NOTE 3. - Saba or Sava still exists as SAVAH, about 50 miles S.W. of
Tehran. It is described by Mr. Consul Abbott, who visited it in 1849, as
the most ruinous town he had ever seen, and as containing about 1000
families. The people retain a tradition, mentioned by Hamd Allah Mastaufi,
that the city stood on the shores of a Lake which dried up miraculously at
the birth of Mahomed. Savah is said to have possessed one of the greatest
Libraries in the East, until its destruction by the Mongols on their first
invasion of Persia. Both Savah and Avah (or Abah) are mentioned by
Abulfeda as cities of Jibal. We are told that the two cities were always
at loggerheads, the former being Sunni and the latter Shiya. [We read in
the Travels of Thevenot, a most intelligent traveller, "qu'il n'a rien
erit de l'ancienne ville de Sava qu'il trouva sur son chemin, et ou il a
marque lui-meme que son esprit de curiosite l'abandonna." (Voyages, ed.
1727, vol. v. p. 343. He died a few days after at Miana, in Armenia, 28th
November, 1667). (MS. Note. - H. Y.)]
As regards the position of AVAH, Abbott says that a village still stands
upon the site, about 16 miles S.S.E. of Savah. He did not visit it, but
took a bearing to it. He was told there was a mound there on which
formerly stood a Gueber Castle. At Savah he could find no trace of Marco
Polo's legend. Chardin, in whose time Savah was not quite so far gone to
decay, heard of an alleged tomb of Samuel, at 4 leagues from the city.
This is alluded to by Hamd Allah.
Keith Johnston and Kiepert put Avah some 60 miles W.N.W. of Savah, on the
road between Kazvin and Hamadan. There seems to be some great mistake
here.
Friar Odoric puts the locality of the Magi at Kashan, though one of
the versions of Ramusio and the Palatine MS. (see Cordier's Odoric, pp.
xcv. and 41 of his Itinerary), perhaps corrected in this, puts it at
Saba - H. Y. and H. C.
We have no means of fixing the Kala' Atishparastan. It is probable,
however, that the story was picked up on the homeward journey, and as it
seems to be implied that this castle was reached three days after
leaving Savah, I should look for it between Savah and Abher. Ruins to
which the name Kila'-i-Gabr, "Gueber Castle," attaches are common in
Persia.
As regards the Legend itself, which shows such a curious mixture of
Christian and Parsi elements, it is related some 350 years earlier by
Mas'udi: "In the Province of Fars they tell you of a Well called the Well
of Fire, near which there was a temple built. When the Messiah was born
the King Koresh sent three messengers to him, the first of whom carried a
bag of Incense, the second a bag of Myrrh, and the third a bag of Gold.
They set out under the guidance of the Star which the king had described
to them, arrived in Syria, and found the Messiah with Mary His Mother.
This story of the three messengers is related by the Christians with
sundry exaggerations; it is also found in the Gospel. Thus they say that
the Star appeared to Koresh at the moment of Christ's birth; that it went
on when the messengers went on, and stopped when they stopped. More ample
particulars will be found in our Historical Annals, where we have given
the versions of this legend as current among the Guebers and among the
Christians. It will be seen that Mary gave the king's messengers a round
loaf, and this, after different adventures, they hid under a rock in the
province of Fars. The loaf disappeared underground, and there they dug a
well, on which they beheld two columns of fire to start up flaming at the
surface; in short, all the details of the legend will be found in our
Annals." The Editors say that Mas'udi had carried the story to Fars by
mistaking Shiz in Azerbaijan (the Atropatenian Ecbatana of Sir H.
Rawlinson) for Shiraz. A rudiment of the same legend is contained in the
Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. This says that Mary gave the Magi one of the
bands in which the Child was swathed. On their return they cast this into
their sacred fire; though wrapt in the flame it remained unhurt.
We may add that there was a Christian tradition that the Star descended
into a well between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Gregory of Tours also relates
that in a certain well, at Bethlehem, from which Mary had drawn water, the
Star was sometimes seen, by devout pilgrims who looked carefully for it,
to pass from one side to the other. But only such as merited the boon
could see it.
(See Abbott in J. R. G. S. XXV. 4-6; Assemani, III. pt. 2, 750;
Chardin, II. 407; N. et Ext. II. 465; Dict. de la Perse, 2, 56, 298;
Cathay, p. 51; Mas'udi, IV. 80; Greg. Turon. Libri Miraculorum,
Paris, 1858, I. 8.)
Several of the fancies that legend has attached to the brief story of the
Magi in St. Matthew, such as the royal dignity of the persons; their
location, now in Arabia, now (as here) at Saba in Persia, and again (as in
Hayton and the Catalan Map) in Tarsia or Eastern Turkestan; the notion
that one of them was a Negro, and so on, probably grew out of the
arbitrary application of passages in the Old Testament, such as: "Venient
legati ex Aegypto: AETHIOPIA praevenit manus ejus Deo" (Ps. lxviii.
31). This produced the Negro who usually is painted as one of the Three.
"Reges THARSIS et Insulae munera offerent: Reges ARABUM et SABA
dona adducent" (lxxii. 10). This made the Three into Kings, and fixed
them in Tarsia, Arabia, and Sava.
