4. They are variously stated as twelve (Aug. Chrysost.) and three, the latter on account of
the number of the gifts. Other legends on the subject need not be repeated.
5. Mill, u. s., p. 303.
6. There is no historical evidence that at the time of Christ there was among the nations
any widespread expectancy of the Advent of a Messiah in Palestine. Where the
knowledge of such a hope existed, it must have been entirely derived from Jewish
sources. The allusions to it by Tacitus (Hist. v. 13) and Suetonius (Vesp. 4) are evidently
derived from Josephus, and admittedly refer to the Flavian dynasty, and to a period
seventy years or more after the Advent of Christ. 'The splendid vaticination in the Fourth
Eclogue of Virgil,' which Archdeacon Farrar regards as among the 'unconscious
prophecies of heathendom,' is confessedly derived from the Cumaean Sibyl, and based on
the Sibylline Oracles, book iii. lines 784-794 (ed. Friedlieb, p. 86; see Ein l. p. xxxix.).
Almost the whole of book iii., inclusive of these verses, is of Jewish authorship, and dates
probably from about 160 b.c. Archdeacon Farrar holds that, besides the above references,
'there is ample proof, both in Jewish and Pagan writings, t hat a guilty and weary world
was dimly expecting the advent of its Deliverer.' But he offers no evidence of it, either
from Jewish or Pagan writings.
7. Comp. Mill, u.s., p. 308, note 66. The grounds adduced by some are such references as
to Is. viii. 4; Ps. lxxii. 10, &c.; and the character of the gifts.
8. Comp. the account of this Jewish monarchy in the 'History of the Jewish Nation,' pp.
67-71; also Remond's Vers. e. Gesch. d. Ausbreit. d. Judenth. pp. 81 &c.; and Jost,
Gesch. d. Isr. vol. v. pp. 236 &c.
Shortly after the Presentation of the Infant Saviour in the Temple, certain Magi from the
East arrived in Jerusalem with strange tidings. They had seen at its 'rising' 9 a sidereal
appearance,10 which they regarded as betokening the birth of the Messia h King of the
Jews, in the sense which at the time attached to that designation. Accordingly, they had
come to Jerusalem to pay homage11 to Him, probably not because they imagined He must
be born in the Jewish capital12 but because they would naturally exp ect there to obtain
authentic information, 'where' He might be found. In their simplicity of heart, the Magi
addressed themselves in the first place to the official head of the nation. The rumor of
such an inquiry, and by such persons, would rapidly spread throughout the city. But it
produced on King Herod, and in the capital, a far different impression from the feeling of
the Magi. Unscrupulously cruel as Herod had always proved, even the slightest suspicion
of danger to his rule - the bare possibility of the Advent of One, Who had such claims
upon the allegiance of Israel, and Who, if acknowledged, would evoke the most intense
movement on their part - must have struck terror to his heart. Not that he could believe
the tidings, though a dread of their possibility might creep over a nature such as Herod's;
but the bare thought of a Pretender, with such claims, would fill him with suspicion,
apprehension, and impotent rage. Nor is it difficult to understand, that the whole city
should, although on different gr ounds, have shared the 'trouble' of the king. It was
certainly not, as some have suggested, from apprehension of 'the woes' which, according
to popular notions, were to accompany the Advent of Messiah. Throughout the history of
Christ the absence of such 'woes' was never made a ground of objection to His Messianic
claims; and this, because these 'woes' were not associated with the first Advent of the
Messiah, but with His final manifestation in power. And between these two periods a