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- [00:01]
Anita Anand
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter. Sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
- [00:20]
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- [00:48]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
See DutchBros.com 70,000 people are here and.
- [00:52]
Anita Anand
Bob Dylan is the reason for it.
- [00:54]
Timothee Chalamet
Inspired by the true story.
- [00:56]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
If anyone is going to hold your.
- [00:57]
Unknown
Attention on stage, you have to kind of be a freak.
- [01:00]
William Durimple
Are you a freak? Hope so.
- [01:02]
Timothee Chalamet
And starring Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. He defied everyone.
- [01:07]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Turn it down.
- [01:08]
Timothee Chalamet
He loud to change everything.
- [01:10]
William Durimple
Make some noise.
- [01:11]
Timothee Chalamet
BD Timothee Chalamet Edward Norton Elle Fanning Monica Barbaro A complete unknown. Only in theaters Christmas Day. Rated R under 17.
- [01:18]
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- [01:41]
Anita Anand
Today we were led by a star.
- [01:44]
William Durimple
No, no, no, no, no. First we're going to do an introduction, then I'm going to give you a preface.
- [01:48]
Anita Anand
Okay, but I thought we were going to go straight in.
- [01:49]
William Durimple
I have to come to that. No, no, no. Like I said, you don't listen. I just said like, you know, it's all right. Just follow. Okay. Hello and welcome to Empire with me.
- [02:09]
Anita Anand
Anita Anand and me, William Durimple.
- [02:12]
William Durimple
We're taking a little break from our Mughal Empress season for something festive. And we are joined by, I think, the angel of Christmas, professor of ancient history, Lloyd Llewellyn Jones is here.
- [02:24]
Anita Anand
AKA the very Reverend Lloyd Llewellyn Jones.
- [02:28]
William Durimple
The right reverend, which he wasn't when.
- [02:30]
Anita Anand
He was last on the pod.
- [02:31]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
What's happened, Lloyd? Well, I found God. Or God found me, I should say.
- [02:36]
Anita Anand
What's a good scholar of Persian history doing finding God like this?
- [02:39]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
I know. Well, he comes in all unexpected places. Never say Never.
- [02:44]
William Durimple
You are properly, properly frocked now. Well and truly frocked as he's completely frocked.
- [02:48]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Absolutely, yeah. Fully licensed to baptise and bury and marry and all of that.
- [02:53]
William Durimple
This is very handy to know.
- [02:54]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Absolutely.
- [02:55]
Anita Anand
If any of our listeners are after a good priest in. Where was your wonderful church called again?
- [03:00]
William Durimple
Let me tell you, he is at Aigla Stoe y Saint, in fact, in Wales. That's where he is.
- [03:06]
Anita Anand
That was very good. I thought that was very good.
- [03:09]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yes.
- [03:09]
William Durimple
St. David's Church to show off. So, right. So, I mean, is it pretty? Is it one of those old.
- [03:13]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Oh, it's lovely. It's a Victorian church, but smack bang in the middle of Cardiff. So. And it's a Welsh speaking church, so we cater for the Welsh community, the Welsh speaking community in Cardiff. So it makes us quite unique in that respect. So, yes, I preach and pray in Welsh in my mother tongue.
- [03:31]
William Durimple
Well, how beautiful. Can you say happy Christmas to all of our Empire POD listeners in Welsh? We'd love it.
- [03:36]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
I will say Nadoli Llewin Ichigid. Happy Christmas to you all. Nadolyclowen. We call it Yeith and Ivoii, the language of heaven.
- [03:45]
William Durimple
Oh, well, that's perfect.
- [03:47]
Anita Anand
We got the right guy on then.
- [03:49]
William Durimple
Exactly. The speaker of the language of heaven. Because what you're here to discuss is the Magi, otherwise known as the three Kings. Otherwise known as always, my brothers, during the nativity play, because we're Indian and we have the clothes.
- [04:01]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Of course. Absolutely.
- [04:02]
William Durimple
And my children, because they have the clothes. And these are the three wise men who visit the baby Jesus after his birth. And according to the stories. But we're going to get down to the truth of all of this. You know, they bring him those three gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And to that effect, William and I and Lloyd, you're gonna have to fasten your seatbelt and hold your nose for this. We are going to perform a little Christmas play for you. This is courtesy of the boys at Monty Python.
- [04:28]
Anita Anand
Welcome to the Empire Pod Christmas play.
