior – not Gaspar – was the oldest; Gaspar, the magician in middle age and Baltasar, the youngest of all was in his twenties.
It is even said that, until the 15th century, Baltasar was a white African, but the Church’s desire to be universal required a black figure and Christian marketing did the miracle. The black iconography of Cam’s heir is attributed to another Flemish, Rogier Van der Weyden, as he captured it in The adoration of the wise men (circa 1450).
In Finland and Russia the legend is followed that gives life to a fourth wizard from the East: Santa Claus.
As we have already had enough confusion, the vast majority of Catholics prefer to remember Santa Claus, always in red, as the generous father who descends through the chimney of every home, every December 25, to distribute gifts of justice and equality.
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