THE WISE MEN:


bijto ti)e


were;


AND
jom        tt)e       came to Jerusalem.
BY
FRANCIS W. UPHAM, LL. D.,
Behold, there came Wise Men from the East to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He
that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his Star.


NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON
CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS





Entered 2on-ordinz to Act of Contcress, in the year 1873, by
NYELSON & PiIILLIPc,l
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.





CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?
Import of the word Magi and History of its Use-Its two senses, an
earlier and a later-The earlier, Persian, Oriental sense, honorable; the
later, Roman, Occidental sense, dishonorable--Evidence of this from
Philo-Judaus--Argument in proof that St. Matthew used it in its
Persian sense.......................................Pages 1-20
CHAPTER II.
THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.
Geographical Import of these and similar Terms-Reason why one
of these Terms must have a definite Geographical sense in the second
chapter of St. Matthew-Description of the Regions east of PalestineUse of the phrase, the East, by the Hebrews in the successive Periods
of their History-Description of thd Southern Plain of the Euphrates
known to St. Matthew and the Syrian Jews of his time as the EastWhy with them this was then its most appropriate and its only NameSt. Matthew's use of the Far East for Persia.................. 23- 58
CHAPTER III.
CHARACTER AND RELIGION OF TIE PERSIANS.
Characteristics of the People of Persia- Sketch of their HistoryAntiquity of the Monuments of their Religion-Tle ZendavestaZoroaster Spitama-The Creed of the Medes and Persians-Thie Pi'ihce-'; their Catechism-Explanation, in part, of the Worship of Christ
tby the Magi in Bethlehem-The Zoroastrian belief in a Redeemi r to
collie................................................ 59--
CHAPTER IV.
THE MAGI.
Their History imperfect-Testimonials to their Character-Their Antiquity-Origin of the Name-Their Office, Science, and Art-Examiination of the charge brought against them of originating Magic-Thel
distinguishing characteristic of the Order................ 95-10,;





iv


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER N.
PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.
Acquaintance of the Persians with Asiatic Nations west of themThose Ancient Sacred Records preserved in Genesis known to Abraham in Chaldea-The learned Order of Chaldeans-Effect of the Conquests of Cyrus the Great upon the Magi, and of their contact with
the Chaldeans and with the Hebrews...............Pages 107-118
CHAPTER VI.
DANIEL AND THE MAGI.
The Decree of Cyrus for rebuilding the Temple-This Decree evidence
of the History of the Prophet Daniel-Evidence that the Magi knew (1
Hebrew Scripture, and acknowledged it as Divine-Reasons wliy they
felt an interest in lhe Proplhec s of Daniel, and for believ ng they preserved them in their own Sacred Books-Evidence that his Prophecy
of the Messiah was known to tie Magi who hmade the Pilgrimage to
Bethlehem-The Zoroastrian belief in a Redeemer to come.... 119-138
CHAPTER VII.
HOPE OF THE MESSIAH IN SYRIA AND THE EAST.
Defence of the evidence of this in the Latin writers Tacitus and Suetonius-The Magi from the Far East within the circle of this expectation when they came into the East....................... 139-144
CHAPTER VIII.
KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.
The New Star of 1604 appears at a time of remarkable Planetary
Phenomena-Kepler's bold conjecture, and his brilliant discovery ol
similar Planetary Phenomena near the time when Christ was bornThe use to be made of Kepler's Discovery-The way in which the
Magi identified the New Star as the Star of our Lord........ 145-165
CHAPTER IX.
ASTROLOGICAL ELEMENT IN THE NARRATIVE.
Consequences of laying down the rule that the Lord can hold no communion with soums in which there are vain aspirations and thoughts
that err-Astrology a blending of truth with error........... 166-173





CONTENTS.


V


CHAPTER X.
INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.
Inspiration an Element of Certainty-Correspondencies in Scripture a
mean't of arriving at truth-Bearing of these facts on the preceding
argument......................................... 175-185
CHAPTER XI.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT;
With additional confirmations of it to the Christian mind-The
irangers from afar worshiping Christ Jesus in Betilehem, types and
prophecies of many to come after them-Witnesses of the grace of
xod as given not to the Jews only but to all nations..........186-195
CHAPTER XII.
RELATION OF THE PERSIAN AND HEBREW RELIGIONS.
General view of the relation of the Religion of the Hebrews to the
Univer al, Primeval Religio.-i-Three conjectures as to the relations o'
the Persian and Hebrew Religions-The Bible not a Hebrew BookOur Religion older than Abraham's day, and coeval with man...196-220
APPENDIX.
ON TUE EAST AND THE FAR-EAST.......................... 221-243










THE WISE MEN.
CHAPTER I.
WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?
THERE is a spirit that believes, and yet inquires.
In this spirit let us inquire, Who were those Pilgrims,
who, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in
the days of Herod the King, came to Jerusalem, saying,
Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we have
seen his Star in the East?  And how were they moved
by a Star to undertake their long pilgrimage? - a pilgrimage no less instructive, if its causes were better
understood.
St. Matthew calls them Magi.1 The English translation of the Bible, by substituting for this title Wise
Men, leaves their secret untold. For by their title
St. Matthew tells who those strangers were.
If, in some historical memoir, we find it written,
that in the reign of George III. there came to London, Brahmins, -we know     their country and  their
character; we know they were natives of India, and of
The Vulgate wisely keeps the word.





2


WHO WERE THE WISE MIEN?


its sacred caste; know their complexion, dress, and
manners, their religious opinions and customs. Of such
effect is St. Matthew's note of the pilgrims to the Holy
City.
He opens their story with a brief introduction, where
one great fact - even the birth of Jesus - is stated
in fewest words, where some historical and geographical knowledge is taken for granted; and it is in keeping that in this, his description of the strangers is by
their title, only. This, too, is brief; but portraiture in
the flowing style of romance, or with the minuteness of
a child's history book, would be out of place in a gospel. A title is, more or less, a description. To call men
Mandarins, is to describe themr; and thus the title Magi
here stands for pages, in more diffuse and less suggestive
writers; for when St. Matthew calls these foreigners
Magi, he tells their nation, and their character. Their
title introduces them as Persians of the sacred or priestly
order of Persia.
In the first Christian century, the title Magi, in its
oldest sense, was thus distinctive and honorable. But,
besides this, in the Roman Empire the word had another meaning. This was, in part, consequent upon
historical changes running through several centuries;
but these may be stated in a few words. Before the
rise of the Roman power, in the days of the old Persian Empire (B. C. 558-331), the Greeks knew the
Magi well, as the imperial priesthood of what was
then the great Empire of the earth. After that Empire
was destroyed by Alexander the Great, they continued





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


3


to know them well, so long as they themselves ruled
over Persia. This lasted but about a century; and,
like the English in India, the Greeks in Persia attempted no radical changes in religion. Like the English in India, the Greeks in Persia were an army of
occupation, ruling through great families and tribes,
and disturbing as little as might be social and religious
institutions. Hence, relatively to the Persian people,
the Magi, under the Greek rule, were much as they
were before - as now the Brahmins in India under
British rule; and they were so under the subsequent
Parthian rule in Persia, that began about one hundred
and fifty years before the Christian era, and lasted for
a little more than two hundred years after it. Under
the Parthians, as under the Greeks, the Magi were
degraded from that high, preeminent place, conspicuous throughout the world, which they held in the old
Persian Empire; yet they must have been treated with
consideration by the Parthian dynasty, for otherwise
it could not have retained its power so long. This also
appears from the fact, that when the Persians regained
their independence (A. D. 226), the Magi, strong in
numbers and in the veneration of their countrymen, at
once took the same place in the later Persian Kingdom
they held in the old Persian Empire. The Magi, then,
were really the sacerdotal order in Persia from the fall
of its Empire (B. C. 331) onward to and after the
Christian era.
But this was not well known in the Roman Empire,
within which Persia was never included.  The Par




i


WHO WERE THEP WISE MEN?


thians were jealous, and their realm was almost impenetrable by foreigners. For more than a century
before the Christian era, the world beyond the Tigris
was ever becoming less known to the Greeks; and it
was never well known to the Romans. Incessant war
restricted their armies to the Euphrates, or to the
Tigris.  Their legions never climbed the mountain
ranges that defend the western frontier of Persia.
From the heights of the Zagros, the Roman Eagles
never looked eastward over the old Persian realm. A
cloud of Parthian arrows hid Iran from     the West.
Hence, in the time of the Parthians, there could have
been but little popular knowledge of the internal polity
of Persia among the Greeks or the Romans;' and by
1 How ignorant even a learned Roman might be, on such
subjects, comes out in the strange fables Tacitus recites as to
the origin, morals, and usages of the Jews, - as when he
says their rites were impure, and that an image of an ass
was set up in the Temple. Hist., lib. v. 2-5. Yet the Hebrew Scriptures were accessible to him in a Greek translation, and he was narrating one of the greatest events of his
time - a war with the Jews, memorable even in the annals of
Rome. If such was the ignorance of this historian as to this
Eastern people, whose territory had been a part of the Empire for four generations, what may not be presumed to have
been the popular ignorance of the internal polity of a people much farther eastward, and on whose original territory
no Roman soldier ever set foot.
Diodorus Siculus, a Greek of the time of Cesar Augustus, who used diligence and travelled far to collect a mass of
materials for a Universal History, in a fragment of its 34th
Book, shows a like strange ignorance of the morals and
uLag.eS o01 the Jews.





WAHO WEIRE THE WISE MEN?


5


them the Magi almost wholly ceased to be known as
an existing priesthood.
In the Roman World it was the common opinion,
that, in very ancient times, magic originated with the
priests of the Persians;  and in the Roman World,
those who practised magic assumed the name of Magi;
the adepts in the black arts shrewdly seeking to impress
the popular imagination by taking to themselves the
countenance of the name of an order, that, at the
height of its glory, but in a time long past, had been
widely honored.2 Thus, in the two prevailing languages
of the Roman Empire, in the Greek, the language of
letters, and in the Latin, the language of the laws,
the word Magi came into common use in a sense that
was related to the distinctive name of the Persian priestThere were Greek colonies that long held their own beyond the Euphrates, in the time of the Parthians, but their
relations with Greece were very different from those of the
Jews of those regions with Judea. They were estranged
from their kinsmen in Greece by the time of several generations, as well as by a very great distance, and there could
have been but very little intercourse between them.
1 More exactly - with Zoroaster, the reputed founder of
the Persian religion. Of him Justin says, lib. 1, sec. 1,
" Dicitur artes magicas invenisse" - He is said to have
found out magic. Pliny says the same. See hereafter, page
101.
2 For the popular Latin use of the term, see Tacitus, Annals, ii. 27-31, for an abstract of which, see, hereafter, p. 12;
xii. 22, where an Empress, on the charge of interrogating
Magi, and other misdeeds, was banished, unheard, by the
Senate; vi. 29; xii. 59.





6


WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


hood, much as the English word magician is.      The
new sense of the word differed, in all important respects, from  its original meaning.  It indicated no
priestly function, no sacredness of character, little or
nothing as to nationality; and the term that best represents it is, sorcerer.' Those whom the word in its new
sense designated, were numerous in the old heathen Empire of Rome, especially in the Eastern Provinces, and
in the Capital. They were persons of impure lives and
criminal practices.  Such were the Magi, popularly
known to the Romans and to the later Greeks of the
West, whose writers had little occasion to use the term,
save in this sense.
This popular evil sense of the term is sharply felt in
the words that Arnobius,2 a Christian writer (A. D. 303),
puts into the mouth of a heathen, who scornfully says
of Christ, so like what the Jews said to Him, " A Magus was He; He did all things through unlawful arts."
St. Jerome,3 near the close of the fourth century, says,
"Common custom and common speech treat the Magi
as malefactors." And most of the fathers, very naturally, attached to the word in St. Matthew the significance it had in the world around them.4 Living in the
SIt is thus rendered in the English Bible. Acts xiii. 6. 8.
2 Adversus Gentes, lib. iii. sec. 43: " Magus fuit: clandestinis artibus omnia illa perfecit."
3 Dan. ii. " Consuetudo et sermo communis Magos pro
maleficis accepit;;" but in the same place he refers to the
use of the word in a better sense.
4 St. Ignatius, near the end of the second century, EpisJe to the Ephesians, chap. iv. 13, says, ' By the Star all





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


7


midst of an encompassing blackness of heathenism, and
abhorring the sight of its dark and cruel rites, they were
readily inclined to see in the pilgrimage to Bethlehem
the triumph of the Kingdom of Light over the foul
superstitions and black arts of the Kingdom of Darkness -an idea in which there unquestionably was an
element of truth, but carried to the extreme, in consequence of their confounding those Magi with the
sorcerers of the guilty heathen world around them.
Thus, alike from heathen and from Christian writers,
the term Magi, in this sense, was handed down to the
ecclesiastical schools of the Dark and of the Middle
Ages.1
That such was its meaning in St. Matthew, was also
authoritatively suggested, and seemingly confirmed, by
the fact that St. Luke used the term in its later significance.   Thus various causes long combined to determine the meaning of the word in St. Matthew to this
sense.
Such having been the causes of this ancient and
abiding interpretation, we need not be surprised at its
existence, or at its continuance. Perhaps the discernment that there must be in it somewhat of error, which
magic art was dissolved, and every bond of wickedness
disappeared."  St. Augustine (Serm. 200), referring to the
Magi who came to Bethlehem, says, " Prmvalet- impietas in sacrilegiis Magorum; " which may be freely translated as, - Impiety characterized the sacrilegious rites of
the Magi.
1 Abelard, in the twelfth century, says: Is theie indeed one





8


WHO WERE THE I ISE MEN?


appears in the English version, and in various ways in
modern comment, is the more surprising; for this modern
divergence from the old interpretation does not justify
itself by going far enough in the right direction to reach
any solid ground to stand upon.
It still remains to prove, - what, as yet, I have but
asserted,- if proved it can be, that the ancient opinion
as to the significance of the word in St. Matthew is
wrong, and that he used it in its original sense. If
this can be done, the nationality of the pilgrims is
known, and there is some hope of throwing clear historical light on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The fact that St. Luke used the term in its later
sense, seems a strong argument against this; and it is
a correct general principle, that, if one Evangelist uses
a word in a certain sense, it is to be presumed that
another Evangelist uses it in the same, But the word
in question is not of those religious terms that have
one unvarying significance. It is a descriptive, historical epithet, which has two meanings, that are quite
distinct;1 and St. Luke may have used it in one, and St.
who is ignorant that the Magi are so detestable that by law
not only they, but all who incline towards them, are put to
death? Quis enim Magos in tantum detestandos esse ignoret, tt non solum ipsos, sed etiam quemlibet ad eos declinantem, lex interfici jubeat? - In Epiph. Dom. Serm. 4.
1 Some surmise that the good character of the word Magi,
as that of some other words has done, ran down into a
bad one, and that, in St. Matthew's time, it was in a state
of transition; others, that it was then a general name for
men of science; and, that so, perchance, the Evangelist





WHO WERE THE WISE MtN?


9


Matthew in the other. St. Luke, though born in Syria,
was probably a Greek. He was a man of letters, and
had travelled far and wide in the West.  In the Acts of
the Apostles he addressed the Roman World, and
naturally used this word in its common Roman sense.
St. Matthew, a Hebrew of Galilee, on the eastern edge
of the Empire, who, probably, had not been out of
Palestine, and who wrote with immediate reference to
his countrymen, may as naturally have used this word
in its Persian meaning, which we shall find reason to
think was its common meaning with the Jews of Palestine. Besides this, the facts are these: to a sorcerer
did not use it in an evil sense. These are only surmises.
Others surmise that lie added to it " from the East," to
avoid the evil sense in the word. This phrase, as will bo
shown in Chapter II., is one of the proofs that he used it in
its Persian sense.
The critical insight of the modern age sees that the interpretation by former ages of the term Magi is not in harmony with the spirit of the narrative. Yet the almost
unanimous voice of its comment is, that who they were that
came to Jerusalem, or whence they came, cannot be determined. It is not worth while even to make a selection
from the interminable list of those whose writings prove
this, or to attempt to specify the few partial exceptions.
One very brief citation sums up too general a feeling- " It
matters little who they were." But it is fair to suppose
that those who have tried to expound even one book of
Scripture have found the field too extensive to allow of the
patient research required for the solution of these questions,
and, without much thought about the matter, have had to
be content to echo on the current opinion, which, on the face
of it, seemed probably correct.





10


WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


St. Luke applies the term; but, as if aware that the
word might have a national sense, he adds, the man was
a Jew, and, as if aware that it might have an honorable sense, that he was a false prophet.1
St. Luke's use of the term, then, does not decide
thlat St. Matthew did not use it in its national sense;
and that he did can be decisively proved.
The presumption is very strong, that the term Magi
is used in its Persian sense, when, in the first century,
a Hebrew writes to Hebrews of Palestine. They were
much nearer to the Persians than were the Romans, or
the Greeks. In a former day, the Persians had delivered them from bondage and exile - a deliverance
recorded in their sacred books, and commemorated by a
yearly festival.2 Their acquaintance with the Persians,
thus begun, was never afterwards wholly discontinued.
1 Acts xiii. 6. " They found a certain Magus,"- English translation, " sorcerer." Here he guards his use of the
word as stated above. He uses it the second time in verse 8,
where he explains that it is his translation of' the Arabic
word Elymas, a name commonly given the man, or assumed
by him; and said to be expressive of wisdom, as the English
word wizard (wise-ard), etymologically considered, is also
said to be. So, too, the idea of wisdom in a dark and evil
sense, attached to the later meaning of the title Magus. In
speaking of Simon the Wizard (Acts viii. 9-11), St. Luke
uses terms related to the word Magus in its evil sense, though
he does not give him the title.
2 The feast of Purim commemorated the deliverance recorded in the Book of Esther; but, as the Passover recalled
all the relations of the Hebrews with Egypt, so the Purim
all their relations with Persia.





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


11


The Parthian jealousy of strangers did not exclude from
Persia the Jews, settled there before their rule began,
-of whom were the Parthians and Medes, who came
to the Pentecost. There were great numbers of Hebrews in Babylonia, which adjoined Persia, and was
then a province of the Parthian empire; and those
eastern Jews kept up with their kinsmen in Palestine
an annual intercourse, fostered by commerce and religion. Thus the Hebrews in Palestine, then, had much
the same knowledge of the Persians as those earlier
Greeks had, - Herodotus and Xenophon, for example, - who used the term Magi only in its national
sense.1
St. Matthew had been an officer of the customs in a
town situated on " the way of the sea"2 of Galilee, one
of the roads over which the trade of Persia reached the
Mediterranean. Himself the earliest of the Evangelists, he gave the title Magi to men who lived in the
generation before him. If he had not used this title in
its Persian sense, he would have said so, or it would
be implied, or be plain from the context.
In its popular sense in the Roman empire, the term
was dishonorable. St. Matthew uses it in no such way.
1 The word is used as a term of reproach by Sophocles,
who died B. C. 405. It is applied by him to a Greek
soothsayer, as an epithet of anger, the use of which is to be
traced to the feeling of bitterness towards the Persians,
growing out of their wars against the Greeks. -Edipus
Tyrannus, 387.
2 Isaiah ix. 1; Matt. iv. 15.
2





12


WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


The English version substitutes for it the honorable term
"Wise Men." This agrees with the tenor of the narrative. In the brief style of St. Matthew, everything is
significant. The impression given by this great master
of history, is the very truth he designed to give. His
emphatic "Behold! there came," the sensation it made,
and all else, give the impression, that the coming of
these pilgrims was honorable to the Lord. Can he,
then, at the very outset, have given them a bad name?
Can he have pointed them out as of the crew of jugglers,
fortune-tellers, charmers, diviners, who, throughout the
Roman World, assumed the ancient name of the priests
of Persia but to disgrace it; who professed to invoke
demons, to call out responses from the dead; whc
joined to the practice of the black art the craft of
poisoners, and pandered to the fiercest and the lowest
passions of those two great classes - the credulous
and the corrupt; impostors of a vile and dangerous
kind, not less detested in Antioch, in Alexandria, or in
Jerusalem, than when in Rome, calling themselves by
a once untarnished name, these unhallowed wretches
drew down upon them the vengeance of the laws?
To prove that I have correctly stated the character
and reputation of this class of persons, I call two
witnesses of the time - Tacitus and Philo Judxeus.
There is a story told by the Latin historian that
well illustrates the Latin use of the term Magi, and
the character of that class of persons who were called
so in Rome. For Tacitus, the story is very fully told;
and I abbreviate the facts of a writer whose words it





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


13.8 not possible to condense. A Senator of Rome, who
plied the trade of an informer, coveted the estates of
of Libo, a rich young nobleman, related to the family
of Augustus Caesar; and, seeing that he was weakly
credulous and rashly ambitious, ae allured him to the
predictions of the Chaldeans, and M2agorum sacra, -
the mysterious rites of the Magi. His slaves were
bribed to watch him, and - ut infernas umbras carminibus eliceret, as he was about to invoke the dead -
he was arrested and hurried before the Senate, where
the Emperor Tiberius presided in person.1 The unfinished trial was adjourned over, and that night Libo
took his own life. But the prosecution did not stop
with his death. His estates were divided among the
informers, and two of his accomplices in unhallowed
practices were executed. One was thrown down the
Tarpeian Rock, the other was scourged to death. The
Senate then (A. D. 16) passed a decree -De Mathlematicis Mlagisque - concerning the Mathematici2 and
the Magi, banishing them from Italy. The weight of
this piece of evidence is not in the use of the word
Magi by Tacitus, but in its use in this decree of the
Roman Senate. There can be no better testimony as
Through the evidence of his dealing in magic arts, the
suspicion of a wish to conspire against Tiberius was insinuated. In this was the venom of the accusation. The scene
reminds a little of Scene iv. Act 3, Richard III.
2 These were astrologers, often called Chaldeans. Aulua
Gellius, i. 9, says, " Vulrgus, quos gentilitio vocabulo Chaldceos dicere oportet Mathematicos dicit," - Those who ought
to be called Chaldeans the people call Mathematici.





14


WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


to the Latin use of the term Magi, than the testimony
of the Senators of Rome embodied in this law, and this
law goes far to determine the character and reputation
of these Magi, not only in Italy, but throughout the
Roman World.
The testimony of Philo supplements this, where it is
deficient on the last point; and is even more important
than that which Tacitus preserves, as it differentiates
these Magi from the Magi of Persia. Philo, called Judeus, was a learned Jew, of a noble family, who lived at
Alexandria in Egypt, one of the great seats of Jewish
learning. He was the chief of an embassy, sent by
his countrymen in Judea to the Emperor Caligula, at
Rome; and his son married Berenice, a daughter of
King Agrippa. The year of his birth, and the year of
his death, are unknown; but he lived in the time of
Christ; for he was a vigorous old man about the year
41. He wrote in Greek, and most of his voluminous
writings are extant. Providentially there is in them a
passage, that enables us to understand the self-styled
Magi, and to compare them with those whose name
they assumed. To receive its fill force, we must consider it in its connection. Philo treats of the law concerning murder, as laid down by Moses, - explaining
and justifying it. After a page or two on the crime of
murder, he says, that Moses commands that poisoners
and magicians 1 should not be allowed to live one day,
o o  l U7oi Xaw qpaQuwx.vw~t. These no-vh)r7aJoi, persons of
the greatest wickedness, form with him but one class in fact.





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


15


or even one hour; and then to give a clear idea of
the class of persons whom the Mosaic law was so swift
to punish, he describes, as just like them, a class of
magicians of his own time; but first, he carefully distinguishes their magic, from - magic of quite anothet
sort. He says, " The true magical art, being a science
that contemplates and beholds the books of nature with
more acute and clear perception thafi usual; and appearing to be a dignified and desirable branch of knowl1 These are laws that Philo seems to refer to. I give
them from the Greek translation, known as that of the
LXX, or the Septuagint, which Philo used. The reader can
readily compare them with the English versi6n, Deuteronomy xviii. 9-14. " When thou shalt have entered into the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not
learn to do according to the abominations of those nations.
There shall not be found in thee one... who uses divination, who deals with omens, and augury; one who has
in him a divining spirit, an observer of signs, questioning
the dead. For every one that does these things is an abomination to the Lord thy God; for because of these abominations the Lord will destroy them from before thy face."
Leviticus xix. 30-31. Ye shall keep my Sabbath, and
reverence my sanctuaries; I am the Lord. Ye shall not
attend to those who have in them divining spirits, nor attach yourselves to enchanters, to pollute yourselves with
them; I am the Lord your God. xx. 6. The soul that
shall follow those who have in them divining spirits, or enchanters, I will set my face against that soul, and will destroy it from among the people. Exodus xxii. 18. Ye shall
not save the lives of socerers. Leviticus xx. 27. As for a
man or woman, whosoever of them shall have in them a
divining spirit, or be an enchanter, let them both die the
death. Ye shall stone them wihd stones; they are guilty."





16


WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


edge, is studied by kings, and the greatest of kings,
and especially by the Persian Monarchs; and they say,
among that people, no one can possibly succeed to the
kingdom, if he had not been previously initiated into
the mysteries of the Magi."1
Philo's testimony to the worth of the science of the
true Magi, as a kind of natural philosophy, is important;
and still more so his recognition of the order, as then existing in Persia, and intrusted with the education of
its Monarch. In continuation of the passage cited
above, Philo goes on to say: "But there is a certain
adulterous species of this science, more properly called
wicked imposture, which quacks, and cheats, and buffoons pursue, and the vilest of women and slaves.
Professing to understand all kinds of incantations and
purifications, and promising to change the dispositions
of those on whom they operate, so as to turn those who
love to unalterable enmity, and those who hate to the
most excessive affection, by certain charms and incan1 In what he says here, there seems to be something of
Oriental extravagance. By kings, he may have meant those
petty princes, of whom there were so many throughout
Asia; as in Palestine, for instance, Herod the Tetrarch of
Galilee, whose Court was at Tiberias, and Philip, whose
Court was but a few miles off, at Casarea Philippi. For
Persian, must be understood Parthian, and by the greatest
of Kings, Parthian Monarchs. The legend on some of the
coins of the Parthian Kings in the British Museum is King
of Kings. Apart from this testimony of Philo, it is very
probable in itself, that the Parthian Princes, like their Persian predecessors, were educated by the Magi.





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


17


tations, they deceive and gain influence over men of
unsuspicious and innocent dispositions, and so they fall
into the greatest calamities. I imagine that the Lawgiver, having in mind such things, would not suffer the
punishment due to poisoners to be postponed."
Then, having illustrated the law, and having justified
its swiftness, by pointing out, in his own day, a class
of persons resembling that against which Moses proceeded with sudden severity, he ends with this venomous
comparison: "If we only see snakes or other venomous
animals, we kill them without a moment's delay, before
they can bite, or wound, or attack us at all; taking care
not to expose ourselves to any injury from them, by reason of our knowledge of the mischief inherent in them;
in like manner, it is right promptly to punish these
men, who, of deliberate purpose, change their nature
into the ferocity of untamable beasts, and look on the
doing injury to as many people as they can, to be their
greatest pleasure."
As we reflect upon this chapter, written by a Hebrew, near the time St. Matthew wrote, and mark the
magicians he thinks worthy of instant death, while he
commends the Persian Magi, can we doubt to which of
lu the Greek and in the Latin there is no single passage
more important than this of Philo, On Special Laws, Sects.
17-18, in determining how St. Matthew used the title Magi.
I do not know that its bearing on this question has been
noted before.  his is not so strange as it might seem. The
voluminous wr tings of Philo are so exclusively allegorical,
mystical, and idactic, that there seems to be nothing else





18


WHO WERE THE WISE MEN"


these two classes St. Matthew would have us think the
pilgrims to Jerusalem belonged?
Such unhonored Magi as Philo describes would no
where have received the honors these pilgrims received
in Jerusalem. Such wandering Magi, telling the tale
they told.in Jerusalem, would have been strangled by
order of Herod, without formality or delay.  St. Matthew, thel, must have used the title in an honorable
sense; and, if so, then in its national sense; for it is
not possible to separate the two.
That St. Matthew did use the title Magi in its honorable, national sense, is established beyond all doubt
by King Herod's reception of these foreigners. This
old, suspicious politician, half crazy, and half dead,
admitted these strangers to private audience; and, for
them he summoned together the Sanhedrim, the grand
council of his kingdom. These Magi, then, must have
been nobles - and this might almost be presumed from
the costly presents they offered to the King in Bethlehem-nobles, that is, in the Oriental sense of the term,
nobility, - persons in royal service, familiar with dignitaries, men of high consideration. In Persia, at the
Court of the Parthian kings, the chief Magi were so,
in them at all: and there is very little. So that few have
searched them through for the grain or two of historic gold
that might be hidden in the mass; and, perhaps, no one before having in mind the first verse of the second chapter of
St. Matthew.
Philo is the most redundant of writers. I therefore abridge
'What'I quote fiom him, by leaving out needless repetitions.





WHO WERE THE WISE MEN?


andl there only. Their standing thus with the Parthians,
who were then, next to the Romans, the haughtiest military power in the world, is the only possible historical
explanation of Herod's reception of these foreigners.
Age, infirmities, and the long exercise of despotic
power, had exasperated his naturally strong will and
high spirit into a moody, ungovernable temper, that
was jealous, suspicious, and irritable, almost, if not, at
times, quite to madness; and the Magi, making the
inquiry they did, were in greater danger from it than
probably they were aware of: but they were comparatively safe, if they came under the safe-conduct of generals commanding the Parthian armies on the Tigris or
the Euphrates; not even the Romans, being more feared
by Herod than the Parthians, who, in a raid into Judea, had once driven him from his Capital, in such despair, that he attempted to take his own life.1
No writer stamps on the soul a more clear and deep
impression of the reality of what he describes than St.
Matthew; yet in his way of doing it, he is by no
means so circumstantial as St. Mark; and for him, his
narrative of this pilgrimage is uncommonly full and
minute. The number and character of the facts stated
in it, show that his knowledge of these Persians was
very complete. Thus, he gives their feelings at one
interesting moment, the manner of King Herod in their
private audience; he names the gifts they offered, and
he recites their words. It is natural to think that lhe
who knows so much else about them, must have known
SJosephus, Antiq., lib. xiv. chap. xiii. 7, 8.





-20


WHO WErE E THE WISE MEN?


to what country they belonged. It is hardly credible
he should not have known this, when, scarce fifty years
before, all Jerusalem had known so well who those
princely foreigners were, to answer whose inquiry, its
haughty king  Herod, summoned the council of his
realm, its nobles, scholars, and priests. If he had not
known who they were, he would have said so. If he
did know who they were, he would tell this. If he
styles them Magi in the national sense of this title, he
does tell this exactly; and in a brief, yet satisfactory
way, that is just like himself.
That St. Matthew did know the country of the pilgrims, is certain from his last words about them, - " they
did not return to Herod, but departed into their own
country another way:"--- not the usual road to Persia
through Damascus, but probably some southern way
from the not far distant city of Petra. If their historian had not known their country, he would have said,
" they did not return to Herod, but departed from his
kingdom."  The phrase he uses, closing, as it does, the
history of the Wise Men, implies that he knew their
route to Jerusalem, and knew they went home by
another; that he knew their country, and had said
what country it was.
There is other evidence of it to be stated hereafter;
lut the evidence already adduced is sufficient to prove,
that when St. Matthew styled the pilgrims to the Holy
City Magi, he meant to say, and did say, they were
Persians of the priestly order of Persia.










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THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


CHAPTER         II.
MEANING OF "THE EAST."
ST. MATTHEW defined his use of the word Magi,
by adding to it, " from the Far East."  But the same
ill fortune has followed both title and phrase. The
geographical, like the historical term, is commonly
thought to be general and vague; yet the national sense
of the one has been, and it may be that the definite
meaning of the other can be, proved.
In the Latin and in the English Versions, it is said
the Magi were " from the East," and in the same sentence it is said they saw the Star "in the East."  In
this there seems to be somewhat of needless repetition.
This is not so in the original Greek. The word for the
East is twice there, but the second time its form is
changed, and this change in its form changes its sense.
When used together geographically, the first of these
two forms must point to some country more distant than
the second does; and the one should be translated the
Far East, the other the East. Therefore, in English,
the verses should run thus: " When Jesus was born in
Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King,
behold, there came to Jerusalem, Magi from the Far
East, saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews?





24


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


for we have seen his Star in the East, and are come to
worship him."1
" The East," and the "Far East," then, are St. Mat.
thew's terms; and cannot geography and history, in
terrogated together, answer the question, What did
the East and the Far East mean, in the first century,
in Palestine?  They can; and their answers are additional proof that the Wise Men were Persians - a fact
so important as to justify all patience in trying to establish it.  They also tell where the Wise Men were when
i TOY 6 'Iqroo Ycvit0Vrog ibv  OQlEsu Trg 'Iov6(lacg,
(uEquig 'HqhoJov 70o 8actiksw, lo0, M&yot &nz 'Avartolpv
T(Xwagyvovto  elg 'IFQOU6)vua E ovreg.  HoD iorv 6  y oeLSe
lffutESVg Troy I'Jlovui; i"hofUev ydeq avroi 3bY d'Tro a Av fI^
AvaTrol', xal 8OOyRcV ntoaxvvuaUCe airi.
Anatole, which literally means the rising, as of the sun, is
the common Greek word for the Eastern quarter of the world,
whether of the earth or of the heavens. In classical Greek
it is used in this sense only in the plural, and without the
article. This is the first form of the word in Matt. ii. 1, 2,
twice rendered, in the Latin and in the English Version,
the East. When used in the original the second time the
word is in the singular, and has the definite article. This
statement is sufficient to show, even to those familiar only
with the English language, that, as here used in a geographical sense, and used together, the last form of the word must
have the more restricted significance, and that they should
be translated the Far East, and the East. The Greek
word is here exactly conformed -as I suppose, by a local
usage peculiar to the Hebraized, colloquial Greek of the Jews
of Judea -to the two Hebrew words Mizrach and Kedem;
which, when used together in a geographical sense, have
just these meanings. For a more full examination of this
usage, see Appendix, I.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


25


they saw the Star - a new fact, that throws some light
on the hitherto unknown of their pilgrimage.
It is true, that European scholars have trusted so
confidently to the feeling that St. Matthew's words, on
the face of them, are vague, that they have not seriously
set themselves to consider whether the fact might not be
otherwise. But, of this, there seems to be an explanation. The geographical use of the phrases the East, the
West, the North, and the South, is especially Asiatic and
American; that is, the vast areas of those two continents,
and the monotony of their geographical features, fitting
them for dominions more extensive than those of the
smaller area of Europe, diversified, as it is, by seas
and gulfs and mountains, compel in them a resort to
these terms, used in a geographical sense.' In European kingdoms, where they are less needed, and seldom
heard, it may seem they can have no well-established,
exact, geographical significance; but their daily and
hourly use in the United States so proves they can, and
so elucidates the use of St. Matthew's terms, that some
reference to it is a fitting preface to an inquiry into their
true meaning.
These phrases are very sure to come into use, as
names for great areas, distinguished by few natural or
1 Thus, " the Persian word Boom, - the West, - may always be considered as a general or indefinite name, by which
Persian authors describe the provinces west of the Euphrates,
to the shores of the Euxine and the Mediterranean." - History of Persia by Sir John Malcolm, Minister to the Court
of Persia. London, 1815, vol. i. ch. iv. p. 56, n.





26


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


civic features. Thus they are applied to unsettled
prairies, or the wilderness, where territorial lines are not
fixed by ranges of hills or the course of streams, but are
run with compass and chain. As the territory they designate becomes settled, and the region beyond is better
known, they journey on with the pioneers. In less than
a hundred 3years the West has migrated from Western
New York to Michigan, to Illinois, to Wisconsin; and,
while the West has been the settled country, the Far
West, ever moving on, has marked the parts beyond.
These phrases are apt to become popular names for
large re(ions having many subdivisions, as seen in the
phrase -"the South." Usually they point out some
locality more remote than that adjoining the one in.
which they are used. They exclude, as well as include.
The West and the Far West do not cross' the Rocky
Mountains. California and Oregon are known by their
proper names.
The locality they describe need not be exactly in the
line the word points out. In the same place their meaning often differs in different periods of time; and it
differs in places not very remote. In the city of New
York, the East means the eastern part of New England.
In Boston and its vicinity "Down East" is the familiar,
colloquial name for the State of Maine; yet east of
Massachusetts is the ocean, and Maine, with its vast
area of thirty thousand square miles, lies to the northeast. As the road from Judea to the East at first ran
due north, shunning the Desert on its right, so does the
road from Massachusetts to the East, avoiding the sea.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


27


It traverses part of the State of New Hampshire; but to
this, the name of the East is never given; and the name
never crosses the line of the British Provinces, eastward
of Maine. Throughout a territory large as that of
Judea, and containing as large a population, it is the
local, idiomatic, common name for a restricted, definite,
yet extensive region; and, in this, it is precisely like
St. Matthew's term -the East.
These are phrases of the air, rather than of the earth;
yet they are ever used much in the same way. Once
the East of the Romans was Asia Minor, with its many
provinces. As their dominion widened, it journeyed
with it. In the Augustan age, the East was used in a
restricted, definite sense, as the Latin name for Syria.
Then it came to point, at times, to Parthia; but, un
less the known world to the eastward was manifestly
meant, it excluded India; and the countries it denoted,
at different times, all lay to the south-east of Rone.
As bearing on the Hebraic use of such phrases, the
main fact noted is this: - though in the same place
their meaning may differ in different periods, they may
have as definite a geographical meaning as any names
can have, and, when we put ourselves in the circumstances of those using them, their use seems natural,
their meaning sure. The conclusion, then, is, that St.
Matthew's terms can have a restricted, definite geographical meaning.
That they do not, is a notion upheld by the conjecture,
that he chose a term which left the country of the pilgrims
in doubt, because he did not know what country it was.
3





28


THE E_&ST AN'D THE FAR EASr.


