Journey to the Magi

In “Journey of the Magi,” the terms “birth” and “death” function in many different ways. The child who is the object of the quest is literally born and, as all humans do, will eventually die. However, this particular birth and death have enormous theological implications. In both the poem and the Bible, the Magi are coming as representatives of all Gentiles to witness the Incarnation, the birth of Christ. With this birth, the son of God became man. However, as the second stanza makes clear, this birth is intrinsically interlocked with death. The son of God, made man, must die in order for the redemption to take place.

As a Gentile, the Magus is an outsider. While the birth of this Messiah had long been a part of Jewish belief, it is no established tenet for the speaker. He stands apart from the tradition, which makes acceptance of this miracle easy. Even the reader without a background in Judeo-Christian symbols recognizes images in that temperate valley that would never be familiar to the Magi. Thus, the poem