The Christ Child’s adoration by the Magi is known as his Epiphany (“Manifestation”), in the West celebrated on the 6th of January, because it announces his mission to redeem the world. Ancient Christendom spoke of multiple manifestations (initially including the Nativity) by linking the revelation of the newborn Christ with his later baptism in the Jordan and his first miracle at Cana. These key points in his mission, which were imagined to have occurred on the same calendar date, also used to be celebrated in the pre-Vatican II Roman breviary.
Epiphany is an older feast than Christmas for it is attested in the East from the first half of the third century, at least 75 years before Christmas is mentioned as a holy day in Rome. In the West this feast is celebrated on the 6th of January, on the East now there is no special feast related to adoration of Jesus by Magi. In the Eastern tradition this feast (adoration of the Magi) is celebrated together with Christmas, where it became its part. While Epiphany on the East is celebrated on 19th of January and is connected with baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.
By the fourth century Epiphany could embrace the birth of Christ, His baptism, the adoration of the Magi, and the miracle at Cana. According to some liturgists (cf. C. Mohrmann), Epiphany was an idea feast (as opposed to an event feast) from the beginning and admitted any manifestation of the divine power of Christ. As a matter of fact, in classical Greek epiphany and theophany designate the manifestation of a divinity and, later, important events in the life of a king. Epiphany is first used in a Christian sense by St. Paul for both the first and the final comings of Christ (Ti 2.11,13). The word epiphany was soon used to describe the miracles of Christ as manifestations of divine power.
St. John Chrysostom explains the eastern meaning of Epiphany with these words: “We give the name Epiphany to the Lord’s baptism because he was not made manifest to all when he was born, but only when he was baptized, for until that time he was unknown to the people at large.” In similar fashion, St. Jerome, drawing upon his Palestine experience, declares that the idea of showing forth (Epiphany) belonged not to the birth in the flesh, for then he was hidden and not revealed, but rather to the baptism in the Jordan, when the heavens were opened upon Christ.
The western tradition of this feast lies more along the line of what we are used to call fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). There is no overwhelming Epiphany or divine manifestation on the path of the Magi. The Magi were wise men who saw the star and its unusual brightness. Steadfast in the resolution of following the divine call and fearless of danger, they traveled, inquired, explored, and let themselves be conducted by the star to the place where they were to see and worship their Savior. But again, no divine pronouncement thundering from open skies, only a poor babe in a manger. As St. Leo the Great put it, “When a star had conducted them to worship Jesus, they did not find him commanding devils or raising the dead or restoring sight to the blind or speech to the dumb, or employed in any divine action; but a silent babe, dependent upon a mother’s care, giving no sign of power but exhibiting a miracle of humility.”
These foreigners, the first Gentiles to see the Light, recognize what Herod and the Temple priesthood cannot: the newborn Savior. The wealthy, learned, alien Magi of St. Matthew’s Gospel complement the poor, ignorant, local shepherds of St Luke’s Gospel. Foreshadowing the universality of the Church, these Gentiles and Jews worship God Incarnate to show that salvation is offered to all men.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons was the first Church Father to equate the Wise Men’s gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh with Christ’s roles as King, God, and Sacrifice. This became the dominant reading, still familiar through the beautiful Victorian Christmas carol, “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” But other interpretations also appeared in which the gifts stand for the virtues of faith, chastity, and purity of heart or else for almsgiving, prayer, and mortification.
By the late fourth century Christmas was also being celebrated in the East so Epiphany lost its Nativity connection there. The Baptism of the Lord became the chief focus of Epiphany and the subject of its special feast day icon. The public manifestation of Christ as the Divine “beloved Son” outranked the private homage of the Magi, who were relegated to the background of Nativity icons.
Eastern theology has always been eschatological in thrust, eager and anxious to show the unabridged Godhead in all its splendor and majesty, beyond and in spite of its manifestation in human condition and according to human categories. Western theology in turn develops according to a different religious sensitivity: it is more incarnational, amazed by and preoccupied with the miracle of humility, God’s being in the flesh and becoming one of us. The spirituality of the East is a spirituality of vision, based on “ta phota” (what is visible) or illumination, the Jordan experience; the spirituality of the West is the spirituality of journey, originating in God’s call and transformative power, it is the “Magi-experience.”
Yet, both traditions are but two different and complementary facets of the same reality, just as ear and eye are dependent on and complement each other. In a similar way, the Feast of the Epiphany manifests the comprehensive reality of God’s encounter with humanity: it shows not only God’s self-giving presence in the miracle of humility, but also his authoritative self-disclosure at the baptism of Christ. Epiphany manifests not only God’s gratuitous and hidden presence to us, it also reminds us of our personal and active role in this encounter with God, made explicit through the acts and gestures of the Magi.
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