But the conjecture, here, should be the exact opposite of
this; for, most assuredly, the fact, supposed unknown
to St. Matthew, was, at the time of the pilgrimage, so
well known to all Jerusalem, it was a fact of so much
interest, so easy ti remember and so hard to forget,
that there is every reason to think it must have been a
part of the history, from whatever source it came to the
Evangelist.
More than this. To be complete, this explanation
of St. Matthew's terms must include the words he puts
into the lips of the Magi; but, then, part of their language becomes inexplicable. They say, the Star was
seen by them when they were in the East. Now, they
could not have forgotten where they first saw the Star,
and it is not possible to give any reason why they should
have wished to conceal this in vague language. In what
particular city, or town, or village they were, when the
Star first shone, was of no consequence. If they stated
this, it may not have reached their historian, or might not
reappear in his condensed statement; but the name
they gave to the country where they were when they
saw it- assuredly, this was a definite name.
At the outset in this inquiry, then, these facts are established; -the two Geographical terms in the narrative
may have a restricted, definite meaning - one, probably,
the other, certainly, has; and it will hereafter appear,
that, if the meaning of the latter is determined, tlhe
meaning of the former at once becomes definite and
clear.
St, Matthew's words are of the place; and he whu





THE EAST AND THb FAR EAST.


would know what they mean, must look for the East and
the Far East with the eye of a Hebrew in Palestine.
The country east of Palestine lies more than a thousand
leagues away; but its great features are so simple and
unvarying in their vastness, that it is possible to bring
them before the mind's eye, with a clearness sufficient
for this purpose, even without the aid of the map. Be
yond the Jordan there is a high ridge of land that forms
the purple background of every eastern prospect from
Jerusalem, and, indeed, from all of Western Palestine.1
Everywhere of much the same height, running north
and south, parallel with the Jordan and with the sea of
Sodom, it is one and the same range, whether known as
the heights of Moab, of Ammon, or of Gilead. Let us
suppose ourselves standing anywhere upon these hills,
1 " Who that has ever travelled in Palestine has not
longed to cross the Jordan valley to those mysterious hills,
which close every eastward view with their long horizontal
outline, their overshadowing height, their deep purple shade?"
-Stanley's Egypt and Palestine, chap. viii. sec. 1.
" The view looking back on Bethlehem, as you ascend the
northern hills, is exceedingly beautiful; to the east it is
bounded by the long, unbroken ridge of the mountains cf
Moab." -Lord Lindsay, letter iii. p. 242.
" As seen from  Mount Olivet, the eastern mountains
stretch off in a long, even ridge, apparently unbroken. They
present to the view no single peak or separate summit."
- Robinson, vol. i. sec. 6, p. 236.
Stanley says, ' I was not prepared for their constant
intermingling with the views of Jerusalem itself. From almost every point there was visible that long, purple wall, ris.
ing out of its unfathomable depths." - Chap. iii. sec. 3, p. 16a





30


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


and gazing towards where the sun rises, As, fiom
some headland, we look out far over the sea, till the
level line of the waters is lost in the horizon, so here,
we look out upon an expanse, undulating only as the
sea when the winds sleep. For six hundred miles to
the eastward it is one unbroken level, - even from
these Syrian hills to the Persian hills. But, in this vast
plain, there is a division that is to be remarked and remembered. That part of it farthest from us is fertilized
by two rivers; that part before us is a waterless desert.
Of the Great Sand Ocean of the world, known in
Africa as the Zahara, in Asia as Arabia, through which
the Nile marks a line of green, out of which the pinnacles of Sinai rise, and into which the high land of
Palestine sinks down on the South and on the East,
the expanse before us is the north-eastern Gulf. To the
north-east of us, this sandy waste narrows to a point
between the continuance of the ridge we stand upon and
the upper waters of the Euphrates; which river, from
that point, puts a limit to this desert country. From
the adjacent Syria, the region before us, and, especially,
more to the north-east, where it terminates in a grassy
plain, is sometimes called the Syrian Desert; but all
geographers hold it to be an offshoot of Arabia.1 And
1 " A line drawn from the head of the Persian Gulf to the
head of the Arabian Gulf would seem the natural boundary
of Arabia were it not for the vast desert which stretches to
the northward, and is of a character so decidedly Arabian,
that it has always been referred to that part of Asia....
'The remainder of Arabia consists of that outer portioan





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


31


it is the very Arabia of our imagination. Nowhere are
the strange features of that peculiar country better seen.
There sunburnt Arabs only roam. In that great and
terrible wilderness the sand-storm rises, the deadly simoom blows.1 No road ever did or ever will cross its
shifting sands. The only traveller that ever passed
through it was Nebuchadnezzar, who, hearing in Palestine that his father was dead in Babylon, and fearing
what might chance were he long absent from his capital,
sent his captives and his army north, to shun this desert
on their right, and thenrce circuitously home; while,
with a few guards, Arab guides, and swift dromedaries,
he struck straight across this pathless desert.2
which, in the form of a triangle, extends along the border
of Palestine and Syria, and the course of the Euphrates. In
its central parts, this is the most completely desert tract of
all Arabia." - Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography, pan
iii. b. ii. ch. iii. sec. 1.
1 In this desert " sand-storms are frequent, and, at times,
the baleful simoom sweeps across the entire tract, destroying
with its pestilential breath both men and animals." -Rawlinson's Five Monarchies, vol. i. ch. i. p. 32.
2 " Having committed 'to certain of his friends the conveyance to Babylon of the captive Jews, Phoenicians, and
those of the Egyptian nations, together with the bulk of his
army, its ammunitions and provisions, he went himself
hastily, accompanied with a few others, over the desert, and
came to Babylon." - Part of a fragment of the Chaldean
History of Berosus, preserved in Josephus, Antiq. b. x.
ch. xi.l. The whole reads somewhat like a summary of
the exploits of Nebuchadnezzar; and it is placed by
Josephus after his own mention of the life and death oi
that monarch.





32      THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


There are few contrasts on the earth's surface more
striking than that between this sandy waste and the
fertile land beyond - a contrast owing to the absence
of the water element from the one, and its presence in
the other, where the broad flowing Euphrates furrows
the plain, and the swift Tigris I hurries on to mingle its
waters with those of the Euphrates. Flowing from
fountains near together in Armenia far to the northeast of us, these rivers seek, at first, the Mediterranean
and Caspian Seas, but checked by mountain ranges in
their westward and eastward windings, they bend southward, pour their life-giving waters through the eastern
part of this flat country between Syria and Persia, and
make that portion of it almost as fertile as the land of
Egypt.
The Plain of the Two Rivers begins at the base of the
Armenian highlands, and runs from thence south-eastward, nearly seven hundred miles, to the Persian Gulf.
The northern half of it is a fine tract of land, though
some small part of it is sterile, if not desert.2 Its
north-western section is diversified by spurs from the
mountains; and a little below its centre, it is almost
crossed, east and west, by a low, narrow, steep limestone ridge, called the Sinjar Hills. The Highlands,
1 Philo Judoeus has this curious remark: " The Tigris is
a very cruel and mischievous river; and so the Magi bear
witness, who have found it to be of a character quite different
from the nature of other rivers." - Questions and Answers,
No. 13.
2 Hence Xenophon called this part of it Arabia, -" a plair.





THE EAST AND THE FARl EAST.


33


together with a part of the Plain,1 were known to ancient geographers, as Mesopotamia.2
The southern half of the Plain is about three hundred miles in length, with an average breadth of about
one hundred miles. Its level surface is broken only by
frequent mounds that mark where temples or cities
stood. Its alluvial soil is of inexhaustible fertility.
This southern half of the Plain was known as Babylonia. It lies due east from the Holy Land.
Beyond the Tigris soon rise the ranges of the Zagros
of old, now of Kurdistan -  the first mountains castward of us. These are the outposts of the elevated
Plateau of ancient Persia, that stretches far towards
the rising sun. Eastward of us, then, there are three
well defined regions -the Desert, the Southern Plain
of the two rivers, and Persia.  So little of the world
beyond these was known to the Hebrews, that we have
only these three to consider in determining what region
they called the East, and what the Far East.
One fact, very important to our inquiry, clearly apeven as the sea, and full of wormwood; if any other kind
of shrubs or reeds grow there, they all had an aromatic
smell, but no trees were seen." - Anabasis, b. i. 5.
1 Whose southern limit may be said to have been where a
rampart, called the Median Wall, crossed nearly from river
to river, from about 340 north latitude on the Tigris, to 33~
30', on the Euphrates.
2 The literal meaning of Mesopotamia is, " between the
rivers."  Rawlinson, in his Five Monarchies, vol. i. ch. i.,
gives to the word this vast compass. So too in Smith's
Diet., Art. " Mesopotamia," if we look to the name, he





34


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


pears from the Scriptures of the Hebrews. They were
always familiar with the use of the phrase " the East " in
a restricted, definite, geographical sense. The geographical meaning of the term very naturally differed
in different periods of their long life of fifteen hundred
years in Palestine. To trace out these differences, may
be neither useless nor uninteresting to those who would
intelligently read the ancient records of our holy religion.
The Israelite named the four quarters of the world
from their position relative to himself, as he stood facing
eastward. These names are all found in this verse of
says, "'We must regard Mesopotamia as the entire country between the rivers."  He describes all this, but then
says, "it seems proper to append a more particular account of that region which bears the name, par excellence,
both in Scripture and in classical writers." Of this he makes
the Sinjar Hills the southern limits; and refers to Ptolem.
Geograph., v. 18; Strabo, ii. 1, 29; Arrian, iii. 7.
To Aram-naharim, which is Mesopotamia in the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, he has to give the
same vast compass. But the literal meaning of this is " the
highlands of the rivers;" and all the places located in this
tract were in the uplands. Gen. xxiv. 10; Deut. xxiii. 4;
Judges iii. 8-10. With time, it no doubt lost its descriptive meaning, and was used as a proper name; but there is
no probability that it was ever extended clear down to the
gulf, a distance of seven hundred miles from the highlands.
As the mountaineers came to possess some portion of the
plain, the name given to their country would embrace such
a section of it; and this would explain the rendering it in
Greek by Mesopotamia.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


35


the book of Job:1  I go forward, -  (Kedem, before
- to the East), but he is not there; and backward (to
the West), but I cannot perceive Him; on the left
hand (to the North), where he doth work, but I cannot
behold Him; He hideth himself on the right hand (to
the South), that I cannot see Him."
It was almost inevitable, that at first the Israelite
should give the name Kedem (before), the East, to
the vast area of the desert, which, undiversified by
ranges of hills, or the course of streams, lay before
him as he looked eastward from the heights beyond the
River Jordan. This broad region had no civic or natural features from which to name it; and Kedem, the
East, became its name, even in the days of the patriarchs.  Abraham   sent the sons of his concubines
"eastward into the east country; "2 that is, far into the
desert.
The East was, then, the country of wandering Arabs;
and, in times earlier than the civic splendors beyond the
Euphrates, the Arabs were found on the farther side of
that river. Those irrepressible wanderers of the desert
would get out of their bounds.     With their hand
against every man, they ever loved to make raids to the
west, over the Jordan, into the green plain of Esdraelon; and to make raids to the east, over the Euphrates,
into the garden beyond. They did so when the country on either side of their sands was thinly peopled;
1 Job xxiii. 8, 9.      2 Gen. xxv. 6.





36      THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


and they do so now, when the strength of Syria and of
Assyria is alike decayed. The depth of the solitude
that was to be in Babylon was painted by this touch, -
" the Arabian shall not pitch his tent there; "1 even the
wild-eyed Bedouins, who, unhindered and unharmed,
will cross the Euphrates, shall shun the haunted mound
of Babylon.
The country of wandering tribes being then the
East, with them the phrase, at times, crossed the Euphrates. Hence the kinsmen of Abraham, who seem
to have dwelt permanently on the farther side of that
river in tents, are called "children of the East."2
The use in Jacob's family of the East, for the desert,
continued in the land of Egypt, because the Arabian
desert, that bordered Canaan on the east and on the
south, also bordered Egypt on the east. Thus the
Israelites carried down with them into Egypt the name
of the East for the desert, kept it while there, and
brought it back with them. Alike in Goshen, and in
Canaan, this name for the desert answered to various
conditions in which phrases taken from the quarters of
the horizon are used geographically. It was one vast,
monotonous expanse in which there were no cities, no
1 Isaiah xiii..20.
2 Gen. xxix. 1; English version -people. Balaam, also,
standing on the hill of Moab, says he came there fiom the
mountains of the east. Pethor, Balaam's town, was by the
Euphrates; but he may have used the term so casually,
that no geographical usage can be inferred from it. Num,
xxiii. 7; xxii. 5; Deut. xxiii. 4,





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


h7


bills, no rivers. It had divisions well known within the
black hair-tents of the Arabs; but to the land-tilling
Israelites, they had as little of difference as their tribes,
whom   they grouped   together as "children  of the
East."   The Israelites dwelt for a long time in the
land of Egypt; for the time of one generation they
wandered in the desert to the east of Egypt, and south
of Canaan; and when they came up out of it into
Canaan, they could have had little knowledge of the
same desert, as it stretched far eastward of the Holy
Land. But two tribes and a half loved the free life of
herdsmen better than fenced cities or ploughed fields,
and would dwell beyond Jordan in tents.2 Under the
grand l old oaks of that high table land, and over its rich
pastures, fed their "very great multitude of cattle,"
and down its eastern slope into the plain, till the pasture dried up into the wilderness. The two tribes and
a half soon knew the desert before them; for between
them and their Arab kinsmen there was no great unlikeness of manners or of language.4
1 Judges vi. 7, 8, 33; vii. 12. In the wandering, the Israelites became well acquainted with the Amalekites and
the Midianites; and, hence, the sacred writers, though once
(Judges viii. 10) calling them children of the East, give
them their own names - illustrating how general are superseded by proper names.
2 Joshua xxii. 7, 8.
SNum. xxxii. 1.
SGideon's venturing by night in among the host " of the
Midianites, and the Amalekites, and all the children of the
East," to " hear what they say," seems to prove that the





38      THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


In after years, when the galleys of King Solomon
had rowed down the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean
and up the Persian Gulf, the whole of the great Arabian Desert was known to the children of Israel. We
have seen that imperfect knowledge of a country is
usually one of the conditions of the geographical use
of the phrases, the East, the West, the North, and the
South; and, as knowledge of the country to which
such a name is given increases, this general name often
gives place to a more specific one. It is in harmony
with this that, when the desert became known to
Israel in all its length and breadth, it received a proper
name. In the book of the Kings it is called Arabia,1
-a name unknown to earlier Scripture, and perhaps
coming from the people beyond the Euphrates; and
it is called so by Isaiah,2 Ezekiel,3 Jeremiah,4 and
Nehemiah;5 in the book of Chronicles;6 in the books of
the Maccabees,7 and in the New Testament.8
The old name gave place to the new for these reasons
also: all Arabia is so like itself, and so unlike any
other country; the Arabs, so like themselves and so
unlike any other people, that Arabia can have but one
name with those acquainted with it. When looked
at as a whole, it seems to lie to the south of Palestine;
Israelites then could understand the speech of the deserttribes.- Judges vii. 9-15.
Z1 Kings x. 15.             Neh. iv. 7.
2 Isa. xxi. 13.            6 2 Chron ix. 14.
3 Ezek. xxVii. 21.         7 2 Macc. xii. 2.
4 Jer. iii. 2.             8 Acts ii. 11,





THE EAST AND THE FAR EASt.


39


in St. Matthew's Gospel, the Queen of Sheba is the
Queen of the South - and this complete view of it forbade calling part of it the East.
Thus, the old name for the desert would not long
dwell side by side with.its new name;2 and about the
time of this change, new relations began between the
Hebrews and nations rising to power beyond the desert,
which make it probable that the name "the East" would
journey farther onwards, and cross the Euphrates into
Babylonia.3
As said before, it is natural for Asiatics to use "the
East," and its kindred phrases, geographically, and,
though the territory of the Hebrews was small, and
on the edge of Asia, their Scriptures abundantly illus1 Matt. xii. 42.
2 It might for a time. See Isaiah xi. 14; Jeremiah
xlix. 28.
3 As I end this inquiry as to the oldest Hebrew use of the
phrase " the East," I would note a fact that bears upon
the authenticity of the books of Moses. Gen. x. 26-30,
gives the lineage and locality of some of the chief tribes of
Arabia. The dwelling-place of Sheba, Havilah, Ophir, and
others, is " from Mesha," -near the present Mocha,- " as
thou goest unto Sepha, a mount of the East," - highlands
running from near Mecca and Medina across the peninsula.
Now " the East" would not have been used in that way by
one writing in Palestine. It might have been by one in
the desert south of it. And the whole passage seems to
hint at "the wisdom of the Egyptians," or at a knowledge
of the Arabian peninsula gained from the Arabs of Midian.
In this place alone the article is prefixed to Kedem - the
East -just as it is to the second form of Anatole, in thOv
Iebraized Greek of St, lMatthew, ch, ii, 2,





40      THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


trate and confirm this. While they were comparatively
isolated from the rest of the world this appears, and
still more clearly afterwards. As the exile drew nigh,
Assyria became "the North," and upon this, Babylonia
would very naturally become "the East."
Assyria lay not so far north as east, and the latitude
of the phrase is such that it might have been called the
East; but the Hebrew prophets looked upon it as a
northern power. Its direction admitted of this; and
the first appearing of the Assyrian in Palestine was
always from that quarter.  He never invaded Judea
directly from the east, because on that side it was
protected by the desert. To avoid this, he crossed over
to Damascus -as did the Chaldean after him. Thence
he came down the upper valley of the Jordan, and, as
he marched southwards, kept that river on his left.
Had he moved down on the east bank of the river,
when he came to a point on a line with Jerusalem,
there would have been in front of him, as he faced
towards the city, the wide valley of the Jordan sunk
below the level of the ocean, and, in a military point
of view, a sort of natural fosse, that made Judea almost
unassailable from that quarter.  Hence the prophets
looked to the northern hills of their own land when
they saw the war-storm rolling down on Zion. In
Isaiah's vision of the approach of the army of Sennacherib, those hills are nigh to the Holy City. Over
the heights and through the strong passes of warlike
Benjamin the heathen comes, until his last stand is on





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


41


the Mount of Olives, whence he "shakes his hand
against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of
Jerusalem."l So, too, in the clarion-call of the prophet
Jeremiah to the most valiant of the tribes: "0, ye
children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of
the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa,
and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem, for evil appeareth out of the North." 2
Besides this, the invader could not threaten Israel
till he had first reduced the kingdoms northward of it
to his imperial rule; and the armies of his subject allies
marched with his, when
" The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
And the sheen of his spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."
' Assur came out of the mountains from the North; he
came with ten thousands of his army; the multitude
whereof stopped the torrents, and their horsemen have
covered the hills."'  Of the Assyrian Empire, as embodied in its vast and varied host, the later prophets and
writers of Israel spake, even as they did when they said
of the seat of its dominion, the Lord "will stretch
out his hand against the North and destroy Assyria,
and make Nineveh a desolation."4    But, when a still
more awful storm of war gathered far off in the same
1 See Robinson, vol. i. sec. 9, p. 463. Stanley, ch. iv.
sec. 1. Isaiah x. 32.
2 Je, vi. 1,      3 Judith xvi. 4.   4 Zeph, ii, 18





42


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


quarter of the horizon, but to the South of the seat of
the Assyrian power, the Country whence its overshadowing arose, darkening all the west, must have been
known as the East.1
1 It is closely to be considered when, where, by whom,
and for whom, such phrases are used. Not only the Assyrian Empire, but the Babylonian also, is spoken of by the
prophets as the North, -as in Jer. i. 13, 14, 15; vi. 22; x.
22; Isaiah xiv. 13,- and it is not always easy to tell to
which the term refers. The latter usage had its root in the
former, and did not conflict with the use of " the East" for
Babylonia. It is the Babylonian Empire that absorbed into
itself the Assyrian, which is pictured as a northern power;
and the explanations given of this usage as to Assyria, except the first, apply here, especially the allusion in the term
to those kingdoms to the northward of Palestine, that were
subject to the Empire of the Chaldees, - as appears from
these Scriptures: " I will send and take all the families of the
North, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and
against the inhabitants thereof;"-Jer. xxv. 9. " Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and all his army, and all the
kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people,
fought against Jerusalem;"-Jer. xxxiv. 1.  "Behold,
I will bring upon Tyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
a king of kings, from the North, with horses and chariots,
and with horsemen and companies, and much people." -
Ezekiel xxvi. 7. Here, as before, the seat of his dominion
is namea, and then the words "from the North" point to his
war-path, when, with his northern allies, he comes down
upon Tyre.
Jeremiah (ch. xlvi. 20, 24), addressing Egypt, calls the
Babylonian Empire, as if seen from her stand-point, the
North, and with allusion also to the coming down of its army
through Syria. He also speaks of the defeat of the Egyp




THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


43


Thus, as the roll of ancient Scripture was closing,
Babylon "of the Chaldees," -"that bitter and hasty
nation... their horses swifter than the leopards, and more
fierce than the evening wolves,"2- became the terror
of the world; and the East, ceasing to be the name for
the Desert, came to mean the new and terrible Dominion
beyond the "Great River."    Ezekiel, prophesying the
ruin of the Ammonites, in more ancient Scripture themselves " the children of the East," says they shall be
destroyed by "the children of the East" - meaning the
Chaldeans.3  Isaiah, referring to the superstitions and
sins of Babylonish heathenism, reproaches "the house
of Jacob" with being full of the sorceries of "the
tians at Carchemish, on the Euphrates, as in the North
country, which it might be called, as looked upon either
from Memphis or Jerusalem. Memphis, N. lat. 290 56';
Jerusalem, 310 49'; Carchemish, 350 15'.
There are several other applications of this phrase. "The
princes of the North," Ezekiel xxxii. 30, must be the
Tyrians, as they are named with the Sidonians, and the
ground of this usage is plain from the map. In Jeremiah,
ch. 1. 2, 3, 9, 41, the people who are to come from the
North against Babylon, are the Medes, part of whose territory lay to the northward of that city.
1 Isaiah xiii. 19.
2 Hab. i. 6, 8.
' Ezek. xxv, 3, 4, 5, 10. This prophecy is one of a
series that includes all the Arab tribes who rejoiced in the
ruin of the Hebrew nation, and its fulfilment, in part at
least, is recorded by Josephus, when he says, L" In the fifth
year after the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar
made war against the Ammonites and the Moabites, and
brought those nations into subjection." -Antiq. x. 9, 7.
4





14


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


East."1 To these evidences of this usage may be added
this verse:  Solomon's wisdom exceeded the wisdom
of all the children of the East Country, and all the wisdom of Egypt."2 To refer this, as many have done, to.
the wisdom of the desert, is unsatisfactory indeed; for
no especial wisdom can be attributed to the Arabs in or
before Solomon's time, and none in their own country
at any time.   Besides this, the numerous preceding
allusions in Scripture to the Arabs, give them the character of wild marauders, dreaded by their more civilized
neighbors, the Israelites; so that the ill-considered
notion, that this passage refers to them, is as repugnant
to Hebraic, as to general history. This interpretation
then being rejected, it is plain, that, as in the verses
of Isaiah and Ezekiel just referred to, so here, "the
children of the East" mean the Babylonians.      This
interpretation gives the two clauses of the verse a wellbalanced significance, pronouncing the wisdom of Solomon superior to that of the two great countries from
immemorial time renowned for learning.3
1 Isaiah ii. 6.          2 1 Kings iv. 30.
3 The astronomical records of the Babylonians were of
great antiquity- evidence enough of their early eminence
in learning. See, hereafter, page 110. The Hebrew annals
are silent as to the cities and kingdoms on the Euphrates and
Tigris, - save notices in the book of Genesis, - until near
the close of the period of the Kings of Israel; but this is
no sufficient evidence that, till then, the Israelites knew nothing of them. The fact must have been otherwise, and there
are indications of this in the prophets. In the long commcrciP reign of Solomon, the Israelites must have gained





THE EAST A.ND THE FAR EAST.


45


Of the East as the phrase was thus used, on three
sides, the natural boundaries were well defined.' On
the south it reached the Persian Gulf. The Euphrates
marked its nearer limit, and more effectually because it
was reached through a waterless desert. On its farther
side, were the mountains along the left bank of the Tigris.
some knowledge of the East; and there seems to be no good
reason why this verse might not have been written at the
close of Solomon's reign. This would carry much farther
back a usage found in Isaiah, but only to a period in which
it might have naturally originated. Besides this, the book
of the Kings is thought by some to have been compiled by
Jeremiah, who lived a little later than Isaiah.
In the interpretation, the choice is between the Arabs and
the Babylonians. The general sense of the " wisdom of the
eastern world" is forbidden by the restricting form of the
phrase.
The LXX. refer it to tMie dreqzoit' av0~ooto - the wisdom of
the men of old, of the wise of ancient days, evidently from
the fact that Kedem, - which, primarily and literally, means
before, -may have a time-sense, or a space-sense. The
rendering is ingenious, and its sense is grand; but it presupposes a late origin for the wisdom of Egypt, which was
hoary with age in Abraham's day; and it has found no favor
with modern scholars. Still, this far-fetched interpretation
has this value. It shows the LXX. thought the phrase
could not here point to the Arabs, as it often does in older
Scripture.
1 In fact, on the north also the boundary was well defined.
The section of the Plain of the Two Rivers south of the
Median Wall (see note 1, p. 33), is alluvial, differing in this
from that north of it, which, also, is somewhat more elexated.
Below the wall, canals crossed from river to river, irrigating
the plain between them,





46


THE EAST AND THE FAR EASr.


A fitting theatre for great events! Here, the Tower
of Babel rose, and here, in after times, was Babylon. In this land of Shinar was the first gatheringplace of the sons of men.  It was the oldest haunt
of Empire, and long the coveted prize of power. It
was the battle-plain of nations.  Here the Assyrian
fought; here the Chaldean, the Mede, the Greek, the
Parthian, the Roman. But it was not the abiding
dwelling-place appointed to any one people. It had no
natural centre. It had no lines of defence that could
be permanently held against the tribes of the mountains
and the desert. Its hot climate was so enervating, that
its abounding wealth became the booty of hardier races.
Nowhere were seen splendor and havoc in more vivid
change. Yet it was long the mart of the commerce of
Central and Western Asia, the commerce that built
up Palmyra in the Waste, and Baalbec between the
ridges of Lebanon, a commerce, one of whose outlets
to the Mediterranean was along "the Way of the Sea "'
of Galilee, on whose busy western shore, which, in the
first century, was almost a continuous line of ci ies,
towns, and villages, St. Matthew must have often e een
the long, overladen files of the slow moving carai ans
coming from "the East."
Before the Exile, the Jews had begun to call the
world-historic Babylonian Plain "the East; " and St.
Matthew's term  might, perhaps, be sufficiently explained as a lingering reminiscence of ancient usage;, ut
1 Isa. ix. 1; Matt, iv, 15.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


47


there is reason to think that, after the Exile, this use of
"the East" continued while the Jews lived in Palestine.
To estimate the probability of this, we must free our.
selves of the feeling we unconsciously attribute to
them, that all there was of interest in that country
centred in Babylon. As Babylon the Great is strangely, and even mysteriously, withdrawn from our eyes,
the Plain, that was resplendent with the light of its
glory, seems all at once to become that darkened and
solitary waste that now answers so eloquently well" to
the prophecies of ancient days: "I will render to Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea, all their evil
that they have done in Zion:" "   Babylon shall become heaps,... an astonishment,.. without an inhabitant:"2 "her cities a desolation,... a land where
no man dwelleth: " "I will also make it a possession for
the bittern and pools of water; and I will sweep it with
the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts."4
But, with the Lord, a thousand years are as one day;
and centuries passed before the desolations his prophets foresaw in vision, were seen by the eyes of men.
Zion was a ploughed field and Judea a waste, while
Babylonia continued to be populous and great. Even
with the sure decay of its mighty city, that country lost but little of its importance to the Jews. The
Persian, while he was the sovereign of Palestine, held
Babylon as one of his capitals. When his dominion
passed away, the noble city of Seleucia, at a distance
1 Jer. li. 24.           3 Jer. Ii. 43.
2 Jer. li. 37.           4 Isa. xiv. 23.





48       THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


of only forty-five miles from the site of Babylon, rose
in its stead. It was one of the thirty-five great cities
built by Seleucus, who became, after Alexander, the
Greek lord of Central Asia, and also ruled over Palestine; and it was the capital of the eastern part of his
wide dominions. " Seleucia contained a numerous Jewish population, on whom Seleucus bestowed privileges
equal to those granted to his own countrymen."1 After
the Greek dominion in Asia had passed away, Seleucia,
girt with its strong walls, continued even into the second century, in spite of the Parthian power, a free city,
with its own senate of three hundred members, ruling
over its six hundred thousand citizens.2 Ctesiphon, also
a vast city, and one of the capitals of the Parthian Empire, was built close to it. As under the Persians, so
under the Greeks, down to the re-establishment of the
independence of the Hebrews by the Maccabees, it continued to be one of the chief seats of that royal authority, which the Jews of Palestine obeyed. And it ever
had this of interest to them: it was the dwelling-place
of many of their countrymen, as many probably as the
population of Judea itself, for but a small part of the
Judean captives came back from thence to Palestine.
The larger part remained in the land of their exile, and
1 Post-Biblical History of the Jews, vol. i. ch. iii. p. 110.
I would earnestly commend to all Christian scholars this
admirable treatise by the very learned Rabbi, the late Dr.
Raphall, as, in some respects, the best in our language.
2 Gibbon, ch. viii. sec. 2.





THE EAST AND THE PAR EAST.


greatly increased in numbers there.1  These Jews kept
up an annual intercourse with Palestine; and messengers were sent from Jerusalem into their country every
year to collect silver and gold for the temple.2
1 The language of Josephus is very strong -L The entire
body of the people of Israel.remained." - Antiq. lib. x.
5, 2. Of the Jews of his own time, he says, " Not a few
ten thousands dwelt in Babylonia." -Antiq. lib. xv. iii. 1.
As to the question, Whether Babylon was ifhabited in the
first century?- from general considerations it seems to me
that it was. The Persians cherished the city. The Greeks
and the Parthians had no reason to destroy it, and there is no
evidence that they did. It was a great city, and it perished
not by the violence of man, but, as it was fitting, by the visitation of God, dying a lingering death.  The idea that
Seleucia was known as Babylon is in itself improbable, and
Plutarch names them together. -Life of Crassus.
The evidence of Josephus to the fact that Babylon was a
city in the time of Herod, is as strong as it can be. He says
that, early in his reign, Hyrcanus, the high priest, was taken
captive-by the Parthians, and that Phraates, the Parthian king,
" gave him a habitation at Babylon, where there were Jews in
great numbers." - Antiq. lib. xv. ii. 2. Also, that Herod
sent for Ananelus, an obscure priest of Babylon, and bestowed
on him the high priesthood. - Antiq. lib. xv. ii. 4.
2 "Vast numbers of the Jews were scattered over every
city of Asia and Syria." - Philo, Ad Caium, sec. 33. See
also, Contra Flaccum, sec. 7. He says, " Babylon, and the
satrapies of the rich, adjacent districts have many Jewisl
inhabitants," and that yearly, messengers were sent there to
collect silver and gold for the temple.- Ad Caium, sec. 31.
In Yonge's excellent version of Philo, in this passage, Philo's
language is that of St. Matthew: "Babylon and many
other satrapies of the East;" but on comparing this with





50       THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


Ever after the Exile the Jews of Palestine well knew
the country called by their prophets "the East;" and so
one of the causes from which such usage is apt to prevail, did not exist; but there were others that did.
Geographiqally, that country is one; and at the Christian
era, it was under one Parthian rule; yet then, as now,
under one Turkish rule, it had many districts and many
petty rulers; and these were then, as now, ever changing. And at the Christian era, the proper names that
had in former ages pertained to it, were out of date.
It had been called the land of Shinar,1 but that was
before the nations were. It had been called the, land
of the Chaldeans,2 but their dominion had long passed
away. Babylon, eclipsed for centuries by the imperial cities in its vicinity, could then have hardly given
its name to the province in that familiar speech, that so
readily reflects the changes of Empire. It is not probable, then, that at the Christian era its common name in
Palestine was any one of its historical names of older and
different times. There is nothing to show that any
later historical name had arisen; and, from    all the
circumstances, it is not probable 3 - even as none has
arisen since; yet among the Jews of Palestine, it must
then have had some colloquial name.
the original, it will be found that the words " of the East"
are supplied by the translator.
1 Gen. x. 10; xi. 2.
2 Isa. xxiii. 13. Jer. xxv. 12.
3 The peculiar fact, that the once imperial, and still very
great city of Seleucia, was independent of the Parthians,
must have stood in the way of this.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


51


The caravan that journeyed from the land of Shinar
to the Holy Land, bearing with it the golden vessels of
the Temple, that was to rise anew on the mountain of
Moriah, was made up of Israelites born in the great
Plain of the Euphrates. They reached the desolated
site of the city they were to build again, by a circuitous route, coming down upon it - as the Assyrian and
the Chaldean before - from the North. But they well
knew that the land of their youthful memories lay
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state.
Their country was long governed from    thence; and
when this bond between it and them was broken, still
the children of the kinsmen they left behind came up
from thence to worship in Jerusalem, and whatever historical names it may have had with them, it is very natural to suppose that in familiar household converse, this
land so often thought of, so often spoken of, was known
to them, as it was to their fathers in the generation preceding the Exile, by the local, idiomatic name of the
East.1
1 The resemblance between this Hebrew usage, and the
use of the name " the East," as the popular name in
Massachusetts for the State of Maine, has been referred to
on p. 26. Down to the year 1820, Maine was united to
Massachusetts, and its legal title was the District of Maine;
--a name not satisfactory, and not easy to speak. The
people are quick to catch.up a new name, when one they
often use does not easily melt iito the flow of speech.
Maine was settled in part from Massachusetts. Boston was





52


THE EAST, AND THE FAR EAST.


Writers trained in the artificial rhetoric of the
schools, are inclined to reject colloquial phrases, as beneath the dignity of a learned style; but the untrammelled genius of St. Matthew was not thus hindered
from using household words -as when he wrote the
Holy City, for Jerusalem. St. Matthew chose words
most definite to himself and wrote naturally. Thus he
gave to Babylonia the name he was accustomed to give
to it in familiar converse, and which pointed it out
exactly to his countrymen. He might have used one
of its old scriptural names;1 but, when he was introits commercial and political capital. Hence the phrase - so
common in such cases -up to Boston; and the peculiar,
invariable form of the phrase - " down East."
My first faint impression that St. Matthew's term was a
local idiom, with a restricted and definite geographical
meaning, may unconsciously have come from this usage;
for I was familiar with it in my youth, hearing it ten
times where I heard the word Maine once. Thus, -"the
family has moved down East," or, " he lives," or " has gone
down East." So, too, the first railroad from Massachusetts
to Maine was " the Eastern Railroad;" while it was the
second that was called " the Boston and Maine."
As bearing on a line of thought in the Appendix to this
chapter, it may be well to add, that although this usage,
having been long established, is generally understood in the
United States, it is strictly a local idiom of a section, only,
of New England.
1 Had he called it the land of the Chaldeans, it would
have tended to confound the Magi with a learned class
addicted to astrology, and known as Chaldeans; and this
name was obsolete in his time. St. Stephen used it (Acts
vii. 4), but as both Philo, De Abrah., sec. 17, and Josephus,





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


53


ducing the pilgrim strangers as Persians, he did not
desire to recall any of the historical reminiscences associated with them; and so, the name he did use - the
East - was in every way suited to his purpose.
This term, - the East, - then, is not general or
vague. It means that country which in the common
speech of man, will be ever known as Babylonia;
for, by every geographical and historical consideration,
in the first century, this country answers, beyond all
reasonable doubt, to the name - the East - on the lips
of a Hebrew in Palestine. Thus, the Magi tell us,
that the Star of the Lord was first known by human
eyes in the land of Shinar, where its earliest beams
shone serenely down on the vanishing splendors of the
mighty and mystic Babylon.
Having determined what is meant in St. Matthew by
the East, it will not be difficult, nor detain us long, to
determine what is meant by the Far East. For, however vague this term may seem in itself, by its relation
here to the term - the East - its meaning was clear to
the Jews of Palestine, through their acquaintance with
the eastern world; and it becomes so to all, on looking
at the map of Western Asia.
Again, let us stand on the highlands beyond the
Jordan, and look out over the Great Plain, in part a
desert, in part the garden of Asia. As these highlands
Antiq. i. vii. 1, contrast the wisdom of Abraham with the
philosophy of the Chaldeans, the same thought may have
led to his allusion to Abraham as dwelling in the land of
the Chaldeans, and the antiquated name was in keeping
with his biblical argument.





54


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


overlook this Plain on this side, so, on the other, do
the mountains that rise from the High Plateau of Persia
beyond, which must be the Far East of the Evangelist.
It lies very directly in the line indicated, not widening
much to the south, because of the Persian Gulf and
the Indian Ocean; nor to the north, because of the
Caspian Sea and its inhospitable eastern shore. The
separation between it and the East is clearly defined.
And the term cannot point farther on, for it must reach
its limit before it can pass the barren mountains and
trackless deserts in which Persia loses itself in that
direction, an almost impassable country, little known
in ancient or in modern days.
But the question here comes up, Why did not St.
Matthew use the proper geographical name, and say
Magi from Persia? No geographical name would have
pointed out to those for whom he wrote, the "country of the Magi," more clearly than his familiar name,
the Far East -especially as here used in connection
with the East; and it was the best name he could use.
That Aryan race of Persians and Medes, known to us
by the name of the former only, who, in all historic
time, have constituted the great majority of the people,
of that country known to us as Persia, have always
called that country Iran, that is the Aryan   land.'
1 < The appellation of Persia is unknown to its inhabit
ants, by whom  that region of Asia is named Iran."--
Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia, by J. B
Fraser, ch. i. p. 1. " Iran, which Europeans call Persia.. Ir.u has from the most ancient timnes to the present





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


55


Through all its dynasties, Assyrian, Median, Persian,
Greek, Parthian, and Moslem, this name is appropriate
to it. Not so the name Persia, given to that country
by tha Greeks, from the tribe ruling there when first
they became acquainted with it. The Persian sovereignty over it ceased three hundred years and more
before St. Matthew's time; and, for two hundred years
and more, it had been ruled by the Parthians. The
Jews of Palestine were so familiar with these political
changes that, probably, the name for that country in
classical Greek was not much used in their Oriental,
Hebraized dialect of that language, and may have meant
that part of it occupied by the Persians, Media being
joined with it to designate the whole country 1
But, could he not have said -  Magi of the Persians?
No; for, of the Aryan race, in the Aryan land, there
were two great families, the Medes and the Persians.2
day been the term by which the Persians call their country."
- Malcolm, vol. i. p. 1, n. Compare Herodotus, ch. vii. 62.
' Anciently the Medes were called, by all nations, Aryans."
This word is sometimes written " Arians," as by Rawlinson;
but its use in that form in ecclesiastical history makes the
form here given preferable.
1 This was sometimes the case in the Old Testament, as
in Esther i. 3, 14; Dan. viii. 20. It is so also in the
Greek of the Apocrypha, as in 1 Esdras iii. 1, - "the
princes of Media and Persia." See note 2, p. 56.
2 Parthia was but a district of Iran; the Parthians were
rather barbarous and few, compared with the rest of its
population, and they did not impress their name on the
Aryan land. Thus, Josephus speaks of the Parthians and
of the King of the Parthians, not of Parthia. See Antiq.,





56      THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


On the tomb of Darius the Great is written, "I am an
Aryan, of Aryan descent; a Persian, the son of a Persian."1 In Syria, in the Evangelist's time, the distinction was still kept up; and he would have had to use
lib. xiii. ch. viii. 4; ch. xiv. 3; lib. xiv. ch. xiii., passim;
ch. vi. 2; ch. vii. 1; lib. xv. ch. ii. 1; ch. iii. 9. Had
the Evangelist called the strangers Parthians, he would have
obscured the very relations he wished to point out, by connecting them with a race with whom their relations were
those of government, and not of history or lineage.
1 Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. xi. 291-313; vol.
xii. App. xix.-xxi.
2 Looking at this Aryan race from a stand-point far off, alike
in space and in time, we blend completely into one its two
great families, and call them Persians, as we call those
who fell at Thermopyle and those Macedonians who followed Alexander, alike, Greeks. But the Jews recognized
the difference. In their Scriptures, as in general history,
first, the Medes appear. Israel is captive in "' the cities of
the Medes."--2 Kings xvii. 6. In the prophets it is theMedes, with whose name alone they were then acquainted, that
are first seen:  The Lord hath raised up the spirit of the
kings of the Medes" against Babylon. -Jer. li. 11, and
Isaiah xiii. 17. At length the other great family comes in
sight, and " the kingdom of Persia."--2 Chron. xxxvi. 20.
But the distinction is not lost sight of. Darius is " the
Median," Cyrus "the Persian."- Daniel v. 31; vi. 28.
There are " the laws of the Persians and Medes," Esther i. 19; " the seven princes of Persia and Media," i. 14;
and " the province of the Medes," Ezra vi. 2. The Persians
often gave their own name to the whole people and territory in
the days of their Empire; but afterwards, as the Medes were
the most numerous and their territory the largest, they must
have become at the last, as at the first, the more prominent
of the two. Generally, in the Apocrypha, the terms are





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


57


the word Persians in the narrower sense that King
Darius did, as excluding the Medes. This may have
been what he did not mean to do; for the little evidence
there is on the subject goes to prove that the Order of
the Magi belonged rather to the Median than to the
Persian branch of this Aryan family.' It is probable
St. Matthew did not know whether the strangers belonged to the Median or the Persian branch; and it was
quite immaterial. What he wished to do, was to point
out that they belonged to that Aryan race, of old the
benefactor of Israel.
In the Hebrew Scriptures the Far East twice means
Persia. There, Cyrus is " the Man from the Far East,"2
and the Persian Eagle is "the eagle from the Far East." 3
used as in the Scriptures. In the book of Tobit, it is all
Media; in the book of Judith, it is said, " the Persians
quaked at her boldness, and the Medes were daunted by her
hardihood (xvi. 10); and it looks very much like confirmation of what has just been said, when, in 2 Esdras i. 3, one is
spoken of as "a captive in the land of the Medes, in the
reign of Artaxerxes, King of the Persians."  It accords with
this and shows how familiar, even to the last, the Jews in
Palestine were with the state of things in Persia, that, in
Acts ii. 9, where we might expect the name of the Persians,
St. Peter speaks of the "c Parthians and the Medes."
1Herodotus, ch. i. 101, says the Magi were a tribe of the
Medes.
SIsa. xli. 2.
3Isa. xlvi. 11; -"a ravenous bird."  The eagle was
the emblem of Persia. - IEschylus, Persas, 205-210. Xenophon says "the ensign of Cyrus wan a golden eagle held
upon the top of a long lance. This remains the easiini of
the Persian king to this day."--Cyrop., vii. 1.





