Pope Benedict XVI on the Historicity of the Magi and Star

It is obviously popular to question the historicity of the Gospels’ portrait of Jesus. Scholars who practice the historical-critical method of biblical study devoid of faith – and thus rejecting the possibility that God entered our world in Christ – object to the historicity of a multitude of events recorded in the Gospels and propose a different Jesus than the one communicated by the four evangelists. Pope Benedict XVI, himself a master of the tools of historical-critical scholarship, wrote his three volume Jesus of Nazareth to answer such skepticism. By wedding the tools of historical-critical scholarship to the Church’s faith, he demonstrates to all who will listen that the Jesus of the Gospels is in fact “the real, ‘historical’ Jesus in the strict sense of the word. . .[T]his figure is much more logical and, historically speaking, much more intelligible than the reconstructions we have been presented with in the last decades” (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, xxii).

With the Church celebrating the great feast of Epiphany, it is the perfect time to see how Pope Benedict argues the star and magi in Matthew’s infancy narrative are historical. These “are not a meditation presented under the guise of stories [i.e., Jewish haggadah], but the converse: Matthew is recounting real history, theologically thought through and interpreted” (Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, 119). Mind you, Benedict agrees with Jean Daniélou who, even though he held the star and magi are historical, stated that, if it were somehow proved that Matthew intended them only as theological symbols, it would not affect the Church’s faith since these elements do not pertain to any essential truth of Christian faith (Infancy Narratives, 118).

Benedict recounts a number of details showing that it was historically possible that magi, purveyors of religious, philosophical, and astronomical knowledge, traveled from Persia in search of the newly born king of the Jews. He points out that the Roman historians, Tacitus and Seutonius, both recorded the speculation that the ruler of the world would soon emerge from Judah (Infancy, 95). Such speculation was surely fueled by the spread of Judaism throughout the Mediterranean. The Holy Father points out how long such speculation had been spreading; he recalls the ancient prophecy of the pagan prophet Balaam, recorded in Numbers 24:17, “I see him, but not now; / I behold him, but not nigh: / a star shall come forth out of Jacob, / and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; / it shall crush the forehead of Moab, / and break down all the sons of Sheth.” Extrabiblical confirmation of Balaam’s existence and reputation as a middle eastern prophet were recently uncovered, pointing to the historicity of the prophecy recorded in Numbers as well as its being defused throughout the region hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus (Infancy, 91).

In regards to the Star of Bethlehem, Benedict reviews different theories explaining it as an astronomically identifiable occurrence. Benedict earlier expressed his conclusion that Jesus was born around 7-6 B.C., and notes how Johannes Kepler calculated that a conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars occurred at that same time. Kepler likewise postulated that this may well have been accentuated by a supernova – a point that appears confirmed in Chinese chronological tables (Infancy, 98-9). Closer to our own time, twentieth century astronomer Ferrari d’Occhieppo believed the star could be explained by a 7-6 B.C. conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces (Infancy, 99). Benedict sees the star implying that “the cosmos speaks of Christ, even though its language is not fully intelligible to man in his present state” (Infancy, 100).

Such a conjunction would surely have caught the attention of Persian wise men, devoted to astronomy and knowledgeable of religious matters such as the prophecy of a ruler coming forth from Judah. Even more than catching their attention, however, they felt moved to seek this ruler out. Pope Benedict sees the magi as representing “the inner dynamic of religion toward self-transcendence, which involves a search for truth, a search for the true God and hence ‘philosophy’ in the original sense of the word” (Infancy, 95). It was only natural that they would seek the newborn king in Jerusalem, in Herod’s palace. Benedict finds the turmoil experienced by Herod and Jerusalem by the magi’s appearance to coincide with the historical portrait of Herod as a paranoid ruler looking to kill anyone he perceived as a threat to his rule, even his own sons (Infancy, 103, 108).

