19 December, 2012

By VIVA Team

The Three Kings – who brought Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh to the birth of baby Jesus – hailed from Andalucía, not the Middle East as previously claimed. And the source for this ecclesiastical revelation? Why, none other than Pope Benedict XVI himself.

Go West: Were the Three Kings really from Andalucia?

The Pope posits the view that the Three Kings arrived from Spain in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, a book written by the present leader of the Catholic Church.

In it, the Pope claims that the travelling trio hailed from a town called Tarsis – or Tartessosa – which is an ancient kingdom that historians believe lay somewhere between Huelva, Cádiz and Sevilla in the southwest of Spain.

Legends of centuries past have always claimed that the Wise Men came ‘from the east’, thought to be Babylonia, which is present-day Iraq, or that they were Jews arrived from the Arabian Peninsula, or present-day Yemen.

This new revelation, however, adds a new dimension to the church’s understanding of the ancient world, and is thought to have stemmed from research conducted recently of medieval texts tucked away deep in the Vatican – texts that only a privileged few will ever get to see.

The Pope has also claimed that there were no animals present at the birth of Jesus, writing: “In the gospels there is no mention of animals,” adding that it was “probably an invention” that oxen and cattle were in the stable when Jesus was born.

But organisers of traditional nativity scenes across Spain and the wider world need not rush to tear down their displays – the Pope has stated that such scenes have entered into wider yore and, as such, “that tradition is here to stay”.

So there you have it. Whether substantiated or not, the Pope himself has laid further credence to what many historians have always suspected – that Andalucía’s ancient towns were more involved in the formation of Christianity than previously thought.

The region is rich with history, intrigue and mystique, and these new claims can only add an extra layer of lustre to an already magical corner of the world.