58         THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.
This was in passages that brought vividly to mind the
relations of old between the Holy City and those kings
of Iran, who ordered the temple to be rebuilt at their
own cost, and prayers there to be said for the king and
the people of Persia forever, - relations the Evangelist
might well recall, as he told of the coming of Magi from
Persia to Jerusalem.
SJosephus, Antiq., lib. xi. ch. 2. 3; ch. 4. 9.; ch. 5. 1.





CHARACTER AND RELIGION


CHAPTER III.
CHARACTER AND RELIGION OF THE PERSIANS.
SINCE these things are so, light may be shed on this
Persian p)ilgrimage from the Character and Religion of
the Persians of old. But a common knowledge of these
- if I may judge by my own, when some years since I
began this inquiry--can hardly be assumed; and an
explanation of thisý pilgrimage must sketch them, in outline, at least.
Even this is not so easy. The time is far back. The
country far away. Its fewv ruinous monuments are like
rocks that, rising out of the sea, doubtfully point to the
bearing of mountain ranges, and the configuration of
lands sunk in the waters. The light is obscure. The
guides not over trustworthy. I dare not despise aught
that may help me in trying to draw, as well as I can,
the portrait of the Persian of old. I will fill out my
conception of what the Persian was, from what he is
now. This I may rightly do; for, in all the vicissitudes
of his history, he has had much the same characteristics.
The Persian is of the Caucasian type. His complexion is rather dark; his face oval; his abundant hair
black, and fine of texture; his forehead high; eyebrowe





60


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


arching and connected; eyes large, brilliant, and dark;
his features regular, serious, and calm; lips thin; chin
narrow; beard flowing; his chest broad; limbs wellproportioned; hands and feet well-shaped; his gait
erect and fine; his walk graceful.1 Of old, as now, he
was fond of dress: -"the long and carefully curled
hair of the Persians is conspicuous on the sculptures of
Persepolis."2  Of old, as now, the Persian was fond
of show; yet high-spirited and brave. Of old, as now,
he was luxurious in his feelings, and a lover of wine;
yet hardy in his training, temperate in his food, patient
under privation, much in the open air, a horseman, and
given to sports of the field. Of old, as now, the Persian was courtly, lively, quick-witted. He was social,
1 " The Persians are more than good-looking, they are a
handsome race" (Malcolm's Sketches of Persia, ch. xii.
p.126); " and fond of decorating their persons" (ch. xvii.
p. 229). But most of the people of the northern provinces of Persia are of Tartar origin. Of such are the Persian
merchants seen in the bazaars of Constantinople. Of such
are most of the ruling class and the reigning family; but intermarriage with Persians has bettered the physical peculiarities of the Tartar race. Lady Shiel, wife of a British
minister at Teheran, the capital of Persia, in " Glimpses of
Life in Persia," says of one of the royal family, " She was
really lovely; fair, with indescribable eyes, and a figure only
equalled by the chefs-d'oeuvre of Italian art."  The same
beauty of form that now marks the pure Persian race is seen
on the old sculptures of Persepolis.
2 Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. iii. p. 424.  The Persians
wore long hair. - Herodotus, book vi. sec. 19.





OF THE PERSIANS.


61


convivial, pleased with himself, proud of his country,1
- the Frenchman of the East.2
On his lips, the poetry and extravagance of the East;
yet sometimes with a simple grandeur of word. On
his tomb at Pasargadae, the founder of the Persian empire recalls the founder of his family; of his own deeds
he says nothing, --his name will call them up;--    I
am Cyrus, the King, the Achemenian."
Of old, with an immortal instinct that led him to keep
records and set up monuments, Cyrus the Great made
a decree; the fourth king after him was petitioned
that search might be made for this; and search was
made in "the house of rolls," and the "roll" of the
1  The Persians look upon themselves as greatly superior
to the rest of mankind." - Herodotus, book i. sec. 134.
2 " I accord to the Persian all the politeness of manners,
and all the readiness and vivacity of wit that are wanting to
the Osmanli."--Vamberry's Travels in Central Asia, book
i. p. 22. Bishop Southgate contrasts their affability with
the reserve of the Turks (Tour in Armenia and Persia,
vol. ii. ch. i. p. 9, 10), and says, "1the Persians are
certainly among the most accessible and polite people on
earth" (ch. ii. p. 18). Their resemblance to Frenchmen
strikes all travellers in Persia. It is, at least, curious that
this likeness reaches to skill in cookery - an art in which
Persian princesses are proud to display their success; and
to a distaste for a seafaring life.  Malcolm says, " The
natives of this place " - a small port on the Persian Gulf" are almost all of the Arab race, and fond of the sea; a propensity the more remarkable, as it is in such strong contrast
with the disposition of the Persians, of whom all classes have
an unconquerable antipathy to that element." - Sketches,
ch. iii. p. 33.





62


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


decree was found.1 A    steep rock, seventeen hundred
feet high, overhangs the thoroughfare between Baby
lonia and Persia. On the smooth fice of this rock
tablet, three hundred feet above the ground, Darius the
Great ordered an image of himself to be sculptured,
erect, holding his bow, two of his officers of state be.
bind him, a rebel under his feet, nine others in bonds
before him, and, beneath, a record of the first five years
of his reign to be carved in three languages,- and
there the traveller beholds it now.2
The palace of the Persian of old was the noblest pile,
his palace-hall, the largest ever built by regal policy
or pride, - fitting the state of the sovereign, whom the
Greeks ever called "the Great King."    The court of
the Persian of old was sublime, - shadowing forth his
conception of the court on high.
1 Ezra v. 6-17; vi. 1-13.
2 This long rock-inscription at Behistun is in the Persian,
Babylonian, and Scythian languages. It was executed
(B. C. 515) by the command of Darius Hystaspes, fourth
monarch of the empire. A translation of it is given in
Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 590, etc.
3 The idea of the magnificence of the palaces of the Persian kings given by the book of Esther, ch. i. 5, 6, is confirmed by the ruins of Persepolis. Ferguson, in a Treatise
on the Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, describing the
ruin now called the Hall of Xerxes, makes these statements: "The central hall alone covered more than forty
thousand square feet, or, with its walls, fifty-five thousand
seven hundred; its three porticos add forty-two thousand
five hundred feet to this, and, including the guard-rooms
(six thousand eight hundred), it makes a rectangle of about





OF THE PERSIANS.


63


With something of Asiatic indifference to the worth
of human life, the Persians of old were not cruel by nature.  With something of Oriental sensuality, they
three hundred feet by three hundred and fifty, or one hundred
and five thousand square feet. The great Hall of Karnac,
in Egypt, the most stupendous building of antiquity, covers,
internally, but fifty-eight thousand three hundred feet, and
with its walls and porticos only eighty-eight thousand eight
hundred. No cathedral in England, nor, indeed, in France
or Germany, covers so much ground; that of Cologne comes
nearest to it - eighty-one thousand five hundred feet. Milan cathedral covers one hundred and seven thousand eight
hundred feet. He finds, or fancies some resemblance between this building and the Hall of Xerxes, in the general
character of the effect it must have produced upon the
spectator, and says, " Neither is quite satisfactory; yet
the most rigid critic cannot deny that they produce a sensation of bewilderment and beauty which it is impossible to
resist, and, to most minds, they seem, and must have always
appeared to be among the noblest creations of human intellect and human power." -Part i. sec. i. pp. 171-2.
He says, " I cannot conceive anything more gorgeous,
or, perhaps, much more beautiful, than such a building as
this must have appeared in the clear sunshine of a Persian
climate, if ornamented and colored as I conceive it to have
been in the days of its pristine magnificence." - Part i.
sec. i. p. 155.
Of the Colossal Bulls, fifteen feet in height, which adorned
the Propylea of this edifice, he says, L There is a massiveness in the muscular development, and a rugged solidity
about the joints, which give to these animals a character of
gigantic force unmatched, so far as I know, in animal sculpture, but analogous to what the Greeks attained in- their
representation of Hercules." -Part i. sec. i. p. 109. Of
Persian architecture, as compared with Grecian, he says,





64


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


were distinguished by moral sensibility.  "They hold
it," says Herodotus, " unlawful to talk of anything it is
unlawful to do.1 Lying, they think, is most disgraceful;
and, next to this, to be in debt.    This, for several
reasons, but especially because they think that one who
is in debt, must of necessity tell lies."2 One of their
names for God was, "The Father of Truth."
The Persian now is speculative and fond of the mysterious, but not fanatical.  The Persian of old was
imaginative, earnestly inquisitive, generously appreciative. He easily adopted foreign customs;- "no nation," says Herodotus, more readily; "3 -yet he was
tenacious of his own ideas. The law of the Medes and
Persians altered not.  Their ancient religion sometimes
attracted and allied thoughts and usages of other nations, yet ever kept its own.4
" The comparison is more favorable to Persia than one
might at first be led to expect; and her Art, when we accustom ourselves to its unfamiliar forms, has an elegance and
grace, as well as an appropriateness, that renders it well
worthy of study and attention." - Part i. sec. i. p. 87, 88, 89.
1 Herodotus, book i. sec. 138.
2 Book i. sec. 138. They teach their sons three things;
to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth. -Book i.
sec. 136. In Persia, Malcolm says, " nobody walks." In the
sadddle the Persians handle the matchlock as adroitly as of
old the bow. But all travellers report that, as to truthfulness, they have degenerated.
3 Herodotus, book i. sec. 135.
4 Of the Parsees, as the small remnant of believers in
the old Persian religion in Persia and India are called, converts to Christianity there are few or none.





OF THE PERSIANS.


65


In energy, the Persians, of all Asiatics, are most like
Europeans. This energy is due in part to the bounds
appointed them. A     country central in Asia; low,
sandy, hot coasts along the gulf; elsewhere, an upland
of cool and bracing air; mountain ridges in all directions; vales and plains of verdure; vast salt deserts -
on the whole a poor country,' uninviting to strangers,2
yet loved with passion by the Persians, whose thousand
poets,3 in strains awaking the envy of other countries,
sing the land of the rose and the nightingale.
Yet the Persians may well boast of their fruits. In the
hot, sandy tract, the date, the fig, the pomegranate, the
lemofl, the orange, come to perfectio'; and the grapes of
Shiraz are good as its wine. The peach tree is said to be
a native of Persia, and there grow all the fruits of the
temperate zone.
2 Yet a most interesting country, as presenting divers
forms of life, that for European races live only in history
and romance. The Persians, listening to bards reciting from
the Shahnameh, recall the Greeks, who, in like manner
and with like emotion, knew the songs of Homer. The.wild clans of the mountains, with their fealty to their chiefs,
their fhstnesses among the hills, their raids on the flocks and
herds of the lowlands, are the Highlanders in the novels of
Scott. The lords of Persia in their strongholds, with armed
retainers around, are the great nobles of the Feudal age in
Europe; their power, their state, their high heroic qualities
the same; their passions, too, the same; the same their
lawlessness, their craft, their cruelty.
8 Literally so, if we count in the number the bards, who,
in every village, and to the tribes of the mountains at nightfall, to impassioned listeners crowding round, recite heroic
stanzas from the Shahnameh, or sing the odes of Hafiz, or





66


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


The historic period 6f Persia began in the seventh
century before Christ (B. C. 658), when Achaemenes -
a leader whose name the Persian monarchs loved to recall - led an emigration into a narrow territory, along
the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. There he founded
a kingdom; and there were the ancient Persian capitals,
Pasargadae and Persepolis. When the Persians thus
came into Persia Proper, their kinsmen, the Medes,
who appear earlier in history, dwelt in the region adjoining it on the north. A century later, these kindred tribes, coming under one government, ruled from
the highlands east of the Tigris to the highlands west
of the Indus, and from the Caspian Sea and the River
Oxus to the Persian Gulf. The Persian Empire, thus
founded in the sixth century before Christ (B. C. 558)
by Cyrus the Great, besides Persia or Iran, embraced,
at one time or another, Assyria, Syria, Asia Minor,
islands of the 2Egean, Egypt, parts of Arabia, of
Scythia, and of India, In the fourth century before
Christ (B. C. 331) Persia was conquered by the
Greeks. In the third century before Christ the Parthians - a tribe that had been /subject to the Persians
-rose up against the successors of Alexander, and at
length founded the Parthian Empire. In the third
century after Christ (A. D. 226) the Persians reestablished their own kipgdom. In the seventh century
(A. D. 651) the Arabs converted the Persians to Mohammedanism   by the sword.    The cruelty of their
of Saadi. Persia is just at that stage of culture when poetry
is the passion of all classes.





OF THE IERSIANS.


conquest, while it explains their success, shows the
Persians tenacious of their religion. Its success is also
explained by the fact, that the religion of the Persians
and of Mohammed had points of contact in the idea of
one God, in detestation of idols, and in some common
traditions. In some Moslem   sects in Persia, and in
Persian poetry, an influence from the old religion may
be discerned; but so thorough was the conquest, that
only a few who clung to the old religion remained in
Persia; only a few escaped into India. In Persia this
remnant are called Guebres -  Fire Worshippers. In
India they are called Parsees -that is, Persians. Most
of their merchants live in the city of Bombay. For
their numbers, the Parsees are the wealthiest race under
British dominion in India, and the most intelligent and
charitable. Throughout the-,.commercial world their
merchants have a high character for energy and honor.
In the seventh century before Christ the historic
period of Persia began; but some of the monuments
of its religion are of much older date. They are as old
as any of the monuments of the religion of India, if
they do not, in fact, transcend them all in antiquity, and
reach near to the age of the primeval kingdoms of
Egypt and Babylon. The Zend, the sacred language
of Persia, and the most ancient dialect of the Sanscrit,
the sacred language of India, are the same language.1
1 Of Zend, Dr. Haug states, " Its relation to the most
ancient Sanscrit, the so-called Vedic dialect, is as close as
that of the different dialects of the Grecian language,
XEolic, Ionic, Doric, and Attic, to each other." - Essays on





68


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


The language and traditions of these two countries
prove, that at some very remote epoch there was, in
a people of the same language, a division, caused in a
measure by a divergence in religion,1 and resulting in
the formation of two peoples.      One part of this
ancient community kept more pure the truth revealed to
the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsees, by Martin Haug, Dr. Phil., late of the Universities of
Tiibingen, G6ttingen, and Bonn; Superintendent of Sanscrit Studies, and Professor of Sanscrit in the Poona College,
Bombay. 1862, part ii. p. 117. Dr. Haug states that the
Brahmins, who are perfectly acquainted with the classical Sanscrit, as he calls it, are unable to explain the more
ancient parts of the Vedas; and that "there is no doubt
the classical Sanscrit was formed long after the separation of
the Iranians from the Hindus." - Part ii. pp. 117, 118. The
Zend, he calls "the elder sister of the Sanscrit." --Part i.
p. 17. Hardwick calls it '" second, if not the eldest of the
sister tongtes which form the Indo-European family." He
says, Purely philological reasons leave no doubt of the " protracted intercourse of Persians and Hindus, who clung together as a great community ages after the migrations of the
Celt, the Teuton, and the Sclave across the bounds of Eastern Europe." - Christ and other Masters, by Charles Hardwick, Cambridge, England, 1862. Part iv. chap. iii. p. 147.
1 The evidence of this is in facts, of which the following
are specimens: " In all the Vedas, and in Brahminic literature, Deva is the name of the gods who are objects of
worship to this day. In the Zendavesta, from its earliest to its
latest parts, and even in modern Persian literature, deva -
modern Persian, div - is the general name of an evil spirit or
devil." - Dr. Haug, part iv. p. 225. In the Vedas, Indra is
the highest of the gods, and a benevolent deity; with the
Persian li e is degraded in rank, and malevolent in character.





OF THE PERSIANS.


69


the fathers of mankind, the other corrupted it into a
pantheistic nature-worship. The line of this division
was the River Indus, and the Persians and the Hindoos
its monuments.
This division was the final breaking up of that primneval family or tribe in Asia, from  out of which,
before this, had been the migrations of those, who,
within the bounds of Europe, were to become the
Greeks, the Romans, the Celts, the Teutons, and the
Sclaves; in a word, the nations of Europe, in their
long succession and varied development - migrations
not within any historic period, but attested to have been
out of the bosom of the same family by resemblances
in their languages, through which the languages of
Persia, of India, and of Europe have been classed
together as one grand division of human speech, and
called the Indo-Germanic, or Indo-European, or Aryan,
or Japhetan languages - names, each of which strives
to grasp and express the unity and diversity of this
wonderful phenomenon; as in like manner, and with
like cause, the languages of the Arabs, the Syrians,
the Phoenicians, and the Hebrews. are called Shemitic
languages.
In a time, then, far beyond the reach of the usual
appliances of human history, in a region somewhere in
the heart of Asia, there appears the early vision of a
family from which go forth, towards the cast, the lords
of India, and towards the west, the successive races
that peopled Europe, and are now spreading over the
Americas, and the expectant islands of the deep. I





70


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


know of no such far-reaching prospect in human his
tory, of no higher summit of mortal vision, from which
to survey the procession of the nations, the onwindings
of the oceanic stream of life. This affiliation of nations,
so far severed in space and time, so different in their
tongues to the common ear, and so distinct in their
histories, this affiliation that connects them into one
division of the human race and disconnects them from
the others, is a grand fact, that kindles the soul to
thought. What was the religion of this family, before
it broke up, to find such different destinies? What was
its religion far away back in that early day, when the
fathers of these unborn nations spoke one language?
There is something in all the mythologies of this great
family of the human race, suggesting that its religion,
then, was the worship of God. Over all its idolatry
broods the dim presence of some One higher and solitary Power; and to the ages gone, as to a fount of
wiser inspiration, all these varied nations have looked
back with dim, regretful memories. As their traditions are traced farther backwards, they more and more
approximate towards the primeval facts recorded in the
annals of our ancient and holy religion, and ever more
and more appear the tokens of some early revelation of
the one only living and true God. Many and varied
are the lines of evidence that point to this conclusion;
but I find the decisive proof of the fact in the ancient
religious monuments of the Persians, as connected with
that struggle against idolatry which resulted in their
existence as a people.





OF THE PERSIANS.


71


Zendavesta I is the name given to what remains of the
religious records of the ancient Medes and Persians.
It consists of a few hymns and prayers, and of one
only of twenty-one books that contained their religious
and scientific ideas. The Zendavesta, though but a
fragment of an extensive literature, contains those parts
of it most important for understanding the rise, genius,
and history of the Persian religion. A   few of its
hymns and prayers are written in a dialect much older
than the rest of it, and such changes appear in its language, and so many centuries were required for the
formation of the literature to which it belonged, that
the most ancient of its hymns were probably written at
a time not much later than that of Moses. Some of the
oldest of these hymns were composed by Zoroaster,
and their age determines the period in which he lived.
This sage, whom Iran revered as her prophet, in the
Zendavesta is styled Zarathrustra, -a word changed
by the Romans into Zoroaster.2    The Greeks and
Romans took this for a proper name. It was the title of
the High Priest of Iran. The Zoroaster of world-wide
fame is distinguished in the Zendavesta by his family
name, Spitama. His successors in office were thought
to commune with God, as the Persians believed Zoroaster did; their sayings and doings were confounded by
foreigners with his; and hence the uncertainty as to the
1 This name indicates that the Book consists of a Text
(Avesta), and a comment upon it (Zeud).
2 By the Greeks into Zarastrades and Zoroastres; by the
Parsees into Zerdosht.





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age in which he lived, and whether there were one, two,
three, or more of the same name - questions long discussed among the learned.1
In forming a conception of any old religion, we almost, of necessity, conceive of it as it may have been at
some one period, and so include in our conception of it
features it may have had earlier or later. All the religions of old had changes from without and from within;
but there were peculiar and great features of the Persian
religion that were always the same. The Persians of
old were not idolaters. They believed in a self-existent
Creator of all good. His name was Ahura-Mazda,
thought to mean the Living Creator of all - a name, in
later Persian, contracted into Ormazd. The Persians
conceived of another being, also self-existent, who was
the creator of evil.  His name was Angromainyuz',
in later Persian, Ahriman. Such a creed, strictly construed, held to two eternal powers; but, happily, it
was inconsistent with its first principles. The good
being was mightier than the evil being, and, in the end,
was to destroy him.
Having a revelation of the spirituality of God, the
Persian reared to him no temple, fashioned of him no
image. He worshipped him before a flame of fire.
Herodotus says, " the Persians held Fire to be a god; "2
but this was not the belief of Iran. These words are
from the oldest recorded utterance of her ancient faith,
1 Haug, part iii. sec. 27, p. 131; comp. 139.
2 Herodotus, book iii. sec. 16.





OF THE PERSIANS.


73


from a creed, or prayer, or hymn -it is all three in
one - of Zoroaster himself: " Blessed is he, blessed are
all men, to whom the living, wise God, of his own
command, should grant those two everlasting powers,
- health of the soul, and immortality. For this very
good, I beseech Thee, Ahura-Mazda, mayest thou,
through thy angel of piety, give me happiness, the true
good things, and the possession of the good mind. I
believe Thee to be the best being of all; the source of
Light for the world. Everybody shall choose Theo as the
source of Light; Thee, holiest spirit. Thou createst all
good things.... I will believe Thee to be powerful,
holy. For thou givest, with thy hand filled with helps,
good to the pious man, as well as to the impious, by
means of the warmth of the fire strengthening the good
things." 1
The Median usage of worshipping before a flame of
fire may have, in part, originated in, and certainly in
part is to be explained by, the Oriental, ancient idea of
the element, Light. Of this essence, that which we
call Light, was to the Persian but one of the various
manifestations; Heat was another; and both were combined in the blaze of the fire. The invisible, universal,
manifold element itself, he thought, in some way, pertained to God. Among the sayings ascribed by the
Greeks to the Persians, it was said of God, "his body
resembles Light, as his spirit resembles Truth." This
reminds of what is written in the Divine Oracles:
1 Gatha Ustavaiti, i. 1, 2, 4. Haug, p. 147.





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CHARACTER AND RELIGION


God " covereth himself with light, as with a garnel t;" 1
" He dwelleth in light, which no man can approach unto."2
The Persian thought this divine element was the media 3
of creative energy. Ahura-Mazda created, "through
his inborn lustre, the multitude of the celestial luminaries."4 It was the media of his omnipresent agency,
-" by the warmth of the fire strengthening the good
things " he had created.
Of this divine element, the gross, material fire on the
Median altars was a symbol. To form this altar-fire,
fires from sixteen places were brought together in one;
fire generated by the rubbing together of two sticks of
wood, fire from the kitchen, fire from steel-workers,
glass-makers, potters, dyers, all the mechanics, and fire
from  a funeral pile. The corpse was pollution to a
Mede or a Persian; ' yet the fire, in which a dead body
had been burned, was the most indispensable of all to
the symbolical flame on the altar, for it was thought to
have absorbed the fire in the human frame. Four was
a perfect number, and the square of four filled out to
perfection the fulness of the representative idea in the
fire gathered from sixteen fires.G  This collective fire
1 Psalms civ. 2.                2 1 Tim. vi. 16.
3 Gatha Ustavaiti, i. 1, 2, 4. Haug, p. 147.
4 I use the plural intentionally, in view of the manifoldness of the element, -Light. Mark the expression, "Father
of Lights." - James i. 17.
5 The Vendidad, Fargard, v.-viii., contains minute directions for the treatment of a dead body. Running through
these all is the idea of its utter inr'purity.
3 The Vendidad, Fargard, viii. 73-96, contains directions





OF THE PERSIANS.


75


representcd that element which is the unseen tause of all
seeing, and of the heat, through which is the growth
of the vegetable and animal worlds.    The visible fire
on the altar was a symbol of the invisible fire that pervaded and vivified all things, and was the life in nature.
It represented a great and universal mystery, behind
which was the mystery of mysteries; for that invisible
fire was the Shekinah itself.    Hence, the collective,
mystic flame, purified by prayers said over it to God,
was so sacred that it became impure if the direct rays,
even of the sun, fell upon it.1
The Mede and the Persian thought that, through this
for the preparation of the sacred Fire. The Parsees observe
them at this day. The reason for the number is a conjecture of mine. Traces of a lost science or art of numbers,
seem to run through Oriental, ancient thinking. Some of
these appear in Holy Writ, alike in the books of Moses,
learned in the wisdom of Egypt, and of'Daniel, learned in
the wisdom of Chaldea. Some of the thought of this lost
art may be gathered here and there. Philo Judmus preserves
something of this, as to the first seven numbers. Four, he
says, is " a perfect number," and " preeminent in nature."
He proposed to show    its mystic powers, in full, in a
special treatise. - On the World, secs. xiv. xv. xvi. xvil.
Seneca tells how certain of the Magi, who chanced to be at
Athens, where Plato died on his eighty-first birthday, were
so struck with his perfect time-cycle, nine, the most perfect
of numbers, multiplied into itself, or the square of nine, that
they paid honors to him, as to one more than a mortal. -
Ep. 58.
1 Their Atish-khudars, houses for the sacred fire, are so
constructed now by the Parsees, that the sun-rays cannoa
fall on the sacred fire.





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CHARACTER AND RELIGION


sa:red flame, God might reveal his truth to his true
worshippers. Zoroaster said, "Standing at thy fire,
amlong thy worshippers who pray to thee, I will be
mindful of the truth; "1 and he exhorted his disciples
" to contemplate the beams of the fire with a most pious
mind."'  Standing thus himself, musing, praying, worshipping, his burning thoughts seemed to him kindled
from the altar-blaze. "I will now tell you," he says,
"you, who are assembled here, the wise sayings of the
Most Wise, the praises of the Living God, and the
songs of the good Spirit, the sublime truth which I see
arising out of these sacred flames."  This custom of
worshipping before a flame was older than the time of
Zoroaster. I think it may have originated in some old
tradition of a revelation of God through a flame of fire,
like to that Moses beheld in Midian.4
Ormazd said, "My light is concealed under all that
shines;"5: and hence the Persian, as he revered the
sacred fire, revered also the sun, the moon, and every
shining thing. This reverence, easily mistaken for
idolatry, no doubt often became idolatrous. No doubt
the Persians often confounded the media of the power
of the omnipresent God - his symbols - with God
himself.
It being a dogma of the Persian religion, that all the
1 Gatha Ustavaiti, i. 9. Haug, p. 148.
2 Gatha Ahunavaiti, iii. 2. Haug, p. 141.
a The same, sec. i.              Exodus iii. 1-6.
5 Cited by Malcolm, as from the Zendavesta. Hist. of
Sl'k'rsiai   vol. i, c11, vii.





OF THE PERSIANS.


77


evil in the world was created by an evil being, all that
was good was representative of the power and the glory
of the good Being; and, through such things, the
Creator might be worshipped.
The idea of the representative glory of God shining
through what he had made, comes out in the Persian
idea of a king. "I am," says Jamschid, in the Shahnameh, " by the divine favor, both sovereign and
priest." The Persian monarch was pontiff, as well as
king. His palace was, in some sort, a temple; his
court, a copy of that of Ormazd. In number, the great
officers around his throne corresponded to the archangels in the courts on high. The King, exalted by the
divine will to the dazzling preeminence of temporal
and spiritual lord of the Persians, was to them an image
of the power and glory of God. Something of this idea
may be seen in the decree of Darius, that, for thirty
days, no one should offer any petition to God or man,
save to himself; in the rule that no one, not even the
Queen, might come before the King, in his palace, unbidden, and live, unless he held out the golden sceptre;2
and, in this, that the laws of the King, like the laws of
God, altered not. In the Persian sense of the word,
the King was worshipped. Plutarch, in his life of Theniistocles, says, "None durst appear before the King,
without prostrating themselves on the ground." Nor did
they exact this only from their own vassals, but also
from foreign ministers and ambassadors; the captain of


' Daniel vi., 4-9.


2 Esther iv, 10., 11.





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CHARACTER AND RELIGION


the guard being charged to inquire of those who asked
admittance to the king, whether they were ready to
adore him. This is explained by what Artabanus said
to Themistocles: " Among the many excellent laws of
ours, the most excellent is this, that the king is to be
honored and worshipped religiously, as the image of
that God which conserveth all things."
According to the Persian creed, Ormazd was the
creator of light, Ahriman of darkness; and the neverceasing war of light and darkness, the true image of the
conflict between them. To take part in this conflict,
Ormazd created six archangels, Ahriman, six demons;
the one, legions of messengers of light, the other, of
emissaries of darkness.
The Persian religion discerned the superhuman origin
of the evil there is in the world; and that God wages
against it real, unceasing, and at last, victorious war.
It predicted that in the end a Redeemer would come
to do away with death, and to, raise the dead. It
taught the Persian, that if he approved himself on the
side of the Good Being, by good thoughts, good words,
and good deeds, he himself, both body and soul, should
share in his triumphs.
In proof of some of these statements as to the religion of the Persians, I cite Scripture, whose date is
prior to the birth of the founder of the Persian empire.
" I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and
there is lnone like me; declaring the end from the beginning, iand from ancient times the things that are not
yet dnew, -aying, My counsel shall stand, and I will da





OF THE PERSIANS.


7 9


all My pleasure: calling a ravenous bird1 from the
East, the man2 that executeth my counsel from a far
country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to
pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." 3
"I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the
earth by myself;... that saith of Cyrus, He is my
shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."4
" Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose
right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before
him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not
be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked
places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of
brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will
give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches
of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the
Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of
Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine
elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have
surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am
the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside
me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from
the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord,
and there is none else. I form the light, and create
1 The Persian eagle. See note on p. 57
SCyrus.   a Isa. xlvi. 9, 10, 11.  Isa. xliv. 24, 2,





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darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I, the Lord,
do all these things." 1
These words prove Schlegel's assertion, that in the
Bible the Persians are not classed with heathen nations. For Cyrus is called the Lord's " shepherd " and
the Lord's " anointed," which is evidence that he was a
worshipper of God; and this is certain, when it is said
the Lord will strengthen the right hand of his anointed
to subdue the " nations;" for the term rendered " nations " means the heathen, or worshippers of idols, in
strict opposition to the Israelites.
Yet the Lord said to Cyrus, " Thou hast not known
me;" from which it is to be inferred, that although
Cyrus was no idol-worshipper, his idea of God was imperfect, erroneous, or contradictory; and as the words
following-( "I am the Lord, and there is none else;
there is no God beside me,"- are naturally taken as
referring to those that precede, there is in them evidence
of the divinity of Ahriman in the Persian creed. When
this is said again, it is followed by words manifestly
pointed against this doctrine of the Persian religion:
"I form the light, and create the darkness. I make
peace, and create evil.   I, the Lord, do all these
things."
The fact so strongly inferred from Scripture, that the
Persian religion held to two Creators, is clearly proved
by the first two of the five small collections of hymns
in the Zendavesta, called Gathas. These were written
1 Isa. xlv. 1-7.





OF THiE PERSIANS.


81


by Zoroaster.   He says, "In the beginning, there
were a pair of twins; two spirits, each with a peculiar
activity: these are the good and the base, in thought,
word, and deed. And these two spirits created material things; the one the reality, the other the nonreality. Of these two spirits, you must choose the
one, either the evil, the originator of the worst actions,
or the true, holy spirit."1 Here, the idea of two Creators, each the antithesis of the other, is expressed
with a clearness beyond contradiction. In the last
three Gathas the idea is different.  This inquiry is
addressed to God: "Art Thou not He in whom is
hidden the last cause of both intellects, good and base?"
-and the Creator of good and evil is said to be one
and the same.
These words may have come from Zoroaster's disciples; their first, but not their last, attempt to reduce
his system to pure Monotheism. If from the sage himself, they prove that his thoughts were inconsistent;
that in vain attempts to change faith into philosophy,
to solve the problem of evil, whose solution is beyond
the powers of man, and which God hath not revealed,
he became bewildered, and contradicted himself. Or, it
may be these darkened utterances repeat but what he had
heard. It may be he (lid not originate that Dualism,
which was the greatest error in the creed of Iran, but he
did sanction it; and his creed, if judged only by this
dogma, must be condemned as worse than that of the
1 Gatha Ahunavait, iii. 8, 4. Haug, p. 142.





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heathen. But the religion of the intellect and of the
heart are not just the same. The heart of Zoroaster
forbade him to follow out his creed to its consequences;
and he seemed to have given to the spirit, from whom
he believed that evil originated, divine attributes, without clearly seeing they were such. For, in his sayings, - and so, too, in the Zoroastrian religion, - Ahriman is really an inferior power. IHe says, " Wisdom is
the shelter from lies, the annihilation of the destroyer,"
- that is, of the evil spirit.1 His allusions to Ahriman
are chiefly in exhortations to withstand his assaults:
"Those who are opposed in their thoughts, words, and
actions to the wicked, and think only of the welfare of
creation, their efforts will be crowned with success
through the mercy of Ahura-Mazda." 2
It would seem   that the fearful dogma of an evil
being, ever creating evil, would have made the religion
of the Persians gloomy and despairing. It might have
been so in the forests of Scandinavia, but it was not
beneath the brilliant sky of Iran. It might have been
so among some races, but by nature " the Persians are
the most cheerful people in the world."
Something of this must be ascribed to the piety of
Zoroaster. The dogma of an evil creator was so disarmed of its overshadowing terror by his trust in God,
that although it ever remained an article in the creed
of the religion which revered him as its prophet, that
religion was of good cheer, and alone, of the religions
1 Gatha Ahunavaiti, iii. 10. Haug, p. 143.
2 Gatha Ahunavaiti, iv. 332. Haug, p. 145.





OF THE PERSIANS.


83


of the world, looked forward with hope. Zoroaster's
words are the accents of a soul inquiring after God,
elevated, strengthened, purified by contemplation of
Him, and by the assurance of immortal righteousness.
They show him to have been a child-like lover of God,
whom he calls " the living, the faithful, the generous,
the holy."
"That will I ask of Thee, tell it me right, Thou
living God! who was, in the beginning, the Father and
Creator of truth. Who made of the sun and stars the
way? Who causes the moon to increase and wane if
not Thou? This I wish to know, except what I already
know.
"That will I ask of Thee, tell it me right, Thou
living God! who is holding the earth and the skies
above it? Who made the waters, and the trees of the
field? Who is in the wind and storms that they so
quickly run? Who is the creator of the good-minded
beings, Thou Wise?
"That will I ask Thee, tell it me right, Thou Living
God. Who made the lights of good effect, and the
darkness? Who made the sleep of good effect, and the
activity? Who made morning, noon, and night, reminding always the priest of his duties?
" When my eyes beheld Thee, the Essence of Truth,
the Creator of Life, who manifests his life in his works,
then I knew Thee to be the primeval spirit - Thou
Wise, so high in mind as to create the world, and the
father of the good mind.
"I believe in Thee as the Holy God, Thou living





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Wise! because I beheld Thee to be the primeval cause
of life in the creation. For Thou hast made holy
customs and words. Thou hast given emptiness to the
base, and good to the good man. I will believe in
Thee, Thou glorious God! in the last period of creation."1
He met in this world the treatment given to all of
whom the world is not worthy: " To what country shall
I go?  Where shall I take my refuge?   What country
is sheltering the master and his companion? None of
the servants pay reverence to me, nor the wicked rulers
of the country.  How shall I worship Thee further,
Living Wise?
"I know that I am helpless. Look at me being
amongst few men, for I have but few men, I implore
Thee, weeping, Thou Living God, who grantest happiness as a friend gives a present to a friend. The good
of the good mind is in Thy own possession, Thou
True." 2
These few broken words shadow forth much of the
unknown of his history. These reveal the hope that
cheered him. "Let us be such as help the life of the
future.... The prudent man wishes only to be there,
where wisdom is at home... All perfect things are
garnered up in the splendid residence of the Angel of
SThese are sentences from the first two Gathas - choice
sentences, that give much too high an idea of the general
character of the Zendavesta.
2 Gatha Ustavaiti, iv. 1, 2.





OF THE PERSIANS.


B5


Righteousness, the Angel of Wisdom, the Angel of
Truth." 1
In the fragments of the sayings of Zoroaster there is
no clear trace of the doctrine of the resurrection of the
dead; yet the Persians seem to have found there its
germ, at least; for they gave, as a name to the renovation of all things, in which they believed the dead would
arise, a phrase of Zoroaster's -" the perpetuation of life."
In the Zendavesta it is foretold that Sosiosh, a great
prophet, commissioned by Ahura-Mazda to restore and
make all things new, "shall slay death,"2 and that " in
his time the dead will rise."
The angels of Zoroaster are personifications of the
divine attributes rather than real beings, with the exception of Serosh, the angel of the religion of Iran. In
after times, each abstraction of the mind, each faculty
of the soul, each animate and inanimate thing, was
thought to have its spirit or genius, and each human
being his angel. The old Persian walked, attended by
a multitude of spirits of light or of spirits of darkness.
To good spirits, veneration was given; many of them
were invoked with prayer; and some angels of high
rank were so invested with titles and honors of gods of
other nations, as to give rise to the assertion, that the
Persians had adopted them.
As the mysterious element, Light, pervaded everything in the good creation, every such thing might be
1 Gatha Ahunavaiti, iii. 9, 10.
2 Vendidad. Fargard, xix.      S Zemyad yasht.





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CHARACTER AND RELIGION


an object of reverence, and reverence was especially
given to the four elements, to the sun, to the moon, and
every shining thing. This recondite idea, together with
the belief that everything in the good creation had its
genius or angel, which might be invoked with prayer,
often made their religion unintelligible to the heathen of
old, who interpreted its creed by their own.
Gibbon says, "The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners;...but the most careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of the Persian worship. ' That people,' says Herodotus, 'rejects the use of temples, of altars, and of statues,
and smiles at the folly of those nations who imagine that
the gods are sprung from, or bear any affinity with, the
human nature. The tops of the highest mountains are
the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers
are the principal worship; the Supreme God, who fills
the wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are
addressed.' Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit
of a Polytheist, he accuses them of adoring earth, water,
fire, the winds, and the sun and moon. But Persians
of every age have denied the charge, and explained the
equivocal conduct which might appear to give a color
to it. The elements, and more particularly the sun,
whom they called Mithrc, were the objects of their religious reverence, because they considered them as' the
purest symbols, the noblest, productions, and the most
powerful agents of the Divine Power and nature."
1 Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, ch. viii.





