The Forgotten Magi - by Cura Animarum adapted from
"The Story of the Other Wise Man" by Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)Everyone knows the story of the three wise men who traveled from far in the east to see Jesus on the day of his birth. Many though have forgotten about the other, the fourth, the friend of the famous three who, all the while racing towards the star, never got to see Jesus the babe.
There are a great many tales told of him, and his travels and adventures far and wide and the trials and tribulations of his enduring quest of body and soul. This is the tale, as it was whispered to me on the great north wind as it blows over the frozen hills and valleys of my home. If you sit one night, in the crisp silence of a prairie winter and listen with a quiet heart you may just hear it too;
Cunobar was a wise young man who lived on a mountain top in the far east in a place called Persia. He loved watching the skies at night and knew all the stars by name - those at least which could be seen from his mountain home.
On one especially clear night, when the wind was still and the clouds had moved on in their wandering ways and the sky was lit from end to end with a milky ocean of glittering stars as far and as wide as the eye could see, Cunobar saw something that made his breath catch in his throat - that short, sharp gasp that most everyone makes when something absolutely remarkable, unexplainable, and marvelous takes place.
Three of the stars, three that he knew very well, had drawn near to each other. Now that wasn't particularly strange, stars moved near and far and sometimes even over-lapped as they drew their course through the night sky. He'd seen it time time and again, seen it most every night, seen it so often that it had nearly become a regular, almost boring things because it was just so - normal.
But what these three stars were doing, was far from normal - no, this wasn't normal at all!
Cunobar looked through his telescope just to be sure, he squinted his eyes, he shook his head, blinked and blinked - and looked again.
It was true. Miraculous indeed, but true.
They were dancing!
Twirling, spinning, reeling. As he watched they each took their turn, bowing to one another, spinning and dipping as though the universe had become their dance floor and the heaven had been filled with the most amazing, heart-racing, joyous music!
"I - I have to tell someone. This is just...amazing!" And he knew just who he would tell, his three closest and wisest friends; Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They were watchers of the stars too and if they didn't already know...they would certainly want to.
He ran down the path from his mountain home. He ran down the road that led to the the place the three shared together and burst into their home forgetting even to knock, or to allow their servant to announce his presence.
"Friends, friends have you seen - ?" he started to shout, and noticed immediately that they were packing their bags.
"Cunobar!" Melchior turned to him grinning, "You've seen it! You've seen the dance?"
"I have...it's the -"
"Most amazing thing no?" Caspar interrupted him (He was always doing that).
"But what? Why? Where are you going?" Cunobar asked.
"Well to see him. To see the king." Balthazar, the eldest and wisest of the four friends replied.
"Him? Him who, king who?"
"The king of the prophecy. The King of the world. The King of kings," Balthazar laughed and then quoted one of their own prophets, "Out of Jacob shall come a star, and a righteous lamp shall rise from Israel.' "
Caspar explained, "The stars dance at the birth of their king, our king,
the King of heaven and earth. We go to meet him."
"And to bring gifts! Gifts fit for a king." Melchior added "Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh."
Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Those were precious gifts indeed. Certainly worthy to lay before a king. Wonderful gifts, marvelous gifts. But what gift could Cunobar bring?
Gold he had, but he couldn't possibly give the same gift as someone else. Frankincense and Myrrh would be easy enough to come by but he needed something special, something unique. His own gift to give.
"Are you coming with us Cunobar?" Melchior asked.
"Yes, yes I am. But I need to pack and -"
"You need to hurry friend, the journey is long, the road is hard and the babe is set to be born very soon. We're leaving as soon as we're packed."
Cunobar was already racing for the door, he shouted over his shoulder, "I'll be quick. Don't leave without me!"
Balthazar shook his head and shouted back, "If we aren't here, you can catch up with us at Ur!"
Cunobar ran as fast as he could. All the while his mind was racing. 'I need a gift. A gift. A gift. What gift?' There was an ivory tea set he'd been given last year on his birthday, but that wouldn't do. The blanket his cousin had made him for last year's equinox festival...but compared to the other three, that seemed a little - less.
