In Matthew's account of Jesus's birth we read about wise men from the east who brought gifts to Jesus. However, there is very little else said about them in the passage. In this article, Tony Watkins explores who were these visitors and where did they come from?

‘We three kings of Orient are?’ The popular carol’s opening words make a big assumption about how many there were and wrongly identify them as kings. Matthew—the only Gospel writer who mentions the Magi—tells us about three gifts (Matthew 2:11), but not about how many people brought those gifts. Magi is a Latin word, the plural of magus, which came from Old Persian via Greek. Magi can mean a range of things, including ‘magicians’, and is often translated as ‘wise men’. The idea that the Magi were kings comes from link with two Old Testament texts which anticipate the coming Messiah. The first is Psalm 72:10-11:

May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute;
may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!
May all kings fall down before him,
all nations serve him!

The other is from Isaiah 60:6:

A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall bring good news, the praises of the LORD.

This verse is probably responsible for the picture of Magi riding camels becoming fixed in the Christian imagination. Matthew is silent about the presence or otherwise of camels (as Luke is about a donkey). It may be tempting to say that the Magi must have been kings to precisely fulfil Psalm 72. But it would be dishonest for any king from Tarshish (generally thought to be in the western Mediterranean) or the coastlands to claim that they came from the east. Yes, the Magi may well have ridden camels, but coming with a ‘multitude of camels’ would have caused a stir. Pressing the details of Isaiah 60:6 too far also raises the question of how myrrh ended up among the gifts. Matthew’s narrative certainly evokes these two passages in our minds. Yet, as with many messianic prophecies, the fulfilment is an echo of the original theme, as it were, not the exact same notes.

Matthew gives us minimal detail about who the Magi were and where they were from. Presumably it was obvious to his readers, and Matthew wanted our attention to be on the Lord Jesus, not his visitors. But they are intriguing figures, and many of us would quite like some answers.

The most obvious way to identify ‘Magi from the east’ is to see them as astronomer-astrologers (there was no distinction in the ancient world between observing the heavens and interpreting them) from Babylon. It is worth considering the background to this idea.

Celestial divination

For a Mesopotamian ruler, signs in the heavens were how the gods communicated about kings and countries. The diviners were scholars, engaged in a complex process of recognising and interpreting the signs on the basis of lists of omens, commentaries on the lists, and discussions among themselves. The most important compendium of celestial omens was a collection of about seventy tablets called Enuma Anu Enlil from the late second millennium BC. Assyrian and Babylonian sources tell us that the diviners kept the king updated with what was happening in the heavens and the implications for what the king should do, or what was going to happen to him. If the omens were bad, there were various apotropaic (literally ‘turning aside’) rituals to avert the danger. In the most serious cases—indicated by eclipses—the king could step down for a time so that a commoner could substitute for him and be the unfortunate victim of any disaster.

This kind of celestial divination was a distinctly Mesopotamian practice. After the Persians conquered Babylon in 539 BC, it seems to have become less important, though there is plenty of evidence that both Persian and Greek rulers sometimes consulted Babylonian astrologers.

Diodorus of Sicily (first century AD) says that Chaldeans (Babylonian celestial diviners) made predictions based on the stars to various kings, including Alexander the Great regarding his victory over Darius of Persia (Library of History, 2.31). Diodorus doesn’t specify what led them to make this prediction, but there was a lunar eclipse visible in Babylonia on 21 September 331 BC, just ten days before the Battle of Gaugamela. Eclipses were particularly grave omens, so it is likely that the diviners interpreted the eclipse as predicting the victory of their new king who had come from a western country. Greek historian Arrian of Nicomedia (AD 86–160) tells us that Alexander’s favourite seer Aristander interpreted the eclipse in exactly this way (Anabasis, 3.16.6-7). He also says that a delegation of Babylonians went to meet Alexander with gifts and offered to surrender the city to him (Anabasis of Alexander, 3.16.3). It seems likely that this was in response to the eclipse, and the diviners could well have been part of the delegation.

Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus (ca. AD 50) describes Alexander’s triumphal entry in Babylon after this victory (History of Alexander, 5.19-22). The road was strewn with flowers and lined with silver altars burning frankincense and other perfumes. Excited crowds greeted Alexander, who was followed by his gifts (horses, cattle, and caged lions and leopards), then magi, then Chaldeans (diviners). According to Diodorus, eight years later in 323 BC Alexander had another encounter with Babylonian diviners. They interpreted signs in the sky which indicated his death if he were to enter Babylon (Library of History, 17.112).