- [04:31]
William Durimple
It's our nativity. I'm really sick of the children doing every nativity every year and I'm just desperate, desperate to perform. I'm even watching them going, no, no, that's not how she'd say it. Well, William's going to be all three wise men and I'm going to be Mandy, mother of Brian in the life of Brian, because I think this is interesting.
- [04:48]
Anita Anand
Such a bad idea.
- [04:49]
William Durimple
No, it's a terrible idea. It's A terrible idea. But it's one of the many terrible ideas we've had on this program. So let me see. Inset. Okay, so just imagine this. We are around a humble stable in which a babe lies in a manger, crying. The mother, Mandy, turns to the baby, Brian, and says maternally, shut up. Shut up. And suddenly there is a sort of a scrabbling by the door. And three wise men appear, and Mandy is not impressed. She asks them what they're doing creeping around at this time of night.
- [05:25]
Anita Anand
Back of a cowshed.
- [05:27]
William Durimple
Back of a cowshed. What are you doing? You're all drunk. It's disgusting. To which the wise men reply, we.
- [05:32]
Anita Anand
Were led by a star.
- [05:34]
William Durimple
All led by a bottle, more like. Go and get out.
- [05:37]
Anita Anand
Well, we must. We have brought presents out. Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
- [05:45]
William Durimple
Oh, why didn't you say? He's over here. Sorry, the place is a bit of a mess. What is myrrh anyway?
- [05:52]
Anita Anand
It's a valuable bomb. A bomb?
- [05:55]
William Durimple
What are you doing giving him a bomb? It might bite him.
- [05:59]
Anita Anand
What?
- [06:00]
William Durimple
It's a dangerous animal. Quick, throw it in the trough.
- [06:03]
Anita Anand
No, it isn't.
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William Durimple
Yes, it's a big.
- [06:07]
Anita Anand
No, no, no, it's an ointment.
- [06:10]
William Durimple
Yeah. Oh, There is an animal called a balm. Oh, did I dream it? All right, so you're astrologers, are you? Well, what is he then? What star sign is he?
- [06:20]
Anita Anand
Oh, Capricorn.
- [06:21]
William Durimple
Oh, Capricorn, eh? What are they like, then?
- [06:25]
Anita Anand
But he is the son of God, our Messiah.
- [06:29]
William Durimple
You're all three wise men, so you've got to do all of them wise men.
- [06:33]
Anita Anand
Number one, King of the Jews.
- [06:35]
William Durimple
And that's a cap?
- [06:37]
Anita Anand
No, no, that's just him.
- [06:39]
William Durimple
Yes, it goes on and on and on like this. It does with many jokes about myrrh, which I find particularly hilarious this time of year because every child carrying the box of myrrh is the sulkiest wise man on there. Because, like gold, I get frankincense. That's been explained. But I'm bringing myrrh anyway. So, Lloyd, we have this idea. Well, actually, more and more. Three kings coming to the baby Jesus and giving these lavish gifts and myrrh to the baby Jesus. And, you know, Life of Brian lampoons it brilliantly. But the story of the magi is not the story that we do in our schools and our sort of nativity plays every year. It's much more complicated than that, isn't it?
- [07:23]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
It's a lot more complicated. And that's essentially because if you look at the history of the Nativity stories themselves. There are two versions of the Nativity told in the New Testament just in two gospels, that's all. So the first one is in the Gospel of Matthew, which includes the wise men. And then the second one is in the Gospel of Luke, which leaves out the wise men entirely, but instead has the annunciation to the Virgin Mary. It has the shepherds, the angels, and the hills outside of Bethlehem and the never the two shall meet. So in fact, when we put together our Christmas cribs every year and we bung in the wise men and the shepherds and the oxen and the angels all together, that is no way representative of what the early evangelists wanted us to have. So there are two completely different birth traditions in our Gospel accounts. Completely different.
- [08:24]
Anita Anand
And then two gospels don't mention it at all.
- [08:26]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yeah, and then Mark has nothing about it whatsoever. Mark is the very earliest Gospel written and he just gets on with the job the minute that Jesus is baptized. That's where Mark picks up. No mention whatsoever of Mary and Joseph, nothing at all. And John, of course, goes his other way entirely and is a very philosophical kind of gospel where Jesus is the word, of course, the word made flesh. So no little baby in a crib in any way, shape or form there with John.
- [08:52]
William Durimple
Okay, Right, let's start with absolute basics. So it's St. Matthew's gospel that we have to thank for even the notion of the magi. Who was he? When was he writing?
