Epiphany

Theophany; Three Kings Day; Día de Reyes

January 6; January 19 for the Orthodox churches on the Julian calendar, who keep Theophany

In Stromata I.21 he says that the followers of Basilides, a Gnostic sect, keep the day of Christ’s baptism, with a night of readings, on a day that falls in early January. It is the earliest trace of a January baptism feast, but the keepers were a sect and not the church. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that scholars cannot tell whether they also kept the birth that day. A homily on the Theophaneia once ascribed to Hippolytus is judged spurious by Achelis and others.

But the followers of Basilides celebrate the day of His Baptism too, spending the previous night in readings.

In his history of Rome (XXI.2) he mentions the Epiphany feast in the time of the emperor Julian. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls this the first actual reference to the church’s feast, about 330 years after the church began. It also notes a martyr’s Passion that would have the feast kept in Thrace in 304, but doubts whether that account can be trusted.

In a sermon probably preached on December 25, 380, he calls the Theophany the holy birth of Christ, and tells his hearers they will shortly see Christ baptized. In the East the January feast then held the birth and the baptism together.

Her travel diary, mutilated at the beginning, describes the feast at Jerusalem and Bethlehem: on the vigil, January 5, a procession goes from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and returns the next morning, followed by services at the church on Golgotha and the church of the Resurrection. At Jerusalem the day had a special reference to the birth, because of Bethlehem nearby, so strongly that the Catholic Encyclopedia judges the baptism was left out of it. Her journey is usually dated c. 381-384; no exact year is known.

Tells his hearers how the people of Antioch carried home water consecrated on the night of the feast, which he says kept for a year without spoiling. It is the first sign of the holy water of Epiphany. In a sermon of 386 he calls the Nativity the parent of festivals, since without the birth there would have been no baptism; the Catholic Encyclopedia says this shows how loosely the name Theophany was used.

Says that the Egyptian monasteries still celebrate the Nativity and the baptism together on January 6. The East did not yet share a single meaning for the day.

Condemns the practice of baptizing on Epiphany, in Sicily, as an irrationabilis novitas, an unreasonable novelty. The West was taking up the Eastern January feast and, as the origin below says, gave it a different center.

Latin writers begin to give the wise men the names Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. Matthew gives no names, no number and no title of king. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the number is not given in the Gospel (three is inferred from the three gifts), and that no Father of the Church holds the Magi to have been kings. Tertullian called them “wellnigh kings.”

Claims to hold the remains of the wise men, said to have been found in Persia, brought to Constantinople, moved to Milan in the 5th century and to Cologne in 1163. The Catholic Encyclopedia reports this as a claim and does not vouch for it.

The appendix to its Directory for the Publick Worship of God says no day but the Lord’s Day is commanded to be kept holy under the gospel, and that festival days are not to be continued. Days of public fasting or thanksgiving may still be called for special occasions. Strict Presbyterians who hold the regulative principle keep no Epiphany.

Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued.

Epiphany began in the East, and its name is Greek for “appearing.” The early records show a feast on January 6 that joined several “manifestations” of Christ: His birth, the visit of the wise men, His baptism and, in some places, the wedding at Cana (John 2:11) (H3, H6). Rome kept Christ’s birth on December 25 by about 336, as the Chronograph of 354 shows (see Christmas), and that Roman calendar has no January feast. As the December feast spread to the East, the West took up the Eastern January feast and gave it a new center: the wise men, Christ shown to the nations (H7). The East, which then also kept December 25, kept January 6 for the baptism and the showing of the Father, Son and Spirit, and called it Theophany.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says the reason for choosing January 6 “is impossible to discover.” The date is a matter of the church’s reckoning, not of any text. Notice also that the feast has meant different events to different churches over its history.

The calculation theory (Duchesne)

The baptism-feast theory

Roman Catholics

Anglicans and Lutherans

Eastern Orthodox churches

The Armenian Apostolic Church

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Baptist and nondenominational evangelical churches

The Churches of Christ

Strict confessional Presbyterians

Jehovah’s Witnesses

The Epiphany Mass and the blessing of water

Catholics read Matthew 2:1-12 at Mass, add the wise men to the nativity scene, and announce the date of Easter. The Orthodox bless the waters on January 5-6: the priest dips the cross into the water three times, often at a river or the sea, and the faithful take the water home (H5).

Armenian Christmas and Theophany

A Divine Liturgy for the birth and the baptism together, with a blessing of water.

Chalking the door

Households write the year and three letters over the door, such as “20+C+M+B+26”, the year’s digits around three letters. The letters are said to stand for the names of the wise men, or for Christus mansionem benedicat, “may Christ bless this house.” House blessings at the New Year go back to the Middle Ages, and some Episcopal and other Protestant parishes now hand out chalk.

Shoes, camels and gifts

In Spain and Latin America children set out shoes, sometimes with grass or hay for the camels, and find gifts from the wise men on the morning of January 6.

King cake

A cake with a hidden bean or figure that crowns a “king.” Its roots are medieval, possibly echoing a Roman Saturnalia custom. In Mexico whoever finds the baby figure in the rosca de reyes hosts a meal of tamales on February 2 (see Candlemas).

Twelfth Night

The evening of January 5, ending the twelve days of Christmas, with feasting and wassailing in English tradition.

King cake and Carnival

In New Orleans, January 6 opens the Carnival season, and bakeries sell king cakes from then until Mardi Gras. In Spain and Louisiana the person who finds the bean or the baby buys or bakes the next cake.

