the Epiphany with the birth of Christ on Christmas-day, which
they call _Theophany_, or the manifestation of God, which is the
ancient name for the Epiphany in St. Isidore of Pelusium, St.
Gregory Nazianzen, Eusebius, &c. See Thomassi Tr. des Fotes,
Martenne Anecd. T. 5, p. 206, B. et in Nota, ib.
3. Matt. iii. 17.
4. Footnote: Jo. ii. 11.
5. Bollandus (Pref. gen. c. 4) and Ruinart (in Cal. in calce. act.
Mart.) quote a fragment of Polemeus Sylvius written in 448, in which
is said that all these three manifestations of Christ happened on
this day, though S. Maximus of Turin was uncertain.
6. Acts xvii. 30.
7. Rom. i.
8. Ps. ii. 8.
9. 1 Tim. ii. 4.
10. Eph. ii. 17.
11. Luke ii. 10, 11.
12. This phenomenon could not have been a real star, that is, one of the
fixed, the least or nearest of which is for distance too remote, and
for bulk too enormous, to point out any particular house or city
like Bethlehem, as St. Chrysostom well observes; who supposes it to
have been an angel assuming that form. If of a corporeal nature, it
was a miraculous shining meteor, resembling a star, but placed in
the lower region of our atmosphere; its motion, contrary to the
ordinary course of the stars, performing likewise the part of a
guide to these travellers; accommodating itself to their
necessities, disappearing or returning as they could best or least
dispense with its guidance. See S. Thomas, p. 3, quaest 36, a. 7.
Federicus Miegius Diss. _De Stella a Magis conspecta_ in Thesauro
Dissertationum in Nov. Testament. Amstelodami. An. 1702, T. 1,
Benedictus XIV. de Canoniz. l. 4, part 1, c. 25.
13. What and where this East was, is a question about which interpreters
have been much divided. The controverted places are Persia, Chaldea,
Mesopotamia, and Arabia Felix. As they lay all more or less eastward
from Palestine, so, in each of these countries, some antecedent
notions of a Messias may be accounted for. In Persia and Chaldea, by
the Jewish captivity and subsequent dispersion; also the prophecies
of Daniel. In Arabia, by the proximity of situation and frequent
commerce. In Mesopotamia, besides these, the aforesaid prophecy of
Balaam, a native of that country.
14. Num. xxiv. 17.
15. In the eastern parts, particularly in Persia,_Magi_ was the title
they gave to their wise men and philosophers. In what veneration