OF THE PERSIANS.


87


Missionaries bring the same charge against the Parsees now; and it is answered by them in the same way.
The Parsees revere Zoroaster as their prophet; they
receive the Zendavesta as their sacred book; their rites
are those of their ancestors; their creed expresses the
Persian religion of old, in its purest form; therefore
I cite part of a Catechism appended to the Book of
Prayer, now used by the Parsees in India.
" We believe in only one God; and do not believe in
any beside him.   Question. Who is that one God?
Answer. The God who created the heavens and the
earth, the angels, the stars, the sun, the moon, the fire,
the water, or all the four elements, and all things in the
two worlds: that God we believe in; Him we invoke,
and Him we adore.    Ques. What is the form of oui
God?   Ans. Our God has neither face, nor form, color,
nor shape, nor fixed place. There is no other like Him.
He is himself singly, such a glory that we cannot describe Him, nor our mind comprehend Him.      Ques.
What is our religion? Ans. Our religion is the worship of God.    Ques. Whence did we receive our
religion?  Ans. From   God's true prophet, the true
Zoroaster. He brought our religion for us from God.
Ques. Where should I turn my face when worshipping
the holy Ormazd. Ans. We should worship the holy,
just Ormazd, with our face toward some of his creations
of light, glory, and brightness.  Ques. What are those
things?  Ans. Such as the sun, the moon, the stars,
the fire, water, and such things of glory. To such,things we should turn our face, because God has he




88


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


stowed upon them a small spark of His true glory; and
they are, therefore, more exalted in the creation, and
fit to represent to us this power and glory.  Ques.
Among the creation of Ormazd, which is the most
exalted? Ans. The great prophet is the most exalted;
and that prophet is the excellent Zoroaster; none is
higher than he; the height of dignity culminates in him,
because he is the most honored and beloved of God.
Ques. If we commit any sin, will our prophet save us?
Ans. Never commit any sin under that faith; because
our prophet, our guide, has distinctly commanded you
shall receive according to what you do. If you do virtuous and pious actions, your reward shall be heaven.
If you sin, and do wicked things, your reward shall be
hell. There is none save God, that can save you from
the consequences of your sins. If you repent of your
sins and reform, and the Great Judge consider you
worthy of pardon, or would be merciful to you, He
alone can and will save you.  Ques. What are those
things by which man is blessed and benefited. Ans.
To do virtuous deeds, to give in charity, to be kind, to
be humble, to speak the truth, to suppress anger, to be
patient and contented, to be friendly, to feel shame, to
pay due respect to the old and young, to be pious, to
respect our parents and teachers.  Ques. What are
those things by which man is lost or degraded? Ans.
To tell untruths, to steal, to gamble, to commit treachery,
to abuse, to be angry, to wish ill to another, to be proud,
to mock, to be idle, to slander, to be avaricious, to take
what is another's property, to be revengeful, unclean.
r-ry~J j)p ~   r>           h ~YP~~





OF THE PERSIANS.


89i)


envious, to be superstitious, and to do any other wicked
action."
The religion of the Parsees seems to be an imperfect,
rather than an untrue religion. It is a relic of the religion of the primeval age, essentially the same as that
of the book of Job. From it we see, that for more
than three thousand years there has been no enlargement or development of religious truth, save in the line
of the prophecies fulfilled in the coming of the Lord,
and in the truth by him revealed.
Missionaries allege that in the Parsee religion now,
there is an intermixture of superstition and idolatry; and
certainly there was in the religion of the Persians of
old. This is proved by the vision of Ezekiel, near the
time of Cyrus the Great, when the Persian religion was
less corrupt than it was afterwards. The prophet beheld, in the Lord's house in Jerusalem, "creeping things
and abominable beasts" - the gods of the Egyptians;
he beheld Hebrew " women weeping for Tammuz "the Phoenician worship of Adonis; and, "in the inner
court of the Lord's house, between the porch and the
altar," priests, with their backs towards the temple of
the Lord, and their faces towards the east," and "they
worshipped the sun," after the manner of the Magi.1
This fixes the brand of idol-worship on the Magi, leaving no doubt that in their religion, even as in that of
the Hebrews in Ezekiel's time, there was a fearful intermixture of idolatry with the worship of the God of
Heaven.
1 Ezekiel ch. viii.





90


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


In the Persian religion there is some confirmation of
the fact, that the Pilgrims to Jerusalem were Persians;
for the religious veneration of the Persians for their King
is the starting-point in the full explanation of their worship of the Young Child. In the Old Testament, worship often means respect paid by an inferior person to a
superior, in the Oriental fashion of bowing or falling to
the ground; but in the New Testament, with hardly
an exception, it means honor due only to God. Thus,
when Cornelius would have worshipped St. Peter in
this fashion, he restrained him, saying, "I am myself
a Man." 1 In a like case, the angel said to St. John,
Worship God."2 " The four and twenty elders fell down
and worshipped Him    that liveth forever and ever."a
When Satan said, "If thou wilt fall down and worship
me," our Lord answered, " It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God."4 And in St. Matthew this
word must have this meaning, for it is the word he uses,
when he says, that after the Resurrection the disciples
worshipped Jesus, when he " came and spake unto them,
saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost."
As to the worship the Magi paid to Christ, this great
difficulty arises: it is very strange they should receive a
truth received with difficulty, even by the disciples of
1 Acts x. 25, 26.             2 Rev. xix. 10.
3 Rev. v. 14.                 4 Matt. iv. 9, 10.
5 Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.





OF THE PERSIANS.


91


the Master, at a late day, and after many proofs of his
divinity. The explanation of the marvel is, in part,
given in what has been said of the Persian idea of a
King. To a Persian, his king was so representative of
God, that to his Oriental imagination, he seemed the
brightness of his glory and the image of his person.
The Persian Pilgrims brought with them to Bethlehem
something of this idea of a King. This would have led
them to worship, in the Persian sense of the word, the
King they sought and found; but their pure belief in
him as a spiritual Lord, and the new Star, the sign of
his super-terrestrial glory, that led to his presence, raised
their idea of him high above that of a king of the earth,
and prepared   them  to recognize his true, essential
divinity.
Their divinely-appointed recognition of the divinity
of the Lord, made before the time, and producing on
the instant only a religious awe and wonder in those
who heard of it, and made outside of the house of
Israel, corresponds to earlier revelations of the same fact
made within the house of Israel by the prophets, which
so rise above the idea of the Messiah that prevailed in
Israel at his birth. In either case, it was the sun
shining for an instant through clouds it was not till long
after to dispel from the face of heaven.
It having been proved that the Pilgrims to Jerusalem
were Persians, an inquiry as to that Pilgrimage is an
inquiry as to an event in the lives of the wisest and
best of the disciples of Zroaster; therefore I have
painted the Zoroastrian religion in the brightest color'i
7





92


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


it would bear; but however much the shadows in the
picture may be darkened, it will still be more credible
that the Pilgrims St. Matthew describes were believers
in that than in any other religion. For the great truth,
that God is waging a real and universal war with Evil,
inclined its pious believers to watch earnestly to discern,
anywhere and everywhere, signs of his presence and
manifestations of his power. And, besides this, - the
central idea, the animating principle of this religion,there was a belief, also, peculiar to it, that looks like
one of the links of the chain we are trying to lay hold
of and to trace. It has often been said that all nations
looked back to a golden age, but none, save the Hebrews, looked forward to one - a most instructive
word; but to it the Persians are the exception.
They believed that in the final triumph of the Good
Being the earth would be redeemed.    In the Zendavesta there is a fragment of a very old epic song, in
which it is foretold to Ahriman, that for the destruction
of idol-worshippers, Sosiosh shall be born out of the
water Kacoya, in the east country.1 This seems to be
a reference to one well known, rather than an announcement of one unheard of before. In another place it is
said, this "hero will arise out of the number of the
prophets; "  a mighty brightness," peculiar to Iranian
worthies of oldest time, "will shine around him,"--
a mighty brightness, created by Ahura-Mazda in the
beginning, and the instrument by which Sosiosh would
accomplish his mission. This mission would be to
1 Vendidad. Fargard, xix.





OF THE PERSIANS.


93


make "Life everlasting, undecaying, imperishable, incorruptible, forever existing, forever vigorous, at the
time when the dead shall rise again."  Then, it is said,
"imperishableness of life will exist; and all the world
will remain for eternity in a state of purity." 1
The germ of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is
the promise his mercy gave to the mother of all human
kind. Are these words of the Persian religion a far-off
echo of that promise?  They are not among the very
oldest utterances of that religion. But of those, only
broken voices are now heard; and whence came the Persian worship of one God? No people ever became idolaters, and of their own accord came back to his worship. The Persian worship of God, then, must have come
down to them from the time of Noah. But, as they
kept the truth of the Unity of God, transmitted to them
from before the Flood, why not some reminiscence of
the promise of a Redeemer? It is possible their hope
originated in the belief in the Messiah, preserved by the
Hebrews; it is possible it originated in some earnest
soul, kindling to ecstasy as it mused on the war of
Ormazd with Ahriman. It is possible both may have
concurred in giving outline and color to some faint anu
far reminiscence, till it reached its final, definite, and
grand form; and such, it seems to me probable, was the
genesis and growth of this Persian oracle; for, when
it is remembered that the appearance of the Persians,
as a people, was consequent upon their clinging to old
truth from which others were falling away; that their
1 Zemyad Yasht.





94


CHARACTER AND RELIGION


sacred traditions resemble the facts recorded in Genesis
more than do those of any other people; that parts of
their sacred writings may be as old as the age of
Moses, and that, in them, they look back to a sacred
antiquity; there seems much wisdom in the opinion of
the learned Hyde, that the Persians " semper ab ipso
diluvio veri Dei cultum tenuisse"- ever kept, even
from the flood, the worship of the true God.
In searching for a cause of a pilgrimage of Magi to
Jerusalem, it is encouraging to find in their sacred
books a prediction of a Redeemer to come. We must
inquire farther why they gave to such a hope a local
habitation outside of the land and the race of Iran; but,
if there was some relation between the Iranian hope and
the first promise to man, there was a divine appropriateness in the fulfilling of that promise, when Magi, whose
symbol of the Evil One was a serpent, fell down and
worshipped " the Seed of the Woman."





THE MAGI.


CHAPTER IV.
THE MAGI.
WITH the fact that the Pilgrims to Bethlehem were
Persians, the religion of Persia agrees better than
would that of any other ancient country - Rome,
Greece, or Egypt, for instance - with the notion that
they came from thence; and so, too, the character of
the Magi agrees better with the fact that these Pilgrims
were Magi, than would the character of any other
ancient priesthood with the notion that they belonged
to them.
The history of the Magi is very imperfect, but the
testimony to their character, given in many brief references to them, is so much in their favor, as to make
up on this point for the loss of the classical treatises
that spake at length, or especially, concerning them.'
Thus, Philo Judoeus "deplores the deficiency of wisdom
1 The writers of these were Ctesias (B. C. 400), physician
to King Artaxerxes; Deinon (B. C. 340); Theopompus of
(;hios (B. C. 350), who, in the eighth book of his History of
Philip of Macedon, treat d of the Magi; and Hermippos
(B C. 350), who also wrote of them. References to, and frag'ments of their works, are to be found in Plutarch, Diogenes
Laertius, and Pliny. Haug thinks Hermippos had read the
books of the Magi.





96


THE MAGI.


in the human race, the slackness in the pursuit of those
objects to which we ought to hasten eagerly, the indolence through which the seeds of virtue perish; while
for those things which we ought to forego, we show
an insatiate longing; whence it is that the earth is full
of men who indulge in all kinds of pleasure, while the
number of the prudent and just is small;" and then
says, "'still, there are some virtuous and honorable
men: of such, among the Persians, are the Magi; who,
investigating the works of nature for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the truth, become initiated themselves, and initiate others in the divine virtues."1 Thus,
in the Wisdom of Solomon, it seems to be said of the
Magi, " They seek for God; being conversant in His
works, they search for Him diligently."2
1 Philo. Quod omnis probus liber; sec. xi.
2 Chap. xiii. 7. Here might be cited Justin Martyr, who
says of the priests of Mithra, - Mithraism was a late and
corrupt phase of the Zoroastrian religion,-" They teach
the practice of what is just and right" (Dialogue with
Trypho, sec. lxx.), though with the zeal of a new convert, and
uttering the Christian opinion of his time, he refers this to
the subtilty of evil spirits, who, in this and like cases, he
thinks, counterfeited the good that really was in the true
religion alone.
Of heathen writers, Plato, in the passage referred to in
note on p. 98, leaves on the mind a good impression as to
the Magi. Diogenes Laertius, in his History, if so it may
be called, of Ancient Philosophy, says, " The Magi discourse to the people concerning justice." i. 6. So, too,
Dion Chrysostom, Oratio Borysthenica.   Apuleius says,
" The religion of the Magi is acceptable to the immortal





THE MAGI.


97


The name Magi comes from a word found in one of
the most ancient hymns of the Zendavesta. " Kava
Vistaspa " - the royal friend of Zoroaster - " obtained,
through the possession of the spiritual power (Maga),
and through the verses which the good mind had revealed, that knowledge which the Living Wise, himself
the cause of truth, had invented."1 The same word,
also, appears in a name given in the Zendavesta to the
earliest disciples of Zoroaster. " Zarathustra assigned
in times of yore to the Magavash Paradise."   Hence,
not inappropriately, was the name Magi given by the
Greeks to those who, from immemorial time, had been
priests of the Persians.3  Like the names Persia and
Zoroaster, it originated in a Persian word; but, like
them, it is a European name.
Among the Persians there could be no religious
gods, pious undoubtedly, and divinely wise."  Of much the
same import is what is said of the Persian Magi by the Greek
grammarians, Hesychius and Suidas, who define them much
in the same way, the last as " lovers of wisdom and servants
of God."
SGatha, iii. 51, 16.           2 The same, 15.
3 Prof. Plumptre, article Magi, Smith's Dictionary, says,
" The word Magi does not appear in the Zendavesta." This
should be compared with the citations above. Westergaard
says, " Their name occurs twice only in all the extant Zend
texts."  Haug, b. iii. sec. 8, p. 160, in a note on "Magavash," see above, says, " This is the original form of. Magi.
Its form in the cunciform inscriptions is Magush. According to this verse, it seems to have denoted the followers of
Zoroaster."  In the Zendavesta, the word for priests is
Atharvan, guardians of the fire.





98


THE MAGI.


service without the presence of one of the Magi.1  The
learned heads of the order had the charge of the education of the monarch.2 They were judges and counsellors of state. The Magi were diviners, astrologers,
and interpreters of dreams.3 They searched into the
secrets of future time. They professed to utter the
will of God. The order was to Persia, what Delphos
was to Greece. It was the Persian oracle.
1Without one of the Magi, it is not lawful for the Persians to sacrifice. - Herodotus, i. 132. The Magi are employed in worshipping the gods by prayers and sacrifices, as
if their worship alone would be accepted. - Diogenes Laertius, i. 6. According to this writer, their dress was white,
their habits ascetic, and they lived on a vegetable diet.
2 Plato states, that the education of the Persian prince was
intrusted to the four of the Persians who severally excelled
in wisdom, justice, temperance, and fortitude. The first of
these taught him the mageia of Zoroaster, by which is meant
the worship of the gods, and likewise the art of kingly
government. The second taught him to be true in word and
deed through his whole life. The third to govern his appetites instead of being their slave. The fourth taught him
to be fearless and brave, since he who fears is a slave.
-Alcibiades, 37.
SHerodotus relates several instances of this. One is as follows: A vision appeared to Xerxes in his sleep, which the
Magi, when they heard it, interpreted to relate to the whole
world, and to signify that all mankind should serve him.
The vision was as follows: Xerxes imagined that he was
crowned with the sprig of an olive tree, and that branches
from this olive covered the whole earth; and that afterwards the crown that was placed on his head disappeared.
-vii. 19.





THE MAGI.


99


In the loss of all but one of the books of the Zendavesta,1 it is impossible to form a full and clear idea of
science of the Magi. But the art of the Persians, as
shown in architecture, sculpture, gem-engraving, coins,
and utensils, seems not to have fallen short of that of
the Assyrians, the Babylonians, or the Egyptians; and
their leading scientific ideas, no doubt, were those essentially common to the scientific thought of the earliest
cycle of civilization. If so, they held that the forms
of all material things are but the protean changes in
one and the same primordial substance, produced by
SIn its largest compass of iieaning, the word Zendavesta
denotes a priestly literature that was the growth of centuries. It resembled the Talmud of the Jews. Its twenty-one
books, or nosks, set forth the religious traditions, opinions,
rites, and ceremonies of the Medes and Persians, and also
their philosophical and scientific notions. The table of its
contents is stilt extant, and is as follows: B. I. Praise
and Worship of the Angels. II. Prayers, and Instructions
as to good actions, chiefly those to induce one to assist a
fellow-man.  III. On Abstinence, Piety, Religion, the
qualities of Zoroaster. IV. An Explanation of Religious
Duties. On the Orders and on Commandments of God.
Obedience in Man. How to guard against Hell, and how to
reach Heaven. V. On the Knowledge of this and the other
Life. Qualities of the Inhabitants of the other Worlds. Revelations as to Heaven, Earth, Water, Trees, Fire, Men
and Beasts. On the Resurrection of the Dead, and the
crossing chinvat (i. e. the bridge over which the soul passed
into heaven). VI. On Astronomy, Geography, Astrology.
VII. On the Reward in the next World for observing the
two chief Festivals. VIII. Of Kings, High-priests. What
Fishes are Ormazd's and what Ahriman's. A Geographical





100


THE MAGI.


the play of one and the same force; and their aim was
to p.erce through the forms to the substance, and in its
changes, to grasp that mysterious principle that ever
eluded them in its rapid transformations.  Hence their
science dealt with the occult, the magical, or, at least,
the mysterious; yet, its main ideas were those to which
the inductive science of the modern world seems to be
slowly working its cautious and toilsome way, to prove
which seems now the far-off goal of its farthest aspiration; and Sir Walter Raleigh may have been right
when he said, " A   magician, according to the Persian
Section.  IX. A   Code for Kings and Governors. On
Workmanship of various Kinds. On the Sin of Lying. X.
On Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy, Divinity. XI. On
the Reign of Gustasp, his Conversion to Religion, and its
Propagation by him throughout the World. XII. The Nature of the Divine Being. The Zoroastrian Faith; Duties
enjoined by it. On Obedience due to the King. On Rewards for good Actions in the other World, and how to be
saved from Hell. The Structure of the World, Agriculture, Botany. On the Classes of the Nation, Rulers, Warriors, Agriculurists, Traders, and Workmen. XIII. On
the Miracles of Zoroaster. XIV. On Human Life, from its
Birth up to its End, and to the Day of Resurrection. On the
Causes of Man's Birth; why some are born in Wealth, others
in Poverty.  XV. The Praise of angel-like Men. XVI
Code of Laws, what is allowed and what prohibited. XVII.
MLedicine, Astronomy, Midwifery. XVIII. On Marriage
between near Relatives, Zodlogy and Treatment of Animals.
XIX. Civil and Criminal Laws, Boundaries of Coui tries.
On the Resurrection. XX. On the Removal of Uncleanness, from which great Defects arise in the World. XXI.
O~i the Creation; its Wonders and Structures.





THE MAGI.


101


word, is no other than Divinorumn cultor et inter) ces, a
studious observer and expounder of divine things, and
that art itself (I mean the art of natural magic) no other
quam   naturalis philosophice absoluta consummatio,
than the absolute perfection of natural philosophy."
The word Magic, common to many languages, is
curious evidence that the Magi sometimes abused their
propensity to search into mysterious things.  Pliny
says, "Beyond all doubt in Persia, from Zoroaster, as
all authors agree, arose magic - fraudulentissima
artium - the most delusive of arts."  But he admits
that it was born of the medical art, and made its way
velut altiorem  sanctioremque medicinam - "as a
very high and sacred art of healing;" and that it
blended with it " natural philosophy and religion, and
so bound men in a triple chain."1
Magic arts are as old as superstition. Where the
one was in the ancient world - and it was everywhere
- there was the other. The Magi were from immemorial time. Their rites were conversant with the
secrets of nature, and with spirits, genii, and angels.
Hence magic was thought to have originated with
them. But assuredly they did not originate the magic
-of Egypt, or of India.  Their invocations of the elements, of the powers of nature, of beneficent spirits,
genii, or angels, was white magic, resorted to to counteract the power of demons. Black magic --evil spells,
wicked enchantments, invocation of devils, marked the
See Pliny's Nat. -Iist., lib. xxx.





102


THE MAGI.


followers of Ahriman, and were forbidden in the Zen.
davesta.
The moral pre-eminence of the Magi above the
ancient heathen priesthoods was chiefly owing to the
spirituality of the Zoroastrian religion. Into its other
causes it is in vain to inquire minutely. Something of
it must have been due to the providential ordering of
events in the unknown of their history; something to
earnest and good men, whose record on earth has
perished; and it may have been in part owing to the
fact that, unlike the other ancient nations, the Medes
and Persians had no grand and imposing system of temple-worship. For, like the castles of the nobles in the
Dark Ages, the temples of the heathen priesthoods were
the strongholds by means of which they gained and
kept much of their power. The shrine, hallowed by
the present god, lent them something of its awe-inspiring power, and this power they were tempted to
maintain and augment by artifice and trick. Herodotus
says the Persians had no temples.' This has been denied, but from his point of view he was right. He
was thinking of shrines enriched with the gifts of kings,
the wealth of nations, with choirs of ministering priests,
and throngs of devotees; of vast edifices, such as he had
seen in all his travels in Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt,
and' Babylon; - a fire-chapel, with no images, no array
of robed priests, no crowd of worshippers, no imposing
ceremonial, he did not think a Temple.2
1 Herolotus, book i. 131.
2 This idea is very well illustrated, as well as confirmed





THE MAGI.


103


The high religious function of the Persian monarch,
and the free genius of the people -- of all Asiatics the
least likely to become the slaves of their priests - repressed in the Magi that insatiate lust for power which
led the priesthood in some ancient nations to attempt to
overawe the throne, and to enslave the popular mind.'
The Magi had no element of power for personal ends
like the shrine of Delphos, or of Thebes. Like the
Jews, at times, they were infected with idolatry; they
were guilty of some dark and ci'uel deeds; their religion had a tinge of element worship, a taint of polytheism; yet from superstitious and idolatrous practices,
they could draw little power compared with the priests
of other nations. Their temptations were less, their
faith was more spiritual.
As there is in the character of each nation something,
often very undefinable, that differentiates it from that
of every other nation, so there is in the great religious
orders of the ancient world, - as there is in those of
Christendom. This may be owing to an evident excess
or deficiency in some common element, to some wellknown national trait, or to something peculiar in origin,
by this sentence from Fraser's History of Persia, ch. iv.
"The Parsees have no temples. The Atish-Khudars are
merely edifices for guarding the sacred fire from defilement
or pollution."
1 Under Smerdis the Magi seem to have made one grand
effort in that direction, and af;erwards to have rested in
their appropriate calling.





104


THE MAGI.


history, or aim, and so at once be clear to the mind;
but oftentimes this element of difference is an intangible, an almost inexpressible, thing, for our first clear
perception of which we may be as much indebted to
chance, as to patience of thought, - as we sometimes
mark what we are looking to find, by a glance of the
eye in the midst of diligent searching. It may be felt
rather than known, but a difference there always is;
no two are just alike; and this distinguishing difference is usually their most valuable or interesting characteristic. What, then, was the distinguishing characteristic of the Magi?
In all the religious orders of the ancient heathen
world, there was somewhat of a scientific and of a
philosophic spirit. Their temples were colleges, as well
as shrines. The Magi, also, were learned; but their
spirit was not distinctively the scientific. They were
philosophers; but their spirit was not distinctively the
philosophical. Science seeks for law in natural phenomena, and, finding this, seeks no further. Philosophy seeks for abstract truth, a mere notion of the
mind. There is a spirit that avails itself of science
and philosophy for an end beyond either; a spirit
that would pierce into the secrets of the Being who is
above nature, and who gives to truth, reality. Something of this spirit was the distinguishing characteristic of the Magi.  In nature they ever sought for
revelations of the supernatural; in human affairs, of
the superhuman.





THE MAGI.


105


Now this spirit may be in alliance with that fear of
the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, or with
unhallowed presumption. It may seek for God in the
spirit of Babel or of Bethel, of Balaam or of Elijah.
There is no sufficient evidence of holiness of heart in
thoughts that "wander through eternity," aspiring to
the highest mysteries. They are evidence only of a
sensitiveness to spiritual impressions. They are the
outworkings of a temperament that may determine
either to superstition or to reverence, that may belong
to a wizard, or to a prophet. And no doubt, there
would be abounding evidence of this in the history of
the order of the Magi, were it as complete as it is, and
ever must be, imperfect.
The Magi were priests of the most philosophical and
profound of the religions of the world; yet from the
first, and at their best estate, there must have been two
tendencies at work in them, - for such is the nature of
man - one towards the earthly, one towards the spiritual. During their comparative depression, while the
Persians were ruled by alien tribes, and their religion
was losing much of its simplicity and purity, both may
have grown intense; so that when the coming of the
Redeemer drew nigh, as among the Jews, so among
the Magi, the few may have grown more spiritual, as
the many grew more earthly.
But there were then on earth, none, from whom so
appropriately might have come the witnesses of the
grace of God to all the earth. As there was an ele




106                THE MAGI.
ment of faith in the religion and science of the Magi,
as in the realms of matter and of spirit they sought
for the divine, as some of them aimed at dominion
over nature, though with impossible aspirations, yet
with good ends, it accords with the harmonies of the
Kingdom of Grace, that God led Magi to THE TRUE
MAGICIAN.





PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.  107


CHAPTER V.
PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.
THOUGH Asia is distinguished from Europe by enthusiasm, though it has ever been a land of seers and
prophets, true or false, a land of vows, and shrines and
pilgrimages; though the long sanctity of Jerusalem made
it - longe clarissima urbium  Orientis, non Judece
modo - by far the most illustrious city, not of Judea
only, but of all Syria; yet a Persian pilgrimage to Jerusalem would be wanting in historic credibility, if the
Persians knew nothing of the Hebrews: on the other
hand, if they knew them well, or even nations well
acquainted with them, then, in view of the Hebrew prevision of the Messiah, such a pilgrimage is possible.
Of the countries west of the Euphrates neither the
Persians nor the Medes could have had much, if any,
personal knowledge, before the wars that resulted in the
Persian Empire. These opened the Magian mind to
foreign influences, and enlarged its circle of thought.
They brought the Magi in contact with races, among
whom there were sacred traditions of high antiquity;
and a word or two, as to some facts of this k:nd, may
1 Pliny, Nat. Hist, lib. v. 15.
8





108    PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.
well introduce what I have to say of their acquaintance
with the Hebrews.
The earlier conquests of the Modes, and afterwards
of the Persians, led them into the Great Plain of the
Tigris and the Euphrates. One, of the earliest permanent settlements of the human race was in that everafterwards historic Plain; and somewhere between those
Rivers was the cradle of the Hebrew race - as language witnesses, - for one of the languages of that
region, the Aramaic, was like that of the Hebrews, and,
in the time of their Captivity, it became the language
spoken by them.    There the sacred traditions that
crossed the Flood, came down in an unbroken line to
their great Ancestor; and there " in Mesopotamia, in
the land of the Chaldeans, the God of glory appeared
unto Abraham." 1
As the sacred memories known to him - the same
written in the early chapters of Genesis - were not lost
in his family in its long sojourn in Egypt, why should
they have been wholly lost, for a long time, in Chaldea?
Abraham's father, Terah, and brother, Nachor, " served
other gods; " but this is not altogether inconsistent
with their retaining much of primal tradition; and the
notion that they were utterly given over to idolatry,
agrees not with Abraham's saying, in his old age, to
' the eldest servant of his house, go unto my country
and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac."3
1 See Acts vii. 2, 4.    2 Joshua xxiv. 2.
a Gen. xxiv. 2, 4C





PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.       109
Isaac, too, in his old age, sent Jacob to the forefathers'
land; and there, all the Fathers of the Twelve Tribes
save one, were born.
The children of Abraham dwelt far westward of " the
land of their kindred;" and, for a long time, it is seen
no more on the sacred page; but when seen again, it is
instructive to mark the appearing of something hinting
affinity between the people by the rivers of Mesopotamia, and the Hebrews. To a man of Gath-hepher,
of the tribe of Zebulon, a dweller by what was afterwards called the Sea of Galilee, came the word of the
Lord, Go and warn the people of Nineveh. That this
command seemed strange to a Hebrew, may well be
inferred from Jonah's flight from the presence of the
Lord; but far more strange it would have been, had
there not been something in the history of his people
tending to explain it; and such appears, if, as there is
every reason to believe and none to doubt, the wonders
of their story, which now reverberate through all the
world, rolled in ancient times through all the East.
This, in part, explains the sending of Jonah to the
men of Nineveh, and the power of his warnings.
Their fathers had told them of him who went forth out
of Mesopotamia, and of the wondrous fortunes of his
race; they had listened long for some voice to speak to
them from  those high places, where this mysterious
people worshipped; and when, at last, a Hebrew,
marshalled by no array of miracles, but mighty in the
traditional glory of his lineage, preached to them repentance, Ninevlh believed God,





110    PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.
The fact that Babylon was in that part of the world
from whence their sacred traditions came to the Hebr3ws, together with that of the extreme antiquity of
the city, becomes of some, interest to us, when the
Magi become acquainted with those "wise men" of
Babylon, called Chaldeans, alike in sacred and in profane history.1 Though it is only a little while before
the Captivity that in the Scriptures Babylon is "the
beauty of the Chaldee's excellency," 2 it is also named
as a City in the third generation after the Patriarch
Noah; 3 and it was received as a fact among the Greeks,
that for 1903 years before its conquest by Alexander
the Great (B. C. 331), astronomical observations had
been made and recorded in that city.4  This seems to
x Who the Chaldean people were, and whether they founded Babylon, or possessed it by conquest, are questions more
or less in doubt; but it seems certain that they adopted the
language of the Babylonian region, and that " the tongue of
the Chaldeans" (Dan. i. 4), like the Latin language in the
Middle Ages, at length became the exclusive possession of
the learned class, from this fact called Chaldeans.
2 Isa. xiii. 19.
3 Gen. x. 10.
4 It is at least remarkable that these two dates give the
year B. C. 2234, which the Chaldean Berosus fixes upon as
the commencement of the Chaldean Dynasty in Babylon.
See Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. i. Essay vi. Grote (History
of Greece, part ii. ch. xix.), in a valuable note, says,
" The earliest Chaldean astronomical observation known to
the astronomer Ptolemy, both precise and of ascertained
date to a degree sufficient for scientific use, was a lunar
eclipja of the 19th of March. 721 B. C..   That the





PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.          111
prove, there must have ever been in that ancient city a
learned class with an unbroken succession; and -
whether the learned " Chaldeans " were coeval with the
city or not - in ancient times the learned and the
priestly class were the same, and as the Chaldeans preserved the scientific, so they must have preserved, also,
the sacred traditions of Babylon and the region round
about; and thus their sacred traditions must have,
more or less, resembled those that came down through
the Patriarchs to the Hebrews.
By the Greeks, the Chaldeans were sometimes spoken
Chaldeans had been, long before this period, in the habit of
observing the heavens, there is no reason to doubt; and the
exactness of those observations cited by Ptolemy implied
(according to the judgment of Ideler) long previous practice.
S..There seem to have been Chaldean observations, both
made and recorded, of much greater antiquity than 721
B. C., though we cannot lay much stress on the date of 1903
anterior to Alexander the Great, which is mentioned by
Simplicius (ad Aristot. de Ccelo, p. 123) as being the earliest
period of the Chaldean observations sent from Babylon by
Callisthenes to Aristotle. Ideler thinks that the Chaldean
observations, anterior to 721 B. C., were useless to astronomers from the want of some fixed era, or definite cycle, to
identify the date of each of them.... It is to be noted
that Ptolemy always cited the Chaldean observations as
made by 'the Chaldeans,' never naming any individual;
though, in all the other observations to which he alludes, he
is very scrupulous in particularizing the name of the observer.  Doubtless he found the Chaldean observationu
registered in just this manner."





112     PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND IEBREWS.
of as a kind of Magi,' from some general resemblance
as diviners; and the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Bible, in rendering the terms that in the Book of
Daniel denote the classes of the Wise Men of Babylon,
uses the term Magi.2  There is nothing in the Hebrew
that authorizes this, and it may have come from the
difficulty of finding in the Greek, words answering to
the five distinctions in the Hebrew text.  No doubt this
use of the word for persons living in the East, was one
of the reasons why St. Matthew, when he used the title
Magi, added to it " from the Far East." 3
Still, in itself, it is probable that, long before the time
of Cyrus, there were some of the true Magi in multitudinous Babylon. For Magian rites were known as
far west as Jerusalem    before the captivity; 4 and
1 So Hesychius. In the Greek version of Gen. xli. 8, by
Symmachus, the word Magi is found where the LXX. read
interpreters; and the English version reads, Pharaoh " called
for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof."
The evidence tending to prove the learned Chaldeans a
species of Magi, is in resemblances that prove nothing, and
in the fact that when " the king of Jerusalem and his men
of war fled forth out of the city," and "all the princes of
the king of Babylon came and sat in the middle gate," with
them came one, styled Rab-mag, a title in which the Persian
word for priest is thought to appear, though this is very
doubtful. Jer. xxxix. 3, 4.
2 Dan. i. 20; ii. 2, 27; iv. 4.
3 The Septuagint seems to have been in common use
with the Palestinian Jews, as well as with those of other
countries.
4 See ch. iii. pp. 88, 89.





PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND 11EBJREWS.      113
throughout Western Asia, even in times almost beyond
the reach of history, there seems to have been a degree
of intercourse and of mutual influence; social, political,
and religious resemblances; and wars, conquests, and
dynasties, whose memory has nearly or quite perished.'
The order of the Chaldeans continued under the
Persians; for when Alexander made his entry into
Babylon, part of its citizens, says Quintus Curtius,
crowded together on the wall, eager to see the new
monarch, and a still greater multitude went forth to
meet him; of these were the Magi - suo more patrium
carmen canentes - " according to their custom singing
their ancient hymns;" after whom the Chaldeans, with
their instruments of music, came. He describes these
as priests of the Babylonians, and savans, who taught
the times and motions of the stars.2
When Alexander entered Babylon, he doubtless felt
as we all feel, that then he was monarch of the Eastso much by far the greatest city of the Persian Empire
was Babylon. Even under the Persians, the Chaldeans
there could not have been much inferior to the Magi;
and Cyrus and his successors, no doubt, gave the
learned and religious order of the Imperial City3 some1 Chedorlaomer's expedition from beyond the Tigris to
the Dead Sea, illustrates this, (Gen. xiv. 1-5); and the
statement of Berosus, that the first Dynasty in Babylon, wao
Median.
2 Historia Alexandri Magni, lib. v. 1. Chaldaei, Babyloniorumque non vates modo, sed etiam artifices... siderum motus et status temporum vices ostendere.
3 It was the residence of the Persian court for part of the
year.





114    PERSIANS, CHALDEANS. AND HEBREWS.
thing of the consideration they gave the learned and
religious order of their empire.'
The traditions of the Chaldeans were more like those
of the Hebrews than were those of any people except
the Persians - a fact not inconsistent with their gross
idolatry. With a corrupt worship, much historical religious truth may long be preserved. In the ancient
nations much of true religion survived, side by side
with false religion; but the imposing ceremonial and
enduring monuments of the corrupt, popular worship
receive a larger place in history, than the less imposing
truth, which they now overshadow historically, as once
they did really, and in every way tend to efface from
the human memory.
Whatever the relations of Magi and Chaldeans before the Persian conquest, after that epoch, in spite of
the rivalry, jealousy, and contention there must have
been between them, they more or less fraternized in
Babylon; for in those days, the wise sought knowledge, not so much from books, as in the truer mode of
intercourse with the wise; and the fragments of Chaldean philosophy show a likeness to that of the Magi
caused by, or the cause of, much intercourse between
them.
This is the more probable when we consider the effect on the Magi of the change relatively to the civilizations of the world, wrought for them by the wars that
SUnder the Greeks the Chaldeans, like the Magi, lost
caste; and in the Western world, their name also was at
length assumed by those who made it a reproach.





PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.       115
began with Cyrus. The day of Persian glory, ushered
in by his martial genius, was full of rousing events.
If now the Persians were to come forth from their highlands, possess again the Plain of the Tigris and the
Euphrates, seize Damascus, Beyroot, and Jerusalem;
hold Alexandria, the Suez Canal and the valley of the
Nile, it would electrify the world; yet it would not
equal the exploits of Cyrus and Carbyses. The cities
they stormed and took were greater, they overran
countries more thickly peopled, the civilizations they
beheld were more gorgeous, the shock of ideas greater.
But for the fable of India, and for Athens, the Persian
Empire embraced all there was of civilization. For
one brilliant moment the Persian, like the Greek afterwards, and the Roman, at a still later day, was the
central man of the world. It is not given us to call
up with equal vividness his elder empire; yet the Persian, though as the elder his civilization was less
varied, is not less worthy of study than the Greek or
the Roman; and, in influence on the course of human
events, is next to the Hebrew.
That early cycle of civilization, which included Egypt,
Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia, was characterized by
power. All its monuments are colossal. In Titanic
strength the Persian was not equal to the Egyptian, or
to the Chaldean; in intellect he was their superior.
Ihe Magian religion is a more wonderfill fact than the
wall of Babylon. It is a monument to the Magian
intellect; lasting as the Pyramids; and we may be sure
the men who wrought out this religion, felt the mental





116    PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS,
excitement of the stirring period of the Persian Empire,
may be sure, their quick, inquisitive, appreciating eyes
marked the confluence of streams of truth in Babylon,
the meeting there of agreeing lines of old-world traditions, and earnestly searched into their resemblances
and differences.
The king of Babylon made a Hebrew, the President
of the Chaldeans. The Chaldee passed, the Persian
came. The Magi took the place of the Chaldeans, as
the imperial order; the new monarch raised the same
Hebrew to a rank above both; and these learned and
religious orders were brought together, in the metropolis of the world, under the same illustrious foreigner.
Then to the Magi, who brought with them the traditions
of Bactria, far in the East, were brought the traditions
of Judea, far in the West; and, at this epoch in its
history, this order embodied the wisdom of the East
- Bactrian, Median, Persian, Chaldean, Aramean, and
Hebraic.
The thought we have given to the relations of the
Magi with the Chaldeans, recalls how much of truth
must have survived in Western Asia in the day of
Cyrus; how events then liberalized the Magian mind,
and opened it to quick and deep impressions; but these
things have for us only a general interest. No doubt
the Magi compared their own religion, even as their
science and art, with that of the Babylonians; but their
own reminiscences of the truth were more truthful,
and their religion more pure; yet these researches may





PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.


