Well, one thing we know about The Magi from the Gospel of Matthew (2:11) is that they were rather clumsy, for “…falling down, they worshipped Him.” At least when I was boy I found that rather funny, but I knew it meant that they prostrated themselves and did Him homage.

 

Why do we think there are three of them? Because three gifts are mentioned by Matthew – gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the latter inspiring one of the more amusing puns in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

 

There may certainly have been more than three Magi.

 

The notion that they were kings is liturgical rather than historical, after the possibly poetic use of the word in Psalm 71:10. (Also, Tertullian says they were “wellnigh kings,” - fere reges.)

 

Although one of my Three Kings figurines who is on his way to Bethlehem across the wilderness of my living room is obviously Oriental, (since they come from the East), we know that their most likely starting point was Persia, a journey of about 1,000 miles which probably took them about a year to make, following a star which some say was a comet, others say was a supernova, but was most likely a purely supernatural event – rather like the pillar of fire in Exodus.

 

The whole point of the story of the visit of the Magi on its most popularly appealing level remains true no matter how one chooses to try to place it in historical context: that great and wise men traveled far to pay homage and bring gifts to the Infant Jesus, in fulfillment of prophesy. In that light the answer to the question “Who were they?” is “Who cares?”  Except that Matthew provides a few details which demand of the historian that their existence be substantiated by historic fact. And here we run into a couple of problems, not the least of which is the silence of the other gospel accounts when it comes to this event, and the apparent contradiction in the chronology of the Nativity – Presentation – flight into Egypt – Massacre of the Innocents – Return to Galilee sequence of Biblical events between Matthew’s and Luke’s account. But the four gospel accounts, though they often overlap, sometimes make a point not to repeat what has already been told. Matthew’s, which is thought to be the first to be written, may contain the story definitively enough so that Luke was not inspired to revisit it, and of course Mark and John both begin their accounts with the public life of Jesus, the latter dealing with Our Lord’s birth in a purely spiritual rather than factual manner.

 

The Magi, according to Herodotus, were the priestly caste of the Medes whose religion was dominant in Persia after the fall of Babylon. At one time the Persian king Smerdis came from amongst them, but he was murdered in 521 BC and the Magi oppressed. But somehow they still managed to preside over the religion of Persia right up until the period of the Nativity. We know that the Magian priests were still powerful during the time of the Parthian Empire.

 

What was that religion of the Magi? Well, if they were indeed descendents of the Medes people of antiquity we must assume it was the religion of Zoroaster. Well, what’s that? I hear you asking. Although their name gives us the root for the word “magic” and “Magician,” their most likely religious practice very specifically prohibits the use of sorcery. That would be the belief in a purely spiritual God/Creator whom they called Ahura Mazda, who is similar in many compelling ways to our own Biblical God of Abraham but quite different in some others. While many primitive materialistic religious systems had disintegrated and become irrelevant, such as in the Greek example in which the ‘gods’ had become merely an autocratic tool of a primarily secular state, the Persian Avestic belief system which the Magi would have embraced remained truly spiritual. But although Ahura Mazda is Supreme God, and Creator of all that it good, he is not Almighty God, for the Avestics believed in an ‘anti-God’ of sorts, creator of all that is evil, named Anro Mainyus.

 

How do we define Zoroastrian theology? As a dualistic belief system in which the existence of Evil is explained not in the manner of Genesis as a separation between man and God but rather as a separation within God Himself into two opposite personalities.

 

What we share with the Zoroastrians is a common moral code which tells us that Good is eternally triumphant over Evil, for Anro Mainyus is destined from eternity to be defeated at the end of time. The dualistic system is therefore convenient, if not entirely logical, and I think it’s not too difficult to understand how such a belief system can dominate a civilization for a thousand years. More to the point, their understanding of the nature of God, though erroneous on the whole, is quite correct in certain significant aspects, and it has far more in common with the God of Creation in Genesis than it does with the gods of Egypt, the materialistic gods of the Pagans, and the primitive astral body worship systems which formed them. Not surprisingly therefore - and consistent with some Biblical accounts of Pre-historic events – it is not entirely unreasonable to surmise a distant kinship with the Magi.

