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"The Magi's creed"

If we were to choose one piece of the Anglican patrimony which embodies a rich, traditional Epiphany piety, a strong case could be made that it should be John Henry Hopkins Jr's 'We Three Kings'.  The hymn is a marvellous catechesis on the mystical meaning of the gifts offered by the Magi, rooting Anglican celebration of the Epiphany in a deeply traditional piety.

From Irenaeus onwards, of course, the gifts brought to the Christ Child by the Magi were interpreted as having mystic meaning:

myrrh because it was for him who should die and be buried for the mortal human race; gold because he was a king 'whose kingdom has no end'; and frankincense because he was God.

Ælfric's (10th century) sermon on the Epiphany similarly invokes this meaning:

These three astronomers worshipped Christ, and offered to him symbolic gifts. The gold betokened that he is true King; the incense that he is true God; the myrrh that he was then mortal, though now he continues immortal in eternity.

When John Henry Hopkins Jr. celebrated this mystic meaning in 'We Three Kings', however, he was not invoking an Epiphany piety foreign to the Anglican tradition.  In an Epiphany sermon, Mark Frank set forth the traditional understanding of the meaning of the gifts:

In offering "gold" (i.) they acknowledged him for a King, and so paid him tribute. In offering "frankincense," or incense, (ii.) they confessed him to be a God: it is to the gods only that even the heathen offer incense. Yet (iii.) in offering "myrrh," they yet profess he should die like men; myrrh hath little other use than in sepultures and embalmings. So the sum of the wise men's faith, or the Magi's creed, is thus professed, that this child they thus adored was the King, Messiah, God and man, who should die for them.

 Frank's use of the traditional reading of the Magi's gifts - alongside the accounts of the journey of the Magi offered by Andrewes, Donne, and Frank in their sermons - points to how a traditional Epiphany piety was sustained by the Prayer Book's provision for the feast.

Of particular note is Frank's phrase "the Magi's creed", as compelling  and evocative as Andrewes's "a cold coming they had of it", as John Henry Hopkins Jr's "King, and God, and Sacrifice".  It vividly captures the Christological richness of the traditional piety surrounding Epiphany and the significance of the Prayer Book's celebration of the feast.

(The illustration is a detail from a tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones, 'The Adoration of the Magi', 1894.)

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  1. Ivan Possamai10 June 2021 at 19:35

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