The magi, through the chief priests and scribes summoned by Herod, are directed to God’s Revelation, to Micah’s prophecy (5:1) that the Messiah was, like David, to be born in Bethlehem (Infancy, 104). Their philosophy and natural religion brought them to a certain point, but Revelation was needed to reach their final destination. The star then reappears and they follow it directly to Jesus. Benedict sees in these events, “Creation interpreted by Scripture” (Infancy, 105-6). With so many historical indicators of the plausibility of Matthew’s narrative, Pope Benedict concludes that the wise exegete should accept Matthew’s account as historical, until unassailable proof is put forward that Matthew intended the narrative to be understood as haggadah (Infancy, 119).

First Saturday Devotion: Sharing Jesus and Mary’s Sabbath

In the third apparition at Fatima, the Blessed Mother told the little seers that, to save souls and avert war, she came to request not just the praying of the Rosary and consecration to her Immaculate Heart, but a “Communion of reparation” on the first Saturdays of the month. In 1925, in a later vision to the surviving visionary, Sr. Lucia, Mary asked that her children console her Immaculate Heart, grieved by men’s blasphemies and ingratitude, by committing to the following on the first Saturday of five consecutive months: going to Confession, receiving Holy Communion, reciting five decades of the Rosary, and keeping her company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to her.[1] Sister Lucia later explained that the Five First Saturday devotion was requested by Jesus to make reparation for the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies uttered against His mother: (1) blasphemies against her Immaculate Conception, (2) her perpetual virginity, (3) her divine maternity and identity as the mother of men, (4) the desecration of images of her, and (5) those who seek to plant scorn, indifference, or hate of Mary in the heart of others.[2]

While the element of five consecutive Saturdays was new, the recognition of Saturday as a day specially devoted to Mary had a long history in the Church. In the tenth century we hear of Saturday Masses being celebrated in her honor in churches in Italy, France, and Germany. The Franciscans and Benedictines spread the devotion, and by the seventeenth century the Dominicans had started the practice of honoring Mary with special acts of devotion on the fifteen consecutive Saturdays preceding the feast of the Holy Rosary. The popes attached an indulgence to the Fifteen Saturdays for anyone who: (1) went to Confession, (2) received Holy Communion, and (3) prayed five decades of the Rosary. Also in the seventeenth century, St. John Eudes and Ven. John J. Olier began to speak to their spiritual sons of the first Saturday of the month as a day of reparation for blasphemies against the Blessed Mother.[3]

It has been suggested that Saturday became a day of devotion to the Blessed Mother in memory of the desolation she suffered on Holy Saturday. While not denying this impulse, I wish to suggest another reason for the practice – the Saturday Sabbaths shared between Mary and Jesus. As Christians we look to Sunday, the first day of the week, as the day to worship and renew our consecration to the Lord in the celebration of the Eucharist (Acts 20:7; Rev 1:8; CCC 2190). But Saturday was the day that, by divine command, Jesus and Mary set apart to the Lord (Ex 20:8-11; Dt 5:12-15). “This is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD sanctify you [mekoddishkem, ‘consecrate you’]” (Ex 31:13). Saturday was the day that no work was done. The Sabbath dinner, the finest meal of the week, was prepared by Mary in advance. She and Jesus attended the synagogue where they prayed and meditated upon Scripture, and then returned home to spend the rest of the day enjoying one another’s company as they prayed and discussed God’s revelation and their daily lives.

After Jesus’s ascension Mary shared the Saturday Sabbath with the Apostle John, marking Saturday as the day when the Church experienced her maternal care in a special way. And for Mary, those Saturdays continued to be the day that her Son showered her with His affections – communicated to her through John. When we today undertake the Five First Saturdays, what we ultimately seek through its practices is the intimacy shared between Jesus and Mary on those days. It is a sign, and its various practices a means of deepening, our total consecration, in union with the Immaculate Heart, to Jesus. It is also a means for the Sacred Heart to express, through us, His love for His mother and soothe the wounds inflicted upon her heart.