 

Basically, the Zoroastrian religion is a monotheistic one with a dualistic mythological ‘overlay’ of sorts to account for its single inexplicable contradiction. But that contradiction can only be explained by revelation, such as the revelation Genesis offers. This would have been unknown to the Persian people and their priestly caste known as the Magi. In other words, by use of their reason unaided by revelation they arrived at several fundamental truths about God, but then turned sharply away in a reasonable but fallacious direction in order to account for the existence of Evil – that direction being dualism.

 

In 1903, the Jesuit theologian Father Ernest Hull called the Avesta “The highest religious result that human reason unaided by revelation can attain.”

 

The gospel story of the visit of the Magi to the Christ now takes on another meaning as the re-unification, or reconciliation, between man and God in the Person of Jesus, foreshadowing the redemptive quality of the New Covenant sacrifice. Those who had been faithful to God, though separated from the personal revelation or fullness of understanding Him, are now redeemable in Jesus.

 

Next, I’ll explore the questions: Why did the Magi travel a thousand miles to see Jesus? And what did they encounter when they arrived? It’s going to be fun because the Squabbler happened to be acquainted with the Jewish historian who gives us almost all the information we have on the life and times of King Herod the Great.

 

  

 

It sounds like this program aired on New Year’s Eve of 1940. Why the bathtub? Because it’s funny, that’s why. OK, so it seems a little contrived but it’s funny anyway, mainly a result of Hal Peary’s unique bubbling-over laughter and perfect comic timing. Peary began his career as a singer, but his acting abilities opened the door to a variety of dramatic roles. He was working for NBC on the suspense thriller program, “Lights Out, Everybody” in 1938. McGee and Molly, which was taped next door, were using him in sundry character parts. You may remember him as the bus conductor from last week’s posting of the ’38 Christmas show featuring Jim Jordan as McGee without Marion as Molly. He was the high point, mainly due to his laugh. The character of Throckmorton P. Guildersleeve developed over time. Throcky was McGee’s comic foil, or McGee was Throcky’s, for all of 1940, the season we are wrapping up with this program. I hope you will enjoy it.

 

On Sunday I will be posting the “pilot” episode of the CBS program “Suspense,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It’s a dramatization of “The Lodger.” Hitchcock did a fair bit of directing for radio, incidentally. Somewhere in my collection I have his radio versions of “The 39 Steps” and “Spellbound.” This program was aired in 1940 as a pilot episode. Listeners were asked to comment. “Suspense” would become a radio venue for notable Hollywood actors. Jim and Marion Jordan (McGee and Molly) did a guest appearance, by the way. As the program developed through the 40’s and 50’s the well-known opening music, and narration by the mysterious “Man in Black” would be added. It’s absent in this pilot episode, though. What it does have is an ending in which Hitchcock and the cast argue about… the ending. This was a way of soliciting audience reaction. Whoops! I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s Sunday.

 

I love old radio. There are times when I would throw away everything else I may do on this page and just post old radio programs. But, of course, only a handful of you would read The White Lodge, and probably never comment. I hold these programs in much higher esteem than my silly writings, but I don’t suppose everybody else must agree.

 

 

New Year’s Eve? Yes, when I was married we used to go out to eat at a particular Chinese-Polynesian restaurant. We were home by 10. That was the wife’s thing. It was fun for a few years. We had some friends over, raised hell with the wait staff – you know the sort of thing. But afterwards – after the marriage, that is – I reverted to not observing New Year’s in any particular way. As a drinker – and a heavy one, perhaps even an expert or professional one – I left New Year’s Eve to the hopeless amateurs who would clog up all the best establishments for their one night of hopelessly inept debauchery.

