I saw a cartoon in Die Welt of a man dreaming of three fellows in Babylonish costumes and wearing crowns, two white and one black, bearing gifts…of a jerrycan and two barrels filled with oil.
With the price of gasoline these days, one can understand the point, especially since we are as of today in Epiphanytide. You know, when we sing “Star of Wonder, Star of Light, Star of Royal Beauty Bright.” In some countries Epiphany is more important than Christmas — indeed, it was once celebrated as the feast of Christ’s birth.
Who were these Heiligen Konigen, les Trois Rois Mages, Los Tres Santos Reyes, these Wise Men? They weren’t kings, and we don’t know that there were three, just that they brought three royal gifts, not petroleum, but gold, frankincense and myrrh. Some people, especially Americans, call them the Wise Men. However, showing up at the court of Herod the Great — notoriously paranoid and swift to murder even his own children — blabbing about an alternate monarch being born cannot possibly be called “wise.”
Calling Jesus’ visitors “The Three Stupid Rich Guys” might have been more appropriate.
Just a literary device?
Since the story appears only in Matthew’s Gospel and is not mentioned anywhere else, the trend among Bible scholars for decades has been to say that the whole thing is an…