Adapted The Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in Light of Scripture (TAN Books, 2022).

---

Marriage as an Analogy for Marian Consecration

The idea of “consecrating” oneself to Mary, meaning to entrust one’s life and success as a disciple of Christ to Mary’s love and intercession, may seem strange to many within the Catholic Church, not to mention our large number of separated brothers and sisters. Why would God want to unite our hearts with Mary’s? Why not deal with us solely as individuals? My response is that this is the way Scripture shows God working throughout salvation history and that the New Testament’s teaching on the shared life of Christian husbands and wives offers an effective analogy for understanding the spirituality of Marian Consecration.

Let us begin, however, by looking at what St. Paul wrote about marriages between Christians and unbelievers. It is stunning:

If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to peace. Wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife? (1 Cor 7:13–16)

Paul knew full well that it is Christ alone Who saves; but in His hands, believing wives and husbands can become instrumental causes in the salvation, the consecration, of their spouses and children (see also 1 Pet 3:1-2). If the Lord can use one spouse to bring the other and their children to the waters of Baptism, then think of how He uses the sacramental marriage of two Christians to deepen their consecration to Him throughout their shared years.

Paul wrote of the purpose of Christian husbands’ and wives’ mutual submission to each other – it manifests the great mystery of love between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:21, 32)! Husbands image the Lord in loving their wives “as their own bodies” and wives are to be subject to their husbands “as to the Lord” (Eph 5:28, 24–25). Christ loves the Church in this way so that “she might be holy and without blemish” (5:27). This is the mission of Christian spouses: By the grace of God, husbands and wives vow their love and entrust one another with their property, bodies, and hearts for the purpose of growing in Christ’s love and helping the other pass through the Cross to the glory of the Resurrection. Such entrustment does not hinder a soul’s union with the Lord but furthers it! A wife is not an obstacle to a husband’s union with Jesus. No, the spousal relationship is a God-given means for husbands and wives to appropriate graces meant to propel us toward final salvation, of making their “call and election firm” (2 Pt 1:10). This is also true, and to an eminent degree, of our relationship with Mary. Our spiritual mother is very much alive and joined to us in the communion of saints, acting on our behalf (see Rom 12:4-5; Heb 12:1, 22-24; Rev 5:8)

Billions of people have walked the earth, but there is only one to whom the Father entrusted the life of His only begotten Son. Mary was predestined for her role and consecrated to God’s work at the moment of her conception. She cooperated with God’s grace to give her fiat at the Annunciation, and by grace she remained faithful even at the foot of the Cross. It was there that Jesus formally extended Mary’s motherhood from Himself to His mystical Body. He made this entrustment in the person of John, one of the apostolic foundations of His Church. “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her into idia [literally ‘his own’]” (Jn 19:26-27). John took Mary into all that was his – his home, heart, prayer, life as an apostle, etc. You and I continue to reap the fruits of this entrustment in John’s Gospel, his unique penetration into the mystery of Christ’s Person.

John’s life of union with Mary – not to mention t other apostles – did not hinder his union with Christ but facilitated it! The entrustment that Jesus made of John to Mary was part of Christ’s salvific work on the Cross (see Jn 19:28, “…after this, knowing that all was now finished…”). When we renew our baptismal consecration to Jesus, through Mary, we are asking to share her receptivity for receiving Christ into ourselves – both to dwell in our hearts and be born into the world through our words and actions. Just as the spousal union of hearts yields grace, so too our union with the Immaculate Heart. Mary is not the end, the goal of our devotion, anymore than a spouse – Jesus is, and through Him fullness of life in the Trinity.

_________________

Adapted from The Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in Light of Scripture which is available from TAN Books.

