eas the Godhead was hidden. And therefore
it was fitting that this birth should be made known by angels, who
are the ministers of God. Wherefore also a certain "brightness" (Luke
2:9) accompanied the angelic apparition, to indicate that He who was
just born was the "Brightness of" the Father's "glory."

Reply Obj. 2: The righteous did not need the visible apparition of
the angel; on account of their perfection the interior instinct of
the Holy Ghost was enough for them.

Reply Obj. 3: The star which manifested Christ's birth removed all
occasion of error. For, as Augustine says (Contra Faust. ii): "No
astrologer has ever so far connected the stars with man's fate at the
time of his birth as to assert that one of the stars, at the birth of
any man, left its orbit and made its way to him who was just born":
as happened in the case of the star which made known the birth of
Christ. Consequently this does not corroborate the error of those who
"think there is a connection between man's birth and the course of
the stars, for they do not hold that the course of the stars can be
changed at a man's birth."

In the same sense Chrysostom says (Hom. vi in Matth.): "It is not an
astronomer's business to know from the stars those who are born, but
to tell the future from the hour of a man's birth: whereas the Magi
did not know the time of the birth, so as to conclude therefrom some
knowledge of the future; rather was it the other way about."

Reply Obj. 4: Chrysostom relates (Hom. ii in Matth.) that, according
to some apocryphal books, a certain tribe in the far east near the
ocean was in the possession of a document written by Seth, referring
to this star and to the presents to be offered: which tribe watched
attentively for the rising of this star, twelve men being appointed
to take observations, who at stated times repaired to the summit of a
mountain with faithful assiduity: whence they subsequently perceived
the star containing the figure of a small child, and above it the
form of a cross.

Or we may say, as may be read in the book _De Qq. Vet. et Nov.
Test.,_ qu. lxiii, that "these Magi followed the tradition of
Balaam," who said, "'A star shall rise out of Jacob.' Wherefore
observing this star to be a stranger to the system of this world,
they gathered that it was the one foretold by Balaam to indicate the
King of the Jews."

Or again, it may be said with Augustine, in a sermon on the Epiphany
(ccclxxiv), that "the Mag