- [09:03]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Okay, well, we mustn't confuse the evangelist Matthew, that is the gospel writer Matthew, with the disciple Matthew. Okay? They're very unlikely to be the same person. So this Matthew who writes the gospel is not the same person who follows Jesus around that was once a tax collector and so forth. So this Matthew, our evangelist is writing around about 80 CD. So that would make it about 50 years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, of the historical Jesus, about 50 years. So that's a, you know, that's a generation. And so what Matthew must be doing is working on old oral traditions, stories that were going around about Jesus. But we also know that he was utilizing in a big way the Gospel of Mark, which was already about 10 to 15 years been circulating. And I think one thing that Matthew saw was, well, look, Mark doesn't mention anything about Jesus birth. And you know, if we read a biography today, we all start our biographies with birth and childhood stories. Because now we believe that, you know, what happens in our childhood really is kind of endemic to what we will become in later life. And I think Matthew had that same kind of idea. You know, there was obviously a need amongst early Christians to hear about, well, where does Jesus come from? Who was he then? So Matthew, I think, sets the record straight in that. But Matthew has a particular agenda when he's writing his gospel. We need to remember that in the early century of Christianity, the first century Christianity was essentially a Jewish movement. Okay. And the majority of people who were converting to Christianity were converting from Judaism. And the way that they could understand the Jesus story best was by locating it in Judaism, in Judaic practices and.
- [11:01]
Anita Anand
Jewish tradition and Jewish prophecies.
- [11:03]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yes, and completely in Jewish traditions, I'm guessing.
- [11:06]
William Durimple
And I'm feeling waves of this with empire listeners going, yes, okay, very interesting. Why the hell are you lot talking about it now? The reason we are talking about it is because there is a fascinating and not often talked about overlap with the Persian empire. And that is why this is of supreme interest to us. I mean, it's, you know, you're looking at your dog going, what are they doing? What are they doing? Could have got this on, you know, something about religion. It's not about that. It is about traditions which are dragged into that early story in Matthew's gospel, which cannot have come from anywhere other than the Persian experience of Jews who are living in the Persian Empire. I mean, that is the premise, isn't it?
- [11:49]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
I think so. I think that, you know, the Persian empire that we're dealing with here, of course, in the beginning of the first century is the Parthian empire. The Parthians dominated the whole of the Iranian plateau right up to the borders of Syria, and even at some points, actually invaded into the territories we now think of as Israel and Palestine as well. So the Parthians were the biggest threat to the Roman empire. So actually, what we have with Matthew's story of the wise men is this little area of Palestine, Israel caught between two superpowers, in fact, two great empires, the Romans in the west and the Parthians in the east. And I think Matthew's story about the birth of Jesus actually comments on both of these empires simultaneously. And that's the important thing.
- [12:40]
Anita Anand
Now, Lloyd, when we talk about the wise men and people sing carols and you hear it in popular speech, there's a lot of talk about kings, a lot of talk about wise men. You yourself have used the phrase wise men, but I understand that the Greek in the original gospel says magoy, which is magus in English.
- [13:00]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
That's right.
- [13:01]
Anita Anand
And a magus is something quite specific. It's not wise men, it's not a king. What is it?
- [13:06]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Well, if we really want to go deeper into the meaning and extract from it, it's Persian ness, I suppose, then what we would have to translate that as is cast of priests, really. So we're dealing here with a priestly hierarchy of the Zoroastrian faith. Zoroastrianism at this point had been developing for some 250 years into a religion which we can now actually pinpoint and say, oh, this is a kind of recognizable Zoroastrian faith that we can now say is emerging in the first century. You know, when we've spoken about Zoroastrians before, when we've looked at the Achaemenid Empire, for instance, I was a bit reluctant to say that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians.
- [13:53]
Anita Anand
I remember.
- [13:53]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Stop. Remember. But now we can see in the Parthian period that Zoroastrianism as we understand it is now discernible. So what Matthew had in mind when he uses that very specific term, and he could have used any term after all, but he goes for a very specific Persian term, Magos, Magi, to emphasize, I think, first of all the sanctity of these visitors, that these were holy men and that they were trained in holiness, if you like. So according to traditions, the Zoroastrian priests, this cast of priests, were the repositories of knowledge, of tradition, of faith, and even kind of maintained within their minds a kind of library of the Zoroastrian faith, the Avesta and so forth. The great scriptures of Zoroastrianism were passed down word of mouth at this point. There were no writings at this point. So I think Matthew is very keen for his readers or listeners to understand that these people are a, you know, exotic. They come from far away from a huge empire, and also that these are men of profound faith who have received a truth already, because that's what Zoroastrianism is all about, is about, Arthur. It's about truth. So I think Matthew's use of these wise men is very, very specific indeed in the term that he uses, Magi. Very specific.