Parades and toy sales

Toy and gift sales in Spain and Latin America peak before January 6, because the wise men, not Santa, bring the gifts. Spain’s Cabalgata de Reyes on the evening of January 5 has floats and thrown candy, and Three Kings parades run in Hispanic communities in the United States.

The church’s appointed remembrance is weekly, and it looks to the cross

The New Testament gives the church one day and one memorial: the first day, and the Supper that proclaims His death (S1, S2).

The church gathered “upon the first day of the week” to break bread (S1). The Lord Himself gave the memorial: “this do in remembrance of me,” and Paul says what it proclaims, “the Lord’s death till he come” (S2). That is the remembrance God appointed, on the day the apostles kept it. Apostolic example binds, and a specific appointment excludes other kinds: the church has no warrant to add a yearly feast to its worship.

The New Testament shows no church keeping Epiphany, and the record bears that out: the first sure sign of the feast comes about 330 years after the church began (H2), and the church kept it for different events in different places (H3, H6).

Scripture tells of the wise men and the baptism and sets no feast for either

Matthew tells both events plainly; no apostle commands a yearly remembrance of the visit or the baptism (S3, S4).

Matthew tells that wise men came from the east, found “the young child with Mary his mother,” and offered gifts (S3). He never says how many there were, never calls them kings, and never gives their names (H8). They came to “the house,” not the manger, and Herod’s order to kill boys “two years old and under” suggests the visit came some time after the birth. The baptism is told in all four Gospels, and at it the voice from heaven names the Son (S4).

The church should preach both. The wise men show that the gospel is for the nations, and the baptism shows the Father, the Son and the Spirit at work together. But the text appoints no feast for either, and the church that adopted the day could not agree on which event it kept (H3, H6, H7).

Days are a matter of conscience for each believer, not a law for the church

Romans 14 leaves one believer free to regard a day and another free not to, and forbids each to judge the other (S5, S6).

Paul writes of believers who differed over days: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind” (S5). The days at Rome were most likely Jewish days and fasts, so the passage does not set out to approve a Christian feast. It does give the rule for a Christian’s own regard for a day: it is between the believer and the Lord, and no one may judge him for it.

So a Christian may keep January 6 with their family, read the story of the wise men, share a cake, and thank God that the gospel came to all nations. What they may not do is make that day binding on others, or bring it into the church’s worship as a holy day (A1). Paul’s word to the Colossians stands beside this: let no man judge you “in respect of a feast day” (S6).

Paul rebukes those who “observe days, and months, and seasons, and years.” Epiphany is such a day, kept by the calendar.

The Galatians were taking up a calendar as a way to stand right with God (verses 4:21 and 5:4), and Paul fears his labor was in vain. Read in context, the text strikes at any day made necessary to please God, and it fits a feast imposed on the church as a duty. Scholars differ over whether the days were Jewish or pagan. The text does not by itself forbid a believer’s private regard for a day, which Romans 14 allows (S5). The case against Epiphany in the church’s worship rests on the New Testament pattern (A1).

The legends of the three kings, their names and their relics, and rites like the blessing of water, are the precepts of men taught as worship.

This is a right use for the legends, as far as any church teaches them as fact: Matthew gives no number, names or crowns (A2, H8). It is a right use too where a church teaches the blessed water or chalk as having power from God that no text gives it. It does not reach a family that writes a blessing on its door or bakes a cake without calling it God’s command (A3).

Rites like holy water and blessed chalk are rules of “handle not, nor taste, nor touch,” after the precepts and doctrines of men.

The rules Paul names are bans: touch nothing, taste nothing. Holy water and chalk are not bans of that kind, so the text fits them only at one remove. Its principle is plain, though: a rite that men devise, taught as holding spiritual power, is “will-worship.” The test is what the church claims for the act. A blessing said over a house by a family is a prayer, and Scripture allows it; a church that teaches that the water or chalk carries grace adds to what God gave (A1).

Isaiah foretells that nations will come to the light and kings to the brightness of its rising. Epiphany keeps that prophecy, which the wise men begin to fulfill.

The prophecy is Scripture, and the gospel does go to the nations. A church may preach it on any Lord’s Day. But the text speaks of kings, and Matthew calls the visitors wise men and never kings (H8). Isaiah foretells the gospel’s reach; he does not appoint a feast.

The liturgy applies this psalm to the wise men: kings bring gifts and fall down before him.

The psalm speaks to the reign of the king, and the church does read it of Christ. The Catholic Encyclopedia itself says that applying the psalm to the Magi is a liturgical accommodation, which does not prove that they were kings. A hymn’s use of a psalm gives the feast no command.

Study

• Matthew tells of the wise men and of the baptism, and Luke and John tell more of the Lord’s ministry. Why might the church preach these events without keeping a feast for each?
• The feast meant the birth, the wise men and the baptism to different churches (H3, H6, H7). What does that tell us about whether it came from the apostles?
• Matthew never gives the number, the names or the rank of the wise men. What does a church do when it teaches what the text does not say?
• Romans 14:5 says “Let each man be fully assured in his own mind.” How can a family keep Epiphany at home without making it a law for the church?
• Colossians 2:20-23 warns against rules devised by men. How can a church tell a prayer for a house from a rite taught as carrying grace?

Christmas

Candlemas

Advent

More illuminations · Harbinger's Lamp