117


have fitted some of them to mark and appreciate the
fact that this was reversed, when they came to search
into the faith of the race of Abraham.
In the historic cycles of the ancient world, wherever
the centre of power is, there the Hebrew is sure to be,
and sure to draw to himself the chief interest. So it
is on the shores of the Nile, by the rivers of Babylon,
and in the palace of the Great King in Shushan. With
this people the true interest of history begins; and
it seems ordained that it shall never afterwards be
wholly separate from them. The predestined end of
the culture of the Greeks, was reached when Hebrew
Evangelists and Apostles made their language imperishable; and the most interesting ruin in Rome is the
arch commemorating the ruin of Jerusalem, so closely
connected with its own. Is Babylon, then, the centre
and height of dominion? the Hebrew will be there.
Is another world-power rising on its ruin? there he
will be also.
The king of Assyria, who carried away the Ten
Tribes as captives 1 into the East (B. C. 721), colonized
some of them in towns of his subjects, the Medes.
A little more than a century afterwards the king of
Babylon led away captive the people of Judea.2 C13By
the rivers of Babylon there they sat down, yea, they
wept when they remembered Zion." In that same
hour, beyond the eastern mountains that looked down


312 Kings xvii. 6.


2 2 K~ings xxrv. 8, 11.





118    PERSIANS, CHALDEANS, AND HEBREWS.
on the scene of their exile, the Lord was preparing the
humiliation of their oppressors, and their restoration to
the Holy City by him, whom in a preceding generation he had foretold by name -" Cyrus, the Man from
the Far East."





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


119


CHAPTER     VI.
DANIEL AND THE MAGI.
CYRus made a royal decree that the Temple of God
in Jerusalem should be rebuilt. Few facts in history
are more certain and less likely than this. For the
country of the Jews was far off and small. Their numbers were inconsiderable. Their language was unintelligible to Cyrus. He knew them only as slaves of
those he himself had enslaved.
Palestine, a high entrenched fort on the borders of the
Great Western Sea, commanding the approaches to and
from Egypt, was invaluable to the security of their Empire, if garrisoned by a people bound to the Persians by
strong ties of gratitude; but this did not appear until wars
and reverses later than the reign of Cyrus. His decree
was for the rebuilding of the Temple only. It was not
until the fourth reign afterwards that Persia suffered the
Jews to inclose the strong site of Jerusalem with a wall.
Until this was done neither the Temple, nor the small
population that gathered round it, was safe from enemies round about, - from   the Samaritan, and from
the Ammonite, from the Philistine and from the Arab.'
1 Neh. iv. 7.





120


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


Not until they had once more a stronghold could the
Jews, or their enemies, feel they were again a people.
Hence the bitter wrath of their foes at the building of
the Wall, and the haste of the work " when the builders, every one, had his sword girded by his side," and
half of the men " labored in the work, and half of them
held the spears, from the rising of the morning till the
stars appeared."' In those days, there could no more be
a city without walls than without people; and the time
of the building of the wall was the date of the renewal
of Jerusalem. Not, therefore, from the decree for the
rebuilding of the Temple, but from the time of the
decree for the rebuilding of the Wall, through which Jerusalem became once more a capital, and the Jews a
nation, the " seven and three score and two weeks" of
the Great Prophecy measured to "the Messiah, the
Prince.2"  In that prophecy it was revealed to Daniel
that the Wall should be rebuilt, " even in troublous
times," and it was rebuilt in times that were so, not only
for the Jews, but for Persia as well. For the decree,
that Jerusalem should be a City, seems to have grown
out of the facts that the Persians had not only lost, as
subjects, all the Greek sailors of the coast of Asia Minor
and the adjacent islands, but had agreed not to come
within three days' journey of the sea; and, therefore,
strong reasons of state policy dictated their permission
to fortify their almost impregnable, inland site of Jerusalem. Until these disasters, the state policy of Persia


I N&,~ iv, 18, 21,


2 Dan. ix. 25.





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


121


was rather regardless of the Jews, as a people of small
account, if not distrustful of them.  It was not until,
in a measure, compelled by circumstances, that they
were willing to trust them with power, and to assent to
their having a Capital of their own - a trust of which
the Jews proved themselves worthy. The two edicts
- the one for the building of the Temple, the other for
the building of the Wall of Jerusalem - are often confused together; but they were separated by the time of
more than half a century; the latter grew out of political changes that were subsequent to the former, and
was dictated by military considerations; while there
seems to have been no military, and no political, reason
of much weight, that could have moved to the other.
It may, perhaps, be surmised that the former decree
may have been a boon, purchased from Cyrus with a
bribe - to which Asiatic kings have usually been accessible; but, apart from the sublime terms of the decree
itself, such an idea fits only the late degenerate stages
of the Persian. Empire, and does not accord with the
hardihood and temperance of its uncorrupt youth, nor
with aught known of its heroic founder.
His religion bore some resemblance to the Hebrew;
but this alone would not have made a king, who worshipped Ormazd in the temple of the firmament, and
whose altars were the "earth o'er gazing mountains"
of Iran, build for Jehovah a house in far Judea,
when such a purpose was likely to provoke the scorn, and
to kindle against him the religious zeal of those Persians,
who destroyed temples of the Greeks and the gods of
Egypt.





122


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


For the remarkable decree of Cyrus, then, there must
have been a cause as remarkable. From the terms of
the decree itself it appears that this was a command of
God, - undoubtedly that revealed, before Cyrus was
born, to the Hebrew prophet, Isaiah. It was, then,
divinely ordained and divinely foretold; but the supernatural, as revealed, is ever so harmoniously blended
with the natural, in a course of events where the two
are seen together, that the better the natural, in such a
case, is understood, the more the supernatural is credible. Besides the fact of this revelation, the decree
seems to require for its explanation the presence, at
the Persian court, of some Hebrew, familiar with
palaces and clothed in power. For, between this command, hidden in a foreign language and in the books of
slaves, and its fulfilment by the King, there is a gulf,
which even the imagination can hardly bridge over.
That gulf is bridged over by the preternatural history
of a man made for the time, by the fact that there
was near that Persian monarch a Hebrew, accredited by
miracles and strong in wisdom, honored alike by the
Chaldeans, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, and by
Darius the Mede, Daniel the prophet and the sage, that
imperial man, himself the harmony of many diversities,
whose strange, unique history, even to the Assyrian
coloring and Babylonian grandeur of his visions, is so
consistent with itself, and with the world-wide changes
and wonders among which he lived.
It is not written in the Scriptures that Daniel had
aught to do with the decree of Cyrus; but there is no





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


123


full history, either of the decree, or of Daniel.  We
know him well. After Moses, he is the grandest and
the most life-like man in the Hebrew annals, - which
is to say, in the annals of mankind; yet we have only
his visions framed in a slight sketch of his life. As
would be natural to an aged man, a chapter is given to
his youth; and this is so'masterly, so luminous a piece of
self-portraiture, that it supplies all that is needed of his
biography, and of the times and circumstances in which
he lived, when it is supplemented by the few facts he
afterwards relates of himself, and by the brief historical
references interspersed among those visions and revelations, to preserve which, is the aim of this memoir. All
that is written by him is written to the glory of God,
and not of himself. It is for this he records his own
safety in the den of lions; for he also records, so naturally, how the three companions of his boyhood were
safe in the furnace of fire. All this unique memoirif such it may be called - with the exception of its
opening page, recites open interventions of God, with
interpretations of them, or visions to him revealed; and
it is not altogether within its scope to relate the part he
may have had in obtaining the decree of Cyrus. Yet
there may be an allusion to it; and, if there is so,
though very slight, it is characteristic of the heart
of the man. The first chapter, which seems to him suf'ficiently to introduce those events in his life that he
feels he must put oil record forever, ends with sayirig, -
"this Daniel continued till the first year of Cyrus the
Persian."  This seems to me like the pointilng of V,.s
9





124


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


hand to some event in that year; for, one of the revelations to him is dated in that king's third year; and,
again, at the close of the chapter describing his deliverance from the lions, it is added, " this Daniel prospered
in the reign of Darius and of Cyrus the Persian."
Now, it was in that first year of his reign that Cyrus
sent forth his decree to rebuild the Temple.
Whether this be, or not, the meaning of his pointing
thus to that ever memorable year, I cannot but think
that one of the latest, one of the noblest and most
characteristic of all his achievements, was his gaining
from Cyrus this grand decree. For here the known of
the history of Daniel points straight to the unknown.
He seems born for this; and there was no Hebrew, who
would have dared, or been suffered by his people, to
take his place in this matter, or, to whom, in his stead,
the King would have listened, as an interpreter of,
Hebrew prophecy. The presence, then, of Daniel with
Cyrus, no doubt, is the missing link between the prophecy and its fulfilment; and thus the decree itself,
without him almost incredible, is one of the facts in the
history of the time, that confirms the history of the
prophet.
Vainly the Genius of Painting tries to shadow forth
the mystery of the last night of Babylon. When Belshazzar feasted high his thousand lords, and they drank
their wine from the vessels of the Temple of God, and
praised their images of gold and of stone, and the
fingers of a man's hand came forth and wrote on the
wall, how well it suits the spiritual meaning of the sign,





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


125


that none but a Hebrew can read the writing! How
well the ordering of invisible powers is known, when the
last word of Babylon does honor to a Hebrew! The history of the world is a drama performed in the presence
of invisible spectators; and the actors do not understand
what they are representing. Belshazzar, proclaiming
the prophet third ruler in his realm, shows, in the last of
its kings, the high spirit of the founders of his empire;
yet in that hour the greatness of Daniel dwarfs the
pillared glories of his capital, and overmatches all the
gods and all the men of Babylon; while the whole scene
is the everlasting symbol of the world's glory and the
world's ruin.
But, in moral grandeur, it equals not that left untold,
when, in the palace-temple of the Great King, in the
presence of his officers of state, who, in number and
rank, made his court seem to Persia a semblance of the
court on high, and to God's representative on earth,
Daniel interpreted the command of the Almighty, saying to the Conqueror, by name, "I the Lord, who will
go before thee to open the gates of brass, to break in
pieces the bars of iron, to subdue the nations before thee,
I charge thee to rebuild my house in Jerusalem;" and
when the Master of the World believed the word of the
Lord, and, with the assent of the religious powers of
his realm, sent forth that decree, on which, to human
eyes, hung all the future the Prophet saw in vision.
The grand modesty of his silence seems to me rather
to prove, than to disprove, that the chief actor in that
surpassing hour was Daniel. But. whether so or notr.





126


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


that decree is of deepest interest to our inquiries. As the
Persian kings were Pontiffs, the proclamation of Cyrus,
the Persian, the Lord God of Heaven hath given me
all the kingdoms of the earth, and He hath charged me
to build for Him a house in Jerusalem;" and the previous proclamation of the Median, Darius, "unto all
people, nations, and languages, I make a decree, that,
in every dominion of my kingdom, men fear and tremble
before the God of Daniel, for He is the living God,"
wevr authoritative recognitions of Jehovah, as the same
with Ormazd, the God of the Persians; and, as Cyrus,
no doubt, consulted the Chief Magi before he made his
decree, at least this great historical fact inevitably follows, that part of Hebrew Scripture was interpreted
to them, and, by them, most solemnly acknowledged
and acted upon as divine.
Even if the reverence of the Magi for the command
of Jehovah concerning his Temple in Jerusalem was not
owing to Daniel, it would still be true that the imagination can hardly frame a course of events that would have
given a stranger, greater influence with the Magi,
than that recorded of him. In the East, royal favor
makes dignitaries with a swiftness and completeness so
impressive to Orientals, that they conceive it hath in it
a divine quality, and listen, as to God, when commanded
to bow down before the slave, or the stranger, whom
kings delight to honor. Familiar with the sudden ruin
of favorites, the honor of Daniel, continuing through
changes of dynasties and a succession of rulers, must
have greatly impressed the Magi, and, together with the





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


127


natural and supernatural wisdom to which it was due,
must have given him a grand entrance into their religiously sensitive minds. His prevision of the kingdom
of the Lord was so much in harmony with the great hope
of their religion, of the triumph of the kingdom of Light,
that it is in vain to look to any other ancient religion for
a similar point of contact between it and the sublime
visions of Hebrew Prophecy; and even more so, for
such another, as the Persian expectation of a Redeemer
to come, in the likeness of man.
But the explanations and confirmations of the Pilgrimage of the Wise Men are not thus exhausted, for
from the Scriptures it seems to appear, how through
the working together of Hebrew truths, and of their
own ideas, the Magi connected the birth of a predicted
Redeemer, and an appearing Star. The Evangelist
records a part only of the facts, but in the Bible voice
answers unto voice.
Daniel, one of the children, understanding science,
having ability to stand in the King's palace, and to
whom might be taught the learning and the tongue of
the Chaldeans," was familiar with the religions of those
nations among whom his lot was cast. His training
makes this certain; and without this knowledge, he
would not have been called to the offices he held. Such,
too, the spirit of the man, and such the circumstances
in which he was placed, that he must have felt intense
interest in prophecies of the Messiah, not of a Hebrew
origin; and must have made use of such to enkindle,
among the Wise of the East, an expectation of the





128


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


Messiah. With what is known of his history, there is
needed no further evidence that these things were so.
The oracle of Balaam was such a prophecy - and he
must.have made this use of it, not only for the general
reason that it was not a Hebrew prophecy, but for the
particular reason that Balaam  was of Mesopotamia.
This was a more interesting fact to Chaldeans than to
Magians; but in their relations with Daniel, the learned
in Babylon were one class; and the fame of Balaam
was great enough to transcend national lines. If his
fame did not, the remoteness of his age would; for he
lived in a time, that, in the reign of Cyrus, was hoary
antiquity. His voice then reached the Magi from the
height of a thousand years. Of personages like Balaam, the tradition lives on; age repeats it to listening
youth, by them to be repeated in their age, and even
the far-off echo retains something of the power of the
voi':e. In Chaldea, there may have been oracles of Balaam preserved in writing; but whether or not preserved
in writing, or by tradition, Daniel could point to one
oracle of his in the books of the Hebrews. There it was
written, " Balaam, the son of Beor,... he hath said,
which heard the words of God and knew the knowledge
of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty,
falling into a trance, but having his eyes open, I shall
see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not
nigh. There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and
a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel." 1  The words,


1 Numbers xxiv. 15, 16, 17.





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


129


"there shall come a Star out of Jacob," must have
struck the imagination of astrologers, - and such the
Magi were. With their notions, they could not but
think this saying meant that, in some future age, a Star
would usher in the dominion of some Great Personage
in Judea. This was, naturally, inevitably their interpretation of the oracle. And the wonderful purpose
of fheir own Pontiff king, moved to it by the command
of God to restore the enslaved and exiled children of
Israel to their own country, must have intensified their
wonder at this very ancient prophecy of one not of the
Hebrew race. This strange thing which they themselves had witnessed, and in which they themselves had
borne a part, must have seemed to them in mysterious
harmony with the word of the ancient seer, in presaging something marvellous in the future of Israel.
Data, from which the time of the Messiah might be
computed, were revealed to Daniel. There is reason to
think the Magi knew this, for Hebrew prophecy was
no secret thing. The revelations of the prophets were
published to their own countrymen, and the books that
contained them were not hidden fi-om strangers. It is
evidence of this that, before the Christian era, the Jews
translated them all into the Greek, then the common
language of a great part of the world. If the revelation as to the time of the Messiah was in any way
made known to the Magi of the reign of Cyrus,
whether by Daniel himself or not, their high veneration for the prophet, and the religious interest of the
oracle, could not but have fixed their attention earnestly





130


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


upon it. Even the fact that it was mystical in its language, and difficult of interpretation, appealed to the
professional honor of men trained to look into the meaning of dark sayings, and versed in the harmonies of
numbers; and they must have tried to search out its true
import and determine the time. For the aspiration to
pierce into the secrets of the future, then unchilled by
disappointments and unsatiated, as now, by the fulness
of knowledge revealed, was so eager and intense as to
absorb into itself a large part of the activity of the
human intellect, hardly less active then, than now.
Now, a great earnestnesss to search into the secret
things of the worlds in space, has taken the place of
the old longing to search into the secret things of the
worlds in time, and the present intensity of the one
measures the ancient intensity of the other.
The date the Magi fixed upon as the end of the seven
and three score and two weeks of the oracle may have
closely approximated to the truth. This date, and the
ancient prediction of a Star at the birth of the Great
Personage whose time was thus foretold, - a prediction in harmony with their modes of thought as astrologers, and, in itself, simple and striking, - these were
not likely to be forgotten in the unbroken succession of
these conservators of traditions.
But in reflecting upon the probability of some relation between the revelation of the Lord to Daniel and
the pilgrimage of Magi to Jerusalem, seeking for Him,
three more or less difficult questions arise. The seven,
and the three score and two weeks measure not to the





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


131


year of the Messiah's birth, but to the fulness bf his
life: - How then could the Magi have identified the
Star of His Birth? The answer to this question involves the consideration of certain astronomical facts,
and must be deferred to a subsequent chapter.
The second question is, How could revelations of
Daniel to the Magi have been remembered five hundred
years and more? This would be a great difficulty if
they were entrusted to tradition.  Even then their
memory might have thus lasted, and could, at any time,
have been reinvigorated from the sacred books of the
Hebrews, who, from the time of Cyrus onwards, dwelt
in considerable numbers in the capitals of the Persians,
or of the Parthians. But some revelations to Daniel
may have been preserved by the Magi in writing, as all
of them  were by the Jews through this very period.
For the Magi had a literature; and this was growing
for some centuries before the time of Daniel, and, onwards, to the time of the conquest of Alexander (B. C.
331); and, after thousands of years, some parts of this
are still preserved by yet existing Magi, that is by the
priests of the Parsees, who are lineal and spiritual successors of the Magi of the reign of Cyrus, inheriting
their blood, observing the same religious rites, revering
the same books, and honoring Zoroaster.
About the year B. C. 464, Themistocles, flying firom
Greece, found, for a time, honor with the Great King.
Had the royal archives of Media and Persia survived,
no doubt there would be found in them some note of
this, and some memoranda as to the policy he ad vised,





1.32


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


towards the Greeks. At the earnest persuasion of the
king himself, the honor of an initiation into the Order
of the Magi was conferred on this illustrious foreigner.
Had this unspiritual man been a diviner and seer, might
not oracles of his have been remembered by the Magi?
and were their entire literature now extant, might they
not reasonably be looked for there? Save that he
lived a century earlier, this would be more probable in
the case of Daniel. His supernatural wisdom, his
official position as chief of the wise men of Babylon,
his eminence above all the learned orders of the Persian Empire, make it almost certain that there was
some record of him in the books of the Magi.
In the period from the conquest of Alexander, to the
reestablishment of the Persian Kingdom (A.D. 226),
much the largest part of this Magian literature perished;
but what part of it was in existence at the Christian era,
or what that part contained, is unknown; and it is quite
possible that, in it, there may then have been that revelation to Daniel, which was then, as it is now, and ever
will be, of world-wide interest.
The third question is this: As the Persians believed
that Sosiosh, whose coming was to bring about the
renovation of all things, would be born of the family
of Zoroaster, could they have received, as true, a revelation that this high honor would be given to a land and
race that was once subject to them, and which, in the
various ways known to national egotism and pride, they
thought inferior to their own? As the difficulty here
need not be extended to the whole of the Magi, as it





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


133


reaches only to those who went to Jerusalem, it might
suffice to say, that, in the minds of a few, this might be
accounted for by the authority of the prophet Daniel,
and by the fact that, in other nations, a few grand souls
have risen above the prejudices of their race and time;
but some direct light may be thrown upon this difficulty. If the Magian pilgrims to Jerusalem sought
for the Sosiosh, who, according to the Persian belief,
was to put an end to death, to raise the dead, and to
make all things new, then it must be supposed that a
very great victory was gained by them over their national feelings. This would not be incredible to those
who believe that God is able to guide to all truth, and
to exalt to all nobility; but in showing the possibility
of a Hebrew historical statement regarded strictly as
such, the line of thought must be limited to purely historical considerations.
The Magian belief in the Sosiosh, in its earliest
form, seems to have known of one, but in a later form,
it held that three Prophets were to arise, of whom the
Greatest would be the Last. Now, in the revelation
to Daniel, the coming foretold seems not to be of that
absolutely final effect, attributed, by the Persians, to the
last of the mighty Three. It is not so incredible, then,
as irrespective of this it might be, that certain of the
Magi believed that one of these might be born in tile
Hebrew land, and of the Hebrew race; or, their belief
may have been wholly distinct from their own Median
traditiona, save as they prepared them to accredit the
oracle of the prophet, as being in    harmony with





134


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


their main features. And here the fact should be recalled, that the religion of the Hebrews and of the Magi
were not alien religions; that their Pontiff kings had
solemnly acknowledged that the God of the Hebrews
was the same God of heaven whom the Persians worshipped; and that the Temple in Jerusalem was, in some
true sense, a Persian Temple, as its rebuilding was
ordered by edicts of Persian kings. In all the earth,
the Persians and the Hebrews stood alone in their adherence to the primeval revelation of the unity of God,
and out of this, in part, there had grown, for a time,
close relations between them. Beside this, the Persian
was, by nature, generously appreciative. His zeal for
the faith made him intolerant of the idolatry of other
nations, but he was not narrow-minded as the Jews -
quite erroneously - are often said to have been. Thus,
a variety of considerations tend to make it credible that,
the minds of some of the Magi might have been open
to accredit the fact revealed to Daniel, that a great
Deliverer would be born of a race, which, though alien
from their own in blood, was kindred in worship.
Even had Daniel not lived, the Magian pilgrimage to
Jerusalem might be explained by the public, and longcherished Jewish expectation of a- Messiah, a knowl--
edge of which was widely spread abroad. Such an
expectation made known to some of the Magi of the
Far East, and received by them as accounting for a
new phenomenon in the heavens, might, with a few
Asiatics who were enthusiasts, astrologers, and members
of an order whose characteristic it was ever to be watch




DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


135


ing for the signs and wonders of the intervention of
Ormazd in the affairs of men, might, in that age have
led to such a pilgrimage. But the Magian pilgrimage
is not so bare as this of known antecedent facts that
give to it credibility. It is hardly possible to take what
is recorded of Daniel and place it side by side with the
Magian pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and not to believe
they are related as cause and effect. The explanation
of that pilgrimage, thus suggested, - so far as it goes,
- is so natural and so perfect, that only the fanaticism of unbelief will refuse to admit its probability;
and to establish it, requires only a very little direct
evidence.
I find this in the inquiry which the Magi made in
Jerusalem. The form    of this is remarkable. They
inquire for the King of the Jews. This sounds both
strange and dangerous. It was strange, for Herod had
been king for more than thirty years, and all his children were grown up; and all Jerusalem felt it was
dangerous, as the Jews had perverted their belief in
a Messiah from a spiritual to a political Redeemer.
But certainly they were not understood to inquire for
a temporal prince by Herod, who, meaning to delude
them, promised when they found Him they sought, he
himself would worship Him; and, no doubt, the Magi
were understood by all to inquire for a spiritual Lord.
No doubt they explained that this was their meaning;
for the words ascribed to them are only a part of what
they said, though preserving the main features in their
inquiry, and its very remarkable form.





136


DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


From whence could have come the very peculiar
form of their inquiry? The words used in the revelation to Daniel explain what is else inexplicable. That
revelation foretold -  a Messiah, a Prince" - as the
words are rendered in the English version. The first
word   transferred, unchanged from the Hebrew into
the English - means "the anointed."    The second
means a leader, a ruler, and, as leadership and rule pertain to those of royal blood, its meaning tends towards
the idea of a King. Even if the word be taken in the
serise of a leader merely, it is associated with the word
anointed, and anointing was part of the ceremony in
coronation, and was not even for princes, but for kings,
only. On putting the terms together - an anointed
chief-then, the idea of a King comes out unmistakable and clear. Translations of the Bible into other
tongues keep near as may be to the literal sense, but in
a free translation, seeking only to express the thought,
the natural rendering here would be, a King; and it is
most likely a Hebrew would have used this term in
translating these words to a foreigner, though from
motives of prudence, the Jews under Herod preferred to
use among themselves the term Messiah, in which the
idea of kingship was less dangerously prominent; and
certainly the word King would be the one that would
most naturally occur to foreigners, as the best interpretation of the fulness of the thought of the prophet.
It is clear, then, why the Magi made their inquiry in
the form they did, "Where is he that is born the King
of the Jews." They thought the term King, as used





DANIEL AND THE MAGI.


137


by them, would be understood in a spiritual sense;
they thought there was a peculiar propriety in the form
of their inquiry, because it showed the motive to their
pilgrimage was a prophecy of Daniel, who, though a
Hebrew, was a M1agian, held in honor by their renowned sovereigns of old, and whose bones were in the
land of the Medes. This was what the form of their
inquiry meant. This the Evangelist meant to indicate
by preserving that form. And this would -ever have
been clear to the readers of' the English version had it
rendered the words in the prophecy of Daniel, as the
ancient Syriac version did render them, "the anointed
one, THE KING."
As the fact of the continuing presence of Hebrews
in the land of the Medes and Persians is more or less
important in the explanation of the Magian pilgrimage,
I repeat that, from the time of Cyrus to the conquest
of Alexander, Judea was a part of the Persian Empi e; that, in the Persian, and subsequently in the
Parthian capitals, there were multitudes of Jews; and
that the Star was first seen by the Magi in Babylonia, one of the great settlements of the Jews of the
Dispersion. A little later than the Christian era, it
was the seat of one of the schools of Jewish learning,
and in the ' days of Herod the King," Hillel, whom for
his wisdom and piety, the Rabbins venerate next to
Ezra, came up from thence to Jerusalem. From its
learning, that country had strong attractions for the
Magi, to whom all religious learning was attractive.
When they saw the Star, they were sojourning, or





138           DANIEL AND THE MAGI.
perhaps dwelling in that country.  Either would be
natural enough, for it was adjacent to Persia. Like
Persia it was then under the Parthian rule. There was
Ctesiphon one of the Parthian capitals; and, from
their reception by King Herod, it is plain they were
no strangers to the palaces of kings.
This fact that the Star was seen by them, not in
Persia, but in Babylonia, not in the Far East but in
the East, may go some ways towards explaining their
Pilgrimage, as shown in the next chapter.





HOPE OF THE MESSIAH.


139


CHAPTER VII.
HOPE OF THE MESSIAH IN SYRIA AND THE EAST.
WHEN the Magi from distant Bactria, or Parthia,
or Persia Proper, o- my other district of the Far East,
came into the East, they had accomplished one geographical stage of their long journey to Jerusalem,
though they knew it not; and they had accomplished
one historical stage of it also, for they had come fully
within the circle of a wide-spread expectation, at that
very time, of the Birth of some great personage in Judea.
This expectation is witnessed to by one Hebrew and
by two Latin writers, - all in whose writings we should
expect to find it, - though their testimony is by no
means all the evidence of the fact. Josephus, writing
of the Fall of Jerusalem, says, "What chiefly incited
the Jews to the war, was an ambiguous prophecy, found
in their sacred writings, that about that time, one from
their country should obtain the Empire of the World.... This oracle in reality denoted the elevation of
Vespasian, he having been proclaimed Emperor in
Judea."' Tacitus, having chronicled the signs and
wonders foretokening the fall of the city, says, " Que
1 Bel. Jud. vi. 5, 4.
10





140


HOPE OF IHE MESSIAH


pauci in metum trahebant; pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum literis contineri, eo ipso tempore fore
ut valesceret Oriens profectique Judma rerum potirentur;
quae ambages Vespasianum ac Titum praedixerat. Sed
vulgus, more humane cupidinis, sibi tantam fatorum
magnitudinem interpretati, ne adversis quidem ad verum
mutabantur: "1- Because of these the few feared, but
the many believed that it was written in the ancient
books of the priests, that at that very time the Orient
-i.e. Syria - should prevail; and that those going
forth out of Judea should obtain the Empire of the
World. These ambiguous oracles predicted Vespasian
and Titus. But the people, as is the way with men led
by their wishes, interpreted in their own behalf this
destined greatness, and were not converted to the truth
even by calamities.
Suetonius says, "Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus
et constans opinio, esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judaea
profecti rerum potirentur. Id de Imperatore Romano,
quantum eventu postea paruit, predictum Judaei ad se trahentes rebellarunt:" 2-An ancient and abiding belief
greatly prevailed throughout all the Orient, that fate had
decreed, that at that very time those going forth out of
Judea should obtain the empire of the world. This pre
diction of the Roman Emperor, as afterwards appeared
by the event, the Jews, taking to themselves, rebelled.
The concurrence of an ancient, wide-spread presentiment springing out of the oracles of the Jews, with the


1 Tac., Hist., v.. 13.


2 Suet., Vita Vespas., iv.





IN SYRIA AND THE EAST.


141


appearing of one who answered to it, yet in a way
beyond all the imaginings of men, is a fact equally
hard for infidels to explain or to deny. In this dilemma,
they try to weaken the evidence for a fact whose importance they cannot hide, and claim that the testimony
of the two Romans must be ruled out because they
copied Josephus. Some Christian critics, conceding this
claim, countenance the assumption concealed in it, that
the fact rests on the word of Josephus only. This
assumption is an error, and the evidence of this expectation is so vital to our argument, and in many ways
is so important, that it should here be stated.
Without the testimony of any historian, the prophecies, beginning with Genesis, and especially those in the
book of Daniel, are such that there must have been in
Palestine, early in the first century, a lively hope of the
appearing of some great personage. That such an expectation did, then and there, prevail, if not stated
expressly in the Gospels, is inwrought with the whole
course of the events they describe. The wars of the
Jews with the Romans at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, and under Hadrian, accord in general features and
in particular facts with such an expectation. And there
is the testimony of Josephus.  Such is the general
evidence of this expectation apart from the two Roman
writers. Josephus wrote his history, in part, to screen
his unhappy countrymen from the jealousy of the Romans; and, Hebrew at heart, though an apostate, he
would not have named it at all, had it not been too well
known for him to pass it over. The fact was of such A





142


HOPE OF THE MESSIAHI


kind that it must have been well known to the Romans.
The prophecies of the Jews had long been accessible to
them in a Greek translation, and were, probably, better
known to Roman statesmen and soldiers than to Roman
scholars. For Palestine had long been held by Roman
garrisons; and the sagacious officers 'of Rome, with
whom the art of governing subject races was almost instinctive, and who were trained in the school of experience to know the power of religious ideas and predictions
in war, would have been quick to mark such a belief,
and to foresee all that might, and that did, result from
it. The bloody siege of Jerusalem, connected as it was
with the assumption of the purple by the Flavian dynasty, fastened on itself the steady gaze of Rome. The
fall of Jerusalem was to the Romans a signal, perchance
even a solemn event; and all the peculiar elements of
its destiny must have been carefully noted by those
watchful observers of political events.
There is, then, no antecedent likelihood in the notion,
that both Tacitus and Suetonius knew of the expectation
of the Jews only from Josephus. They had other authority than his for the Jewish war; and this fact was
as likely as any, and more likely than most, to have
come to them from other sources. They had read Josephus, no doubt; it is quite certain that Tacitus had;
and yet it is clear that their statements are independent
of his. They enlarge both the prophecy and the expectation. Tacitus says the oracle was that Syria should
wax mighty; Suetonius makes all Syria expectant;
while Josephus limits everything to Judea, both pro




TN SYRIA AND THE EAST.


143


phecy and expectation.  All three describe it as common, but the Latins in a wider field; and their terms,
describing how   generally it was talked about, are
stronger than the Jew cared to use.
As to the breadth of this expectation, the Latin
writers give the true impression. The Orientals are
quick to receive such impressions to a degree a European, in this age, can hardly comprehend. It could not
have been the expectation of the Jews in Palestine, and
not of the Jews in all Syria. Through Syrian Jews
it must have pervaded the whole Syrian mind; and the
Syrian Jews being in constant intercourse with their
kinsmen " beyond the Euphrates," it must have pervaded
the Hebrew mind in that region also.
Some writers, hesitating between their dislike to admit the fact and a sense of what is due to their critical
honor, admit the Latin testimony; but try to weaken
its force, by saying that such an expectation, at the
time of the Fall of Jerusalem, does not prove its existence at the Nativity, seventy years before. The gospels
prove its existence then; but, limiting the argument to
the Latin evidence, it is enough to say, that a belief,
spread throughout all Syria, presupposes a growth and
development; and the words of Suetonius are, "in Syria
it was an ancient, abiding belief."
It was the expectation of the few, before it was of
the many. It was known to the more spiritual in Israel
- the wisest and quickest to discern the truth revealed
as to the time of the Lord's appearing, as well as its
mysterious spiritual import; and then in grosser forms





144


HOPE OF THE MESSIAH.


it became, at length, the common expectation of the
Jews.
Every stage of this belief was reflected in the great
Jewish settlement "beyond the Euphrates." When the
priests determined in Jerusalem the instant of the Inew
moon, whose rising fixed the time of the sacred feasts,
beacons blazed from height to height along the Syrian
highlands, north and eastward, until they gave the signal to the expectant millions of the Dispersion beyond
the Great River; and, with almost equal celerity, every
thought and feeling of the Holy City was transmitted to
the Hebrews beyond the Euphrates.
At the time of the Incarnation of our Lord, an elect
few in Jerusalem were awaiting his coming; and there
must have been a like expectation among some of their
spiritual brethren beyond the Euphrates..When the
Magi came from the Far East into the East, they came
fully within the circle of this expectance, whether then
as general as afterwards or not. Being men of spiritual desires, and guided by divine grace, the thought is
irresistible, that their ancient belief there received new
life; that, in the very land of the Seer, they heard from
Hebrews, as their fathers from a Hebrew, of the Star -
by them faithfully remembered - of the King of the
Jews; and not, as their fathers heard, of a Star which
was to gild the heavens of a future age, but as then
about to shine. If, at such at a time, these astronomers beheld what science tells us has sometimes been,
the outshining of a new Star, we have, at once, the
immediate moving cause of their Pilgrimage.





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


145


CHAPTER        VIII.
KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.
CHRISTIANITY is often said to be a system of truths;
but even its most mysterious truths are facts. Christianity, then, is a system of facts; and the evidence for
it, the evidence that proves facts. The weight of such
evidence, unlike that which proves mathematical problems, varies in different minds, and it varies in different
ages. Questions, touching the validity of this evidence,
unthought of by one generation, perplex another; and,
while inquiry is thus constantly stimulated in this evervarying field, God ever grants fresh confirmations of the
reality of Christianity to meet the varying phases of
the human mind.
Kepler, the most illustrious of astronomers, observed
a new star, in the constellation Serpentarius, on the
night of the 17th of October, in the year of our Lord
1604. His master, Tycho Brahe, had observed a similar wonder in the constellation Cassiopeia, on the night
of the 11th of October, in the year 1572. These were
not luminous bodies within our atmosphere; were not
within, or near, the solar system; they were in the region
of the fixed stars. Each grew more and more brilliant,
till it shone like a planet. Then its lustre waned until





146


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


it ceased to be visible, -the one in March, 1574, the
other in February, 1606. Their light was white, then
yellow, then red, then dull, and so went out.
The star of 1572 appeared in a solitary quarter of the
heavens; the star of 1604 took its stand near the path
of the sun, as if, said Kepler, it would receive the salutations of all the planets.1 It shone out in a wonderful
astrological year.2 In the December before, all astronomers had been greatly excited by a conjunction of the
planets Jupiter and Saturn, that is, their drawing so
near together as to form a rare fact in Astronomy, a
notable sign in Astrology, - then not wholly fallen into
disrepute. In March, 1604, there was a still greater
astrological wonder. These two planets were again in
conjunction, together with the planet Mars. To the
astronomers of that time, in whose thoughts there was
SIlla enim extra limites Zodiaci fulsit, in sidere Cassiopeie, loco coeli infrequenti, nec ullis planetarum accessionibus
nobilitato; hac stationem sibi elegit proxime viam regiam
solis, lune, ceterorumque planetarum; sic ut ab omnibus
planetis saluteretur. That star (of 1572) shone without the
bounds of the Zodiac, in the constellation Cassiopeia, an unfrequented place in the heavens, not ennobled by the approach of any of the planets; this star (of 1604) chose for
itself a place near the royal way of the sun, the moon, and
the planets; as if it would receive the salutations of the
planets. - Kepler, De Stella Nova.
2The year, says Sir David Brewster, " of the fiery trigon,
or that in which Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are in the fiery
signs, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, an event which occurs
only every eight hundred years. - Life of Kepler, ch. i.
This is especially noted by Kepler.





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


147


much of astrological speculation, these repeated and
accumulative portents seemed a forewarning that something wonderful was about to come to pass in the celestial or terrestrial spaces. This seemed to them fulfilled,
when, in the autumn of that year, in the very quarter of
the heavens where two of these planets were still together, this strange star, as Kepler said, - vero vulgo
expectata a longo tempore cum multa solemnitate et
triumphali pompa ad diem constitutum est ingressa;
more proepotentis alicujus monarchiam, qui metropolim
regni invisurus, praemissis longe antea metatoribus,
loca comitatui designat, --far, andwide, and long expected, with much of preparation, and in triumphal
pomp, came on the day ordained, like some all-powerful
monarch, who, being about to look upon the metropolis
of his realm, through officers sent long before, designates
to his court their places.
The analogical genius of Kepler, ever watching for
celestial resemblances, through whose intimations he
might divine the laws established in the heavens, was
especially excited by the coincidence between the going
before of these planetary signs, and the apparition of the
star; and he conceived that the Star, seen by the Magi,
might have been foretokened and marshalled in by the
same train of phenomena he had observed in these
1 In eum precise coeli locum, ad quem omnium astrolo.
gorum  oculi congressum Jovis et Martis expectantes dirigebantur. Just in that part of the sky to which the eyes of
all astrologers were turned, watching the conjunction of Jupiter and Mars. - Kepler, De Stella Nova.





148


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


three planets. He, therefore, traced their orbits backwards for sixteen hundred years, and made the remarkable discovery, that the planets Jupiter and Saturn were
in conjunction in the Year of Rome 747, and, again,
together with Mars, in 748. The Time of our Lord's
Birth can hardly have been earlier. Its true date may
be one, and probably is the last, of these years.1
Kepler thought his discovery determined the Year of
our Lord. It comes not within my plan to consider this
opinion; and, lest the mention of this strangely interesting discovery should awaken expectation but to dispppoint it, I will here say, that I shall not use it as
direct or positive evidence of a new Star at the Nativity;
but shall, by and by, try to show that it makes the pilgrimage of the Magi more intelligible.
For two hundred years, this discovery, made by the
Prince of Astronomers, was little heeded. In this century, it has been more thought of; 2 but there seems, as
yet, to be no general acquiescence in any opinion as to
its bearing on the first verse of the second chapter of
St. Matthew.
One theory, however, has grown out of it that should
here be considered. This theory looks solely to the
The Christian Era is coincident with 754; but from an
eclipse in the Year of Herod's death, it is known that he
died early in 750.
2 In 1827, attention to it was reawakened by Bishop
Munter of Copenhagen. It was discussed by the astronomer Schubert, of St. Petersburg, and by Dr. Ideler, of
eSchub.





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


149


celestial phenomena of the year of Rome 747. AIford's admirably clear presentment of it is in these words:
" In the year of Rome 747, on the 29th of May, there
was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, in the twentieth
degree of the constellation Pisces, close to the first point
of Aries, which was the part of the heavens noted, in
astrological science, as that in which the signs denoted
the greatest and noblest events. On the 29th of September, in the same year, another conjunction of the
same planets took place, in the sixteenth degree of
Pisces; and, on the 5th of December, a third, in the
fifteenth degree of the same sign. On these two last occasions, the two planets were so near, that an ordinary
eye would   regard them   as one star of surpassing
brightness.1 Supposing the Magi to have seen the
first of these conjunctions, they saw it actually 'in the
East;' for, on the 29th of May, it would rise three
and a half hours before sunrise. If they then took their
journey, and arrived at Jerusalem in a little more than
five months (the journey from Babylon took Ezra four
months; see Ezra vii. 9); if they performed the route
from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in the evening, as is
implied, - the December conjunction, in the fifteenth
degree of Pisces, would be before them in the direction
of Bethlehem.... Abarbanel, the Jew, who knew
1 This sentence, from the first edition of Alford's Commentary on the New Testament, is omitted in its subsequent
editions. I retain it, that the recent inquiries on this subject may be more fully appreciated, as will appear as we
proceed.