- [15:29]
Anita Anand
Now, Lloyd, we're very lucky to have you with us today because this is actually something which you are uniquely well qualified to answer. Explain to our listeners why St Matthew, sitting presumably somewhere in Judea, should be aware of the Persians at all. What is the connection between the people of Israel and the empires of Persia which you've studied all your life?
- [15:55]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yes. Well, when Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon and the Jews went into exile. After 70 years, many of them were released and many of them chose to go back home to Jerusalem, but many thousands of Jewish families didn't. They decided to stay in Babylonia and expanded in fact into more eastern parts of the Persian Empire as well, which.
- [16:19]
Anita Anand
Was then a far richer region than Judea.
- [16:22]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Oh, absolutely. By far, by far. And so what we have essentially is an assimilation, a mix of Jewish and Mesopotamian Persian cultural influences. And some of the really great Jewish scholarship of antiquity and indeed of the Middle Ages, such as the writing of the Talmud, the great commentaries, Rabbinic commentaries on the, on the Hebrew Bible were created in that Persian milieu. So in fact, this synergy between Persia and Israel or Judaism is very, very deep and very, very strong and powerful. And Matthew would have known that because he would have known that there were thousands upon thousands of influential Jews living in the Persian Empire at this point.
- [17:13]
Anita Anand
How can we see Persian influence in the familiar stories of the Bible? I've read, for example, that the very idea of a Messiah is something that first appears in Zoroastrianism, is that right?
- [17:25]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Well, certainly ideas of things like the invisibility of God is a huge concept. If you look at the Hebrew Bible and the stories that take place where God walks on earth and speaks to people, that's very ancient Bronze Age stories. But the Bible editors intermix those with newer theologies that arose from this intermingling with Zoroastrians. And the idea of God the Creator is certainly coming from the concept of Ahura Mazda, who was by foremost the Creator God par excellence in Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrianism, the ideas of good and evil are absolutely embedded in Zoroastrian theology, which is basically a kind of religion of polar opposites. There has to be good, there has to be bad.
- [18:18]
Anita Anand
The truth and the lie you talked.
- [18:20]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
About last time, truth and the lie, essentially Arta and Drauga, these are the things that matter. What we get steadily over about a 300 year period from the time of the exile to the time of Matthew's writing is a filtering of Zoroastrian ideas of Godhead in particular into the Jewish tradition. And that really is quite astounding. The Jewish God changes quite considerably in this 300 year period. So now the all knowing, all aware, omnipresent God of Judaism is born for the first time and the seeds of that birth are sown in Zoroastrian theology.
- [19:04]
William Durimple
Well, let's take a break here. And after the break I want to talk more about sort of the cultural exchange and influence. Particularly you've done some amazing work on a book called the Book of Esther, which tells a very Persian story and I want to talk about that and a little bit more about how the story that we have today and that my kids will be performing or have performed very recently on a stage. Those gifts, that idea of frankincense, myrrh and especially the gold if you ask my son. But you know how they come to be as weighty and have the longevity that they do. So just join us after the break.
- [19:40]
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- [20:12]
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- [20:42]
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- [21:00]
William Durimple
Welcome back. So just before the break, I mentioned a book which Lloyd knows all about because he's written a book par excellence about it. It really is a very, very good read and a story I wasn't familiar with until I came across your book, the Book of Esther. First of all, a book written by a woman, which is very interesting indeed. And it almost reads like a tale that could have come out of the Arabian Nights of this sort of Persian who's sick of his wife, gives her the heave ho and is looking for a new woman to just pick up the story there of Esther, who is a Jewish woman. That's what's important. We're talking about that sort of cross cultural merging as we're talking about the Magi story. And I think this is a really interesting bit of that.
- [21:38]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
I think in a way the Esther story really does tell, you know, the background to all of this. It's set in the city of Susa, the great Achaemenid capital of Susa. The king is Looking for a new bride. He has a kind of beauty contest, which is really typical of the Alf, Leila Walela, you know, the thousand and one night stories.
- [21:57]
William Durimple
Wait, wait, don't let him off the hook first. He's a git. So can I just do my feminine thing? He's an utter, utter. I'm sorry, it's not very Christmassy. He's a total git. He has a wife. He's drunk. He's saying, display your beauty to my guests. And she's like, I don't wanna. I'm not Mena.
