age. As they journeyed they again saw the star, which for a time, it would seem, they had lost sigjit of, and it guided them on their way. (See Star in the East for this and all other questions connected with its ap- pearance.) The pressure of the crowds, which a fort- night, or four months, or well-nigh two years before, had driven Blary and Joseph to the rude stable of the caravanserai of Bethlehem, had apparently abated, and the magi, entering " the house" (Matt, ii, 11), fell down and paid their homage and offered their gifts. Once more they received guidance through the channel which their work and their studies had made familiar to them. From first to last, in Media, in Babylon, in Persia, the magi had been famous as the interpreters of dreams. That which they received now need not have involved a disclosure of the plans of Herod to tliem. It was enough that it directed them to " return to their own countr}' another way." With this their history, so far as the N. T. carries us, comes to an end.
It need hardly be said that this part of the Gospel narrative has had to bear the brunt of the attacks of a hostile criticism. The omission of all mention of the magi in a Gospel which enters so fully into all the cir- cumstances of the infancy of Christ as that of Luke, and the difficulty of harmonizing this incident with those which he narrates, have been urged as at least throwing suspicion on what Matthew alone has recorded. The advocate of the "mythical theory" sees in this almost the strongest confirmation of it (Strauss, Lehen Jesu, i, 272). "There must be prodigies gathering round the cradle of the infant Christ. Other heroes and kings had had their stars, and so must he. He must receive in his childhood the homage of the representatives of other races and creeds. The facts recorded lie outside the range of history, and are not mentioned by any contem- porary historian." The answers to these objections may be briefly stated. (1) Assuming the central fact of the early chapters of Matthew, no objection lies against any of its accessories on the ground of their being wonderful and improbable. It would be in harmony with our ex- pectations that there should be signs and wonders indi- cating its presence. The objection therefore postulates the absolute incredulity of that fact, and begs the point at issue (compare Trench, Star of the Wise Men, p. 124). (2) The question whether this, or any other given nar- rative connected with the nativity of Christ, bears upon it the stamp of a myfhus, is therefore one to be deter- mined by its own merits, on its own evidence ; and then the case stands thus : A mythical story is characterized for the most part by a large admixture of what is wild, poetical, fantastic. A comparison of Matt, ii with the Jewish or INIohammedan legends of a later time, or even with the Christian mythology which afterwards gath- ered round this very chapter, will show how wide is the distance that separates its simple narrative, without or- nament, without exaggeration, from the overflowing luxuriance of those figments (comp. § YII, below). (3) The absence of any direct confirmatory evidence in other writers of the time may be accounted for, partly at least, b}^ the want of any full chronicle of the events of the later years of Herod. Tlie momentary excitement of the arrival of such travellers as the magi, or of the slaughter of some score of children in a smaU Jewish town, would easily be effaced by the more agitating events that followed. The silence of Josephus is not more conclusive against this fact than it is (assuming the spuriousness of Ant. xviii, 4, 3) against the fact of the crucifixion and the growth of the sect of the Naza- renes within the walls of Jerusalem. (4) The more per- plexing absence of all mention of the magi in Luke's Gospel may yet receive some probable explanation. So far as we cannot explain it, our ignorance of all, or nearly all, the circumstances of the composition of the Gospels is a sufiicient answer. It is, however, at least possible that Luke, knowing that the facts related by Matthew were already current among the churches, sought rather to add what was not yet recorded. Some-
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thing, too, may have been due to the leading thoughts of the two Gospels. Matthew, dwelling chiefly on the kingly office of Christ as the Son of David, seizes natu- rally "on tlie first recognition of that character by the magi of the East (comp. on the fitness of this, Mill, Pan- thiUtk rriiiciides, p. 375). Luke, portraying the Son of ;Man in his sympathy with common men, in his com- passion on the poor and humble, dwells as naturally on the manifestation to the shejiherds on the hills of Beth- lehem. It may be added further that everything tends to show that the latter evangelist derived the materials for this part of his history much more directly from the mother of the Lord, or her kindred, than did the former; and, if so, it is not difficult to understand how she might come to dwell on that which connected itself at once with the eternal blessedness of peace, good will, salva- tion, rather than on the homage and offerings of stran- gers, which seemed to be the presage of an earthly kingdom, and had proved to be the prelude to a life of poverty, and to the death upon the cross.