1.50


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


nothing of this conjunction, relates it as a tradition, that
no conjunction could be of mightier import than that
of Jupiter and Saturn, which planets were in conjunction, A. M. 2365, before the birth of Moses, in the
sign of Pisces; and thence remarks, that that sign was
the most significant one for the Jews. From this consideration he concludes, that the conjunction of these
planets, in that sign, in his own time (A. D. 1463), betokened the near approach of the Messiah. And, as the
Jews did not invent Astrology, but learnt it from the
Chaldeans, this idea, that a conjunction in Pisces betokened some great event in Judea, must have prevailed
among the Chaldean astrologers."
Alford thinks, that, the word Star being taken in
what he calls "its wider astrological meaning," " these
circumstances form a remarkable coincidence with the
history " in St. Matthew; and that "the very slight
apparent inconsistencies with the above explanation are
no more than the report of the Magi themselves, and
the general belief of the age, would render unavoidable."
A friend,1 who read this book in manuscript, suggested, "that the Magi, taking the time-data furnished
by the prophet Daniel, ascertained the year of the Nativity, and, erecting a horoscope, predetermined the
positions of the planets in the fated year; that the planetary sign, thus foreknown to the Wise Men of the
East, received among them the name of the Star of the
King of the Jews; that this prediction, at once religious
1 The late Rev. J. McCarty,.ector of Christ's Church,
Cincinnati.





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


151


and scientific, and so of peculiar interest to them, was
treasured up among the wisdom kept from common eyes,
and, where it was verified by the result, the pilgrimage
ie explained."  Long previous to the time of Cyrus, the
Chaldeans had calculated eclipses; but whether there
could have been, with any of the Magi, the science requisite to form such a calculation as this, is very doubtful. Still, there may have been, in the unknown of the
history of the Magi, the fact supposed; and this brilliant suggestion has, at least, this value: it shows that
the pilgrimage of the Magi might at once be explained,
were our general knowledge of all that is related to it
more perfect. It makes the theory advocated by Alford
more complete; but, against each, there are these decisive objections.
In the second chapter of St. Matthew, the word Star
cannot mean a conjunction of planets. Had the Magi,
alone, used the word, it is conceivable that it might have
this meaning. It was so easy for them to have used
some more fitting word or phrase, and the jargon of
Astrology so clove to adepts in the art, and was so common, that this is not likely; still, it is possible, and, in
the Magi, it was admissible. But the Evangelist makes
the word his own; and such a use of it, though proper
for them, was not so for him.
For the language of Scripture, on natural subjects,
has absolute truth. The common idea, that it is less
accurate than scientific language, comes from not distin1 See note on p. 111.





152


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


guishing between two kinds of language. The language
of the Scriptures on natural subjects is the language of
the human family. Its aim is to describe natural phenomena, as they appear. The aim of scientific language is to
express facts lying back of the appearance, and to approximate, more and more, to the ultimate cause. Tested
by their aims, the common language is perfect, the scientific imperfect. The one is perfect at once, the other
never. The one is ever the same, the other is ever changing. Scripture reveals scientific truths, but never uses scientific language; if so, it would commit itself to variable
ideas. While stating truths in nature, to which, of itself,
science could never attain, it still adheres to that common language, that is the same for all, and changes not.1
It thus pictures the genesis of the earth and all that it
inhabit. Science may translate what it thus reveals into
scientific language, but Scripture describes the events in
the beginning, as they would have appeared to the senses.
Hence, Scripture would not set forth a scientific conception in words accommodated to the popular mind. This
would be neither scientific, or scriptural, language. The
Magi might have done this, not the Evangelist.
Those who hold that the Star of the Magi was a conjunction of the planets, have to do away with the miracle
of its guiding. This it is not possible to do. The words
are, "Lo, the Star went before them, till it came and
stood over where the Young Child was."  The wording
SSee "' The Six Days of Creation," by Dr. Tayler Lewis,
ch. iii., on Phenomenal Language.





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


153


of a legal document is not more precise; nor can any one,
by taking time and pains, frame any form of words, that
would better express the Star's guiding.
The bold, ingenious theory, that what the Magi saw
was but a conjunction of certain planets, being, then,
contrary to Scripture, might here be dismissed; yet,
the whole history of Kepler's discovery, and of the discussions that have arisen out of it, is so interesting a
chapter, both of scientific and religious inquiry, that I
give the results arrived at, in a recent investigation, by
Rev. Charles Pritchard, Hon. Secretary of the Royal
Astronomical Society,1 made with the intent of testing
the theory just considered. This confirms the fact, that
there were three conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn in
the year of Rome 747. " Similar results also have been
obtained by Encke, and the December conjunction has
been verified by the Astronomer Royal.2 No celestial
phenomena, therefore, of ancient date, are so certainly
ascertained, as the conjunctions in question."  But "the
planets, instead of seeming like one star, were, at no
time, nearer than the very considerable distance of
double the moon's apparent diameter."3 He pictures,
1 Smith's Diet. of the Bible, Art., Star of the Wise Men.
2 He also refers to Dr. Ideler's calculation, as " worked
out with great care and no very great inaccuracy."  This
gave the same year and the following days.: May 20, October
27, November 12. His are May 29, September 27, December 5. In his later editions, Alford gives both, but seems
to accredit the latter.
3 As mentioned before, in his first edition, Alford, miTqled.
apparently, by some exaggeration or error of Dr. Ideler't,





154


1.rEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


clearly, the celestial phenomena of that year,  " a date
assuredly not very distant from the time of our Saviour's birth;" and then tries to determine "how far
they fulfil, or fail to fulfil, the conditions required by the
narrative in St. Matthew."
After the conjunction in the month of May, the
planets separated  slowly "until the end   of July,
when, their motions becoming retrograde, they again
came into conjunction, by the end of September. At
that time, there can be no doubt that Jupiter would present to astronomers a magnificent spectacle. It was then
at its most brilliant apparition, for it was at its nearest
approach both to the sun and to the earth. Not far
from it would be seen its duller and much less conspicuous companion, Saturn. This glorious spectacle continued almost unaltered for several days, when the
planets again slowly separated, then came to a halt;
when, by reassuming a direct motion, Jupiter again
approached to a conjunction, for the third time, with
Saturn, just as the Magi may be supposed to have entered
the Holy City. And, to complete the fascination of the
tale, about an hour and a half after sunset, the two
planets might be seen from Jerusalem, hanging, as it
were, in the meridian, and suspended over Bethlehem in
the distance. These celestial phenomena, thus described,
stated, that the planets seemed one star. This he has corrected; but, adhering to his theory, says, " The conjunction
of the two planets, complete or incomplete, would be that
which would bear astrological significance; not their looking
like one star."





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


155


are, it will be seen, beyond the reach of question; and,
at the first impression, they assuredly appear to fulfil
the conditions of the Star of the Magi.
But, even supposing the Magi did undertake the journey, at the time in question, it seems improbable that
the conjunction of December can, on any reasonable
grounds, be considered as fulfilling the conditions in
Matthew ii. 9. The circumstances are as follows:
On December 4, the sun set at Jerusalem at 5 P. M.
Supposing the Magi to have then commenced their
journey to Jerusalem, they would first see Jupiter, and
his dull, and somewhat distant, companion, one and a half
hour distant from the meridian, in a south-east direction,
and decidedly to the east of Bethlehem. By the time
they came to Rachael's tomb (see Robinson's Biblical
Researches, xi. 568), the planets would be due south of
them, on the meridian, and no longer over the hill of
Bethlehem (see the maps of Vandervelde and of Tobler);
for that village (see Robinson, as above) bears from
Rachael's tomb, South.50 East +   80 declension =
South, 13~ East. The road then takes a turn to the
East, and ascends the hill near to its western extremity;
the planets, would, therefore, be now on their right
hand, and a little behind them: "the Star," therefore,
ceased altogether to go "before them," as a guide. Arrived on the hill, and in the village, it became physically impossible for the Star to stand over any house
whatever close to them, seeing that it was now visible
far away beyond the hill, to the West, and far off in the
heavens, at an altitude of 570. As they advanced, the
11





156


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


Star would, of necessity, recede; and under no circumstances could it be said to stand " over" any house,
unless at the distance of miles from the place where they
were... A star, if vertical, would appear to stand
over any house or object to which a spectator might
chance to be near; but a star at an altitude of 570,
could appear to stand over no house or object in the
immediate neighborhood of the observer. It is scarcely
necessary to add, that, if the Magi had left the Jaffa
gate before sunset, they would not have seen the planets
at the outset; and if they had left Jerusalem later,
"the Star" would have been a more useless guide than
before. Thus, "the beautiful phantasm of Kepler and
Ideler, which has fascinated so many writers, vanishes
before the more perfect daylight of investigation."
Grateful for this minute and difficult investigation, I
almost distrust its accuracy, from the carelessness of its
allusion to Kepler. The phantasy, that the Star of the
Magi was a conjunction of planets, may "vanish before
the more perfect daylight of investigation," but it never
deluded him. The celestial foretokenings -as they
seemed to Kepler - in the year 747, he thought of, as
continuing into the year 748, and as reaching the culmination of their promise only when the three planets
met together. To him, that golden circle of auspicious
fire was but the herald of the New Star - even as John
was but the herald of Christ. It was not that Light,
lut was sent to bear witness of that Light.
Since the New Star was the immediate cause that
drved the Magi to undertake their Pilgrimage, the con




KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


157


iunctions of the planets, in 747 and 748, may seem to be
so disjoined from it, as in no way to aid in explaining
it. Not so, however. As history before, so science
now, enables us to answer difficult questions that have
been pressed against the narrative. Strauss demands,
How could the Magi, from a Star, have known the birth
of the King of the Jews? - a thing, he would, perchance,
have said credible, only in credulous ages, with deluded
votaries of exploded art. Once, it would have sufficed
to have said, The Lord may have told them. It would
now and ever suffice, were it not that there is no intimation of this in their inspired history; and had it been
the fact, the Magi would have been quick to declare,
the Evangelist to record it. It is, therefore, to be supposed they were led to their conclusion, as men are
usually guided to truth, not, indeed, without divine
grace, yet, in the course of events. The grace of God
is not thus lessened, and the faith of man is exalted.
A course of preceding events, such as might have led
the Wise Men to Jerusalem, may be pointed out, by connecting together circumstances that are, all of them,
either credible or certain. They had faith in ancient traditions. This is the inner key to the secret of their
Pilgrimage; which is explained on the supposition that
their own traditions, the belief, at that time, of the near
appearing of some Great Person in Judea, their astrological notions, and the planetary signs, were the
antecedent, related causes of that faith in the significance
of the New Star which did send them to Jerusalem.
The expectant wonder of Kepler, and of all' the as




158


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


trologers of his time, as they watched the planetary
signs at the close of the year 1603, and in the following
spring, well illustrates the feelings with which we may
suppose those ancient astrologers, on the night of the
29th of May, in the year of Rome 747, to have witnessed, in the cloudless sky of the East, the greeting of
the planets Jupiter and Saturn. With mingling feelings
of human curiosity and religious wonder, these devout
astrologers gaze on this planetary omen, believed by
them to be a sign for Judea. The thought, that this
portent might foretell that the birth of its long-expected
King was, at least, nigh, takes quick possession of their
souls, as they inquire within themselves, What can,
what does this mean? What great thing has come, or is
about to come, to pass in the land of Judea? In the
month of September, this marvel renewed, kindles their
hearts to yet greater earnestness of inquiring hope. And,
when, in December, the mystic sign, for the third time,
is repeated, and when, in the following spring, these
celestial foretokenings reach the fulness of the perfect
number of four, and yet another planet joins in this
greeting and language of the spheres, their faith rises
near to the height of certainty; and when, at last, the
New Star appears, these unsleeping watchers of the
prophesying heavens instantly connect all these continuous signs and wonders in the firmament, and feel,
with an assurance to which an audible voice from the
skies would have added not, that the Star, so gloriously
marshalled by attesting planets to its place on high, is,
indeed, the lopg-predicted Star of the King of the Jews,





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


159


and that He is born. The apparition of His Star is
to them what St. Augustine calls it - lingua coeli--
a word from heaven.
An explanation, then, of their Pilgrimage is given;
an explanation that consists of facts. Thus, it is a fact
that there was an oracle that, in ancient times, was understood to foretell that the Birth of One, afterwards
known as the Messiah, would be announced by a star:
it is a fact that this oracle was known to Daniel; that
the Time of the Messiah was revealed to him; that he
had great authority with the Magi; that his prevision
of the Messiah was in harmony with their belief, that
prophets would be sent on earth by Ormazd. It is a
fact, that, at the time of their Pilgrimage, there was a
wide-spread expectation that this oracle and this prophecy were about to be fulfiled; it is a fact, that, about
that time, there were signs in the planets, astrologically
in harmony with that belief; and it is also a fact, that,
about that time, a New Star did appear.
Yet, from the very nature of the case, an explanation
of a very extraordinary event, - and such the Pilgrimage
of the Magi was, - an explanation reaching to causes
lying far back, where history is imperfect, must, in a
measure, be conjectural; and it would not be reasonable
to hold, for a certainty, that, between the Magian Pilgrimage and each and all of the facts of which this explanation consists, there was the direct relation of effect
and cause. As to some of them, that relation is a
matter of conjecture only; but, still, it is by no means
such to all of them.    As to some of themi-- tlc





160


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


expectation among the Jews, for instance -there is
only a strong probability of this relation; but, as to
others, there is direct evidence of it. Thus, there is
evidence in the words of the Magi, that Daniel's prophecy, and the oracle of the Star, were among the
causes of their Pilgrimage. And it should be added, that,
even if they knew nothing of the Hebrew expectation in
their time, they might have arrived at the same feeling,
from the time-data in that prophecy. There is no direct
evidence that the conjunctions of the planets were observed by them; yet they were astrologers, and those
celestial phenomena were so marked and repeated, that the
intrinsic probability of this is scarcely less than certainty.
Undoubtedly this explanation does not - it is not
possible that it should - include some, perchance many,
peculiar, indispensable, providential occurrences in the
lives of these Pilgrims, or in the times before them,
that directly and powerfully tended towards this memorable Pilgrimage.   These will be known only in
the time of the resurrection of the just, when all
the wonders of God's grace and man's fidelity shall
stand revealed.  But, on the other hand, there is
such fulness in this explanation, that some parts of it
might be varied, and yet detract little from its coherence,
or omitted, and detract little from its validity. Wherever there is a fact to be explained, - and the Pilgrimage
of Magi to Jerusalem is a fact, -- an explanation of it,
that is clear and perfect, has in itself some evidence of
correctness. The explanation, then, given of this Pilgrim:age, being made up of facts, and the relations





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


161


between it and them   being either matters of direct
evidence or of strong probability, is such as, in a
purely historical inquiry, involving no religious questions, and provoking no hostile feelings and prejudices,
would be accepted   as so consistent, probable, and
complete, as to be beyond reasonable doubt; and an
explanation might fall short of this, and yet be a
sufficient answer to all who, on historic grounds, have
decried this Pilgrimage to Jerusalem as incredible.
The latter part of this explanation, alone, would suffice for this, so far as they are offended at what they
term the astrological cause of the Pilgrimage -that is,
the appearing of a Star in the Year of our Lord's Birth.
The New Star of the Annus Domini is witnessed to by
astronomers of yesterday, as the New Star of 1604 is
witnessed to by Kepler and other astronomers of to-day.
These late astronomers also attest, that, near the
time of our Lord's Birth, there were four conjunctions
of planets, believed by astrologers to be significant of
great events in Judea. This scientific fact, taken in
connection with the other, is a sufficient answer to
those who, for the reason assigned, have decried this
Pilgrimage as a thing incredible; is sufficient to explain what Infidelity has challenged the Church to tell
-  how, from a Star, the Magi knew the Birth of the
King of the Jews.
This very challenge shows that lack of imagination
characteristic of all schools of infidelity, under whatever
name disguised. Of learning, in the sense of mere
heaps of facts, some of them have more than they know





162


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


how to use; but not in the sense of having power to discern the spiritual laws expressed, or intimated, in facts.
No great learning, even in the lowest sense of the word,
was required in professed critics, to know that the astrological map of the heavens corresponded with the
map of the earth; and it should not have been difficult
for them to have made the easy supposition, that the
new Star shone in what was astrologically held to be the
Judean quarter of the sky, and there, from its position
or time with respect to the planets, indicated, according
to the notions of the art, some great event; and that,
through the time-data given by the prophet Daniel, or
through the wide-spread belief of the time, the Magi
readily interpreted this Judean sign to mean the Coming
of some mysterious Person in that country. The most
recondite and questionable thing in this supposition,
sixteen centuries subsequent to the event, was discovered,
by a devout astronomer, to have been the fact.
That God ordained Kepler should discover this, is
very remarkable; for, if ever, in these latter days,
there has been a Magian born, it was Kepler. Diligently to search in nature for intimations of God was
the characteristic of the Magi; and this was the breath
of life to him, who, through his intuition of relation and
harmony pervading all space and time, through his
reverential trust in God's word, and through his study
of the records of the skies, found the lost fact completing
the series of facts that elucidate and confirm the honorable history of his brethren. Thus, as inspired sages
wrought m)re harmoniously together than they were





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


163


aware, so the sages who walk with the Lord mi the
realm of nature are unconsciously harmonious in the
results of their divinely-guided lives.
Throughout these inquiries, I have folded the wing
of the imagination, and chosen to dwell in the sober
precincts of the logical reason; to dream no dreams,
though, hereafter, I might wake to find them true; that,
on every page, I might command a calm, intelligent
assent; yet, here, I cannot but point out to the imagination a correspondence that would have charmed the
the soul of Kepler. In the astronomical facts rediscovered by him, when viewed in their relation to the
Pilgrimage of the Magi, there is that beautiful symbolism that runs through all the wa:ys of grace, and is
the sacred poetry both of nature and of life. The rays
of the three pl.,ets, near, yet distinct, correspond to
the light of nature, of primitive religion, and of Hebraic
revelation, blending their influences in the souls of the
Wise; and the new Star corresponds to the Greater
Light.
Up to the moment when the Star of the Lord shone
in the heavens, there seems, in the antecedent events
related to the Coming of the Wise Men, nothing, in the
strict sense divine, save what was due to the primeval
religion, and to the oracles in the sacred books of the
Hebrews; and a similar origin of the wide-spread belief
of the Orient, that, at that time, a Ruler would go forth
from Judea, did not secure, for that belief, direct mention on the sacred page. All that prepared the Magi
to recognize the Star was bound together by a thread





1.64


KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.


of divine weaving; but, in it, there was no immediate
supernatural intervention. It is not strange, then, that
St. Matthew, even if he knew of them, did not record
the planetary conjunctions. They were facts of nature,
left to be made known to the Church, when most needful
to it, by one solemnly elected of God to publish the
laws and harmonies of the material universe: that,
coeval with the Advent of the Lord of the Heavens to
the earth, a new Star shone, heralding this through all
the worlds, and dating it through all time; that when
He by Whom      all things were made, and without
Whom, there was not anything, lay in the manger
in Bethlehem, the apparent sign of the glory He
had before He made the worlds was seen in the
Heavens-this, the inspired Evangelist records alike
for itself, and for the miracle of its Guiding to its Lord,
in virtue of both of which it holds high place on the
eternal page.
Not, then, of those planetary phenomena that Kepler
rediscovered, but of a new Star, the Magi speak, when
they say, they beheld the Star of the King. This harmonizes, exactly and decisively, with their Coming.
Their Pilgrimage might have followed upon the conjunction. of the planets; yet the faith that braved the
toils and dangers of their long road is so high-toned,
that it requires that decisive intimation. This accomplished what all else prepared for. It sent them to
Jerusalem. History and science elucidate the sublime
lesson of the power, the wisdom, and the reward of Faith
in the Coming of the Wise Men to the Lord; yet





KEPLER'S DISCOVERY.            165
the Gospel alone gives, what the records of history
and the researches of science, though tending that way,
lack, the full explanation, on its human side, of
that abounding and unshaken confidence with which
these Magi proclaimed, in astonished, affrighted, unbelieving Jerusalem, the Birth of its King.





166


THE ASTROLOGICAL ELEMENT


CHAPTER IX.
THE ASTROLOGICAL ELEMENT IN THE N ARRATIVE.
THE Story of the Wise Men is so fraught with wisdom above the thoughts of men, is so suited to wants
and wishes of the soul, that, were it only a tradition,
the Christian would.feel, and wisely feel, that it must
be true. Yet moral, historical, and scientific arguments
have been arrayed against it.
The scientific, attempt to oppose to it, especially to
what is said of the Star's Guiding, the authority of the
science, fondly and admiringly thought most exact and
complete; until, a little time ago, the storm of meteors
disturbed the calm of the heavens, and the dream of
the perfection of Astronomy.
The historical, bear against an event, referred to by
no Evangelist or Apostle, save St. Matthew, and with
not a line in the writings of its century, as they now
exist, that alludes to it. Without formally so doing, I
have answered the greater historical arguments against
the narrative; and, in another book - on the religious
Truth it reveals - I hope so to answer the astronomical,
as to illustrate the fact, that, so far from the attempt to
make any Scripture seem more credible, by arbitrarily
lessening the supernatural element in it, ever succeeding,





IN THE NARRATIVE.


167


the more fearlessly that is set forth in its real grandeur,
the more it has power over the reason.
The moral argument against the narrative is this:
the outshining of a new Star at the Birth of Jesus, the
coincidence of its appearing with the expectation awakened by prophecy, and the Star's Guiding believers in
starry influences, countenanced and strengthened the
pretended Art of Astrology, which was all delusion and
mischief.
The ready horror at everything that even seems to
accredit superstitious or unscientific notions, and, so,
might turn us back towards the Dark Ages, is such,
that it may be well to give a thought to the extent of
this alleged strengthening of Astrology.   For ages
before, and after, St. Matthew's Gospel was written,
belief in Astrology was so entire, that it could have
received no strength from it. If ever it gave it any,
it was at the very time when Astrology fell into discredit, because that, through the teachings of Christianity, man began to attain to humility in the study of
nature. If the signs and wonders revealed, as to the
Star of the Lord, then made an impression somewhat
favorable to Astrology, this was of small account, as
Christianity was to put an end to it. The prevailing
magic was somewhat confirmed by the wonders wrought
by the Apostles; the truths they preached were followed
by perversions that, without those truths, had never
been; Christianity gave, for the instant, some new
strength to superstition; but, what argument against it
are these errors, when the fulness of its light was to dis




168


THE ASTROLOGICAL ELEMENT


pel them forever? Shall the mistakes consequent upon
the manifestation of his glory, be charged against the
Lord? or shall His works of majesty and grace be
barred by human perversions of them?    He set the
stars in the firmament, with their changes and seasons -
the Art of Astrology followed: He set his own Star in
the firmament, and some confirmation of the Art followed. For such things as these, was He to stay his
hand in Heaven?
But the real strength of the argument against the
facts, that the Lord used the astral lore of the Magi as
a medium of communication with them, and led them
in ways familiar to their thoughts as astrologers, lies
not in the harm that followed these things, be that more,
or less, or none, but in the idea that they were wrong.
This we meet, in part, y being more just to the astrology of the Magi, than when we seemed to concede it
was all error and mischief. The germ of oldest science
was the divination of a preestablished resemblance or
harmony between the spiritual and material worlds- the
grand thought, that all the creation of the one God must
be one whole. From this, as from the idea of one God,
out of which sprung the idea of one universe, the soul
rapidly fell off into low notions of the creation, and of
the Creator; but each left its uneffaceable traces on the
science and on the religion of the earliest ages. Astrology was one form of the aspiration to verify the
oldest, the most religious, of scientific ideas. It held
that there is a correspondence and a sympathy between
tle material and the spiritual worlds, and, hence, it





IN THE NARRATIVE.


169


looked for coincidences between the phenomena in the
skies, and the fates of men. The thought is grandly
true; but cannot be applied with the minuteness with
which astrology claimed to apply it, because the limited
faculties of man cannot grasp all those harmonies that
make all spirits and all worlds one sentient whole.
Fools mock at the contrasted hope and failure of the
astrologer; but high aims, though seldom entirely successful, are as seldom entirely fruitless. All that man
accomplishes springs from  them. Without the vain
aspirations of the youth, would never be achieved the
little of the man, that forms so humble a contrast to the
visions of the boy; and what is true of the individual
is true of the race.
Astrology was not for naught. As Chemistry of
Alchemy, so Astronomy was born of Astrology. Astrology was not useless. It is something, that it proved
that what.it aimed at was impossible, so that, with
humbler hope, man might seek the attainable. Next to
him who shows that the difficult is possible, is he who
shows that it is impossible. Each serves the Lord:
the one, by opening a path where none seemed to be;
the other, by closing up the road of delusion.
The first chemical experiments were made by Alchemists; the first maps of the heavens, by Astrologers.
The art of Astrology, like every human art and every
human science, was blended truth and error; and if
the Lord could not have conversed with Astrologers,
then he cannot converse with men of science at all, in
and through their pursuits; and there are no limits tu





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THE ASTROLOGICAL LLEME1NT


the exclusion of the Spirit of God from the soul of man
that logically follows; for all human conceptions, alike
of things material and of things spiritual, have in them
some quality of error. If the Lord cannot commune
with souls in which 'vain aspirations are, and thoughts
that err, he cannot commune with man. It were- better
to adore, than to cavil at the self-devotion of his Spirit,
who, unrepelled, even by guilt, mercifully follows men,
as they wander away from Him, down into the drear
wastes of error and sin.
The Wise Men were not only different from those
self-styled Magians who disgraced the honor of the
name, but were the few, in whom whatever was most
spiritual in their order found its most perfect expression.
The errors of the Zoroastrian religion, and the darker
aspects of their order, have as little to do with our conception of these men, as "the vain traditions" of' the
Jews, or the cruelty of the Pharisees, with our conception of the believing souls in Jerusalem. These were
the elect few of the Jews; those, of the Magi.
Their religion fostered, in the more spiritual of the
Magi, a reverential, believing spirit, that looked, in
nature and in life, for the presence and purpose of God.
In virtue of this God-seeking spirit, the Wise Men, as
reverently they watched the stars in their courses, made
the sublimest discovery in the heavens ever made by
man. Who will restore to Astronomy this lost glory?
When will the Magian be born, who, amid the glittering hosts on high, will point out, again, the Star of
Bethlehem?





IN THE NARRATIVE.


171


These Magians very truthfully conceived that the God
of Heaven was waging real war with sin, and that his
triumph over Ahriman would be wrought out, not
through the foolishness of culture, philosophy, or science,
but by prophets sent from  God, of whom the last,
mighty to save, as a man, would conquer the Evil One.
In spiritual souls, this truth was persuasive to a living
faith in God, that waited and watched for His redemption. The God of Heaven honored this spirit in the
Wise Men. These Magians watched, without ceasing,
in the material and spiritual worlds, for the Divine;
and it was divinely appropriate that they should be
led to find Him, in whom met Heaven and Earth, Humanity and Divinity.
All the supernatural in the Story of the Wise Men is
self-proved: the narrative of their presence with the
Lord is self-authenticating throughout, when the natural,
in their history, is understood, For the spirit of these
men having been such as it was, the Lord must have
brought them as near to himself as it was then possible
for them to come, and in ways fitted to their religiously
scientific spirit.
Wise through faith beyond their knowledge, their
hearts were so in sympathy with the purpose of God to
"send his own Son into the world, not to condemn the
world, but that, through Him, the world might be
saved," that they believed in a sacred promise of 'a Redeemer to come; and when these astronomers looked
unto the heavens, to behold there the predicted sign of
His coming on the earth, the Lord set His bright and
12





172


THE ASTROLOGICAL ELEMENT


morning Star before them, and when, through Faith,
they came to His own city, found there no knowledge
of the discovery they made afar off, went out from
thence, waited on by no Pharisee, no scribe, no priest,
strangers in the Holy Land, seeking, unaided of men,
its Lord, the rays of His Star led them, until the attesting splendor stood over where the Lord lay. Science
has no story like this, of recognition from the Eternal
mind! Religion, few more touching words than these
of God's kindness to men in darkness, seeking for the
Light; in the night of heathenism, for the Star of Jacob!
Great their Faith; great its reward! The roll of the
men of old time who obtained a good report through
Faith is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews; the
roll of honor of the new time opens with the Wise Men.
They preach forever, that to Faith wisdom is given.
By Faith they crossed plains, deserts, mountains, and
journeyed far to the Holy City. The capital knew not
its King. In little Bethlehem they found only a maiden
mother tending an infant; yet, with undaunted Faith,
"when they saw the Young Child and His mother,
they fell down and worshipped Him;" and, setting forth
truths greater than they knew, they offered, to the Son
of Man and Son of God, myrrh, hinting at the resurrection of the dead; the royal gold; and frankincense
that breathes of prayer, - " myrrh to a mortal, gold to
a king, frankincense to God."'
1 This mystic significance of the gifts is marked by all the
earlier Christians who refer to them. The learned Arch.





IN THE NARRATIVE.               173
The Medieval Age, with passion, cried, these men
were Kings! Let us catch the thought, roll on the
cry. Indeed, they were Kings -of God anointed! -
Sovereigns in the realm of truth!
On the bank of the Rhine the zeal of toiling centuries strove to build, to their praise, the noblest fabric of
mediaeval art; its skyward-pointing spires are yet rising
higher and higher toward the heavens; and so the
honor that should be given them among men is yet an
unfinished thing.
bishop Trench says, "The earliest writer, I believe, who
makes this application, at least of those who have come
down to us, is Irenaeus." - Star of the Wise Men.










INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


175


CHAPTER X.
INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.
THE words of St. Matthew have here been interpreted in the clear light of the idea that they were
selected with a thoughtfulness of wisdom. This idea is
not altogether in harmony with the notion that the
Gospels are rude chronicles, whose power is manifestly
divine, because of their humility of style. But it is in
harmony with the fact. All Scripture shows that inspiration was given to fitting recipients; and that this
fitness depended on mental, no less certainly than on
moral, endowments; on qualities of the head, as surely
as on those of the heart.
St. Matthew has not the precision of a diffuse style, -
if, indeed, such a style ever is precise, - but of a style
that, saying little, means much; where every line and
word can be justified; and where precision ever is,
though, to the superficial eye, it may not seem to be
there. Thus, by their title, he exactly describes those
who came to Jerusalem, and his geographical phrases
arc definite.
But, it will be said, this finds too much in his words;
all versions of the Gospel overlook his distinction between the East and the Far East; and the general





176


INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


comment says, these terms signify only that the Wise
Men came from one of the four winds. This is true;
and because it is so, there is some reason to have charity
for those who, in consequence of this failure in interpretation, pronounce their history a fable; and the more
reason, as this low interpretation of the Evangelist's
words, at the beginning, running through the narrative,
debases it into an incongruous legend, where the Magi
are dishonored into fortune-tellers, and the Star of the
Lord into a Jack-o'-lantern.
But, even with this low notion as to St. Matthew's
words, our conclusions can be maintained. Thus far
St. Matthew has been vindicated, as any other historian
might have been; but the erroneous notions as to the
force of some of his words require that the true interpretation of them should be strengthened by conclusions
drawn from the fact, that St. Matthew was not a historian merely, but also an Evangelist; from the fact,
that the inspired writers sometimes uttered truths, the
significance and the relations of which they knew but in
part, yet whose expression, having in it a divine element
of perfection, has, in time, conveyed to the Church
more full and precise ideas than to them.
When, to the high historic qualities of the Evangelists,
there was superadded the enlightening, restraining, and
guiding of the Spirit of all Wisdom, there was a Gospel, fourfold in form, yet one in spirit; reproducing a
Life so mysterious, that, to reproduce it in such perfection, surpassed the human genius. To believe this, is
no disparagement of their natural gifts; and their genius





INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


177


should not be depreciated to honor their inspiration.
This honors neither. Those' who appreciate them as
historians will not doubt their inspiration.
All that sense and genius could, they gave their gospels. Each imparted to his something of his own soul.
Beyond this, Divine Wisdom gave to each of the gospels, and to the Gospel as a whole, what human genius
was not competent to give - a fulness and precision
of wisdom in every line and word. It watched over
thoughts, words, images;' so adjusting the relations
of these, that Scripture is one Scripture. It made it
vital with one life, breathing through all its forms,
whether history, or biography, or precept, or doctrine;
whether proverb, or parable, or song, or prophecy,
or epistle. Not nicer the adjustments of the human
frame, not more wonderful the unity of the world, than
the unity of this creation. Hence, in its study, adjustment, relation, harmony should be looked for, as in the
study of nature. As there, one thing throws light upon
another; as there, analogy, proportion, or resemblance
is the great instrument of discovery, whose power is
inexhaustible, whose results are so certain, - so it is in
the Scriptures: in neither is mechanical cohesion; in
each is the unity of Life, and from the same Lifegiving Word.
As correspondences in nature are sought for with
wide observation and the microscopic eye, so they should
be sought for in Scripture; and, as there is no doubt
of their reality when once they are seen in nature, however minute or far-severed in space or time, so should





178


INSPlRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


there be higher conviction, even, were it possible, of
the reality of the like in this higher world. All Scripture, then, - especially that of the Evangelists, its
heart, whence flows the blood, in which is the life, and
whither it reflows, - all Scripture, and, most of all,
that which reproduces the Life of the Lord, is ever to
be studied with inquiry into its relations to all other
Scripture.
Something of the undoubting faith in analogy, resemblance, harmony, proportion, and law, that guides
science, has quickened the Church in its researches in
the world of Scripture, as to doctrine; but less so, as to
that wonderful apparatus of personal feelings and incidents, and of great national events of biography and
history, through which and in which the doctrines are,
in a great measure, revealed and taught. The historical
element is the chief element, so far as form goes, in the
Scriptures; and there should be the same faith in the
precision of its teaching, and the perfection of its relations, that there is in those of purely didactic Scripture.
In all Scripture there is a divine element of certainty;
and, for the full understanding of Scripture, it is necessary to compare one part of it with another, in a way
that has no parallel in human writings. Hence, in
Scripture, words and phrases may have an exactness, a
depth or breadth of meaning, and relations to other
Scripture, even beyond what they had in the thoughts
of the writer. The meaning of the words cannot be
changed; but the conception of the writer may receive
greater precision, greater depth or breadth of signifi.





INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


179


zance, while it remains essentially the same; as, in
science, a law may have greater exactness, wider compass, and suggest to one mind more relations than to
another, and yet be expressed in the same words. The
language of Scripture is a fountain, not a reservoir.
St. Matthew wrote his gospel with such accuracy as
his best efforts could secure; and, beyond this, with a
wisdom that gave to it perfection, alike in itself, and in
its relations to other Scripture. If, then, his language
has guided us to conclusions, the only objection to which
seems to be that they are too exact, and, at the same
time, too far-reaching, to be gathered from what many
take to be very indefinite words, these things may be
referred to his inspiration, as well as to his genius; his
inspiration authorizing the giving to terms in his gospel,
as part of the whole of Scripture, a precision and a richness of meaning not to be given to independent words.
Thus, the phrases, the East and the Far East, if
indefinite in themselves, may become definite, through
their use in more ancient Scripture, for Babylonia and
Persia. His knowledge of the scriptural relations of
what he recorded must have been imperfect. The Lord
himself, alone, knoweth them all. No perfect knowledge of them can be predicated, even of the Evangelist.
The workmanship was divine, the workman was human.
But to overlook relations is not to deny them; and, if
he did not know all the relations of what he recorded of
the Wise Men to other Scripture, it does not prove that
they did not exist.
I would not be misunderstood, as if applying this to





180


INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


the words before considered. I think it is clear, beyond
reasonable doubt, that his own insight into the relations
of what he was narrating may have guided, and did
guide him to them; that he chose a popular phrase -
" from the Far East "- to describe whence the Pilgrims
were, not only because it was such, but also because
its use in the Old Testament made it so peculiarly significant in pointing out those relations, that he would
have been justified in this, had it not been in popular
use at all; and also that he added it to the title Magi,
to describe them beyond all mistake, because, in the
Septuagint, persons so called had been located in Babylonia, that is, in "the East;" and again, that there
were other relations he did not point out in terms, -
for instance, that between the Oracle of Balaam and the
Coming of the Magi, intimated in their own words, -
because he thought it needless; and it should be needless. The history of Balaam is one leaf, the history
of the Wise Men is another, from the great, marvellous book of God alone - the true history of the
world's religion, of which so little is, or can be, known
by man; and no one, who has any idea of the unity of
Scripture, will doubt the relation between these two
leaves of the unrevealed history of the Gentiles,
transcribed into the revealed history of the Son of
God. The Story of Balaam and of the Wise Men are
correlative; they illustrate the whole Gentile religion,
revealing that, everywhere, the Spirit strove with men,
showing the triumph of grace resisted or obeyed, and
the contrast of the results of each in the fates of men.





INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


181


Correspondences like these are so characteristic of
the Bible, that he who does not understand something
of them, does not understand the Bible at all. By
itself, each might seem a thing of chance; yet the. many
can have come only from uniform design. Each may
be a thread so fine as scarcely to be seen; the many
form massive cords, holding the whole of the sacred
volume firmly together. Correspondences like these,
in a measure, produce that sense of unity often so
deeply felt, rather than clearly seen, in the Bible. It is
a unity, in a multitude of incidents, described by men
to whom only a part thereof was known; unity in truths
hinted at by one, partially disclosed by another, revealed
by a third, or made clear in the course of events. It is
a unity as to truths - some deeper than the intuitions
of man, others beyond his experience; a unity in writers
thousands of years apart, writing in different countries,
and in different languages; a unity that can be explained only by the fact that God was with them.
In the fact that St. Matthew's narrative is a divine
record of events especially within a divine economy,
there is, also, an independent verification of the conclusion drawn from it as history,- that the Pilgrims to
Bethlehem were Persians. If the term that points this
out be thought somewhat indecisive, it becomes decisive
through the consideration, that what the words suggest,
at least, as possible, is required by the harmonies of the
kingdom of grace; inspiration being supposed, in this,
as in so many places, to have guided the writer to a
phrase, that was to become more definite to the Church
than to him.