- [22:12]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
She says, I'd rather.
- [22:13]
William Durimple
I'd rather not want to do that. And he says, all right, hop it then. I'll find another word.
- [22:18]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Dreadful. Dreadful. Dreadful.
- [22:19]
William Durimple
Absolutely.
- [22:20]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Many, many commentators have said we should find the Persian king Xerxes, in this case, something of a comic character. I don't find him much to laugh at that myself, to be honest.
- [22:30]
William Durimple
He's a Class 1 shitebag. Absolutely. If you don't mind me saying, it.
- [22:34]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Gets worse because he then has this kind of, you know, this huge Miss Persia pageant to choose the next queen of Persia. And one of the contendants happens to be a girl from Susa, the local girl, who is Jewish. And this really tells us a lot about the Jewish situation in Iran in that period because there were thousands of settled Jewish families living in the great cities and also in the towns and villages of the Persian Empire. And, you know, the book of Esther is really fascinating because essentially it is a Persian fairy story inserted into the Bible. There is no mention in the whole of the book of Hester, of God, of the temple, of Jewish traditions, nothing whatsoever.
- [23:20]
William Durimple
Food, kosher stuff that comes up all the time.
- [23:23]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
The things that we are most familiar with in the Bible is conspicuous by its absence in the book of Esther. So what we are dealing with here is a group of diaspora Jews who have completely Persianized. They are very happy, thank you very much. Being Persian Jews, we're not looking for the temple of Jerusalem. We're not going home. We have made very good lives for ourselves here. And I think that says a lot about the synergy that was going on between the Persians and the Jews in this period and went on for the next six, 700 years, in fact. Quite remarkable.
- [24:00]
Anita Anand
So, Lloyd, when we come back now to the gospel story in Matthew, it's in Matthew 2, verses 1 to 12. There's nothing surprising about finding Persians turning up, specifically Persian Magi Tower. This is something the Jewish people were very familiar with.
- [24:17]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yes, they were very familiar with the traditions you know, even families who were kind of split between Galilee and Persia, they would have been in constant touch.
- [24:26]
William Durimple
I mean, the Matthew chapter and verses that you've just given us, they do tell the story, just in case, you know, you're not a Bible reader. The story is that, you know, first the magi arrive, they meet Herod. Herod sees them and says, oh, you're here to see a baby. I'd be quite interested in that said baby. Could you please come and let me know if you find the baby? Because as we know later, Herod wants to kill that baby, who may end up dethroning him. Now Herod, just again, just to place this, those who are not from a Judeo, Christian history is a very important figure even in Jerusalem today. You know, you've got the Herod's Gate. I mean, just place him for us in history.
- [25:07]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Herod the Great was a Roman backed dictator essentially in Jerusalem, masquerading as a king and really kind of masquerading his Jewishness as well. He actually was of Nabataean background. So the area of, you know, Jordan today.
- [25:25]
Anita Anand
Would we call him an Arab today? An Arab Jew?
- [25:29]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Absolutely, an Arab Jew today. He was hated by his people, by the Jews themselves, because he kowtowed to Rome so constantly. And he was truly one of the villains of history. I mean he was mentally very, very unstable. He had one of his many wives murdered, he murdered two of his sons.
- [25:49]
William Durimple
And we know this from history or just biblical sources. This is actual historical record.
- [25:53]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
No, this is all history. The best source we have on him, of course is the histories of Josephus, 2nd century Jewish Roman writer. So yes, we can place him in his historical setting. Now what's interesting about the Matthew story is that these magi come from Persia and they go to the court of Herod. Now that's a natural thing to do because of course diplomacy was all about that. So these weren't the first Parthian Iranians that Herod would have met in his long career on the Judean throne. You know, this was something which was going on all of the time. But I want to interject into that another element of course of Matthew's story. And that is he's very specific in saying that they were led to Jerusalem by a star.
- [26:39]
Anita Anand
Ah, now that's very important. Yes, let's focus exactly on that.
- [26:42]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
So of course within the Babylonian Persian tradition, astronomy had always been a huge matter. The Babylonians themselves were brilliant astronomers, probably the world leading astronomers. And the Persians had picked up that tradition. So here is Matthew Actually knowing something about the magi tradition as astronomers, the star searchers, of course, looking for the heavens for omens and so forth. So he incorporates that into the tale. But the star also gives Matthew a raison d'etre to criticize the other great empire of the day, and that is Rome. Because at the time that Matthew sets the story of the birth of Jesus in Rome, a comet appeared. And the Emperor Augustus had said, ah, this comet is clearly a sign that my uncle Julius Caesar has now become a God in heaven. And at the same time, Augustus said, well, therefore I must be the Son of God. Okay, so there is a contender to the throne of heaven at this point.