 

Well, in my home as I was growing up we placed very little emphasis on New Year’s. I don’t recall any particular tradition of New Year’s observance. I believe we went to mass, but we would do that every day the school was closed and we could all be together as a family. I don’t recall staying up until Midnight, or my parents doing so. They were very social, but in a daytime way. (I don’t mean in a Daytime Television way.) Their circle of friends came from the Church. We mainly socialized with family. I have written about how we celebrated Christmas throughout the Twelve Days by visiting family, or having family visit us. New Year’s Eve happened to come in the midst of that – perhaps as we were returning home from one of the cousin’s places, or whatever.

 

On one occasion, when I was a teenager, perhaps a college student, I remember staying up late to make a cassette tape of Charlie Parker with Strings. I still have that tape. It’s amazing. My cousin was at the house – the one in the Army. We were like brothers.

 

On one New Year’s Eve in Connecticut, at the tail end of our Christmas visit with Mom’s sister and her family, I stayed up listening to the Billboard countdown of 1974. The Captain and Tennille were Number One. I was in my cousins’ finished basement, just listening. Let’s see – “Wildfire” was up there. There might have been a David Gates song in there too. I get ’74 confused with ’75 sometimes. Oh yes – Elton John – that was a big year for him.

 

 

In many – perhaps most – of my fondest memories I am alone, alone with my mind, alone with The Squabbler.

 

What we did do as a family on the Feast of the Epiphany was to observe a tradition of (I think) German origin in which we would leave our boots out in the hallway outside our bedroom doors. On the morning of Epiphany – or “Little Christmas” as we called it – these would be stuffed full of little gifts, like stocking stuffers. Again, most of these were practical things, like things that we would require at school, but there would be a few silly treats as well.

 

You may recall from an earlier posting of mine that we didn’t hang our stockings for Christmas, but rather some weeks before on the Feast of St. Nicholas. Well, the boots in the hallway thing was our way of culminating the joyful season that had begun in Advent. To this day, if you give me a gift I will love you for having given it but I will not usually give a monkey’s rear about what the gift is. Well, today you can give me nothing of great value simply because I don’t need anything, but even then, when I was young, our needs were met. Presents under the tree, or in stockings on St. Nicholas Day, or in boots on “Little Christmas,” although they could be numerous, never became simply things; they were always symbolic of God’s love for us – which, after all, is the only reason we do it in the first place.

 

We exchange gifts at Christmas in imitation primarily of the Magi, or “The Three Kings.” As a result, it was – and it still is, for anybody who would like to establish such a tradition in his home – perfectly appropriate to do this on the very day we observe the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem, the Feast of the Epiphany.

 

Of course, our Three Kings – assuming they haven’t fallen into the trap door or been devoured by the dog – will arrive at the site of the Manger in our Nativity Scene under our Christmas tree on that day. And of course the Christmas tree would stand at least until Epiphany. It would not be taken down the day after Christmas Day because Christmas Day is only the beginning – not the end – of Christmas.

 

During one year – and I was by then a teen – we experienced an Homeric snow storm some time during Christmas. It was the year we had just added a new addition to our tiny house, (or up until then tiny house), and it wasn’t yet fully heated. So we had the tree in there, and it was a cut tree this time, up against the new bow window with the sliding door that looked out over the Long Island Sound, and when the storm hit we just closed off the room entirely to preserve heat.

 

Try to imagine what that tree looked like when we reopened that room in March.

 

I’ll have one more post on Christmas, about the Magi in a little more detail, when I get around to it – this week some time, perhaps tomorrow before McGee and Molly’s final program of 1940, or perhaps on Wednesday.

 

Until then, I pray that all the blessings I might wish for myself are given to you in this New Year. Christ is King.

 

The computer has been down for a few days. We watched a few Christmas presents, including Blade Runner. I saw that movie when it first came out. I remember being disappointed in the obviously added-on voice-over narration, but most people who go to movies – most people in general – are idiots. I could see how it may have been difficult to follow the story without the voice-overs. Well, the version that has just been released onto DVD with great hype has eliminated the narration.

