“What’s myrrh, anyway?,” declares the mother of Brian in the classic Monty Python sketch (see second image). Turns out, gold, frankincense and myrrh had a lot of meanings that modern readers might not recognize.
The story of the “wise” men that visit the babe Jesus only appears in the Gospel of Matthew. The author does not say the number of men, and the term used to describe them — magus — refers not to their wisdom but to a class of upper-echelons of priestly astrologers from the Persian Parthian Empire.
It is important to realize that this story didn’t surface in a vacuum, but that elements of it would have been familiar to pagan Romans of the first century. For instance, King Tiridates of Armenia travelled with his magi to visit the Emperor Nero in 66 CE. Also, the Syrian King Seleucus gave gold, frankincense and myrrh to the God Apollo in a temple at Didyma in 288/7 BCE. Gold symbolized kingship, frankincense could refer to a deity, and myrrh was a common embalming ointment used since the time of the Ancient Egyptians. Astrologers from the east who paid homage to a leader and the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were well-known tropes during the time of the writing of the Gospels.
The author of the Gospel of Matthew also felt it important to draw as much symbolism between Jesus’ life and earlier writings in the Hebrew Bible as he could, for he wanted to show that Jesus was a messiah whose destiny had been predicted. Thus, the Hebrew Bible book of Isaiah 60 discusses gifts of gold and frankincense presented by kings (eventually the magi were represented as kings). The writer also perhaps wanted to presage Jesus’ death by crucifixion, which is foreshadowed by the gift of myrrh: a smell that would have predominated where burial was happening, and a smell associated with the suffering of death. In this first image, the Early Medieval Franks Casket (600s) has three magi giving offerings of gifts, with the figure on the far left having the three interlocking triangles symbolizing death (called a valknut) over his back — this would be the deliverer of myrrh.
Source(s): Wikipedia. “The botanical aspects of Ancient Egyptian Embalming and Burial,” Bill B. BAUMANN, _Economic Botany_, Vol 14, No 1 (Jan-Mar, 1960), pp 84-104, published by Springer. _Biblical Archaeology_, “Why did the Magi Bring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh?” Nov 27, 2020.