Marian Consecration: It's All About Jesus

Like Mary, everything we have is by the grace of God; and in Mary, we see the fullness of life to which each of us is called. Her Immaculate Heart is truly the heart of the Church – simultaneously mother, disciple, and bride. It is completely fixed upon Jesus.  We now turn our attention to the means Jesus has given us so that, with Mary, we may reach this fullness. One, in truth, can only be “consecrated” to God. The term means to be dedicated to God, solely for His use. This first takes place in Baptism (1 Cor 6:11; Eph 5:25-27), but it is meant to be deepened throughout our lives (Rom 12:1; Heb 2:11). When we speak of being consecrated to Mary, we are speaking by way of analogy. We are trying to convey that we, like Jesus in His humanity, wish to be completely entrusted to Mary’s love and activity on our behalf. When we pray an act of “Marian” consecration, we entrust ourselves to her heart and motherly intercession as, united with her, we renew and intentionally deepen our baptismal consecration to Jesus.

The Church has never proposed devotion to Mary as an end in itself. Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, the great apostle of Marian Consecration, was quite blunt about Mary’s position in relation to God, “With the whole Church I acknowledge that Mary, being a mere creature fashioned by the hand of God is, compared to his infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather simply nothing, since he alone can say, ‘I am he who is.’”[1] And yet, as De Montfort goes on to say, it was God’s free and sovereign choice to give “his only Son to the world only through Mary.”[2] Scripture portrays her as the Ark of the New Covenant (2 Sam 6:9-14; Lk 1:35, 39-43), the personification of Daughter Zion (Zeph 3:14-17; Lk 1:28), the New Eve (Gen 3:15; Jn 19:26-27; Rev 12:1-6), the ideal disciple and intercessor (Lk 1:38, 45; Jn 2:1-11), and a sharer in Christ’s passion (Lk 2:35) and glorification (Rev 11:19-12:5), who is enthroned beside Christ as Queen (1 Kgs 2:19-25; Lk 1:32-33, 43; Rev 12:1-2). She is the Church come to full stature in Christ, and this is the reason for Marian devotion. As De Montfort wrote, “Of all God’s creatures Mary is the most conformed to Jesus. It therefore follows that, of all devotions, devotion to her makes for the most effective consecration and conformity to him. The more one is consecrated to Mary, the more one is consecrated to Jesus.”[3] To be “devoted” to Mary means to love her as the mother of our Lord – to come to love her as Jesus loves her – and to emulate her discipleship, her love for Him. Christ Jesus is the alpha and omega of Marian devotion.

Such devotion recognizes that everything Jesus did at the Cross was ordered toward our salvation, including His entrustment of John to Mary (Jn 19:26-27). As an apostle, one of the foundation stones of Christ’s Church (Rev 21:14), this entrustment of John has a universal scope – a gift extended to the entire Church. All that is required is for individual souls to, like John, accept Christ’s gift: “from that hour the disciple took her into idia [literally ‘his own’]” (Jn 19:26-27). John took Mary into all that was uniquely his – his home, heart, prayer, life as an apostle, etc. You and I continue to reap the fruits of this entrustment in John’s Gospel, in his penetration into the mystery of Christ’s Person. His deep relationship with Mary did not lead John to make an idol of her; rather, their shared life was a catalyst opening his heart to understand and communicate Christ’s life and teaching in an utterly unique and profound way. John’s shared life with Mary – an extension of Christ’s shared life with her – is accessible to each of us in the mystical Body of her Son. She is a spiritual mother who is very much alive, joined to us in the communion of saints, and acting on our behalf (see Rom 12:4-5; Heb 12:1, 22-24; Rev 5:8). Like John, our goal in entrusting our lives as disciples to Mary’s heart is to come to share her total receptivity to God – to let Christ be formed in the womb of our hearts and be born into the world through our words and actions.

Adapted The Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in Light of Scripture (TAN Books, 2022).

_______________

[1] Louis Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Bay Shore, NY: Montfort Publications, 1996), no. 14.

[2] Ibid.

[3] True Devotion, no. 120.