 

I think the vision of the future in the movie is what so distinguishes it from anything else that had been done in Science Fiction up until that point. I had the impression from other cinematic visions of the future that everything from today – the past – had somehow been eliminated, which isn’t at all like the world works. When I look around me I see barns from the 19^th Century. I live in a 19^th Century house. Yet this is yesterday’s future. Blade Runner depicted a future in which the Victorian era urban architecture was still there. The cars were like ours – some of them old clunkers – that kind of thing.

 

 

The action takes place in the near future, around the year 2020. When it was made that was 40 years into the future. The world is a dark, overpopulated, polluted place. It frightened people to think that it might be that way in 40 years, and of course it won’t be. I mean, we’re nearly there and it’s not even approaching the world of the film at this point. It makes me feel rather old. I remember seeing the movie as if it were yesterday. By that time I had a little more sense than to buy into yet another doomsday vision. I enjoyed the film immensely. It was one of the best I have ever seen – life changing even. But it wasn’t the horrific ideas expressed by the film, or even the philosophical ones. Kids stuff. It was the visual impact of it.

 

By that time I had lived through too many apocalypses to count. In Grammar School we were taught that we would all be wearing gas masks because of pollution within 10 years – tops. A new Ice Age was coming, and within 40 years New York City would be under water. I know there was an asteroid or two headed straight for us. It was a strange time. As a child I wondered why I was born in such a time, just to die of whatever catastrophic calamity was always just around the corner. After years of this constant barrage of The End is Nigh it’s no wonder I simply stopped believing any of it. I began to realize that my teachers really were quite stupid. When the day of our ending came and went and we were still here, still alive, they had already begun preaching about the new calamity. It was as though they didn’t remember that the old one never materialized for them. How can you have any respect for dunderheads like that? Of course, you can’t, and I couldn’t.

 

All of those expected calamities were supported by scientific evidence leading to worse case scenario speculations. Blade Runner was sort of on the tail end of that decade of numerous apocalypses.

 

The teachers haven’t changed a bit. If anything, they have become more idiotic. It’s a generational thing. My son comes home with requirements to write about how we will all be dead in 10 or 20 years. That’s his essay, in a nutshell. Nutcase more like. But I can’t bring myself to get all worked up about it. I went through the exact same thing, the exact same abusive treatment, the fear mongering, all that. I remind myself that they really do believe that rubbish. They have nothing else. That’s as far as their minds can go. They are the ones who needed the voice-over narration in Blade Runner to understand what was going on. I know now that it isn’t their intelligence that’s lacking – it’s the result of materialism. They live half lives in which they can experience only half of everything – half the world. In other words, they have advanced themselves in one area while another is ignored. Eventually, the parts of the mind – and subsequently the senses – which see or experience the other half have atrophied and become vestigal. They really are incapable of seeing the world the way it really is, and their ability to discern between truth and fiction is somewhat fragmented – hence the ‘instant forgetter’ feature I mentioned.

 

Orwell brought that up in 1984. I’ve revisited it several times. We all know about revisionist history, or the re-writing of history to conform to a current philosophical trend. We see it all the time. But Orwell had created a world in which that process had become instantaneous. We are no longer at war with Eurasia. We are now at war with Eastasia; We were never at war with Eurasia. We were always at war with Eastasia. It’s basically the Party line – talking points – whatever you may call them – taken to the extreme that they must eventually reach, the logical end result of “Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and it becomes the truth.” A perfect example of this is the way apocalypse visions are treated in general. If I had disagreed with my teachers I would have been punished – rather like an Adulterer in a Puritan neighborhood. At the very least I would have been branded as ‘not a true believer.’ Today we call it ‘politically incorrect.’

 

The current apocalypse – or one of them – is global warming, or global cooling, or global climate change. Its proponents tell us in the Stalinist manner, “The debate is over.” In other words, they have declared their minds are closed and ‘unorthodox’ discussion, or anything which questions them, will not be tolerated. What has happened is they have created a replacement faith of sorts. They cling to it as a person of faith clings to God. This is because of the failure of their minds to experience the whole. They can only experience matter – things. In their minds the world already resembles the world of Blade Runner – with the narration, of course, so they can understand it.