- [27:53]
Anita Anand
What's the source for that?
- [27:55]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Mainly we have Suetonius, and we also have a whole series of coins which was struck by Augustus showing the head of the deified Julius Caesar with his comet hanging above his head.
- [28:06]
William Durimple
Suetonius was a very sort of respected, sometimes very arch contemporary historian of the time who gives us a huge amount of work which is verifiable from our.
- [28:16]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Personal detail in particular. That's right, exactly.
- [28:18]
William Durimple
It's quite bitchy.
- [28:19]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
But anyway, he really gets down to it.
- [28:22]
William Durimple
He does, yeah.
- [28:22]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
So Augustus starts calling himself Son of God. Well, of course, Matthew has a greater truth about all of this, which can also be backed up by Rome's arch enemy, the Parthians as well. So throughout the Gospel of Matthew, the term Son of God is used more than any other evangelist for Jesus. And he's saying, look, don't look to Rome for the Son of God. The Son of God is here in this stable and these Parthians have recognized it, and that's why they've come here. This is the only star that should be followed, is the one that will bring you to the real Son of God.
- [29:00]
William Durimple
So what he's saying is, Roman Empire, liars, Persian Empire, quite trustworthy. I've got the magi to prove it. I mean, that's fascinating. This is a complete confluence of empires in that case.
- [29:10]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
But also think about this as well. The one way in which the Roman Empire loved to show its grandeur was in the spectacle of tribute scenes and triumph scenes and all of this kind of thing. So if you go and you look at imperial arches in Rome or even in Thessaloniki, you will see time and time again, and also on Roman coins struck in this period, Parthians on their knees before Caesar. Okay, they are. The ultimate show of Roman triumph is to have Parthian diplomats wearing their distinctive Persian trousers and their funny Phrygian caps on their Knees offering homage to Caesar.
- [29:54]
Anita Anand
And that's often an inverse of the reality because the Parthians quite often defeat Rome.
- [30:00]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Precisely, precisely.
- [30:01]
Anita Anand
The Battle of Carrhae, was that right?
- [30:03]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
The Battle of Carae is a really good example of that. Absolutely. You know, the Romans claim that as a victory, it's a Parthian victory. And we know that the Roman envoys were on their knees in front of the Parthian king. So what Matthew does with that image is if any Parthians are going to go on their knees and offer homage to anybody, it's going to be to the true son of God, Jesus Christ, who is born in this stable. So can you see how Matthew takes all the symbols of empire and completely turns them on their head for his own usage there?
- [30:35]
Anita Anand
Lloyd, when I studied my biblical studies at age 15 or something, I remember always being taught that Matthew was the most Judaic or Hebraic of all the Gospel writers and that he's often looking to see in the events of Jesus life an echo of things that had happened in the Old Testament and the fulfillment of prophecies. So following that up, tell us about this figure, Balaam, who's in, I think, the Book of Numbers. That's one of the things that Matthew might be thinking about at this point, isn't it?
- [31:06]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yes, absolutely. So in the book of Numlibs, this character, this prophet, a seer called Balaam, has a vision in which a star appears in the heavens which will foretell the coming of the Messiah. And so of course that also gets inserted into Matthew's gospel along with the whole narrative. And this is why Herod becomes very important here, because Herod's plot to kill the infant Jesus. And of course he sends out this terrible dictum to his soldiers to say, kill all the male babies in the town of Bethlehem who are under the age of two. Well, that of course replicates the beginning of the book of Exodus where the Pharaoh of Egypt also issues this horrific order that the children of all Hebrew women, the sons beneath the age of two, should be murdered too. So in that respect, Jesus becomes the second Moses as well. So prophecies are fulfilled in many different ways in Matthew's Gospel, especially those to do with the move from Egypt to freedom. So again, the oppression of a great superpower of an empire, and then the freedom that can be had beyond that. So Matthew is very carefully and politically using the Old Testament for those purposes.
