[1011] It is scarcely necessary to point out, how evidential this is of the truthfulness of the Gospel-narrative. In this respect also the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, with their gross and often repulsive legendary adornments, form a striking contrast. I have purposely abstained from reproducing any of these narratives, partly because previous writers have done so, and partly because the only object served by repeating, what must so deeply shock the Christian mind, would be to point the contrast between the canonical and the Apocryphal Gospels. But this can, I think, be as well done by a single sentence, as by pages of quotations.
[1012] The evidence on this point is furnished by J. G. Müller in Herzog's Real-Enc., vol. viii. p. 682. The whole subject of the visit of the Magi is treated with the greatest ability and learning (as against Strauss) by Dr. Mill (On the Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels,' part ii. pp. 275 &c.).
[1013] So also in Acts viii. 9; xiii. 6, 8.
[1014] 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.
[1015] Mill, u. s., p. 303.
[1016] 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 Einl. 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, that 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.
[1017] 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.
[1018] 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.
[1019] This is the correct rendering, and not, as in A.V., in the East,' the latter being expressed by the plural of natol, in v. 1, while in vv. 2 and 9 the word is used in the singular.
[1020] Schleusner has abundantly proved that the word str, though primarily meaning a star, is also used of constellations, meteors, and comets - in short, has the widest application: omne designare, quod aliquem splendorem habet et emitit' (Lex. in N.T., t. i. pp. 390, 391).
[1021] Not, as in the A.V., to worship,' which at this stage of the history would seem most incongruous, but as an equivalent of the Hebrew {hebrew}, as in Gen. xix. 1. So often in the LXX. and by profane writers (comp. Scheleusner, u. s., t. ii. pp. 749, 750, and Vorstius, De Hebraismis N.T. pp. 637-641).
[1022] This is the view generally, but as I think erroneously, entertained. Any Jew would have told them, that the Messiah was not to be born in Jerusalem. Besides, the question of the Magi implies their ignorance of the where' of the Messiah.