IN THE 1450s, the Medici family commissioned a series of frescoes for the walls of their chapel. The subject, spread across three walls, was the journey of the Magi. The artist included in the painting portraits of his patrons. Among them was the young Lorenzo de Medici, who was later to acquire the title il Magnifico. In this illustration, our eyes are drawn to him as he looks directly at us: “Am I not indeed magnificent?” he seems to say. He is depicted in the role of Caspar, the youngest of the Magi. His father, Piero, follows him on a white horse; next to Piero, riding a donkey, is his grandfather Cosimo, the head of the family.
The two other Magi are depicted on the other walls, leading their own processions. Melchior, the oldest, is thought to bear the features of the elderly Patriarch of Constantinople, while Balthasar resembles the Byzantine Emperor, John VIII Palaiologus. These last two had been present in Florence for the meeting of the 17th Ecumenical Council.
The Council had met to resolve, if possible, the Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople. The issue that had divided Christendom could be summed up in the single Latin word filioque (“and from the Son”). In the words of the Nicene Creed, the Holy Spirit is described as proceeding “from the Father and the Son”; the Eastern Church has always rejected the words “and the Son”.
But the issue was political as well as theological. Rome claimed precedence over Constantinople, a seniority that the latter had always denied. What now brought the Byzantines to the conference table, however, was their need of Western help in the face of Islamic encroachment. An act of union was agreed, but it was short-lived. A few years later, in 1453, the West reneged on her promise of help, and Constantinople fell to the Turks.
THE summer progress was a device used by our Tudor and Stuart monarchs to display their power. Like the kings in the Medici fresco, they travelled with their court, taking with them their hounds and falcons, so that they might disguise behind the pleasure of sport the harsh reality of power.
Queen Elizabeth I did so more than once at Kenilworth, and her canny successor, James I, used the same ploy at Hinchinbrooke on his way south to secure his new kingdom. They knew well the politics of a royal progress — that magnificent itinerary by which monarchs impressed their subjects. First came the heralds in tabards, and the men-at-arms; then followed the liveried attendants and gorgeously costumed courtiers; and, finally, the sovereign — jewelled, brocaded, and powdered — in a gold and scarlet coach.
But here was something altogether different: this was no summer progress. On Christmas Day 1622, Lancelot Andrewes preached before King James in Whitehall Palace. His text was Matthew 2.1,2: “Behold there came wise men from the East”. He chose his words carefully: “It was no summer progress,” he said. “A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, in solsitio brumali, the very dead of winter.”
ANDREWES was a regular preacher on Christmas Day. His sermons demanded of the congregation a close knowledge of the Bible. Although the English version of 1611 would have been familiar to him (he had, after all, been one of the translators), his scriptural references were to the Latin text of the Vulgate. His delivery, however, with its short, stabbing monosyllables, was designed for listening, not reading; and he lightened the matter of his discourse with a sprightly vernacular.
Two years earlier, in 1620, he had preached of the Church’s need for her doorway to be wide. His sermon shows that, although he spoke in English, he thought in Latin. To make his point he played with the Latin word for “came” in its singular form, venit, and its plural, venerunt. The singular venit stood for a narrow entrance, allowing strangers to enter one by one. By contrast, under the new dispensation signalled by the arrival of the Magi, the plural venerunt stood for the wide gateway of the gospel:
“A little wicket there was left open before, whereat divers Gentiles did come in. Many a venit there was. Venit Job in the Patriarchs’ days; venit Jethro in Moses’, and Rahab in Joshua’s, Ruth in the Judges’ time; Ittai, the King of Gath’s son. . . ” — the list went on. “Each of these in their times had the favour to be let in. Now a venerunt, the great gate set wide open this day for all these here with their camels and dromedaries to enter, and all their carriages.”
T. S. ELIOT quoted Andrewes in his poem The Journey of the Magi. He described how the travellers regretted the pleasures that they had left behind: “The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, and the silken girls bringing sherbet.” But still they travel on, those strange, over-dressed figures, carrying their enigmatic gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Their journey is ours. Their wistfulness for the summer palaces is ours as well, and their determination to keep going.
“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation
With an alien people clutching their gods.”
Like them, we too can never again be at ease in the old dispensation. Bethlehem changes everything.
O God, who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: mercifully grant that we, who know you now by faith, may at last behold your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
The Revd Adrian Leak is a retired Anglican priest, whose recent publications include a collection of essays, The Golden Calves of Jeroboam (Books, 11 December 2020), and his memoirs, After the Order of Melchizedek (Books, 8 July).