He began throwing things into sacks and shuffling through his stuff; simultaneously trying to pack, and trying find the perfect gift for such a worthy king. New sandals, hardly worn...no. Silverware, a gift from his father...no.
You know how sometimes, when you're looking for something and you're scrambling so frantically and you start to think there is no way...NO WAY, you'll ever find it, and just at the last moment, the very last second, you look in one more place and, like magic, there it is staring you in the face like it's been waiting for you the entire time?
Cunobar was loosing hope and thinking there was no way he would find the right gift to bring, thinking that he'd have to convince his friends to stop at a market on the way so he could by something fit for a king; when all of a sudden there it was.
In the chest at the foot of his bed, at the very bottom, carefully set beside a stack of his favorite books was a little wooden box given to him by his mother before she had died. In the box were three precious stones, a ruby, gleaming like the seeds of a pomegranate, a sapphire as bright and clear blue as the sea and a single, perfectly round pearl whose surface danced with milky, iridescent rainbows. They had belonged to his grandmother he remembered. They were once part of a necklace that had been passed from one generation to the next in his family. He had thought one day to have them made into a necklace again but...this would be perfect, the perfect thing...JUST the thing to gift to the king.
He finished packing as fast has he could, saddled his horse and rode like lightning back to the home of his friends. But they had already left.
"Ah well, I can catch up with them in Ur with no time lost. Or maybe sooner if I hurry."
Day and night, night and day, Cunobar rode west, over the hills and across the plains. Far into the country side at full gallop until his horse could run no more. He saw no sign of his friends, though he was sure they could not have gotten very far. There was nothing for it, he had to stop, if only to water and rub down his horse and have a small bite to eat before racing onward to catch up.
If memory served him, Uruk should be coming soon, the fabled city of kings, as good a place as any for a brief stop. He had no sooner thought this to himself when he heard a strange, low groaning sound, coming from a small group of shrubs just off the side of the road. Curious, Cunobar pulled his horse to a stop, dismounted and searched in the dark trying to see what could be making such a sound.
The dim starlight revealed the shadowy form of a man, lying in a heap on the ground. It looked like he had been trying to drag himself to the road, but had lost his strength and now lay, helpless not 10 yards from his goal.
His clothes had been torn from his body, only a few thin strips remained. His hair was all disheveled and his skin pulled tight over his sun-burned face. Cunobar could tell that there was something dreadfully wrong. He was battered and bruised, most likely robbed and was very close to death.
Cunobar was moved with pity for this stranger. Quickly he set himself to making a bed for him using blankets he had brought. Most people don't know this, but the Magi were more than just wise men who watched the stars, they were also healers, the physicians of their day and like any good physician, Cunobar never left home without his small bag of lotions and elixirs.
He took out a couple of oddly shapped bottles, mixed their contents in a bowl and holding it to the stranger's lips, helped him to drink a few drops at a time until it was all down. It was truly nasty stuff and a good thing the man was asleep or he would have made the most awful faces, but like most good medicines, it was exactly what he needed.
Cunobar cleaned and bandaged his wounds with oils and some wine and stayed at the man's side all that night and all through the next day while the man slept. As the sun began to set the man finally awoke;
"Who are you stranger, who stops his journey to help the beaten and dying whom you do not know?" The man asked.
"I am Cunobar, a wise man and Magi and I am on a quest to see the King of kings. You have been sick from your wounds a long while friend, and see, a night and a day has past and I must be on my way. Here you may keep my blankets and the last of my food and drink..."
The man looked at him in silence and Cunobar could see that he was still very sick. He thought of his gifts for the king, and the bright, sparkling ruby he'd hoped to offer. A ruby that gleamed a crimson as deep as the blood this man had shed. Here was this stranger, in great need of more than simple food and blankets, surely the king would not begrudge a single gem. "Here friend, help me to get you upon my horse.”
In such a way they walked the last of the miles to Uruk. The beaten stranger slumped in the horse's saddle, with Cunobar walking slowly at his side. In town, Cunobar found an inn. To the innkeeper he gave his grandmother's ruby, that precious heirloom along with instructions for the stranger's care.
