Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/574

 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

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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