 

 

Well, the world will no longer end in 1985. The world will now end in 2040. The world was never going to end in 1985. The world was always going to end in 2040.

 

The Squabbler is reading over my shoulder and mumbling in his indescribable way about how these folks account for the success of Viagra. He has a point, but a crude one. He’s in a mood today.

I completely forgot to include a brief explanation of the symbolism of the Advent wreath, and now Advent is over and Christmas officially begun. I will amend that. Above is a picture which was painted by an old friend in which the four Advent candles are represented by images of Mary. The Christ Child appears at the center, appropriately – Christ being at the center of every season. This is one of her Wal-Mart Chalkboard Icons. I’ve posted another one of these of Mary over the lake with birds. What you can’t clearly see in this image is the evergreen boughs painted on the frame.

 

Well, I’m going to cut and paste a brief explanation of the wreath here from catholiceducation.org. because I’m lazy and I want to get it right. I feel a little like Chip Davis doing a Christmas show.

The four candles represent the four weeks of Advent. A tradition is that each week represents one thousand years, to sum to the 4,000 years from Adam and Eve until the Birth of the Savior. Three candles are purple and one is rose. The purple candles in particular symbolize the prayer, penance, and preparatory sacrifices and goods works undertaken at this time. The rose candle is lit on the third Sunday, Gaudete Sunday, when the priest also wears rose vestments at Mass; Gaudete Sunday is the Sunday of rejoicing, because the faithful have arrived at the midpoint of Advent, when their preparation is now half over and they are close to Christmas. The progressive lighting of the candles symbolizes the expectation and hope surrounding our Lord’s first coming into the world and the anticipation of His second coming to judge the living and the dead.

The light again signifies Christ, the Light of the world. Some modern day adaptations include a white candle placed in the middle of the wreath, which represents Christ and is lit on Christmas Eve. Another tradition is to replace the three purple and one rose candles with four white candles, which will be lit throughout the Christmas season.

OK, let’s see.

Christmas has begun in our home. From now until Epiphany we would entertain guests and also visit family, or host family, for our seasonal get-togethers. It’s a wonder I didn’t turn out totally materialistic, considering all the presents we would receive from having such a large extended family as we did. My father had two sisters, both with families larger than ours, and my mom had a sister and two brothers. Mom’s parents were still with us; Dad’s had gone across.

 

Of course, all the years tend to blend in to one large memory of Christmas visits. My family had two distinct ‘sides’ – Mom’s and Dad’s – and it was so interesting to have them meet at Mom’s funeral last year. It didn’t often happen. My brother and sister took their sweet times getting married. (I’m writing “times” so that you won’t gather they married each other.) We had Christmas in Connecticut several times at my mother’s sister’s farm, and we also trekked over to Pennsylvania on several occasions to visit with Dad’s sister, (who is still with us and sent me a lovely card.)

 

I vividly recall all of us in traffic stopping at the foot of the mountain before crossing the Delaware Water Gap to put our chains on our tires. There was no hope of crossing in the snow without chains. I first learned about front wheel drive when my father explained to another motorist that he was putting his chains on the wrong tires. The fellow said, “Really? That’s odd. Are you sure?” Dad said, “You see, you’ve got a transverse mount engine.”

 

“A what?”

 

And so it went.

 

In Pennsylvania I saw luminaries for the first time – that is, candles in brown paper bags placed along the paths, the driveways, the roadside. My cousins lived in a newish development on a hillside, and everybody participated. The effect from the distance was very striking. It was an area populated by vast numbers of Russian Orthodox people whose Christmas comes a little later than ours, but they usually participated as well. I suppose it was part of their Advent to do so – or they made it so because why not? But one very positive thing about that was the fact that there were two Christmases, and a mass at an Orthodox cathedral is an experience which cannot fail to strike any visitor, of any faith tradition, with a profound realization of beauty – perhaps just the kind of beauty I’m always carrying-on about on this page. Having said that, I don’t usually subscribe to spiritual tourism, but I suppose here I can make an exception.

 

I’ll have more as I think of it. Merry Christmas, and good day to you.