He was about to rush off, already fearing he had lost his friends when the injured man grasped his arm and pulled him close. "You have helped me, a stranger, in my greatest need. The prophets of the Jews have written much about the Messiah. I can tell you exactly where to find him."
Cunobar was over-joyed at his good fortune, "Oh good sir, please, please...if you know do tell me!"
The man spoke, quoting from one of the prophets;
"But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days."
Cunobar rode. Day and night, night and day. All the while looking to the stars dancing high in the sky. Their dance continued with its twirling and spinning. Closer and closer they danced until one night, when Cunobar and his poor horse could ride no more and fell exhausted to the ground in the hopes of catching just a few hours of rest before racing onward again, the dancing stars touched.
Unspeakable light burst forth, filling the night sky.
"Oh the tail! The tail could almost touch the ground. That must be it, there must be the Bethlehem of which the stranger spoke."
After a very short nap, he jumped up and rode again. Harder and more frantic than ever. "I must see the king. I must give him my gifts!"
Day and night, night and day Cunobar rode straight as an arrow to Bethlehem, David's city. But already the stars began to tire of their dance, their light fading slowly, slowly from the sky. Their tail grew short. As Cunobar approached the city of bread (for that's what Bethlehem means in the Hebrew tongue) it seemed as though the three stars bowed gracefully to one another, in thanksgiving for the wonderful dance, then carried on their separate ways.
Cunobar and his horse, plodded into the small village, both their faces gleaming with sweat and their bodies covered with the dirt of the road. The town seemed empty, a ghost town. It was certainly not the kind of deadening silence one might expect to find in the place where the King of kings had just been born. There had to be some sort of explanation, someone had to know what was going on.
In the midst of the silence, such a heavy quiet that it seemed to thicken the very air he breathed, Cunobar heard the soft, mournful sounds of a woman weeping. He followed the sound through the streets. It led to one of the mud and stone houses people built for themselves in those parts. He hesitated a moment, and knocked gently on the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
At first, there was nothing. Even the crying stopped. He was just about to knock again when a woman's voice called out from behind the door, "Who knocks at my door on such a dark day as this? Who disturbs a mother's lament? Are you come to steal the lives of my other children as well?"
Cunobar was deeply moved by the great sorrow that shook her voice. Taking a breath to steady himself he called through the door, "I am Cunobar, a wise man and Magi and I am on a quest to see the King of kings. Please, I do not wish to deepen your sorrow, but I had been told that this would be the place - Bethlehem - where the king would be born. It hardly seems right. The streets are...the streets are..."
The door opened and before him stood a young Jewish woman, her face red and still wet with tears. "The streets are dead." she finished for him, "Dead as our hope, dead as our future, dead as our first born sons whom Herod, king of the Jews had murdered three nights past. The evening after the bright star shone over our cursed town."
"Was there no new king to stand against him?" Cunobar couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"A babe yes, a child in a manger whom shepherds and wise men as yourself visited. A child for whom all the heavens sang. A child whose birth frightened Herod so much, that he sent his soldiers to kill our first-born sons."
"The babe, the king is he...?" But he couldn't bear to say the words.
The woman stopped him, pressing her fingers to her lips and shaking her head. Then, leaning closer she whispered "I have heard it said that the child and his parents were warned in a dream and have fled to Egypt that ancient place of shelter for our people. As for your friends, they left not three days ago, heading home by some secret way so that Herod would not find them and force them to tell of the child's whereabouts. Now, I have told you all you need. Please, while the world now may have hope that Kings like Herod will rule no more...still I mourn the loss of my son. Leave me."
Cunobar bowed low and thanked her graciously, and wishing her peace, he left.
What was he to do? He had missed the birth, that miraculous birth. He had missed kneeling before the king alongside his friends. He had missed sharing his most precious gifts. Was that it then? Was he to simply turn around, admit defeat and go home?