The Enuma Anu Enlil omen compendium and related texts include predictions of the coming of a ‘king of the world’. The earliest of these comes from the Old Babylonian period (1800–1600 BC). The most interesting one is found in a commentary on Tablet 7, which comes from Uruk. It was found in the house of a scholar who lived around 385 BC, but it is not known when the commentary dates from. It says:

Sin [the Moongod], (if) during his rising one star proceeds behind him: a king of the world (šar kiššati) will rise, but he will not become old. (translation by Mathieu Ossendrijver)

This text predates Alexander, who is also called ‘king of the world’ (šar kiššati) in an astronomical diary for 331 BC, but we don’t know whether or not this omen was seen in relation to him.

The meaning of ‘magi’

The actions of the Magi in Matthew’s Gospel are fully consistent with this background. However, the diviners who interpreted the heavens in relation to Alexander were Chaldeans, whereas Matthew writes about magi. Roman and Greek historians generally understood Babylonian Chaldeans to be the specialists in celestial divination. Magi—originally a class of Persian priests—were, by contrast, responsible for other forms of divination, such as dream interpretation. Is Matthew writing about the wrong group of scholars? I do not believe so. Babylonia was part of the Persian empire for so long that they became somewhat blurred for later historians. Arrian, for example, referred to the Babylonian substitute king ritual as a ‘Persian custom’ (Anabasis of Alexander, 7.24.3-4). And in the second century AD, the history of the Syrian wars by Appian of Alexandria (Roman History, 11.58.300-308) refers to Babylonian astrologers as magi. It would not be surprising, then, for Matthew to do the same thing.

Where were the Magi from?

So were Matthew’s Magi from Babylon? Maybe. I lean slightly towards this possibility because they were interpreting signs in the night sky, but it is far from certain. There are examples of ancient writers using magi in a generic sense to mean non-Greek wise men, especially those from areas that had been part of the Persian empire. Pliny the Elder, a first-century Roman historian—who considered magi to be fraudulent liars (Natural History, 30.1)—said that Pythagoras (sixth century BC) and Democritus (fifth century BC) had ‘visited the Magi of Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Egypt’ (25.13, LCL).

Justin Martyr (ca. AD 100–165) also refers to magi in Egypt (Dialogue with Trypho, 69), but states that the Magi in Matthew’s Gospel came from Arabia (Dialogue, 77–78). He simply mentions this without arguing the point, which may suggest that it was a common idea in the second century. Certainly, people from Arabia could be said to be ‘from the east’, and frankincense and myrrh were harvested from trees growing in southern Arabia (Yemen). But many other areas were also in the east relative to Judea, and the spice trade in the ancient world covered a vast area. (As mentioned above, the Babylonians welcomed Alexander with frankincense.) So we don’t know where the Magi came from. It may well be that Matthew does not want us to, perhaps even deliberately highlighting elements that connect to Babylon, Persia, and Arabia.

What the Magi knew

The fact that the Magi were celestial diviners is an uncomfortable aspect to the story because the Old Testament condemns such practices (Deuteronomy 18:9–14; Isaiah 47:13). How did these stargazers know how to interpret the ‘star’ (which could also mean a comet, a conjunction of planets, or various other astronomical phenomena)? Was there an appropriate entry in their omen compendia? If so, how did it get there? Could it somehow derive from the words of the ancient diviner Balaam, ‘A star will come from Jacob, and a sceptre will arise from Israel’ (Numbers 24:17)? Or might it be to do with Daniel, who had once been ‘chief of the magicians, mediums, Chaldeans, and diviners’ (Daniel 5:11) in Babylon? This is just speculation.

All we know is what Matthew tells us: some pagan astrologers correctly interpreted some bright object in the night sky as indicating the birth of a new ‘king of the Jews’, and travelled to pay homage and give gifts to him (Matthew 2:1-2,11-12). Matthew wants us to know that the grace and wisdom of God is such that he communicated even to pagan Gentiles who were engaged in practices outlawed in the Torah. The religious leaders in Jerusalem had the right information, but did nothing (Matthew 2:4-6), while the Magi went to great lengths to act on the limited information they had. And so, Luke and Matthew tell us, the true ‘king of the world’ was welcomed and honoured by both ordinary Jews (Luke 2:8-20) and extraordinary Gentiles.