Knowledge of Faith Truths Too Leads the Magi to Bethlehem

In today's Epiphany homily of His Holiness Pope Francis, based on Matthew's Gospel, there is what I would call a serious rationalist mistake in exegesis.

The Holy Father says, in the context of the Magi's journey in search for the king of the Jews, that they "talk little and journey much. Ignorant of the truths of faith, they are filled with longing and set out." What the Holy Father neglects to say is that what the Magi do say and where they arrive and inquire is all based on divine revelation.

First, the Magi came, not to Bethlehem but to Jerusalem, the center of God's revelation (we would say to the "Holy See" of the day). The star leads them not to Christ but to the "Church" of Christ!, God's holy people: the Law and the Prophets and the Temple. The leaders of sound doctrine!

Second, it is ultimately from the chief priests and Scribes of the people that they learn, through Herod, "in Bethlehem of Judea."

Third, their very question itself is a question which could not possibly have come to them except through faith. They are in search of the newborn king of the Jews. They know of the Jews and they know of the birth of their great king. The Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint, had already been in the academic language of those lands (i.e. Greek) for hundreds of years. Surely the Persians, etc. (e.g. Cyrus of Persia) had some knowledge of Judaism. Probably they had access to that revelation or at least had heard from people who had heard of it. And they go there in order to worship Him. It is a journey of faith, based on science, but very much enlightened by revelation!

Fourth, who said that pagans from the east did not have faith and doctrines? All of those lands had their own beliefs and religious doctrines. Surely they believe in God, they come to adore him. And on this journey they were following the doctrine of the one true God and the coming of the Messiah as revealed and promised to the Jews.

Thus, the Magi, though they "talk little and travel much" (which we frankly do not know anything about the quantity of their conversation, surely they talked much on the journey, for wise men can walk and talk at the same time! And if they are wealthy kings they are being carried and so have much leisure to do nothing but talk, study and pray along the whole journey), come in search of a truth of revelation which was corroborated by science. They were not, in this fundamental matter, "ignorant of the truths of faith."

What the Holy Father is doing here is the classic error of orthopraxis over orthodoxy. He puts all of the emphasis on doing the journey, don't worry so much about the doctrine. The problem is that without doctrine you can't know were to go or how to go or how to get there, or why even bother with the journey? The will needs the guidance of the intellect in order to know what to bite on!

“An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut.” (Chesterton, "Illustrated London News," October 10, 1908)

“The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” (Chesterton, Autobiography)

Joseph Ratzinger, in Truth and Tolerance has a section on the logical error of putting orthopraxis over orthodoxy. The Marxist proponents of the primacy of orthopraxis claim that "...one cannot comprehend the absolute, but one can do it. The question is: How, in fact? Whence do I derive right action if I have no idea what is right? The collapse of the Communist regimes resulted directly from the fact that they had changed the world without knowing what was good for the world and what was not; without knowing in what direction it must be changed so as to be better. Mere praxis gives no light." San Francisco: Igantius, 2004, 124.

Setting out is useless for those who know not where to go or why to go. You "get nowhere," as we say.

That is also where the star comes in. The star itself indicates God to them. The star itself proclaims the fundamental doctrines of faith: that God is real, that He is involved in history, that He guides men to Himself, that He owns and orders the cosmos. This is what the Church calls natural theology.

So the anti-doctrine rationalist bias separating the doctrines of faith from the journey of seeking Jesus Christ is erroneous theologically and philosophically. It is erroneous regarding faith and regarding reason, reason itself reveals doctrines of faith to those who look for God through the stars! Their very search is based on a doctrine of faith: "search for the truth!" That doctrine is based on another doctrine: "there is such a thing as truth!" And another, "you can find it, and it is a most worthy pursuit!" "It is good for man to look for the truth!" Here are an whole host of doctrines of natural faith, all based on the truth of the living God.

"For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable." Romans 1:20

Now, if the message is simply that the faith journey is an essential element of faith and that God does reveal Himself to those who go out to find Him, then yes. But "the truths of faith" are essential and not contrary to that experience which itself may add to the "deposit" of faith truths for the individual. God does not cease to reveal himself in small and in great ways to those who journey to find Him. The Christian faith is indeed essentially a Way, a pilgrimage, intelligent, with grace, with and in the Church, and personal.

"Rarely has there been faith like to that of these three Eastern potentates; rarely has faith been so severely tested and so magnificently triumphant. It would be difficult to find faith in the Gospel like to theirs. by their faith they left their homes, by their faith they followed the star, by their faith they consulted the heads of the Jewish religion, and by their faith they recognised in the Babe of Bethlehem the Desired of the Nations, the Saviour of the World. In accepting this child, enveloped in obscurity, poverty and suffering from His birth, as their King and their Lord, they accepted His standards of value, His concept of life, and His principles of action."
Edward Leen, In the Likeness of Christ, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1936, 69-70.