"I cannot." Cunobar declared. "I am on a quest to see the King of kings, the Son of the living God. I cannot give up, forget my gifts and go home with nothing to show for my journeys but the loss of one precious stone and a tired horse."
After a few days of rest, and the purchase of more supplies, Cunobar followed the object of his quest, the desire of his heart, the King of kings, into Egypt.
Day and night, night and day Cunobar rode across the ancient, fertile plains of Canaan, over the mountain ranges of Sinai, past the Red Sea. Day and night, night and day and never once knowing for certain if the little king and his family had come that way.
Day and night, night and day. Past the great sphinx as it lay keeping watch over the tombs of ancient, mortal kings sleeping beneath the great pyramids. Along the great Nile as it slithers like a snake through sycamore and olive groves. From time to time he would hear stories, rumors, whispers of a young family in hiding. They were like ghosts, shadows whose traces vanished from sight as soon as Cunobar turned in their direction.
Day and night, night and day Cunobar traveled the streets of the great cities and tiny villages of Egypt. He stopped in every Hebrew settlement he could find, spoke to every aged Rabbi, every elder prophetess. He sat far into the night, pouring over ancient scrolls carefully preserved in the synagogues of the Jews in Egypt.
Every where he went there were the poor, the lame, the sick. He would often trade his skills as a healer for the opportunity to peek at this scroll or that, or for any bit of news or rumor of the family from Bethlehem. More often than not, news or not he would share out of his own pocket some coins for bread and drink or clothing for the poor and the hungry.
One day, as he entered into yet another small, Hebrew settlement, he was greeted by the sounds of wailing and crying, and, oddly enough music echoing down the streets. Following the noise, he turned a corner to see a small home where a large group of people had gathered. Women dressed in black, with their bodies covered from head to toe were wailing and crying outside the small home. With the women were a flute player and drummer adding to the racket.
Seeing Cunobar standing with his horse looking on with curiosity and concern a young boy passing by stopped to explain. "Their daughter has a fever and is dying. Her mother has hired them to mourn her death as there is nothing left to do."
Cunobar introduced himself to the boy "I am Cunobar, a wise man and Magi and I am on a quest to see the King of kings. I am also a healer of the body. If the girl is not yet dead, perhaps I might help? Go son, and ask of the parents."
The boy ran on, bounding through the mourners as they wailed the family's tears and their prayers for the dying girl to heaven. Soon he returned with the girl's father at his side. The father's eyes were red and sore from the tears he had shed. The pain he felt as his daughter lay dying was clear on his face.
"Sir," he spoke to Cunobar, "This boy claims you might heal our daughter. She is with fever for three days now. Our own doctors have not been able to find a cure but if you are willing, please, come to see her. If nothing more is done, she will not last the night."
Cunobar was led upstairs by the girl's father and to the room where she lay, eyes closed, breath gasping, cheeks flushed with fever. Her mother knelt at her side, patting her small hand and weeping softly.
The Magi went to her side and felt her head. He asked for silence and pressed his head against her chest. After a few moments he spoke, but they were words he would rather not have said;
"Your daughter indeed is very ill. It is a fever I have seen often, and cured."
Both mother and father gasped, and fairly leaped with joy at the news. Cunobar continued, "But the ointments, tinctures and elixirs I will need are very costly..."
Their faces fell and her mother began weeping once more while her father spoke in shaking words, "Though we are not a poor family we have already spent all we had on doctors and medicines. The last of our coins my wife used to hired mourners for her passing for we thought all hope to be lost. We have nothing with which to purchase all you say we will need."
Cunobar was beside himself. He had already lost one of his precious stones to the injured man, all those years ago. Now it seemed the fates were demanding even more sacrifice. Looking into the eyes of the girl's grieving parents, he knew he could not refuse. He reached into the small sack tied to his belt and produced his grandmother's glimmering sapphire, blue as a mother's tears. "Wipe your tears and mend your hearts for your daughter will not die this day." Handing the gem to the boy who had first spoke to him, Cunobar quickly told him what he would need. By evening the girl had risen from her sleep. By dawn's light, she was sitting up and eating.