182


INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


For there is a kingdom of grace, having its harmonies,
even as the kingdom of nature hath. To those who
have no hearts to feel them, they are as if they were not.
Their notions as to this kingdom are as blank as those
of a blind man as to the kingdom of Light. A man
without eyes might grope about, with a tape-measure,
among the houses in Jerusalem, and his measurements
somewhat avail; of such value are the researches of
men like Strauss in the spiritual Jerusalem. As to
some things of an unspiritual kind, their fingers may
avail something; but the soul-inspiring harmonies of
the kingdom of grace, such cannot know. Can men,
born deaf, know the symphonies of Beethoven?  Such
critics of harmonies, poring over the printed notes of
" The Creation," and measuring, with scale and dividers,
here and there, on the silent page, may detect typographical errors, make some shrewd and more absurd
remarks on the number, arrangement, and proportion
of the dots, be witty and wise over those who see what
they cannot see, feel what they cannot feel, in the mysterious scroll; but, though the mighty master of the
organ unroll, in volumes of majestic sound, the music
expressed in those mystic characters, all is a blank to
them, save what they glean from the mute symbols of
a melody they have no faculty to hear. Our knowledge
is not to be called in question, because darkened souls,
like Renan's, know it not. A world of sight and sound
is not less sure, because such men have no hearing and
no sight. The spiritual world, with its truths and harmonies, is none the less a world, because they





INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


183


are dead.  Its truths and harmonies are the only
realities.
The harmonies of the kingdom of the Lord require
that the witnesses of his grace to all nations should have
come from the nation that had profited most' by his
grace. The Lord honors those worthy of honor; and
the honor of witnessing first of the nations to his Coming
on the Earth could have been won only by the most
deserving of the nations of old. That this was the 'Persian, is known from Scripture. With this, all else that
is known of them accords. Viewing it in the light of
human passions, their preeminence might be denied:
it might be said, the state of the Great King was
less than that of Augustus; the glory of Cyrus is pale
before that of Alexander; the philosophy of the Greeks
outvies that of the Magi; the beauty of Grecian art
makes comparison with it idle. But the worth of a
people is not to be determined by splendor of palaces,
though the earth has known of regal state nothing more
sublime than the court of the Great King; nor by
armies, though the Persian swept "from India to Ethiopia." It is the religious element in the national character, whose presence in one people, more than in another, makes that people more in favor, with God, and
should make them higher in honor with man. The
Athenians worshipped the cunning work of the mortal
hand of Phidias; the Romans, a deified Emperor; Persia, the God of Heaven; and the God of Heaven appointed the Persian, who built no altars to the starry
hosts, no temple to gods of gold or stone, to build for





184


INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.


Him his own house in Jerusalem. When, therefore,
his Evangelist describes the Witnesses of the Nations to
the Advent of the Lord of the Nations by a term that
is the distinctive title of the Sacred Order of the Persians, though sometimes used in another sense, it is not
to be doubted that the Pilgrims, thus divinely described,
were Persians, since, thus, there is found, in their Witness to the Lord, the perfection belonging to the harmonies of the Kingdom of Grace.
The fact, that the Persians rejected Christ, might
lead us to doubt whether the Wise Men were Persians,
were it not for the more strange and mournful fact, that
the most faithful and the most favored of the nations,
the chosen and peculiar people, rejected the Master, in
Person. Each has been severely punished. But the
finger of the Lord traced for the Persians the bounds of
their habitation. He has preserved their race; and, in
sFite of long centuries of demoralization, they are, today, the finest people of Asia.
Of the Shemitic family of nations, only the Hebrews
of old, of the Aryan family, only the Persian, can be
said to have kept the faith. The Persians restored the
Hebrews to their own country; and, in the fulness of
time, Hebrew Apostles, going out from thence, taught
the truth anew to the Aryan nations, who then received
again the priceless inheritance they had wasted in riotous
living, and more than they had before. The Jew and
the Persian - let him that thinketh he standeth take
heed lest he fall - rejected the Word made flesh, who
is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express





INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW.         185
image of his Person; yet the Jew and the Persian abide
the time, when the nations that are now, in their stead,
the worshippers of God, -for no man cometh to the
Father but by the Son, - shall return to them all they
received from them, and more. The set time cometh
when the great cycle of the mercy of God to these
nations will be rounded into its predicted fulness of
completion. The set time cometh when Jerusalem shall
no longer be trodden down of the Gentiles, and when
the Persians will follow their Wise Men of old,





J86


SUMMARY.


CHAPTER XI.
SUMMARY.
THIS explanation of the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
has, here and there, something of the manner of a
defence of the evangelical narrative. It has been constrained to this by the tone of faith within the Church,
lowered by the too prevailing unbelief of the world -
the reflex of an effect on the world produced by some
lack of fulness of faith within the Church itself, as coldness in the extremities of the body is caused by feeble
pulsations of the heart, and then this coldness reacts
on the heart.
With some, the guarded movement of such argument
may chill the glow of feeling; with some, the first
knowledge of a doubt may be given in the answer to it:
yet something of this manner seems to be required by
the peculiarities of an age whose spirit summons before
it all times, all institutions, all theories of morals, of
society, of government, of art - all science and all
creeds; and, with somewhat of keener intuition and a
larger experience than former ages, would weigh all
that has been, and is, and is to be, in its scanty and illadjusted balance. To call it an age of unbelief is rather
extreme; but it is not an age of faith, though abounding





SUMMARY.


187


m credulity. It is an age of inquiry, when " many run
to and fro, and knowledge is increased."
In the presence of its restless propensity to search
into everything, the Church, for her own sake, and for
that of the world, may well mark the deep foundationa
of her walls, and tell her battlements; she may well
survey, in accordance with the canons of modern historical criticism, as by her adapted to her own field,
her treasures of history; she may well strive to commend
her sacred records, and all that in them is, to her own
critical reason; with greater zeal than ever before, may
well endeavor to clear up the obscure, to harmonize
seeming contradictions, and to confirm the truth of the
Scriptures, in ways that the spiritual wants of other
times did not so urgently require.
It is well the infidel should see that the faith of the
Church is as intelligent as it is to him mysterious. To
let him see less than this, is to give him over to unbelief. But the heart determines the intellect. Truth
not felt by the heart cannot be known as truth by the
mind. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God. The most, then, that can be done,
is to strengthen in the Church her own perceptions of
her own truths, that from her there may be more and
more breathed into the world a feeling, that there is a
known world above its knowing; that even as one born
blind longs to see the blue heavens on high, and the firm
earth, he is convinced are, but beholds not, so man may
yearn for a heart that may see God.
Historical evidence cannot exorcise the demon of u.n13





188


SUMMARY.


belief. Historical evidence addresses the mind: he
lodges in the heart, whose subtle influences sway the
intellect. But the Christian may have less or more of
his own light, perceptions less or more clear, truths less
or more perceived in their harmonies; and in proportion
as his own knowledge of his own realm of knowledge is
increased, his soul will have more of strength; the
world will, more and more, be constrained to feel the
inferiority of her knowledge; and thus the Church will,
at length, regain in herself, and'establish in the world,
the full conviction of her intellectual supremacy.
The argument, then, in this inquiry, is addressed to
Christians. If it quicken their faith, it will, at length,
through them, reach the unbeliever, so far as he has the
capacity to be reached by it. As free citizens, then, of
the City of God, with the ideas and prepossessions belonging to such, knowing that the thoughts of the
Divine Spirit run through the Ages, and that slight
indications in Scripture point to His far-continuing
purposes and distant but foreseen ends, let us recall the
argument that has passed before us. First: It has
been seen that the Magi believed that the God of Heaven
intervened in the affairs of men, and that Ormazd, in
his appointed times, would send on earth prophets, who
would work wonders for the Kingdom of Light, and the
last and greatest of whom would utterly destroy the
Kingdom of Darkness. Second: That there was with
the Magi a Hebrew prophet, who foreknew the Coming
i;f the Lord, and the Time thereof, having power and
)e ortuI>,v to impress these facts on them  and who





SUMMARY.


18h


could point, in confirmation of what he revealed, to an
oracle not from Hebrew lips, in which it was foretold
that a Star would be the Sign of His appearing.
Third: That there were data from   which the Magi
might have computed the time of this prediction, and,
consequently, of' the starry omen; that this prophecy
and calculation might have been preserved in writing by
them, and were not likely to have been lost in an order
professionally conservative of sacred records, traditions,
and mystic lore; and that the expectation of some spir-.
itual Ruler to be born in the house of Jacob, thus
enkindled among the Magi, might have been kept from
dying out, by the presence of Hebrews in Persia.
Fourth: That certain of the Magi were dwelling or
sojourning in the country between the Tigris and the
Euphrates, at a time when the expectation was deeply
inwrought into the minds of some of the multitude of
Hebrews living in that region, that the appointed hour
of the Birth of their Messiah in Judea was nigh; and
that, about that time, there were displayed, in the
heavens, signs in the planets, believed by these Magi,
as astrologers, to portend that some great event had
come, or was about to come to pass in Judea- signs
awakening them to diligent watch for the predicted Star.
Fifth: That these Magi journeyed from Babylonia on a
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and proclaimed in that City,
in the very terms of the Hebrew Prophet, and with a
clear reference to the ancient, extra-Judean oracle, that
they had seen the Star of the King of the Jews. Thus
what St. Matthew records is, to this extent, explained,





190


SUMMARY.


and so confirmed.    The Pilgrimage itself makes it
probable that certain other events took place; and these
probable events, taken together with other known events,
explain the Pilgrimage. It thus ceases to be an isolated
thing, pressing on belief with the heavy weight of anything, however well attested, that cannot be connected
to aught previous as its intelligible reason, and so
seeming an effect without a cause; and it is, at once,
placed in a line with other facts; for all history is a
chain of recorded and inferred events. From facts that,
appearing of record, are supposed to be known, other
facts, not of record, are inferred; and this must be accepted as history, or there can be no history. A probability that things were so is all that can be attained
to, as to the greater part of human affairs; and this of
things in the immediate present, as well as in the remote
past. Such a reasonable probability is all that can be
attained to as to the course of events preceding the outshining of the Star, that, in connection with it, led the
Magi to Jerusalem; and this is all that the wants of
Faith require. For it is. enough to say to those who
assume that there can be no explanation of such a Pilgrimage, it might have been in this way; while it is
freely and gladly admitted, that this touching lesson of
the condescending mercy of God, this high example
of faith in man, must forever depend on the sole and
sufficient witness of one, who was not only a truthful
historian, but also a divinely-inspired Evangelist.
Thus far, purely historical or scientific confirmations
of it have been marked in this review of trains of everts





SUMMARY.


191


that seem related to the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but,
to the Christian mind, there is evidence for it of a somewhat different kind. The Christian Church, like the
Hebrews of old, has ever held that Balaam prophesied
of the Messiah. " There shall come a Star out of Jacob
and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel," - according to
the ideas of him who spake, and those who heard it -
foretold a King, of whom a Star in heaven would be the
sign; and, as this was the only way in which this oracle
could be understood by them, it is the only way in
which it should be interpreted; and it was thus interpreted by the Jews. The attestation is correspondent
with the prediction. Both alike - prophecy and witness - are from  out the Gentile world.  Each is a
testimony to the Lord of the nations from without the
elect nation; and this correspondence is the more complete, as each testimony comes from those whom the
world believed to have mystic power to read in the
book of God's secrecy.
The prophecy was uttered to kings, militant against
the people of God, in their pride of place and power,
as, in arms, they stood to bar the way of Israel into
the Land of Promise and of rest. Its fulfilment was
uttered to Herod, the friend of Caesar, and so to powers
of the world, in whose hearts was the intent to bar the
way of the Lord to his rightful kingdom over all the
earth.
It is most reasonable to suppose, that, if a star was
1 Numbers xxiv. 17.





192


SUMMARY.


foretold, its appearing would be told to Jerusalem, and
to all the world; that when the sign was visible to human eyes, there would be something providential that
tvould call to it the attention of the Jews, and ever
afterward fasten upon it the thought and the memory
of man. This - wanting which the annals of our Faith
had seemed manifestly imperfect- the.narrative in St.
Matthew supplies; and it agrees with what the harmonies of a plan predetermined, from the first, in the
thought of God, would seem to human intellects to require, -judging, as such can only wisely judge, of the
thoughts of God after the event; for though to fore.
know the ways of God is given only to inspired souls,
yet to see the fitness of beauty in His work, once visibly
wrought out, whether in nature, or, more marvellous
still, in the realm of life, is the appropriate office of
the God-given intellect of man.
Again: in these few strangers in Bethlehem, the
Church sees the prophetic types and prophecy of the
many, who, after them, were to come from       every
nation under heaven; and, thus viewed, their presence
is a sign, that, disclosing its significance afterwards,
authenticates that presence, by proving there was in it
something divine. What is written of these strangers
at the cradle of the Lord is a parable of prophetic mean.
ing, reaching far onward, and reciting the future of
His kingdom. Events in the lives of men are often
ordered with a dramatic propriety, that reveals to the
believing spirit the intervention of higher powers in the
concerns of mortals; and if ever this is manifest, we





SUMMARY.


193


may well believe it was so in that Life for whose manifestation the Life of man was made. The illumined
sages of the dark heathen world seek the shrine of truth,
and the place where the Lord was to be born, pointed
out to them by its priests, but, without their further
aid, come to the cradle of the Messiah. No long procession of priests, no Sanhedrim, marshals these Pilgrims to the shrine. Mysterious picture of what is to
be --the Jews not there, yet there the Representatives
of the Nations of the Earth!
Again: in the strangers who came and worshipped
the Infant Lord, the Church, in virtue of that vision
which belongs to her because she is the Church, recognizes the Witnesses of the Grace of the Universal Lord
to all nations -the Representatives of the Wise and
Good of the World. Thus viewing them, the main fact
in their history authenticates itself. The Reason demands it; the soul is evidence for it: for if, as many
insist, - perchance seeking thus to convict the Scripture of narrowness and partiality, - the Universal Lord,
pitying all nations, denied grace to none, He must have
determined the course of nations, other than the Hebrew, with reference to His Coming; and all reason
calls aloud for some recognition of this by those nations;
for the soul of man catches something of the thought
of God, awakens to some foresight of what He is bringing to pass in the earth, when events of a world-wide
concern, ordered from afar, converge to His aim, and
His preparation points to His intent. Thus, in the
sacred Eclogue of Virgil, that illustrates the affinity





194


SUMMARY.


of prophet and bard, the glowing presentiment of an
auspicious dominion awoke. Thus it was, that, near
the Christian era, old Hebrew prophecy, foretelling that
dominion, so began to harmonize with the presentience
of man, that it was commonly talked of through all the
East. But since "the end and aim of all human history was to prepare the way for Christ's appearing,"
the Reason, unsatisfied even with these intimations of a
prescience in man of the kingdom of Heaven, demands
from  out the heart of the expectant world a more
marked recognition of the Coming of the Lord; expects
of his providence something, in the Israel outside of
Israel, more distinctly corresponding to the revelation
made to Simeon, that he should not see death before
he had seen the Lord's Christ, and to the shepherds,
to whom the angel told, " unto you is born this day a
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." By its answer to
these requirements, the Story of the Wise Men lays
strong hold on the reason of the Church: it lays strong
hold, too, on the heart of the Church; for in the Coming of the Wise Men she finds the assurance of her
earnest, pleasing hope - that all who sought for Him
were guided of the Lord. In them, her oft-recurring,question, as she muses on the Grace of other days, -
How near to the Lord did the nearest to Him of the
heathen come?- is answered, when the Representatives
of the Wise and Good of the world "saw the Young
Child."
As nothing comes by chance in the kingdom of Nature, so nothing comes by chance in the kingdom of





SUMMARY.                   195
Grace. As the West did not keep the tradition of a
Saviour to come so well as did the East, it is in accordance with the law uttered by the Messiah,- "to
him that hath shall be given,"- that Magi from the
Par East were the first-fruits of the heathen.
Thus the Law, under which Truth is revealed and
Grace is given, thus the presentiments of the soul,
harmonize with the statement of St. Matthew - that,
from the people who Lad most faithfully kept the Truth
revealed to the Fathers of mankind, from an order of
Sages over whom Daniel presided, from that country
where Esther reigned a Queen, came the Witnesses of
the Nations to the cradle of the Lord.





196


PERSIAN AND HEBREW RELIGIONS.


CHAPTER XII.
RELATION OF THE PERSIAN AND THE HEBREW
RELIGIONS.
THE knowledge of the truth revealed at the beginning, and thence onward to the time when the family
of the Patriarch Noah was the Human Race, was saved
in one nation from its degeneracy in every other, by
an inspiration through which that Truth was preserved
without corruption. All other nations tried to do this,
but made the Word of God of none effect through vain
traditions.
These human trials prove the human need; these
human failures, the divine success. Had not God, with
one people, thus kept pure the knowledge of His Truth,
it would not have continued free from error; for elsewhere it did not. Had He not revealed His guidance
of this people, it could not have been clearly known.
In the other ancient nations, error and sin hide His
Truth and His Grace; in some nations less, in others
more; with all so much, that the history of their Religion can only be imperfectly written; nor would this
have been otherwise, had the most ample material for
it, of a merely human kind, survived.





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


197


The Religion of the Hebrews was holy: they themselves were so unholy, that it might be said, their
religion never was their religion. With histories of
them such as those of other nations are, it would not be
possible to do justice to their religion; nor would their
religion, if thus known, present the contrast it does to
those of other ancient nations - thoughts that might be
expanded into an argument for the Inspiration of their
Sacred Books.
The other nations went more on their own way.
Some were, at times, recalled towards the Lord; and
the illumination of His nearer presence, as in the earlier,
better days of the virtue of Rome, was followed by an
outshining of civilization, sooner or later darkening, as
again they went farther from the Light of the World.
Some were held by Him stationary on the same plane,
- as the Chinese, - or were suffered to sink from it by
scarcely perceptible degradation. Others were left to
wander farther and farther from the eastern morning
light, until the moral and spiritual distinctions between
them are lost in the undistinguishing darkness of barbarism.
These things seem to have been permitted, that, as
the individual learns by his errors what he would learn
in no other way, so a warning experience might be
wrought into the being of the human race. It seems
a part of the divine plan for the Redemption of Man,
to suffer many forms of departure from God, that the
nations may learn that each aberration from Him is an





198


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


advance towards ruin. This seems to be the continuing
history of man, which, changing its form, keeps its
spirit, as heathenism changes to what is called Christianity. Yet, while He " turneth man to destruction,"
by giving him up to his own will, God ever saith, with
even greater power of persuasion, "Return, ye children
of men!"
It is written, The wrath of man shall praise Him,
and the remainder Hie will restrain. This divine sufferance and restraint of Evil are parts of one plan, whose
relations to each other are none the less certain, because
it is impossible fully to learn how they unite in one
result. If, then, the error that has usurped the place
of Truth in the religions of men has been the occasion
of good, much more must good have abounded from
that indestructible and undestroyed Truth in them,
which, in the beginning, was the gift, and afterwards
the medium, of the mercy of God; - that Truth which,
quickening the moral sense, and thus giving for a time
a purity to the intellect, and a nobleness of purpose,
was the hidden but potent cause of civilizations of old,
such as that of Greece, from which ennobling influences
still continue.
In trying to learn something of the religions of the
world, the Bible aids us by revealing that the mercy of
the Lord is over all His works; that He made of one
blood all the nations of men, and determined the bounds
of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord;
and that in every nation, whosoever feared God, and





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


199


worked righteousness, was accepted with Him; through
its outline of the early history of mankind, and through
allusions to peoples other than the Hebrew: though, as
to these, little is told; for the Word never speaks to
gratify the pride of the human intellect.
All preceding antiquity has been very much hidden
by classical antiquity, as more distant are hidden by
nearer mountains. This ill-proportioned view of antiquity, which was practically restricted to Italy and
Greece, is opening into a larger and wiser vision; and
this is well; for classical antiquity is of modern date
compared with primeval antiquity, and the reminiscences of revealed truth with the Romans and the
Greeks were faint and few, compared with those of
older Eastern nations.
In the primeval revelation, and so in revelation even
when complete, there are only a few great truths, a few
great facts, a few precepts. All, the Law and the
Prophets are in the two commands, "Thou shlt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor
as thyself." Sublime truths! holy precepts! - precepts
of endless adaptations, and the germs of whole codes
of customs and laws; truths of endless self-revealing,
yet in number few. Were thought more turned to
the presence of these in the religion of the classic
nations, and their origin and preservation more intelligently referred to the grace of the Lord, more of the
affinity of all Truth would be discerned, through a
clearer perception of its comnmunity of Divine Origin.
But in Asia, rather than in Europe, the truest idea





200


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


of the religion of man is attainable. It is there history
most fully bears witness to the fact revealed- that God
gave to the whole human family, in its beginning, the
heritage of the Truth.
Freed from their accretions of error, all the ancient
religions are thus far the same. In them all are these
three elements: Truth Revealed, Truth discerned by
the Moral Reason, and the Grace of the Lord. To
understand something of the Relations of the various
forms of Religion to each other, and to Christianity,
is pre-requisite to any clear idea of the history of the
Redemption of man - that great purpose of God, the
central truth of all history, and without which there
could be no history. I propose to consider that Relation between the Persian and the Hebrew Religion, suggested by the Pilgrimage of Magi to Jerusalem.
As to this Relation, there have been three conjectures:
first, that Zoroaster was taught by Hebrew Prophets;
second, that several Leading Ideas of the Religion
of the Hebrews, which have since become Christian
doctrines, had their origin with the Persians; third,
that neither religion was in any way affected by the
other.
Dr. Hyde, appointed Professor of Hebrew at Oxford,
in 1697, maintained, with learning and zeal, the antiquity and purity of the Persian Religion; but in his
time, the means for investigating the history of Zoroaster were inadequate; and he fell into the error of
giving some credence to the fable, that he was a servant
of one of the IHebrew Prophets. He was exposed to





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


201


this error, because he fixed the time of Zoroaster in the
reign of Darius, B. C. 521-486, - the fourth Persian
monarch, the same against whose Generals the Athenians fought at Marathon.
In 1770, Anquetil Du Perron published a translation
of the Zendavesta, made from manuscripts found by
him in India. His brilliant discovery of these threw
new light upon the Zoroastrian religion; but so great
was the difficulty of accurately and thoroughly translating its old-time documents, that not until within a
very few years can this be said to have been accomplished. Dr. Martin Haug, who, following Du Perron's
track, went out to India, seeking the aid of the Parsees
in the study of their religion, in 1862 so far completed
the zealous inquiries began by other scholars, that the
facts as to the Zoroastrian religion are probably, in the
main, as definitely ascertained now as they ever will
be; and it only remains to determine its true significance and relation to other religions of the world.
Dr. Hyde, like some other scholars since his time,
was misled as to the Age of Zoroaster by some of the
Greek writers, who confounded the name of Darius
Hystaspes with that of a king or chief of a different
epoch, who was the friend of Zoroaster. The precise
date of this far earlier King, Vistaspa, cannot be ascertained; but it must have been before the conquest of all
Iran by the Assyrians, which was not far from twelve
hundred years before Christ. Professor Whitney places
the Age of Zoroaster at least one thousand years,
Spiegel two thousand years, Dr. Haug not less thlvx





202


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


a thousand, and probably more than fifteen hundred,
years before the Christian Era.
Zoroaster no more originated the religion associated
with his name, than Confucius did that of the Chinese,
or Elijah that of the Hebrews. Hie battled against
idolatrous tendencies, and confirmed the belief of his
people in one God. He was the Reformer, not the
Author of their faith.' He was one of a succession of
priests, who, like him, ministered before a flame of fire;
and he speaks of ancient customs and words. These
facts come out clearly in the few words that are indis-.
putably his; and from   them, and from   the age in
which he lived, it is certain that his religion can be
traced back t6 within a few centuries of the Flood.
The scene of his life was in Bactria, in the eastern part
of Iran; and that he knew anything of Abraham, is in
the last degree improbable; that he knew anything of
Moses, is incredible; and that he was taught by one
of the later Hebrew Prophets, is impossible. Yet such
notions might be maintained with some plausibility,2
so long as it was unknown that the word Zoroaster,
1 Dr. Haug thinks the struggle " may have lasted centuries before Zoroaster Spitama struck a death-blow at idolatry, and banished it from his native soil of Iran."
2 Some of the Mohammedan writers report that the Magi
traced their books to Abraham, whom they regarded as their
prophet. The Parsee priests invented this fable to escape
persecution, as only those religions were tolerated by the
Mohammedans, whose sacred books connected them with
Jewish Prophets acknowledged by Mohammed.





RELATION OF THE PERSIAM


203


though thought by the Greeks to be the name of an
individual, was a title, like that of Pope, and denoted
the head of the spiritual community among the Medes
and Persians.
The second opinion is as much an error as the first.
The germs of all those religious ideas of the Hebrews,
which have been developed into Christian doctrines, are
found in their scriptures long before they knew the
Persians.  Such little resemblance as there may be
between those ideas of the Hebrews and ideas of the
Persians, is hardly more than would naturally follow
from the influence of primal revelation in both nations,
and from the common element of the moral Reason.
None of those religious ideas of the Hebrew people
came through their acquaintance with any other people,
though the development of some of them may have
been quickened through their intercourse with other
nations, and especially with the Medes and the Persians.
This is probable; but even of this there is no direct
historical evidence.
A searching criticism would show that the seeming
resemblance between the Hebrew and the Persian religions is sometimes superficial, sometimes deceptive, and
sometimes illusive. Thus the Monotheism which, in
a large and charitable construction of it, must be ascribed to the religion of the Persians, in its creed is
marred by the prime error of dividing the work of
creation between Ahriman and Ormazd; and subsequently by the worship of Mithra, the Sun, which is
recognized in inscriptions of their Pontiff Kings, and
14





204


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


even in the Zendavesta itself, in its later, degenerate
teachings. The resemblance between the Hebrew and
the Persian idea of the Evil Spirit is deceptive. They
were radically different.  The plausible conjecture,
acceded to by Milman, - that the figurative language
of the New Testament referring to the element Light,
is borrowed from the Zoroastrian religion, - is illusive.
The root of this instructive and remarkable imagery
is in the sublime chapter that opens the revelation of
God. There, Light is the medium through which the
glory of God is revealed in the work of Creation. It is
in a forming world a form-giving element. According to
the Hebrew Scriptures, this element is in nature what
it is in the Temple - the Shekinah of the Divine Presence. It is the mantle of the Deity. The Almighty
challenges man to pierce through its mystery. Thus
inspiration, giving to the Hebrews of old all, and more
than all, the fulness of the modern thought, of one force
in nature,1 made this inscrutable and universal element
the very breath of the presence of Him in whom all
things live and move and have their being. This mysterious element is the symbol of the Creating Word of
God, who, incarnate in the form of man, is the brightness of the Father's glory; that which is revealed of
the presence and work of this element in the material
1 See The Church and Science, or the Ancient Hebraic
Idea of Creation. Part II. Chap. iii., The First Cycle in
Creation; Chap. viii., Light representing the One Force in
the Inorganic World. Andover, 1860.





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


205


creation, making it the most fitting image of Christ the
Lord in the spiritual creation. When it is said in the
New Testament, "In Him was Life, and the Life was
the Light of men," it is in a revelation which commences
in the very words that begin the Old, which throughout
pointedly refers to the record of the Creation, and bor
rows this figure from it; and all the frequent language
in the New Testament is conformed to this image. It
is the recurrence of very similar language in the Old,as any reader of the Bible, with merely the aid of a
Concordance, can prove for himself. Does St. John
speak of walking in the light? Isaiah had said, "Come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord." Does St. James
speak of God as "the Father of Lights"? It was written of old, "God said, Let there be light, and there was
light."  Does St. Paul say, " God dwelleth in light unapproachable "?  It was written of old, "He covereth
Himself with light as with a garment;" and, "He
dwelleth in light." Did Christ say, "I am the Light
of the world"? It was said of Him of old, "I will
give Thee for a light to the Gentiles: The people that
sat in darkness saw a great light: The Lord shall be
thy everlasting light."
In the first frenzy of discovery in Egyptian archaeology, there was a strong disposition in some, more
learned than wise, to refer the origin of many of the
religious ideas of the Hebrews, and most of their usages,
to the Egyptians. Gradually this notion has faded out.
It may now and then revisit the glimpses of the moon,
when some garrulous man, or silly woanman maunders





20(6


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


in the tombs of Egypt; but what the traveller's dilated
eyes seem to see, is the sickly ghost of an error that
is dead and buried in a grave deep and secure, and
where there are few mourners. So it will be with tho
perverse and reckless assertion of the Persian origin of
any of the truths of the Christian religion.
On this subject the opinion of Dr. Haug is good
authority.1 He says, "The Zoroastrian religion exhibits even a close affinity to, or rather identity with,
several important doctrines of the Mosaic religion and
Christianity, such as the personality and attributes of
the Devil, and the resurrection of the dead, which are
both ascribed to the religion of the Magi, and are really
to be found in the present scriptures of the Parsees.
It is not to be ascertained whether these doctrines were
borrowed by the Parsees from the Jews, or by the Jews
from the Parsees: very likely neither is the case, and
in both religions they seem to have sprung up independently." 2
1 Bunsen, in " God in History," Book III. chap. vi. p. 292,
speaks of the " important discoveries of this distinguished
scholar." Bunsen himself says, in the same work, p. 284,
" The myth invented by German scholars of the purely Persian origin of the Hebrew traditions, belongs to the infancy
and nonage of research into the Book of Genesis- a misleading hypothesis, which ought not in decency to be mentioned, at this time of day, by any scientific man."
2 Essays, pages 2, 3. He adds: " In the Zendavesta we
meet with only two words which may be traced to the Semitic
languages, neither of them referring to religioois subjects.
La the later books of the Old Testament we find several Pcr




RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


207


The fact is, that when the Christian mind comes to
the study of the monuments of the Persian religion, it
"is at first struck with its seeming or real resemblance to
the Hebraic and Christian systems, and the same is the
case, in some measure, with other religions; but the
more it compares them, the more it sees and feels their
difference, until nearly all feeling or sense of the likeness is wisely lost in that of the diversity. In the study
of the one there is an ever growing perception of the
errors of men; in the other, of the wisdom of God.
The extreme of opinion in one direction is apt to
beget an extreme of error in an opposite direction.
Such may be the case with some, who, in opposition to
the second, hold to the last of the three opinions before
stated. This opinion grows out of the feeling that the
religion of the chosen and peculiar people could not
have owed anything to that of any other people; and
surely, even the Persians, though not to be confounded
with the heathen, were not as the Israelites, "to whom
pertained the adoption,... and of whom, as concerning
the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed
forever."  But as the Drama of the World unfolds il.
accordance with the determinate counsel of God, it can
hardly be that He could have brought two nations, so
highly favored of Him, into such close relations, and
sian words, and many names; but these have nothing to do
with religion. The most famous of' these Persian words in
the Old Testament, now spread throughout the world, is the
word Paradise, which meant originally a park, a beautiiul
garden fenced in."





208


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


they not have put forth upon each other more or less of
mutual religious influence.
The Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman, oppressed
the people of Israel.  In this they accomplished the
will of God, but did so unwittingly and unwillingly.
The Persian was the intelligent and willing servant
of God in saving the people of Israel from destruction.  He broke in pieces their chains; he restored
them to Jerusalem. Well might Israel sing, "When
the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were
like them that dream.   Then was our mouth filled
with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then
said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done
great things for them."  Dream-like, indeed, the swift
transition from their slavery, in the last night of Babylon, to the morning, when, bearing with it the golden
vessels of the Temple, the caravan of home-returning
exiles moved from the Plain of Shinar to the heights of
Jerusalem! If God, "for his servant Jacob's sake,"
raising the Persians to the height of dominion, thus permitted them to minister to Israel in things temporal, is it
inconceivable, that He may have ordained they should
also minister to Israel in things that were spiritual?
It is an unquestioned opinion, that in one respect
they did. The chastening of their exile brought the
children of Israel nearer to their God: their restoration
to Zion made them grateful to Him, and the fear and
love thus strengthened in their souls tended to keep
them from the apostasy of other days. But this is
to be attributed, in some d gree, to their witness of





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


209


the fact, that the people who had cast down the Might
of the Heathen, worshipped the God of Heaven.
The lesson of Persian monotheism, dominant over the
World, concurring with the Divine monitions of their
history, goes far to explain why the Hebrews, after
their Captivity, though the living voice of prophecy was
dying away, were more firm in their faith than when
Elijah confounded the priests of Baal.
If it be conceded that the belief of the Hebrews in
one God was strengthened by their knowledge of the
Persian religion, why must the effect of that religion
upon them for good be restricted to this one doctrine?
Surely, none was greater; and as to this very doctrine,
the Persian religion was darkly in error. If it be said
that there is no direct evidence of any influence as to
any other doctrine, it is equally true as to this. There
is a strong probability that it was so; and there is the
same as to their belief in the Devil, in the Angelic
World, and in the Resurrection. The first fact in the
case is, that there was a great development of each of
these doctrines in the Hebrew mind, in the five hundred
years between the close of the Old Testament and the
time of the New. The question is, Did their knowledge
of the Persians contribute to this?
The germ of the whole Christian doctrine is in the
third chapter of Genesis; and if so, of course, of its
doctrine of an Evil Being, who is the Adversary of
man. That chapter is in sharp contrast to the spirit
and genius of the Persian idea of the creation of the
world, in which was involved his idea of the origin of





210


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


evil. It follows the grandly and purely monotheistic
opening of the book of Genesis, where each thing in
Heaven and in Earth is the creation of one God, and
each and all, again and again, is pronounced good.
Into this good world evil enters in the guise of a serpent. In what follows, God will not even name the
Tempter. His words, at first, seem only to and of the
Serpent; and the personality of the Spirit, who through
this medium wrought the Fall of man, is manifest only
in the darkly luminous prophecy of enmity between his
seed and the seed of the woman, and of his future
destruction. Compare this with Zoroaster's conception
of twin Spirits - each of them eternal, each a Creator;
one of whom creates the good, and the other the evil,
of the world; which is essentially the same heresy that,
in a later age, God reproved in the Persian Cyrus, saying, "I am the Lord, and there is ione else. I form
the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and
create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things."
Or compare this chapter of Genesis with the statement of Theopompus of Chios, B. C. 300, preserved by
Plutarch, that, according to the Magi, two hostile Gods
ruled the earth for successive periods, each of three
thousand years - a statement that substantially appears
in the " Bundehesh," an authoritative collection of
Zoroastrian traditions made subsequent to A. D. 226,
the date of the later kingdom of the Persians, and of a
concurrent revival of their nationality and religion. It
will thus be seen, there was a sharp and clear difference
and opposition of ideas, us to the Evil Spirit, in the





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


211


Hebrew and the Persian creeds, even from the earliest
to the latest hour of the Zoroastrian religion.
It may be said, if the Persian idea of the Evil Spirit
was so different from the Hebrew, and so great an
error, it could not have had an influence for good on the
Hebrew belief. But error is often the occasion of the
development of Truth; and it is easy to see how it may
have been in this case. A mysterious allusion there
was to a Deliverer to come, in words of God, spoken
not to man, but in the hearing of man, in the hour of
his ruin, enkindling a great and sure hope, yet without
distinctness of form; words of might, since spoken by
the Almighty, but rather to be cherished in the musing
and believing heart, than clear to the intellect. Whatever the reason why the knowledge of a Redeemer to
come was veiled in the enigma of the words in which
it was breathed into the soul of the Father of mankind,
since this was so, there would have been no wisdom in
the bringing out more clearly the existence of the Evil
Spirit, the effect of whose Tempting was an ever-present
evidence of his being and power. It is evidence of this,
that, almost everywhere throughout the primeval world,
there was a worship that is best accounted for by assuming that it grew out of a perverted reminiscence, even
of this wisely reticent and guarded revelation - the
worship of the Snake, the low medium of the Dark
Spirit. Nor would it have become the tender mercy
and loving-kindness of the Lord to the children of the
dust, to have terrified them by a revelation of all that
might have been made known of the power anl might





212


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


of the Adversary of the Human Soul, so long as the
Being who was to destroy him could not be made manifest. But the reasons for this reserve ceased when the
tendency to idolatry was dead in the Hebrew mind, and
was dying out in many of the nations, and the hearts of
the pious in Israel were quickened to a strong and clear
belief in a spiritual Redeemer, whose coming drew nigh.
In the earliest human hour, two Antagonists, whose
field is the world, whose prize the Human Race, are
darkly manifest. When in the fulness of time all that
was then shadowed forth, and all the truths related to
it, were brought to light, there were seen mighty and
all-pervading influences in the Human World proceeding from beings not of flesh and blood; and Christ the
Lord directing those influences of good, overruling those
of evil; while, at the head of an opposing host, Satan
contends, with ever less and less of consequence, against
Him. The human history and the soul attest to these
facts as revealed. But alike in the limitations of the
knowledge of Truth, and in the guarded, gradual unfolding of it, the wisdom of God is only less adorable
than in the making it known. Much of this glory, and
therefore of this darkness, was hidden of old. The
wisdom and mercy of God would not permit that the
dominion of the Prince of this World, of the Prince of
the Power of the Air, should be fully manifest, until the
time of the manifestation of Him who came to destroy
the works of the Devil.
The dark eminence of the Evil Spirit, in the creed
of that great People with whom the relations of the





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


213


Hebrews had been so providential, was well fitted, as
the right time approached for the full unfolding of the
true doctrine from its germ in the third chapter of
Genesis, to compel the Hebrews to search out more
earnestly than ever before, and to appreciate the truth,
as it was, in that ancient oracle.
Angels are known to the records of the Hebrew
religion from early time; but there is a reticence as to
them, like that marked before, and, it may be, having
a like cause. What the Israelites had, first of all, to
learn for all nations, was the truth, that the Lord God
was one Lord. Too early a development among them
of the knowledge of the existence of malignant beings
not of flesh and blood, would have been followed by a
superstitious and idolatrous worship of them, that would
have come between God and his people, even more
fatally than that which they borrowed from the nations
around them.
The reserve as to the Evil Spirit may have a relation
to this reserve as to angelic beings. If the origin and
much of the presence of Evil in the earth be attributed
to one Being, it is difficult not to clothe him with something like ubiquity and omnipresence, and so to make
of him a god - the heresy of the Persian creed. There
is something of safeguard against this in the idea of a
host of evil spirits, to one of whom, as their chief, all
that is done by them all is attributed; as all that was
done by his million of soldiers in France, in Italy, in
Egypt, in Spain, or Russia, is ascribed to Napoleon.
Thus it may have been that both of these doctrines
were held back, and both brought forward together,





214


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


The idea of angels, dimly conceived of by Zoroaster, was rapidly and fully developed in the Zoroastrian
system - perhaps, in the providence of God, as some
counteractive to its great central error; and it is very
probable that, through the influence of that system, the
Hebrew idea of angelic worlds, which, however, was by
no means identical with the Persian, reached its fulness.
This idea attains almost to certainty, when, in the Visions of Daniel, angels appear with names, - though
these are pure Hebrew,  and with gradations of rank,
and the nations are under their watch and ward.
The doctrine of the Resurrection had its germ in the
third chapter of Genesis; for Death to the soul and
the body having followed the coming of the mysterious
Adversary of man, life to both will assuredly follow the
coming of the mysterious Friend of man. This hope
arose in the mind of the pious Israelite, as, believing to
the fullest in the word and power of God, he mused on
His darkly-clear language of old; and it was confirmed
to him by the translation of Enoch in bodily form into
the heavens, and by the like translation of the prophet
Elijah. But it was a hope that had no definiteness of
time or form. The Persian boldly and erroneously
enlarged the primeval doctrine. He first conceived of
equal gods; but, happily inconsistent in error, made
one of them completely triumphant over the other, anO
so rushed on to the belief in his complete victory over
the Grave. Little indeed he knew through Whom that
victory would be won, and how! Still there was something that was right and true in his thought; and here,





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


215


as before, it is very suggestive of an influence of the
Persian upon the Hebrew mind, that the first clear
revelation of the Resurrection, although there are some
intimations of it in other of the Prophets, is made by
the Prophet Daniel.
That he taught the Persians,1 is proved by the Pil1 The belief of the Persians in the Resurrection was known
to the Greeks, B. C. 300. It is in the Zendavesta. It is
a logical sequence of its leading thoughts; and there was a
sign of this truth in the primeval world. There seems, then,
no reason for referring its origin or development among
them to the Hebrews. Not so with their idea of the Sosiosh. (See page 92.)  This may have had its source far
back in the primeval faith. But in the first brief allusion to
him, he is born out of the water Kacoya, and so seems a
spirit or god; in the second, he is a man. This is remarkable, as the legend-forming current runs the other way.
Thus, in the earliest part of the Zendavesta, -which, on this
very account, is to be received as historical, - Zoroaster is
a teacher, with nothing legendary about him. Before the
'end of the growth of the Zendavesta, he becomes almost a
god; and many are the strange legends told of him by later
Parsees - such as, after their conversion by the Arabs, the
Persians told of Mahomet. A similar development would
be the natural one of their idea of the Sosiosh, which, as
first obscurely uttered, tends that way. Probably the change
in it was wrought by the influence of Daniel, and some slight
trace of a likeness to the doctrine of the Messiah thus grafted
into the Zendavesta. Some of the few who can decipher
that book think it older than the reign of Cyrus, judging
from the language of the Achammenian inscriptions. This
must be accepted for the present. But the Magian Literature grew till Alexander's time; and sections may have
been added to this book under the Achwnmenian kings, though





216


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


grimage of Magi to Jerusalem. He may have learned
from them. If they had any reminiscences or intuitions
of truth that were more full and clear than they were,
at that time, among his own people, this would have
been discerned by the "man of Desires."2 His the
mind to understand, his the heart to'appreciate, whatever there was of truth in the religion of Ormazd.
That religion had its origin in the primeval revelation.
In it there were gleams of orient light, though intermingled with gross darkness. Veins of pure water
were there,. though bubbling up in the wide and stagnant morass. They had no unintermitting source, no
channel to keep them clean and clear of the marsh, no
onward, purifying motion, like the River "the streams
whereof make glad the City of God;" yet the Prophet's
wand may have called forth from the morass waters to
swell that River. He who saw so clearly the truth of
God afar off in the ages to come, may have seen it very
nigh in the souls of those among whom his lot was cast,.
Such truth, accredited to him by the Divine Spirit, and
by it freed from all human error, he may have commended to his own people, and have made it part of the
everlasting oracle of man.
the opinion above be in the main correct. After all, the idea
of the Sosiosh is so little like the clear, consistent Prophetic
prevision of the Christ, that the matter is of little importance.
2 Daniel ix. 23; x. 11. " Thou art a man of Desires,"
are the words of the angel to Daniel, according to the Marginal Reading in the English Bible. So, too, the Vulgate:
" Vir desideriorum es." The idea seems to be - a man desirous to know all truth.