- [32:27]
William Durimple
Now, I am going to sound like my 9 year old because I want to talk about the presence. Can we talk about the Presence I'd love to talk. I can't wait to get some time for the Presence. But just before that, I mean, you guys have been talking about Matthew as a single writer of this gospel. And a lot of intelligence, if I can put it that way, says that a lot of these things were sort of team efforts. In the end, how do we know it's one person? And then if we do think it's one person, what more do we know about him?
- [32:51]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
We know nothing more about him at all. No more than we know anything about any of the gospel writers. But there's enough in the gospel as it stands, as it's come down to us to suggest a single voice throughout this. So, for instance, there's no great change of tone in the Greek at all. So we do think single authorship is the way. But of course, drawing on a whole myriad of different traditions, including Mark's Gospel, oral traditions, and also gospels that were only found, you know, in more recent times that had never made the cut, never made the edit, such as the Gospel of Thomas, which essentially is page after page of sayings of Jesus. No narrative, just sayings of Jesus.
- [33:38]
Anita Anand
And when archaeologists were digging in Egypt, they found these early sayings of Jesus that may even predate Mark. Is that right?
- [33:45]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Without a doubt. They predate Mark. Absolutely. So, yes, the sands of Egypt and also some of the old libraries of Egypt in Sinai, St. Catherine's for instance, you know, have unearthed documents which are earlier than the gospel writings, so continue to contain a much, much earlier tradition. So Matthew is using all of these.
- [34:05]
Anita Anand
And fragments of those survive in things like the Beatitudes. They're like compilations. When it says, blessed are the peacemakers.
- [34:11]
William Durimple
And the Beatitudes are. I mean, not all of us are good Catholic boys. What are the Beatitudes?
- [34:16]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
This is where Jesus basically gives his instructions about, you know, who is fit for the kingdom of God. So these are very, very old sayings indeed.
- [34:24]
William Durimple
Right, okay. Can we do the presents? Sir? Can we do the presents? Is it time for the presents? I want to do the presents. Can we do the presents? Right. What is the symbolism of gold, frankincense, and a much maligned.
- [34:35]
Anita Anand
And what are they also.
- [34:36]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yeah, this is the thing. They are symbolic gifts. You've absolutely got it right. I got priestly friends who, you know, some women priests who say to me, wouldn't it have been better if they'd bought a casserole and some nappies and, you know, whatever, anything. Absolutely. I can really. I can really see the point in that. I feel them sisters, nappy wives is what they really. Yes, yes, yes. All very, very well. You know, obviously, these gifts, these three gifts have a great symbolic value. So first of all, we've got gold. Gold is for kingship. Of course, you know, we don't know what form this gold comes in. If it comes in gold coin, if it comes in gold bars. We don't know. We're not told any of the specifics.
- [35:15]
Anita Anand
And is this a reference to Jesus supposedly being of David's line? And David was a king. King David, yes.
- [35:21]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
So it's about his kingliness. Okay. And that's the point that Matthew wants to stress all the time that he is the heir of the kingdom of David. So that's his kingliness, his earthly kingliness dealt with. Then we have incense. Matthew doesn't actually say frankincense, he just says incense, which is fine. We can read frankincense into that. And of course, this is to celebrate Christ's divinity because incense, in a way, was the food of the gods. You burn masses of incense so that the gods, no matter what gods you're dealing with, are pleased by its aroma. So this is the godhead of Christ.
- [35:59]
Anita Anand
Being celebrated as Hindu gods are still with agrabattis in a Hindu temple.
- [36:03]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Precisely, precisely. And then, of course, there is the ubiquitous myrrh.
- [36:09]
William Durimple
And myrrh, you couldn't say it properly, Myr.
- [36:15]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
And that is there to remind us of Christ's death, because myrrh was the most required spice that was needed for embalming. So when Jesus is crucified, we read in several of the Gospels that his body is taken by the women from the cross, and then they start to embalm or oil his corpse. And that is done with myrrh. It's a bittersweet kind of smell to it.
- [36:46]
Anita Anand
From Arabia.
- [36:48]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
From Arabia. From Arabia. Exactly. And it's very strong, very potent, which of course, in a hot country is very much needed to cover up the stench of decay of a body as quickly as possible. So that's the rationale behind the gifts. Kingship, divinity, tragic death.
- [37:07]
Anita Anand
And are they in any way linked to Zoroastrianism and magi? Is he choosing appropriate gifts for magi to give?
- [37:14]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
No, there's nothing in that whatsoever, which is unusual. So this is something that just speaks to Christ himself. It's almost as though. Though, you know, if we read into the text, it's almost the magi recognize that this is what this infant needs. But here's the rub, okay? So we have three gifts offered, but nowhere does Matthew tell us that we just have three major. Matthew is absolutely silent on the number of magi who are.
