time between three and twelve eideB the time of travel, there were probably many weeks of preparation. The Hagi could scarcely have reachedJeniWem till a year or more bad ekpaed from the time of the appearance of the star. St. Augustine (De Consensu Evan^., II, v 17) thought the date of the Epiphany, the sixth of January, proved that the Magi reached Bethlehem thirteen days after the Na- tivity, i. «., after the twenty-fifth oif December. His argument from liturgical dates was incorrect. Neither liturgical date is certainly the historical date. (For
Buai
seen a *(tJla no'oa. a star which suddenly iiiui
magnitude ai^ orilliancy and then fades b. .
Thrae theories all fail to explain how " the sfar whii^
they had seen in the east, went before them, until it
came and stood over where the child was " (Matt., ii,
9). The poeitioD of a fixed star in the heavens varies
at moat one degree each day. No fixed star could
have so moved before the Magi as to lead them to
Bethlehem; neither fixed star nor comet could have
disappeared, and reappeared, and stood still. Only a
miraculous phenomenon could have been the Star of
Bethlehem. It was like the miraculous pillar of fire
which stood in the camp by night during Israel's Exo-
dus (Ex., xiii, 21), or to the "brightness of God" whiidi
an explanation of the chronological difficulties, see
Chronolouy, Bibucal, Dale of the Nativity of Jesu»
Chrht.) In the fourth centuiy the Churches of the
Orient celebrated the sixth of Januarv as the feast
of Christ's Birth, the Adoration by the Magi, utd
Christ's Baptism, whereas, in the Occident, the Birth
of Christ was celebrated on the twenty-fifth o! Decem-
ber. This latter dat« of the Nativity was introduced
into the Church of Antioch during St. Chrysostom's
time (P. C, XLIX, 351), and still later into the
Churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria.
That the Magi thought a star led them on, is clear from the words (itSoiur yip afrroiJ rir imtpa) which Matthew uses in ii, 2. Was it really a star? Ration- alists and rationalistic Protestants, in their efforts to escape the supernatural, have elaborated a number of hypotheses; (1) The word ior^p may mean a comet; the star of the Magi was a comet. But we have no reo- oord of any such comet. (2) fhe star may have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (7 B. c), or of Jupiter and Venus (6 b. c.)- (3) The Blagi may have IX.— 34
shone round about the shepherds (Luke, ii, 9), or to
" the light from heaven " which shone round about the
stricken Saul (Acts, ix, 3).
The philosophy of the Magi, erroneous though it was, led them to the journey by which they were to find Christ. Ma^an astrology postulated a heav- enly counterpart to complement man's earthly self and make up the oompEcte human -personality. His "double" (the /rattuAt of the Parsi) developed to- gether with every good man until death umted the two. The sudden appearance of a new and brilliant star suggested to the Magi the birth of an important person. They came to adore him— i, e., to acknowl-
2; Origen, "in Num.", homil. xiii 7) think the
Alagi saw in " his star " a fulfilment of the prophesy of
Balaam: "A star shall rise out of Jacob and a sceptre
shall spring up from Israel" (Num., xxiv, 17). Birt
from the parallelisra of the prophesy, the "star" of
Balaam ia a great prince, not a heavenly bodj; it ik
