Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
Abbot Elfric unpacks the meaning of the gifts of the Three Wise Men.
990-994
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016
Abbot Elfric unpacks the meaning of the gifts of the Three Wise Men.
990-994
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016
In Anglo-Saxon England, January 6th was named the Epiphany, referring to the showing forth of Christ’s divinity. On this day, Abbot Elfric tells us, the English Church celebrated chiefly the Baptism of Christ, but also the Wedding at Cana, and the visit of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem.
based on a translation by Benjamin Thorpe
THESE three astrologers came and offered him symbolic gifts. Gold symbolised that he is true King; frankincense that he is true God; and myrrh that, though he now lives immortal evermore, he was mortal then.*
Some heretics believed he was God, but not that he reigned anywhere: spiritually, they offered frankincense to Christ but would not offer gold.*
Other heretics believed he was true King, but denied he was God: these no doubt offered him gold, but would not offer him frankincense.*
Still other heretics acknowledged that he was true God and true King, but denied that he assumed mortal flesh: they brought him gold and frankincense, but not the myrrh of mortality assumed.*
My brothers, let us offer our Lord gold: the acknowledgement that he is true King, and rules everywhere. Let us offer him frankincense: the belief that he who appeared then as man is God everlastingly. Let us bring him myrrh: the belief that he who suffers nothing in his divine nature was then mortal in our flesh.
based on a translation by Benjamin Thorpe
Myrrh was traditionally used in burial. It can reasonably be assumed that Mary kept the gift, and that the holy Myrrhbearers used it for Jesus’s burial some thirty years later. See Matthew 27:55-61, false, and false.
Elfric may be thinking of Pelagius, a British monk in Rome and later on in Jerusalem early in the fifth century. Pelagius believed that Jesus was God, but also that mankind could reform and be saved by his own efforts, without the need for divine grace. In that sense, it could be said, Pelagius (or at any rate Pelagianism – Pelagius himself may have been seriously misrepresented by his followers and opponents alike) did not acknowledge God’s earthly rule.
The fourth-century Alexandrian priest Arius stated that the Word of God was no more than the first and best of God’s creatures, a claim disproved from Scripture at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Elfric may also be thinking of Patriarch Nestorius in the fifth century, who believed that while the man Christ suffered death on the Cross, the Son of God in him suffered only as a king suffers when his statue is dishonoured. That was also disproved from Scripture, at the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451.
Elfric probably has in mind the fifth-century Greek monk Eutyches, who reacted so strongly to Patriarch Nestorius that he described Christ’s humanity as being dissolved in his divinity like a drop of honey in the whole salt sea. His theories were disproved, along with those of Patriarch Nestorius, at the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.