The three "magi," or "wise men," or "kings from the Orient," who "followed the star" to find the Christ child in Bethlehem, symbolize - and factually represent - the "pagan" (i.e. non-Jewish) world's search for the truth, which led them to the same end, or result, as the chosen people's expectation of their Messiah. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," will say later the adult Christ; and, just like the mono-theistic God of Israel was not actually a god of a people, like the many other polytheistic gods, but, while choosing a people for himself (Israel), was acknowledged even by them as the one God of the entire universe, and the Creator of all that is; so the Christ, later called the Son of God, while born in a marginal province, does not represent a "provincial," or "particular" answer to the quest for the truth - but is the Truth. The Truth, as in the answer to the quests of all the true philosophers ("the lovers of Wisdom") and of all the righteous people no matter the time (BC or AD) or place in which they lived.
The "three wise men," therefore, who will bring gifts and will adore the newborn Child (the Truth), are a symbolic and also factual accomplishment of the multimillenial quest for truth of humankind itself. Our own Advent, therefore, harkens back to the journey of these three men, which they endeavored guided by the frail light of human reason and knowledge - and of the "star." And yet their pursuit was rewarded in an extraordinary fashion - as they became part of the very, very small society of those who first had a glimpse at, and access to, the newborn Truth. It is worth thinking, therefore, at their journey, as we endeavor our own Advent journey; their journey which, while supported by human reason and knowledge, was most probably pursued in constant incertitude, and thus was in fact led by hope (since they could not know if their endeavor was not completely futile), and by a kind of faith.
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| Giorgione - The Three Philosophers (1508-09) |
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| Gislebertus - Dream of the Magi (1120-30) |
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| Sassetta - The Journey of the Magi (c.1435) |
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