Dec. 2024

Dec 1

Kris Kristofferson’s song “Jesus was a Capricorn” was released in November of 1972 on an album with the same name:

Jesus was a Capricorn.
He ate organic food.
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes.

Long hair, beard and sandals
And a funky bunch of friends.
Reckon may just nail Him up
If He come down again.

Nineteen years later, on December 26, 1991 The Schlafly Tap Room opened for business. Schlafly Beer, like Jesus, was a Capricorn. We’ve now been around for 33 years, which some biblical scholars believe was the length of Jesus’s life on earth.

I’m sure some alert readers (ARs) may find this association of Jesus with a Zodiac sign somewhat incongruous, given that astrology has long been regarded as incompatible with Christianity. Over 1,900 years ago, in the second century A.D. Aquila of Sinope, aka Aquila Ponticus, a renowned translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, was formally rebuked by Church Fathers for his heretical practice of astrology.

Fourteen hundred years later, in the 16th century, Martin Luther condemned astrology as having been “framed by the devil.” Luther went on to write, “To believe in the stars, or to trust thereon, or to be affrighted thereat, is idolatry, and against the first commandment.” As recently as a few months ago Pope Francis denounced astrology, admonishing the faithful to “turn to Jesus, not horoscopes.”

All of this notwithstanding, some ARs may also be aware that some very reputable biblical scholars agree that the first Gentiles to encounter the infant Jesus were astrologers. I am not making this up. The Magi mentioned in the New Testament are believed to have been priests in Zoroastrianism or other ancient Persian religions. Zoroaster, the founder of the Magi, was perceived as the inventor of astrology and magic (which is derived from the word Magi).

And, as most ARs will recall, the Magi found their way to Jesus in Bethlehem by literally following a star, which is what astrologers do. As most ARs also know, subsequent theologians have amended the original translation of Magi now to mean wise men or kings.

Whoever the Magi might have been, the New Testament doesn’t say what happened to them after they left Bethlehem, other than that they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod and took another route back to their own country.

One tradition is that the Magi were buried in the Persian city of Saveh, south of Tehran, where the Venetian explorer Marco Polo visited their tombs in the 13th century.

Another tradition is that the Magi were buried in Palestine, where they were discovered in the 4th Century by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great while she was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. Helena brought their remains back to Constantinople (the city named for her son) and gave them to the Milanese Bishop Eustorgius, who had them schlepped back to Milan in an oxcart.

Eight centuries later, in 1164, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (Red Beard) looted the relics from the church of St. Eustorgio in Milan and gave them to Rainald of Dassel, the Archbishop of Cologne, who relocated them to his home town, where he began construction of a shrine to The Three Kings. (No longer were the Magi astrologers.) Construction of the current Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 and took 632 years to complete.

From the very beginning the shrine of the Magi has attracted pilgrims from all over Europe and later from around the world. Because most them traveled by foot, they were understandably quite thirsty when they arrived.

Fortunately, brewers in Cologne had been brewing beer at least since 854. In 1254, six years after construction had begun on the Cathedral, they formed the Cologne Brewers Guild (Koelner Brauerei-Verband), the oldest such organization in Germany. The City of Cologne was ready for thirsty pilgrims.

Seven centuries later, on December 29th my wife Ulrike was born in Cologne, meaning she too like Jesus and Schlafly Beer was a Capricorn. In 1996 we renewed our wedding vows in the Cathedral, footsteps away from where the Magi were interred. Like millions of pilgrims before us we then celebrated with locally brewed Kölsch.

Tom Schlafly
Chairman
Schlafly | The Saint Louis Brewery