On January 9th from 10:35 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – They weren’t kings, they weren’t saints – and there weren’t three of them either. And yet their story is one of the best known on our planet. Without them there would be no golden shrine and no Cologne Cathedral – the third largest cathedral in the world. And Cologne would be poorer by six million tourists per year. More than a quarter of humanity knows the names of the three:
Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, but hardly anyone knows anything about the three wise men from the East. The “criss-cross” documentary “The Three Kings” by Martin Papirowski tells the Christmas story as it really was on Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:35 p.m. on ORF 2. At 11:15 p.m., Karoline Thaler’s film “The First Apostle – The Rise and Fall of Mary Magdala” goes in search of clues – from the monastery library in Melk to the papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library, from the Dom Museum Vienna to a depth of twelve meters under Stephansplatz.
“The Three Kings” – A film by Martin Papirowski
The Gospel of Matthew speaks of “wise men from the East” who came to Jesus’ birth. The ancient Greek text literally speaks of “magicians,” astrologers “from the East.” According to the Bible, they brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. However, nowhere in the Bible does it say that there were three, that they were kings, or what their names were. It was only in the Middle Ages that the number of gifts was reduced to three men. Scripture passages from the Old Testament, which speak of a future solemn procession of kings to the Holy Land, were seen fulfilled in the “Magi from the East” – and the kings mentioned had to be seen in them. A fairytale legend, a scientific thriller, a documentary that takes you to regions near and far: Cologne, Milan, Istanbul, the ancient metropolis of Palmyra in the Syrian desert and to Lalibela in the Ethiopian highlands. Are they actually the remains of the three saints that are kept in the Three Kings Shrine in Cologne? Did it really exist – the Star of Bethlehem?
“The First Apostle – The Rise and Fall of Mary Magdalene” – A film by Karoline Thaler
Who was Mary Magdalene? What does the biblical evidence actually say about them? And why was the image of the “sinner” with a clearly sexual connotation ultimately able to displace the image of the “apostle”? “For me, this figure is also so interesting because one could say that without him, Christianity as we know it would not exist,” says theologian Wolfgang Treitler. For years he has been fascinated by Mary Magdalene, the woman who, along with the mother of Jesus, is mentioned most often in the New Testament. She was the first witness of the Resurrection and was therefore given the title of “Apostle of the Apostles” early on. In a certain sense, her deep fall into prostitution over the course of history was already laid out from the beginning – she was stylized as the epitome of the sinner early on, and a certain disreputable eroticism accompanies her into modern pop culture.
At the beginning, however, she is considered Jesus’ “favorite disciple”: in extra-biblical, apocryphal texts she is even described as a competitor of the Apostle Peter. “These texts are an interesting historical source for us, because before that we only had the testimonies of the church fathers. And now we are presented with a very rich picture where we see: women’s roles have always been discussed,” says theologian Andrea Taschl-Erber, who has been studying Mary of Magdala since she was a student.
A particularly interesting example was discovered a few years ago by the Coptologist and theologian Hans Förster in the papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library, which is one of the largest collections of ancient documents in the world: “Here it is reported that Mary Magdalene comes to the empty tomb and with her mother Jesus is identified. That means, especially not with the sinner, but with the woman who is perceived as particularly pure in tradition.”
However, over the course of church history, the image of the erotic sinner replaced that of the apostle and, not least for this reason, continues to fuel fascination and speculation surrounding this biblical female figure to this day. “I find the constructed figure particularly exciting, as it has developed over the course of male-dominated art history, an image of women that is associated with eroticism, with sinfulness, with conversion,” says the director of the Dom Museum Vienna, Johanna Schwanberg. Images and sculptures of Mary Magdalene from very different eras can be seen in the museum’s permanent exhibition. On the one hand, the diverse attributions reflect the respective interest of an era in this woman, and on the other hand, they show the social developments of the position of women – especially, but not exclusively, within the church. Whether in science or in the entertainment industry – their fascination remains unbroken and their rehabilitation has now officially begun in the church.