The Drama of Jesus. Peter Milward

asked. “Didn’t they come to the cave after the shepherds?”

      “Yes, we mustn’t forget them,” I responded, “though their coming is recorded not by Luke but by Matthew. He calls them not kings but magi or wise men. They come from the East, no doubt from Chaldea, in the Southern part of Iraq, where there had long been a flourishing art of astrology. They are led to Bethlehem not by an angel but by a star.”

      “That star,” interjected Hiroshi. “It quite fascinates me. It’s in all the pictures of the birth of Christ I’ve seen, and it’s on the top of every Christmas tree. What kind of star was it? Was it a real star astronomers can identify? Or was it a miraculous star? Or was it an angel using the star as an appropriate disguise for the guidance of the astrologers? Or could it somehow have been all these things together?”

      “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe your last guess is the best. Clearly there is something miraculous and providential about the star, which already makes an appearance in the Old Testament, in a prophecy about a star rising out of Jacob. I myself like to imagine all the stars as disguises for angels, in common with Plato and Aristotle and Shakespeare. There’s also some interesting evidence that a real star was involved, namely an extraordinary triple conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter, that took place about the time Cyrinus was governor of Syria. A triple conjunction is when two planets move together so as to give the appearance of an unusually bright star three times in the course of one year. To the Chaldean astrologers it appears in that part of the sky assigned to Palestine and it portends the birth of a great king. That is why they make their journey with precious gifts to the city of Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is he that is to be born king of the Jews?’ So when they leave the city and see the star again, they recognize it as the third conjunction of the planets, and then, as Matthew says, they rejoice with a very great joy. I can well understand their feeling!”

      “What a fascinating theory!” exclaimed Hiroshi. “Did you think it all out yourself? Or is it generally recognized by Scripture scholars?”

      “Very few theories are accepted by all scholars on any subject,” I told him. “But this is admitted as a possibility. So far as I know, we find it first proposed by the German astronomer John Kepler in the early seventeenth century, when Shakespeare is still alive. He found evidence of this triple conjunction in the astronomical records of the time, and now I see from the papers it will be repeated within a few years. Anyhow, to make a long story and their long journey short, the magi arrive in Bethlehem and find the child with Mary his mother. They, too, it seems, have no difficulty in recognizing him, for all the poverty of his surroundings, though these may no longer have been the cave. Then they offer him their gifts, gold, incense, and myrrh, from which we conclude they must have been three in number.”

      “Now we, too,” added Iwao, “must conclude our talk about Christmas, as it’s time for lunch. I wonder what we’ll be having? Maybe mutton, for the sheep, or veal, for the ox, and then maybe ice-cream, for the snow.”