The little home and indeed the whole village was filled with rejoicing. The girl's mother hugged Cunobar close and with deep thanks, gave him this blessing; "You have saved our daughter's life, she whom we had given up for certain death; may the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His face to shine upon you; may the Lord of Lords be gracious to you all of your days and give you peace when evening comes."
Word spread and soon, from miles around the sick and the lame sought out Cunobar the healer, the Magi who had brought a little girl back from the brink of death itself.
Time has a funny trick about it. A way of slipping through our grasp and getting away on us when our backs are turned and we're distracted by many things. Cunobar found himself spending more and more time with the sick and the poor of Egypt and less and less time searching for clues as to the whereabouts of the King of kings, the object of his quest.
Day and night, night and day Cunobar the Magi lived with, ate with, and drank with those whom the rest of the world had forgotten. Every now and then he would stick a hand in his pocket and feel that tiny pearl, the last of his gifts for the King of Kings, slip and slid through his fingers. At those times he would recall his quest and remember that he was still "Cunobar, a wise man and Magi on a quest to see the King of kings." More often than not, there would soon after be a knocking at the door, or a cry in the streets and the needs of some other in worse state than himself would once more draw him away from his quest.
Day and night, night and day time passed and soon Cunobar's hair turned first to gray, then to stark, gleaming white. His shoulders grew tired, and his eyes dim. Though he stayed close to home more and more, still there were a few times over the years when, for one reason or another Cunobar had need to travel to Jerusalem. On those occasions he would, ask quietly if anyone had news of a young family from Bethlehem with a very special child.
On one such trip, taken on purpose during Passover because he loved the crowds and the excitement and the traditions of the Jews on that most sacred of festivals, he noticed immediately that something strange was going on. The streets were still crowded with people, the lanes and plains packed with the children of Israel who had traveled miles and miles by ox and by cart to feast in God's Holy City. But the air was thick and tense. People spoke in hushed, frightened and whispered words. There was no joy in the air, no sense of festival and celebration. There were dark secrets in the streets and darker clouds in the sky. The whole world seemed to be teetering on the brink of something sinister.
One small cluster of men and women rushed passed Cunobar with their eyes darting from side to side. He stopped one of them and asked where they were headed. "We go to the place of the skull, called Golgotha. There a man is to be crucified who has called himself King of the Jews and whom others, fishermen and sinners have called the Messiah."
Cunobar's heart leaped to his throat. Could it be? Truly? After all of these years of searching? He spoke to the man he had stopped, "I am Cunobar, a wise man and Magi and I am on a quest to see the King of kings. I have searched for more than thirty years for this man and have wandered the length and breadth of the world in my quest."
"You will want to hurry then, if you wish to see him before the executioners of Rome complete their dark task."
Cunobar followed. The streets twisted and turned, turned and twisted. Soon, a few small groups merged with larger and larger crowds. Some faces were streaked with tears, some clenched and reddened in anger. Some hands were raised in mournful supplication to God, some fists swore curses to the sky.
Just as he was nearing the place, a corner or two away from his first gimps of the King whose face he had sought with all his heart, all his mind all his strength and all his soul, a group of foreign traders and their soldiers cut him off from the group he was following. They dragged behind them a line of persons, men, and women bound in chains and ropes. Their clothes were mere rags, they had no sandals for their feet. They were dirty and afraid.
As Cunobar stopped to let them pass, a young man broke out of the line and fell at his feet. "Please sir, you must help me. If there is love and compassion in your heart you must save me. I have been a fool . Not one year ago I left home and family with the inheritance I had demanded from. I squandered it with rich and dissolute living and have now been sold into slavery to pay for my debts. I am to be taken into a foreign land to care for the pigs of my master. Please, no one will save me from this fate worse than death itself!"
It could not be that the fates were so cruel as to demand from him further sacrifice so close to his goal, and for this spoiled and miserable child who had selfishly forsaken his father's house. Cunobar felt his anger boiling to the surface. How dare this lad...
In mid-thought he caught again, the pleading sorrow of the young man's eyes. He saw deep into his heart how desperately he wished to turn from his ways, how badly he needed the comfort and compassion that only a father could give. A father, and perhaps Cunobar himself.