- [37:47]
William Durimple
I'm just looking through it again. Yes. He just says, wise men from the East.
- [37:49]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Men from the East. That's all it is. We have no idea. So we could have 20 coming and they're just sharing gifts.
- [37:58]
William Durimple
Or someone brought a casserole.
- [37:59]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yeah, exactly, exactly. There are two of them.
- [38:03]
William Durimple
Yes.
- [38:03]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
And they brought some extra gold. We have no idea. And in fact, in later traditions, and we can talk about this later, in Syriac tradition, For instance, there's 24. Alternatively, there are 12.
- [38:16]
Anita Anand
So if you're a Syriac Christian, you get to have 24 wise men in the school play.
- [38:20]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
12 wise men. Absolutely apart for everybody there. Incidentally, I always wanted to play a wise man because of my love of.
- [38:28]
William Durimple
The orientation, even back then. Really?
- [38:29]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Oh, yes, yes, yes. And I was always either head shepherd or Joseph, and that would have been a great honor to most people, but I wanted. I wanted a turban and myrrh more than anything else.
- [38:40]
William Durimple
Seriously, that we've cornered the market, Generation Asians, just, you know, sorry, sorry. Not sorry. But also, I mean, I just. It's. When putting our cards on the table, I would always be one of the angels because I had a very high singing voice and I always longed to be Mary, to hold the doll. And I would have elbowed the woman who got it off the stage if I had. I was the. The most demonic angel because all the way. And I've got photographs, childhood photos of her. The side eye. I'm gonna shove her off the stage.
- [39:12]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Oh, I've got. I've got photographs of me as head shepherd. Not happy. Not happy at all.
- [39:19]
William Durimple
So one thing that we haven't talked about in these wise men, of these. However many there were, is the names, which we have all come to associate with the three wise men or kings that we celebrate in nativities here in the West. That's Melchior, Casper and Balthazar. Now we're gonna do this and delve into this with Lloyd in the next episode of this Magi. But we've also seen, you know, the representation of the three in old Byzantine mosaics as early as 565, I think, earlier.
- [39:53]
Anita Anand
Yeah, you go to the catacombs, catacombs.
- [39:56]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Of Rome, Catacombs of Priscilla. There are three wise men dressed in Parthian clothing.
- [40:02]
William Durimple
So that's what we're going to do in the next episode. They're not only identified as, but they get given back stories and names. And if Matthew doesn't do it, who does it. So that's what we're going to talk about.
- [40:14]
Anita Anand
One last thing, Lloyd, before we leave today, we've talked a little bit about the catacomb of Priscilla. Just so that people know these are the burial place of the very first Christians of Rome. The catacomb of Priscilla, which you mentioned.
- [40:25]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Is what, about 150 AD, something like that. So very early on, you know, in the Christian tradition, and we see Mary seated with the infant Jesus on her lap and then three very splendidly dressed Magi in front of her, each holding a separate gift. They really can't make up the details of the gifts at all, but that's part of the visual tradition which expands and expands.
- [40:51]
Anita Anand
And this is quite important in a little bit of later history. And I love this story in Ravenna. We see very clearly the Magi coming with this. And they are, as you say, specifically dressed in very fancy Parthian dress. They've got stripy pyjamas, some of them got dots on their pyjamas, they've got cloaks behind them, fancy hairdos. But there is another mosaic, which is now lost, which was on the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and it sat over the main gate. And when in 614, the Persians did turn up in this part of the world and burn the Byzantine cities of particularly Jerusalem, they attack. They don't burn the Church of the Nativity because there's pictures of their own people over the main gate. So this image saves the church Nativity to this day?
- [41:42]
Lloyd Llewellyn Jones
Yeah, to this day, absolutely.
- [41:43]
William Durimple
Look, there's so much to talk about and we are so excited to have Lloyd Llewellyn Jones with us. So we're going to delve into the identity of these three mosaic characters that, that you've just been hearing about. But if you don't want to wait, you don't have to wait. Just join our club. Empirepod uk.com empirepod uk.com and then when we do these tiny miniseries, you get them all in one go so you can go on an extra long dog walk. You've got lots of washing up to do. I know you have, and you could have after the festivities. You can listen to, too, while you're doing it. Cheers it all up. Anyway, till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan, and.
- [42:18]
Anita Anand
Goodbye from me, William Durimple.