The Parthians are coming... to Matthew’s Gospel

The visit of the Magi recounted in the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is one of the more curious parts of the Christmas story.

First, that we find it in this Gospel which is written primarily for a Jewish audience, and secondly, that such pagan astrologers should be lauded as those who come from a distant land to worship the infant Jesus. And then we have the matter of the star, which has excited the imagination of astronomers down the centuries; and that is before we get the accretions of legends and the perversions of countless nativity plays. The symbolism that we attach to the gifts they brought and the echoes that we find of Old Testament prophecies take us away from a consideration of what we might be able to reconstruct from their contemporary historical setting and why their coming so alarmed not just Herod but the whole of Jerusalem.

The visit of the Magi to Israel is not the only such visit we know about in the first century. In AD66, magi accompanied the King of Armenia when he visited Nero, as recorded by Suetonius and Pliny. This records them as being from Parthia. The long-lasting warfare between the Romans and the Parthians is not mentioned in the New Testament, but it is a backdrop to Roman policy in the Eastern part of the Empire and the political arrangements for Israel. The Parthians stopped the eastward expansion of Rome’s authority and they were never completely defeated, although at times, as in 66, Rome claimed its victory.

The Parthians’ incursion into the empire was most apparent in BC40 when they captured Jerusalem and Herod was forced to flee, first to Egypt and then to Rome. This turned out to his advantage as he was able to speak to the senate and they appointed him as King of Judea. With Mark Anthony’s help he was able to retake Jerusalem in BC37.

It is with this background that we should approach Matthew’s story. Magi come from the East to Jerusalem, claiming that a new king has been born. We should not picture them as three old men in elaborate garments on camels. No one would travel the long journey from Parthia to Jerusalem as a group of only three. No number is mentioned but we can assume that Herod was greeting an armed group of men, probably on horseback, coming from Parthia. Memories would be stirred of the events in BC40. The mention of the birth of a King of the Jews to a man who was continuing to struggle with the problem of succession – with his sons Alexander and Aristobulas recently strangled, and Antipater named as Herod’s heir in his will – would be unsettling in BC6.

Readers of Matthew’s Gospel in the first century may have been familiar with the story of the visit of the Parthian Magi to Nero in 66. In which case they would have made a comparison between King Jesus and Emperor Nero. By 66 he was already manifesting the attitudes that would soon lead to the persecution of Christians. And Matthew had already shown that Herod, in his paranoia on hearing of the birth of a King of Israel, had sought to kill the Christ child in his slaughter of all male children under two in Bethlehem. Parthians had come to worship the child Jesus. Herod’s attempt to destroy him failed. Now the message of his death and resurrection had spread through the Roman Empire. Nero may be emperor in Rome but there are disciples of Jesus throughout the world so that he is worshipped not just as King of the Jews but as King of kings and Lord of lords. Where the Parthian Magi led, let us follow.