The principal design of the Church in celebrating this feast is, that
her members may show gratitude to God for manifesting the Gospel to the
Gentile world, and vouchsafing to it the same privileges as to the Jews,
who had hitherto been His chosen and peculiar people; the first instance
of this divine favour was the Manifestation of Christ to the Wise Men of
the East. But, in all, there are three great manifestations of our
Saviour commemorated on this day; all of which, S. Chrysostom says,
happened on the same day, though not in the same year. The first of
these was His manifestation by a star, which conducted the Magi to come
and worship Him. The second Manifestation was that of the Blessed
Trinity, at His Baptism. The third was the Manifestation of the Divinity
of Christ, at Cana, by miraculously changing water into wine.
[Illustration: THE EPIPHANY.
From the Vienna Missal.
Jan. 6.]
But the principal event which is this day celebrated, is the
Manifestation of our Lord to the Wise Men of the East. These, who are
called Magi in Greek, were doubtless men of high rank. Tradition holds
them to have been princes or kings; and they are given the names of
Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. They are said to have been baptized by
the Apostle Thomas, and to have preached the Gospel in Persia. Their
bodies were brought by the first Christian emperors from the East to
Constantinople, whence they were conveyed to Milan. But the Emperor
Frederick I. carried them off to Cologne, in 1162, where they still
remain.
Many very curious traditions, of no authority, have attached to these
three holy men. They were said to have been Shem, Ham, and Japhet, who
had fallen asleep in a cave, and to have woke only at the Nativity
of Christ, when they came to adore Him; and then to have returned to
their cave and died. A much more trustworthy tradition is to the effect
that each wise man belonged to a different stock; that one was of the
seed of Shem, another of the family of Japhet, and that the third,
represented in art as black, belonged to the descendants of Ham. The
three names Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, are not found in any
writers earlier than the twelfth century. Before Pope S. Leo the Great
spoke of them as three, the number was sometimes supposed to have been
as many as twelve. Barhebraeus says, "Magi came from the East. Some
affirm that three princes came with a thousand men; but James, the
bishop (of Edessa,) said that there were twelve princes, who, having
left seven thousand soldiers at the Euphrates, came on with a thousand
men to Jerusalem."
Some authors have suggested that the seeming star, which appeared to
the Magi in the East, might be that glorious Light which shone upon
the shepherds of Bethlehem, when the angel came to impart to them the
tidings of our Saviour's birth, which, at a distance, might appear like
a star. According to an ancient commentary on S. Matthew, this star, on
its first appearance to the wise men, had the form of a radiant child,
bearing a sceptre or cross; and in some early Italian frescoes it is
thus depicted:--
"In a trice a star shone forth
Oh! so brightly shining!
Nearer, nearer yet it came,
Still towards earth inclining;
And 'twas shaped--O! wondrous sight!
Like a child with visage bright,
Holding sign of kindly might,
With a Cross combining."
It is to be expected that the Epiphany, containing in itself, as has
been observed, three distinct festivals, would be known by a variety of
distinct names. In the Mozarabic ritual it is called the "Apparition of
the Lord;" in Germany it is the "Three-Kings' Day."
The Greeks keep the Nativity and the Manifestation to the Wise Men on
the same day, the 25th December, and keep the 6th January as the
festival of the Baptism of our Lord.
The first historical notice of the Epiphany is found in S. Clement of
Alexandria, A.D. 200; in the time of S. Chrysostom, A.D. 400, it is
mentioned as an ancient and principal festival of the Asiatic Church.
The earliest distinct trace of it in the West is found in Gaul, in the
middle of the fourth century. Ammianus Marcellinus (xxi. 2), relates of
Julian the Apostate, that in A.D. 361, he celebrated in the Christian
Church at Paris, the feast of the Epiphany in January, shortly before he
publicly renounced the Christian religion. The title of Day of Lights
was given to this festival as commemorating the earthly manifestation of
the Light of the World, and also because it was the supposed day of the
Baptism of our Lord, to which rite the term "illumination" was
especially given. Hence it became, and in the Greek Church it is still,
one of the three solemn times of baptism.
Greek Hymn.--O Christ, the True Light, which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world, let the Light of Thy Countenance shine upon us,
that thereby we may behold the unapproachable Light, and guide Thou our
steps to fulfil Thy Commandments.