It was that age-old tale haunting him and his quest since the day it began. He would never be able to kneel before the King of kings and present to him his precious gifts, for fate or God himself had orchestrated things in such a way that each time he got close, another precious treasure was soon stripped from his grasp. Now here, not two corners away from the goal of his longing heart, this wasteful but repentant young man meets him with a plea that his conscience would not allow him to deny.
One of the merchants was coming back, his harsh, angry face livid at the delay. He was about to order one of his soldiers to haul the insolent slave back into line and beat him soundly when Cunobar reached into his bag and produced the last of his treasures, the creamy, iridescent pearl, pale and milky as the young slave's panicked face, the last of his family's treasures. On it's surface could be seen the reflection of the clouds, dark and ominous as they marched across the sky.
Cunobar spoke, "I am Cunobar, a wise man and Magi and I am on a quest to see the King of kings. This pearl was to be my gift to him, but here, now let it serve as this man's ransom. Her debt is paid, he must be freed." To the young man he said, “You son, return to your father's house and beg his forgiveness. Perhaps he will see the turning of your heart and show you mercy as you have found today.”
At that very moment, a great many things began to happen all at once, so much so that I hope I can recall them in their proper order.
The slave trader gasped at the sight of such a beautiful gem as was the pearl that Cunobar offered. Grasping it selfishly, he ordered the boy's release.
The earth began to shake and the stone buildings all around began to rattle and groan.
Thunder rumbled through the city streets.
Birds from a nearby olive grove took wing and began to cry out in an afternoon sky that was now as black as night.
From two corners away the sound of women wailing and crying into the darkness filled the alleyways.
It began to rain, drops as warm as blood.
Cunobar's old heart began to race, it skipped first one beat, then two. His world began to spin and his legs felt weak. He was and would always be a physician and he knew then, that his time had come and he had reached the end of his days. He leaned against a nearby wall and slid slowly to the ground. He thought to be bitter, perhaps angry for a moment, for having lost so much of his life in a quest to see the King of kings and having failed so miserably. He had lost his home, his friends, his most precious treasures...his whole life. And he had nothing to show for it.
Yet even in the thinking, Cunobar knew that this was not the entire truth. As a magi and wise man he had sought always the truth in all things and could no more deny it now than he could deny that his old and tired heart was reaching the end of its journey. He may have lost the longing of his soul, he may never see the King of kings but he had touched the lives of so very many needy and despairing people and they had touched his in return. He knew that were he given the choice, with all he had learned of life and love, he would choose again the same path and in never seeing his quest's true end, find peace nonetheless.
If this was to be his end, surely he was ready.
A light filled his vision. He looked up, and while the young man, the soldiers, merchants and other slaves cowered in the street and the world around them seemed to be coming to an end Cunobar gazed past it all to a strange a beautiful light and within, a glorious face the others did not notice.
He strained his ears, as if to hear. He shook his head in disbelief. His lips moved first in wonder, then in confusion and denial.
He spoke, but to whom no one watching could say. His old voice shook, barely a whisper, "My Lord. How can it be? I did not...I never. When Lord? When was it that I saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that I saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that I saw you sick or in prison and visited you? My Lord, my king, I have searched all these years of mine for you and for your face and never have we met."
After this, Cunobar was silent for some time. He sat in the street. A heavy weight bore down on his chest. Each breath seemed a chore. But he sat, staring into a gleaming light no one but he could see.
He saw.
And at the feet of the King of kings, the man from Nazareth once a babe, now an outlaw, now a king whom Roman soldiers were even then declaring to be the Son of God, Cunobar the Magi, Cunobar the wise, Cunobar the healer, gave into his hands the only gift he had left to give. "It is finished," he whispered then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
This is the story as it has been whispered to me on the chill north wind as it dances across my prairie home. Perhaps you have heard it too, at different times, in different forms. This is the nature of stories and north winds and the kinds of lives as that which the forgotten Magi lived.
THE END