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


217


Whether he did so or not is a question of fact, to be
settled, if it can be settled at all, by its appropriate
evidence. As to the effect of that evidence, different
minds may come to different conclusions; but the notion that it was impossible, because it would derogate
from Christianity, comes from too narrow an idea of
the genesis and history of our Religion.
The religion that was before the Hebrews were -
that is our religion. Great truths and facts, such as
the Being and Spirituality of God; such as His Creation of the Heavens and the Earth; the unity of the
Human Race; the temptation by the Evil One, and
the Fall of Man; the Redeemer to come; the institution of Sacrifice, with all that is implied therein; truths
and facts of higher moment than the illustrations or
confirmations of them in the providence of God towards
the Hebrews, and which may be viewed apart from
them; - these truths and facts are the substance and
soul of our ancient religion, and all these were " before
Abraham was."
So, too, were many holiest men. The Priest of the
Most High God, the mysterious Melchizedec, to whom
Abraham paid tithes, was not a Hebrew; nor was Noah,
who brought the records of the church across the dissevering Flood; nor Enoch, whose translation into the
Heavens intimated to the early church that the body
might share in the immortality of the soul; nor Abel,
whose sacrifice prefigured the sacrifice of the Lord; nor
Adam, who held converse with GOD.
The Religion which built the first altar to the Living





218


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


and only GOD, and offered the first sacrifice after the
Flood, embraced all then on the earth, and from them
all now on the earth have sprung. That religion everywhere had an ally in the conscience; and doubtless in
every nation it had allies in some who listened to the
divine and the human oracle. Though perverted, corrupted, and partially forgotten, yet it may be discerned
as an element in the religion of all nations -in some
that have ceased to be, and in those that are: nowhere
have its traces been wholly obliterated.
The Hebrews received this universal, primeval religion through Abraham. Amnong them it was fostered by
rites and ceremonies that made them a peculiar people,
even as they were, in some periods of their history,
a solitary people.  It was preached among them by
inspired prophets and teachers.  The Lord himself
perfected this religion, which, before Abraham's day,
he had instituted among men.    He did away with
all that in it was local; made that which in it was
partial, complete; established that which in it was universal and everlasting; and commissioned all His people everywhere to preach throughout all the world, that
this fulness of Truth by Him revealed was, and was to
be forever, the Religion of mankind.
The Hebrews were chosen of GOD, as a people, to
keep for us the Truth that was of old. They were
chosen, that through them might be revealed the providence and government of the Lord in the earth, and
their history become a parable of instruction to all nations through all time. The line of Abraham and the





RELATION OF THE PERSIAN


219


nouse of David were chosen, that there might be prepared a family where the Holy Child, predicted from
the beginning, might grow in wisdom and stature, and
in favor with God and man, when unto us was born
the Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.
The truth which the Hebrews kept for us, they
regarded as truth that was of old, and as truth that
was for all. They alone, of all the ancient nations,
faithfully remembered the three great, inseparable truths
- the Unity of GOD, the Unity of the World, and the
Unity of the Human Race. They faithfully registered
the chronicle of the Dispersion of the Nations.  The
genealogy of their family was a branch of the genealogy of the family df man. They felt themselves at
one" with all the people of God, in all the ages before they were a people. The words of Moses, as his
thoughts ran far back of Abraham's day, and past even
the Flood, till they lost themselves in the Everlasting
Days of the Beginning, are, "Lord, thou hast been
our dwelling-place in all generations."
The Hebrews recognized inspiration in Job; they
recognized inspiration even in Balaam. The narrowness that would not recognize it anywhdre was no part
of the character of the Hebrews, and was abhorrent to
the spirit of their religion. The First Temple was built
with the friendly aid of Phoenician Tyre: at its dedication Solomon prayed for the stranger. The Second
Temple was built with Persian aid: in that Temple
Simeon spoke of the Lord, not only as " the glory of
Israel," but as "a light to lighten the Gentiles," and
15





220


AND THE HEBREW RELIGIONS.


of His "salvation," as " prepared for.all people."  St.
Paul recognized an element of truth in the religion
of Athens, and made the words of one of the Poets
of Greece part of the Divine Oracle. St. Matthew
recorded the homage to the infant Redeemer, of Sages
from a foreign land. The Lord Himself said, He had
sheep not of the Hebrew fold.
Down to Abraham's day, the truth in the Bible was
not of Jewish origin on its human side; it was not
wholly so afterwards. Job, in whose thoughts and
words there is not a trace of the Law given on Mount
Sinai, was not a Jew.
The Bible is not a Hebrew Book. The Bible is the
Book of Man. It is a divine record of Truth revealed
before Abraham's day - Truth which it pleased God to
preserve, through the children of Abraham, free from all
taint of their sins and errors, yet made more clear and
impressive by those sins and errors.   It is no less
glorious, if, on its human side, this Truth be in part
Chaldean, or Egyptian, or Persian; while it is of no
consequence as to its authority, since it reaches us
through inspired men, free from its corruptions on other
lips, and pure as it breathed from on high.





APPENDIX,










APPENDIX.


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.
IN Chapter II., the meaning of these terms, as used
by St. Matthew, is determined by geographical and
historical considerations. As that Chapter, in its present form, sufficiently accomplishes its immediate purpose, and the longer consideration of its subject there,
would break in too much on the unity of the book, I
have transferred to this place an important part of it,
as originally written.  It points out a relation between the two Greek terms used by St. Matthew and
two corresponding words in the Hebrew, that justifies the explanation df his use of the former, so far as
it depends upon antecedent Hebraic usage; and it answers objections that may be brought against the positions taken in that Chapter.
In descriptive terms the Hebrew language was very
rich.1 It had five names for the West, and seven for
the South. For the East it had two, KEDEM and
1 "No less than four different Hebrew words are rendered in English by the term valley." -- Robinson's Physical
Geography of the Holy Land, Sec. II. p. 70.





224:


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


MIZRACH. Mizrach meant the rising, i. e., of the sun.'
Kedem meant before.
It was indifferent whether Kedem   or Mizrach was
used, when direction merely was meant. In other
cases, there was a difference in their expression of their
common idea.     The more poetical and imaginative
Mizrach had the wider meaning.      Each carried the
eye in an easterly direction; but Mizrach farther than
Kedem; as in these sentences, where they are used together: "on the east side eastwards,"2 " eastwards towards the sun-rising."  Mizrach is used when the East
is the antithesis of the West, as in this line, " as far
as the East is from the West; " or of any other quarter of the globe; or where it is intended to make the
impression of distance strong.4  But when the four quarters of the globe are designated, Kedem, the more definite of the two words, is used; as in this sentence:
" Thou shalt spread abroad to the West and to the East,
and to the North and to the South."
1 This is sometimes joined with it.- Dent. iv. 41. 47;
Jud. xi. 18; Is. xli. 25.
2 Ex. xxvii. 13; Josh. xix. 12.
3 Ps. ciii. 12; Ps. 1. 1.; cxiii. 3; Josh. xi. 3; Zach. viii. 7.
4 Dan. viii. 9; xi. 44; Amos viii. 12; Ps. cvii. 3; Is.
xliii. 5.
I Gen. xxviii. 14, and in Gen. xiii. 14; Job xxiii. 8, 9;
Ezek. xlvii. 17, 18, 19, 20. See, in Smith's Dictionary of
the Bible, the admirable Article on the East, whose value is
out of all proportion to its brevity, by W. L. Bevan, the first
to note the distinction between the two forms of Anatole in
Matthew ii., and their relations to the two Hebrew words
Mizrach and Kedem.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


225


Each has, at times, a geographical sense; Mizrach
rarely, Kedem frequently. This sense corresponds to
their respective compass. Thus, Mizrach, used with a
geographical significance, twice denotes Persia;1 while
Kedem never crosses the eastern line of the Plain of
the Euphrates and the Tigris. Usually the geographical sense of Mizrach was not definite in itself, but from
the context.  Kedem, as has been shown in Chapter
II., though its application differed in different ages, was
used as a geographical name, whose well-established and
well-defined meaning was clear and sure inf itself.
After the Captivity, the Jews of Palestine spoke as
their native tongue a local dialect of that wide-spread
Shemitic language known as the Syro-Chaldaic, or the
Aramean, -a language closely allied to the Hebrew.
At the Christian era, they also spoke an Oriental and
Hebraized dialect of the Greek language. The correctness of these two propositions is here assumed without
argument, save the remark that there is evidence of the
latter in the following narrative, taken from the twentyfirst chapter of the Acts of the Apostles:" The Jews which were of Asia, when they saw Paul
in the Temple, stirred up all the people, and laid
hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help. This
is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the
people, and the law, and this place..... And all the
city was moved, and the people ran together: and
they took Paul, and drew him out of the Temple. And
forthwith the doors were shut. And as they went about
2 Isa. xli. 2; xlvi. 11.





226


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the
band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down
unto them; and when they saw the chief captain and
the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. Then the chief
captain came near, and took him, and commanded him
to be bound with two chains, and demanded who he
was, and what he had done. And some cried one
thing, some another among the multitude; and when
he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle. And when
he came upon the stairs, so it was, that he was borne
of the soldiers for the violence of the people. For the
multitude of the people followed after, crying, away
with him."
In this graphic picture, it is seen that the whole city
was drawn together, and not merely the Greek-speaking
Jews of Asia, who at the first "stirred up all the
people." Paul then besought of the captain of the
guard that he might speak to them. "And when he
had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and
beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when
there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in
the Hebrew tongue, saying, Men, brethren, and fathers,
hear ye my defence which I make now unto you."
This note of the language that he chose to use makes
it sure that he had the choice of another language, which
the people would have understood, and were accustomed
to hear. It is clear that this is so, even without the
remark which St. Luke interposes between these words





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


227


and the speech that followed, - " and when they heard
that he spoke in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept
the more silence."   St. Paul here showed the. same
address as when he spake on Mars' Hill to the men of
Athens; and somewhat conciliated the people because
he appealed to their national feelings by speaking to
them  in their native tongue, and not in the Greek,
which he might have used.
As these two languages had then for a long time
been in common use among the Jews of Palestine, their
flexible Greek dialect must have been somewhat modifled by their more rigid native dialect; and there is
this direct evidence that the word Anatole did undergo
some change of form in the local Greek of Palestine. In
classical Greek, as used for the East, it is in the plural,
and without the article, but in the Greek of Josephus
it is to be found in the singular and with the article.'
This fact will hereafter serve another important purpose; here, it is used only as proof that Anatole was
somewhat altered, as to its form, in Palestinian Greek.
For Josephus prided himself on his Greek, and so it is
clear that in his departures, as to this word, from classical usage, he unwittingly followed the usage of the
1 Antiq. I. i. 3. 7tTQ  V iivUirol'v God planted a Paradise in
the East. De Bell. Jud. II. x. 2; III. iii. 3; V. iv. 2.,
xii. 2. In these places it does not have the article. He
uses it in the singular with the article. Antiq. VIII. iii. 2,
6; TIQS Tr~y drvuio)v. Proem De Bell. Jud. II. xvi. 4; IV.
x. v; VI. vi. 1. He also used it in the plural, both without
the article and with it. Antiq. V. i. 22; VIII. v. 3.





228


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


Greek he was accustomed to speak as a Jew of Palestine.
It is so natural, that it may almost, or quite, be taken
for certain, that the native dialect of the Hebrews conformed to itself some of the more common descriptive
terms in the flexible Greek dialect, when each had been
spoken for some considerable time by that people; and
it is so reasonable to suppose that the Hebrew terms
Mizrach and Kedem thus came to have equivalents in
Palestinian colloquial Greek, that a very little direct
evidence would establish it as a fact.' The usage of
St. Matthew is such evidence. For this theory clearly
and satisfactorily explains his usage, and the meanings
given to his terms, in conformity with it, are upheld by
such a variety of historical and geographical facts, and
by such general considerations, all harmonizing in one
result, that there is no reason to doubt that thus his
terms are correctly interpreted.
It is true that no trace of his usage is to be found in
the Septuagint.   But should it be looked for there?
The scholars, who made this translation of the Hebrew
As to the presence in the Aramean language,, as spoken
by the Jews in Palestine, of terms substantially like those of
the Hebrew, - which is all that the argument requires, -it
may be said, both were such terms that this could hardly
have been otherwise; and Kedem as a proper name would
certainly keep some place when the kindred Arameau was
substituted for the Hebrew. The Hebrew was a cultivated
dialect of the Aramean, the original language. Now, Mizrach and Kedem are found in the very oldest Hebrew, in
the familiar converse of the Patriarchs.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


229


Bible, conformed its Greek, so far so they well could,
to classical usage. They do not attempt to give exact
equivalents for Mizrach and Kedem. They do not try
to discriminate between them. They render both by
the plural of Anatole without the article. Their translation was made long before the time of St. Matthew's
Gospel. It was made outside of Palestine; and it is
not probable that the Greek spoken by the LXX. was
much, if any, modified by a Hebrew dialect spoken at the
same time with it;1 while the explanation of the two
forms of Anatole in St. Matthew is based upon the
facts that for a long time two dialects had been spoken
by the Jews in Palestine, and that his usage was local
and colloquial.
It may be inquired, whether the true answer to the
earnestly-debated question, Did St. Matthew write
his Gospel in Aramean or in Greek? together with that
of the questions connected with it, would confirm or
invalidate the opinion here maintained? However that
problem may be settled, its decision would not affect it
much, if at all. That question has usually been discussed as if the supposition must be, that he wrote it
only in one language. But he may have composed his
Gospel in one of the two dialects which he spake, and
then have turned it into the other; have first written
it in his native tongue, and then have re-written it in
1 It is worthy of note in this connection, that PhiloJudaeus, one of the most learned of the Alexandrian Jews,
of the first century, seems to have been ignorant of the
Hebrew language.





230


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


that Greek with which he and his countrymen were so
familiar. This he could easily and quickly have done,
as the manuscript is so brief; and it would seem that he
could hardly have done otherwise. By this natural and
probable supposition various difficulties may be easily
solved, and all the facts in the base readily harmonized
into a consistent whole. If he did so, how very natural
it would be for him to give the equivalents in the Greek
dialect for the two words in his native tongue; and he
would do this if he composed his Gospel in the Greek
only.
Against the whole argument in Chapter II. -of which
this Appendix is to be taken as a part -to prove that
in St. Matthew, r? xvaioj, the East, means Babylonia,
and aimoXwv, the Far East, means Persia, there are
some facts that might be alleged.
1. No parallel usage is to be. found in the whole
compass of the Hebraic-Greek literature from the time
of the close of the Canon of the Old Testament to that
of the final ruin of the Jewish nation, about fifty years
after the Fall of Jerusalem, in the reign of the Emperor
Adrian (A. D. 120), when the Jews were utterly
driven out of Judea.'
Before attempting to reply to the argument embodied
in this statement, it may be well to restate the proposition against which it may be alleged, viz.: That in
his Gospel, St. Matthew used the same local, popular
1 See Translation of Miinter's Jeoish War, by W. W.
Turner, in the Bibliolheca Sacra, No. III., 1843.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


231


names for Babylonia and Persia that he would have used
in common conversation; and to call to mind that with
other evidence for this proposition, there were these
facts, that he was an unlettered man, and wrote primarily and peculiarly for his countrymen.'
The argument before stated, as one that might be
brought against this proposition, has much of seeming
force, but there are several considerations, some of
which singly, and certainly all of them collectively,
seem to be a sufficient answer to it. First. The verification and  illustration from  general miscellaneous
literature of any historical or geographical phrase is
quite a thing of chance. That it is possible to trace so
clearly and fully in the literature of the Hebrews the
use of the term, the East, with its different meanings,
in different circumstances and times, is remarkable.
It is a fair illustration of the wonderful clearness with
which the whole life of the Hebrews of old, their manners, customs, modes of speech and forms of thought,
their country and themselves, are mirrored in their
Scripture - a minuteness, a fulness, a faithfulness of
national self-portraiture, that makes their literature such
1 It would strengthen the argument that follows, here to
add -in Judea: and, from     an inquiry made as to the
date, the plan of his Gospel, and the circumstances in which
it was written, it seems to me that there are very strong reasons to think that it would thus more exactly state the fact.
But to draw out the evidence of this would lead far away,
and the statement made in the text, the correctness of which
will be generally conceded, so far suffices for my purpose,
that this may be dispensed with.





232


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


as it should be, since it is that of the people and the
land that are the centre of all human memory.
Second. The clear and thorough understanding of the
position, against which this argument may be alleged,
goes far to answer it. For the usage in question is not
that of a man of the schools, writing in the artificial
style of rhetoricians, but of a man of the people, who
in this case chose to use local and colloquial terms,
idioms of the popular speech. If so, the probability is
strong indeed that general literature will not illustrate
and verify his usage and meaning. Thus, in this
country, some years since, a series of political letters
were published in a volume called " Letters from Down
East." All understood by this phrase, the State of
Maine; but if, some thousands of years hence, this book,
by some strange chance, shall have survived the mutations of states and of language, it is quite possible that
all the learned geographies and histories of this time
and nation, then extant, might then be searched in vain
to find out what was meant by a phrase now so familiar
to the lips of a part of our people, and through them
known to the whole.
Third. The literature referred to, as now extant, is
by no means large. It may be said to consist of the
Apocrypha, the New Testament, the writings of Philo
and Josephus, and perhaps some small part of the
Apocryphal Gospels.1 Now, surely, it would not be
1 These would not come within the later of the termini
before assigned to this literature, but it is hardly certain
that any part of them belongs to it, and in other respects





THE EAST AND THE EAR, EAST.


233


strange if the writings of a single English author should
not furnish any illustration of some peculiar English
phrase, yet there are English authors whose writings
exceed in compass the whole of this literature. More
than half of it is so purely of a didactic, moral, and
religious kind, that it must in a great measure be laid
out of the account. Almost all of it was written outside
of Palestine, so that a local Palestinian usage, even were
it more than a colloquial and popular expression, would
not be found or referred to in it, except by rarest accident, the merest chance. Thus, for these reasons, it is
not to be looked for in the writings of Philo, nor in
parts of the Apocrypha ascribed to Alexandrian Jews.
It is also to be remembered that in most of the lands in
which the Jews were found, St. Matthew's names for
Babylonia and Persia would not have been locally appropriate; and, that a Jew of Palestine could have found,
in the Greek, names he might think more fitting, as
more generally intelligible.
In the New Testament there is but one place where to
look for this usage; and that is in the enumeration by
St. Peter of the countries from which there were Jews
present in Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost.1 Even
then as he was speaking to an assembly largely made
up of men from foreign parts, it is by no means certain
that he would use a local phrase, or, if he did, St.
Luke mayhave translated this into the common speech
that date is so satisfactory, that it would be hypercritical
to object to it on this account.
1 Acts ii. 9, 10, 11.





234


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


of the world. But the Apostle's enumeration, though
comprehensive, is not exhaustive. He neither mentions
Babylonia, nor the great Jewish settlement beyond the
Tigris, in Adiabene, the seat of the old Assyrian kingdom, to which King Agrippa said the Jews of Palestine
looked so earnestly for aid in their great war with Rome.
Perhaps, this was in both cases because the fact was so
well known and apparent; for he mentions some countries, the representatives from which must have been
few indeed. He names Parthians and Medes from beyond the Tigris; Elamites from near the southern part
of the Country of the Two Rivers; dwellers in Mesopotamia, its northern part; but those of its great central
region are not spoken of. Nor is there any mention of
the country of Babylonia in the New Testament, save
that of St. Matthew; though the name of the City of
Babylon occurs in the Apocalypse, and in the First
Epistle of St. Peter.
The volumes of Josephus are freighted with miscellaneous lore, but the second proposition stated above
almost forbids any hope of finding in them the popular,
colloquial phrase of St. Matthew. And more than this,
he could not have used it, for this decisive reason, which
applies with equal force to Philo-Judaeus: In their
writings that have come down to us, they addressed
the Roman world; and, in their time, with the Greeks
and the -Romans the East was the name for Syria.
The conclusion, then, is, that the argument against
the interpretation that has been given to St. Matthew's
terms, frotm the absence of similar usage in the HIebraic




THE EAST AND THE PAR EAST.


235


Greek literature referred to, is found, on examination,
to have little or no appreciable weight.
2. Next, let us consider the argument against this
interpretation, in the fact that ancient tradition makes
the Wise Men Arabs.      In the second century, Justin Martyr speaks of them as from Arabia.' Justin was
born at Shechem, in Samaria, which might seem to give
very especial weight to his opinion. But, in history,
language, and origin, the people of Samaria were distinct from the Jews of Judea and Galilee, and the
reasons given for St. Matthew's usage by no means
apply with the same force to the Samaritans.2
1 01 &o 'Aqoutas Mayot.- Dial. cum. Tryph. Sec. 78, 102.
2 Though not strictly in place here, the following note is
too important to be omitted. Some may think, that if the
explanation of St. Matthew's terms herein maintained be
correct, there would necessarily be evidence of this in the
Syriac Testament, because of the likeness of its language to
that of the Palestinian Jews of the first century. If so, they
do not clearly mark how strictly this theory is limited to the
Jews of Judea and Galilee. The theory is, that the usage,
which was coming in just before the exile, became an idiom
of theirs after their return from the country of their exile, in
consequence of all their relations with it.
Of the area of such phrases the limits sometimes are wide
and vague; sometimes small and sharply defined. The use
of the East, for the State of Maine, with good reason so often
referred to, aptly illustrates this also.  It is colloquial in
about two thirds of Massachusetts - a State somewhat
smaller than Palestine - and in half of New Hampshire;
while in the Western parts of those states it is not common.
Though at first the cause of this is not very apparent, somewhat of geographical and historical explanation might he
given of it; but the poinm here is the limi'atiou only.
16





236


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


More than this;--Justin was a Greek, the son of
Priscus, the grandson of Bacchius, one of a colony
planted in Samaria by the Emperor Vespasian; and his
parentage makes it probable that he knew no language
but his native Greek. If so, the mere fact that he was
born in Samaria - it is not certain that he grew up there,
and he seems to have lived in Italy - hardly makes him
a more decisive authority as to the meaning of a local
phrase of Hebraic origin in the popular speech of Judean
and Galilean Jews, than if he had been born in Athens,
or in  Ephesus, where he held his Dialogue with
Trypho.
The Jew who furnished Celsus, in the second century, with some of his arguments against Christianity,
calls the Wise Men, Chaldeans. The Apocryphal Gospel of the Infancy speaks of them as foretold by Zoroaster.1 These facts are, in themselves, of slight consequence, though they point in the right direction; and
are mentioned here only as indications that from   a
1 Evangelium Infantie, Chap. VII. Et factum cum natus
esset Dominus Jesus Bethlehemi urbe Judea, tempore Herodis Regis; ecce, magi venerunt ex Oriente Hierosolymas,
quemadmodum   praedixerat Zoradascht.  And it came to
pass when the Lord Jesus was born at Bethlehem, a city of
Judea, in the time of Herod the King, Magi came from the
East to Jerusalem according to the prophecy of Zoradascht
(Zoroaster). See Jones on the Canon, Oxford, 1718, vol.
ii. p. 172.  The date of this Apocryphal Gospel is very
uncertain. Some parts of it may be as old as the second
century, others are thought to be interpolations of a much
iater date.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


237


very early period there was that uncertainty as to what
St. Matthew meant, which might well have arisen from
his use of a local idiom, whose significance was clear
and exact only to the Jews of Palestine, - an uncertainty easily accounted for by the fact that with the Fall
of Jerusalem there began to open a wide and deep gulf
of separation, dividing both Christians and Jews from
the Holy Land.
Some of the Fathers - Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary,
Epiphanius - thought, as Justin did, that the Wise
Men were Arabians. But in this case, their authority
is fairly counterpoised, and more, by the higher authority
and very significant language of Chrysostom; who, in
his comment on Matthew ii., though he could not have
been ignorant of this tradition, again and again assumes
the fact that the Wise Men were Persians, and as if it
were a thing certain beyond all doubt; as when he says,
"The Jews hear first from the language of Persia, what
they would not hear from their own prophets;" and
again, "Wherefore this double flight? that of the Wise
Men to Persia? that of the Child to Egypt?"
The former opinion may have arisen from the old use,
so frequent in the Hebrew Scriptures, of the name, the
East, for the Desert. This usage, though obsolete in
St. Matthew's time, was quite likely to mislead men,
not natives of Palestine, and deeply wise, rather than
critically learned, in the Scriptures. It might have
originated, in those uncritical ages, even from the gifts
of the Magi, as they were all products of Arabia. But
they were not exclusively such; and they were all port




238


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


able articles of merchandise. Gold was a common gift,
and frankincense'was much used in Persia. 'Arabia
was required to furnish annually to the Persian crown
a thousand talents weight of frankincense; and there
is reason to believe that this rare spice was largely
employed about the Court, since the walls of Persepolis have several representations of censers, which are
sometimes carried in the hand of an attendant, while
sometimes they stand on the ground immediately in
front of the king."1 Without a present, no Asiatic
king, no satrap, no sheik even, is approached. Those
gifts the Magi brought were such as any persons might
have brought who sought kingly audience; and though
they may point a conjecture, they determine nothing as
to the country of the Wise Men.
As Arabia was adjacent to Judea, this opinion may
seem to have some countenance, from the fact, that to
many the words of St. Matthew have seemed to imply
that the Wise Men came very soon after the Nativity.
Whether they do imply it, is very questionable. But,
however this may be, the date of the Mystery of the
Incarnation, and of the outshining of the Star, may
have been that of the Annunciation.
It may be thought, that both of the families of Abraham, the children of Ishmael as well as the children of
Jacob, would have paid early homage to his Son; but
while the world-embracing symbolism of the worship of
the Child thus shrinks into a family significance, it se mns
1 Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies, Vol. IV. chap iii
page 164.





THE EAST AND M  HE FAR EAST.


inconsistent with the laws of the Kingdom of Grace, that
this homage should have been paid by degenerate Arabs,
who had departed farther from the Truth than some not
of the blood of Abraham.
"The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the
brightness of thy rising.... All they from Sheba shall
come, they shall bring gold and incense."1 "The kings
of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.... And he shall
live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba."
Some of the Fathers thought that these prophecies foretold,the Wise Men. If this were so, they must have
been Arabians. Now, in a certain sense, to apply these
prophecies to the Wise Men may be right. Men of
high rank they were -forerunners and prophetic types
of kings to come after them; in them the prophecy
"kings shall come," began to have its germinant fulfilling; and the words " he shall live " may be a prophetic
allusion to Herod's attempt to murder Jesus, as well as
to his resurrection from the dead; but the Wise Men
were not kings; and there is one decisive reason why
they could not have been those who were to come from
Sheba with gold and incense, for in this very Gospel of
St. Matthew our Lord speaks of Sheba as the South,2
and his Evangelist says, the Wise Men were from the
Far East.
3. From the very olc opinion that the Wise Men
were Arabians, let us no w turn to a very new notion,
unknown to all antiquity - that the word in the second
and ninth verses rendered the East, has there no local
SIsaiah lx, 3, 06; Psalm lxxii. 10, 15.  2 Matt. xii. 4:





240


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


significance whatever, and means the rising. " Where
is He that is born, for we have seen His Star in its
rising? "
I premise its examination by saying, that if its correctness could be conceded, the argument in Chapter
First of this book, proving that the Wise Men were
Persians, would remain just as before. Its demonstration of that fact is not touched at all by this interpretation.
But its correctness, or even its plausibility, cannot
be conceded. It were to be wished, that those who invented it had carefully considered and plainly told what
this strange rendering means. They may suppose some
astronomical significance in the term, as the rising of a
planet or of a constellation before the sun, was a notable fact in the ancient science of the stars. If such were
the meaning, then there must have been a star known
to these Persians as the Star of the King of the Jews
and, some reason why an especial significance attached
to its heliacal rising in that year: either of which consequences, if this be the notion, are sufficient to discredit it.
It is more probable to suppose that they would have
the Star's "'rising " taken as equivalent to its outshining.
Againstthis there are several reasons.
First. If such be the meaning of the Greek, the
way it is expressed is awkward and. odd.
Second. It has been the concurring opinion of all
Christian ages that the words of the Wise Men express
a sudden outshining of the Star, and this while the





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


241


term  Anatole, as used by them, has always been
taken as having a local significance.  In the novel
sense sought to be fixed upon it, the word, then, is
superfluous; and if so, it is the only superfluous word
in St. Matthew.
Third.  If it means the rising, "we should expect
to find arTov, if not here," that is, in verse second, "certainly in verse ninth." - Alford.
Fourth.   Because the antithesis between the East
and the place where the Child was born, "obviously
bring out a local difference." - Meyer.
Fifth. Because this rendering "is in opposition to
the apparently unanimous opinion of the Vulgate, Syriac,
Coptic, and other ancient versions." --Bishop Ellicott,
Life of Christ, p. 79, n. If it be said, the theory
that the word in question was a local name for Babylonia is also opposed to the ancient versions, it is to be
said, in reply, the cases are neither the same, nor similar.  The strange rendering is diverse from the old,
and cannot be harmonized with it. In all the old versions, some locality is denoted by their literal rendering of the phrase, and the interpreta8tion that marks a
difference in the form of Anatole the second time it is
used, unexpressed in those versions, gives it, in that
case, no sense radically different from that of the versions, or from its previous use, but only one that is
more definite.
Sixth. This strange rendering seems to have come
wholly from the usage as to this term in classical Greek;
referring to 'which, it is said, "the pIhrase, in the





242


THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


East, wo'ld require the plural." - Lange. This is the
sole argument in its favor, and it seems a strong one
until it is found that as to this term the usage in the
Hebraized Greek dialect of Palestine was different from
that of classical Greek. The word repeatedly occurs in
the singular, with a local sense, in the Hebraized Greek
of Josephus. His usage effectually disposes of this
allegation, changing it from an argument into an erroneous assertion. This rendering is in fact a rash,
unwise innovation, with nothing to commend or defend it.
In conclusion. If the interpretation herein maintained be rejected, there is no interpretation of Anatole,
as found in the second and in the ninth verses; that is,
none of the difference in the significance of the word
which the Evangelist indicates by there changing its
form. Each of the two forms points in the same
direction, and to some region eastward of Palestine.
The English, Latin, and other versions, express somewhat of this sameness of meaning by rendering each in
the same way, that is, as if the word had the same form
in each place; and thus do not interpret the difference
between its two forms at all. The interpretation herein
set forth expresses their sameness and difference, gives
to each an exact meaning, and explains the change in the
form, and its significance. If it be rejected, then, of
that which is characteristic of the form in the second
and ninth verses, of its peculiar, especial meaning, there
is no interpretation; there it stands as inexplicable as
the words on, the palace-wall to Belshazzar.





THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.


243


It may be said, it is a solitary instance of such an
idiom; but what does that really amount to, in this
case, where we are as sure of the meaning as if there
were twenty other examples of it. This may be illustrated by Genesis xiii. 1, where it is said, " Abraham
went up out of Egypt into the South," which seems
very much like saying, he went up out of the South
into the South. As he was journeying northwards,
some might conjecture that "the South" should be
erased, and the North inserted in its stead. Others
might search through the Hebrew Lexicon for a word
that would reconcile the seeming contradiction, and
whose letters' are so nearly like those of the word for
the South, that a careless copyist might have written
one for the other -and what other critical devices
might be thought of, it were hard to tell. And so,
when the geography of Palestine was less minutely
known than now, the matter must have rested.   But
when it is known that at the foot of the hill-country of
Judea, between it and the desert, there is a strip of level
and fertile land which is good pasture for flocks and
herds when the uplands are brown and dry, it is at
once probable that the herdsmen, whose homes were on
the northern hills above it, gave to this plain the name
of the South. Then it would be called so though approached from the opposite quarter; and by this natural
hypothesis the usage is so well explained, that it is the
accepted interpretation of it, and would be, were there
no other verse in Hebrew Scripture to confirm it.
Why not accept a similar course of reasoning as to





244       THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST.
St. Matthew's phrases, which undoubtedly have some
geographical sense, even though his usage stood alone?
But it does not really stand alone. It does so, in the
very scanty remains of Palestinian, Hebraic Greek,
but it is a usage whose main features all appear in the
Hebrew Scriptures--in the writings of Isaiah, of
Ezekiel, and in the Book of the Kings.





ANALYTICAL INDEX,
PREPARED       FOR   THE    SECOND     EDITION.
Abarbanel the Jew. Born in Lisbon A. D. 1437; states that the con,
junction of Jupiter and Saturn was the astrological sign for the
Jews, 149.
Abraham. In Chaldea, in the line of the ancient records preserved in
his family, and in the Book of Genesis; 108.
Alexander tl'e Great. His entry into Babylon, 113.
Alford. His theory as to the Star, 149, 150.
Arabia. Use of the word in Hebrew Scripture, 38.
Aramean. A name for the Hebrew dialect spoken by Syrian Jews after
the Exile, 201.
Aryan Race. Overspreads part of Asia, Europe, and America, 69, 70.
Assyria. Sometimes known in Scripture as the North, 40-43.
Astronomy of the Chaldeans. Its antiquity, 110, 111.
Astrological Element in the Narrative, 166.
Anlatole. Its meaning; its two forms in the Palestinian Greek of St.
Matthew, 24; correspond to Mizrach, the Far-East, and Kedem, tlhe
East, in Hebrew, 221-226; and to their equivalents in later Hebrew
or Aramean. See 226, note. Anatole in the singular with the article is
translated in the rising by Wieseler, Ebrard, Hammond, Lange; and W.
L. Alexander, Editor of Kitto Revised, says, by the latest critics.
This innovation defends itself by the usage of classic writers, and the
argument from thence is set aside by the references to the Hebraized
Greek of Josephus in note, p. 225. Argument against it, witlh
Meyer and Alford's reasons for rejecting it, and Ellicott's, based on
the ancient versions, 237-240. Corresponding geographical use in
Genesis of Kedem with the article, 39, note. St. Matthew's use of A natole is like that of Anatolia in modern Greece for Asia Minor. According to my theory, the use of Anatole in the singular for Babylonia
was strictly limited to Jews of Galilee and Judea, 233 note. Reasonm
why it is now to be found only in St. Matthew, 226-233. For re
mark as to Syriac Version see note, p 233.
Babylon. Its antiquity, 110. Inhabited in the first Christian century, 49





246


ANALYTICAL INDEX.


Babylonian Plain. Retains its importance after the decay of Babylon, 4t
This, owing to the cities Seleucia and Ctesiphon, 48. The residence
in St. Matthew's time of multitudes of Jews, 49. Boundaries and
description, 45, 46. Called The East, by the Jews; before the Exile,
39-44. Why this usage continued afterward, 47-51. Special reason,
Seleucia. See p. 50, n.
Balaam. His oracle of the Star Chaldean, and so of special interest to
the Magi, 128.
Behistun. Rock-inscription of, 62.
Berosus. His date of the Chaldean Dynasty in Babylon, 110. Statement as to the crossing of the Syrian Desert by Nebuchadnezzar, 31.
Bevan, W. L. The first to note the two forms of Anatole and their
relations to the Hebrew Mizracli and Kedem, 222.
Cathedral of Cologne, 173.
Classic ignorance, in the first century, of the Persians and Jews, 4, 5.
Christianity. A system of facts, 145.
Conjunction of Planets. Meaning of the phrase, 146. Precedes the
new Star, A. D. 1604; effect of this on the Astrologers at that day, 146,
147. Kepler's Discovery of the Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn,
and of Mars, near the time of our Lord's birth, 147,-148. Such a conjunction held by Astrologers a sign of great events in Judea, 150.
Kepler's Discovery little heeded for two centuries, 148. These conjunctions verified by Ideler, by Schubert, 148, by Encke, and at the
Royal Observatory of Greenwich, 153. Mistaken by Bishop Munter
of Copenhagen (A. D. 1827) and others after him, for the Star of our
Lord, 148, 149. Pritchard's astronomical refutation of this error,
153-156. Not held by Kepler, 156. The true use of his wonderful
discovery, 157, 159. How, by means of these conjunctions, the Magi
identified the Star of the King of the Jews, 156-165.
Correspondences in Scripture, 181.
Cyrus. Foretold by name in the prophecy of Isaiah, 79. Date of his empire, 66. His Decree for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem,
119-126. See also p. 58. Epitaph on his tomb at Pasargadwe, 61.
Daniel. The Decree of Cyrus historically impossible without him, 119 -124   Intimation of his part in the procuringof this Decree, 123, 124.
Reasons why not fully stated, 122. See also 125. Impr ssion l a(le
upon the Magi by his character and fortune, 126. Were his prophecies preserved by them? 129-132. Magian belief in Sosiosli; Mas
this related to his prophecy of the Messiah? 125; see also 215.
The words of the Magi in Jerusalem referred to the prophecy of
Daniel, 135-137. Confirmation of this idea from the Syriac ver.
sion, 137





ANALYTICAL INDEX.


247


Desert. West and South of Palestine, 29, 32.
Eagle. According to Zenophon the ensign of Persia, 57. Referred to
by Isaiah, 57.
East. Geographical use of the East, West, North, and South, 25-27;
especially Asiatic and American, 25. Persian use of the West. 25.
Roman use of the East for Syria, 27, 140, 232. The State of Maine
called the East, 26, 51, 230, 233. Hebrews: how they named the
four quarters of the world, 34, 35; familiar with the use of the East
as a geographical term, 34. The Patriarchs use it for the Syrian
Desert, 35, 36; also for a region across the Great River, 36. Use of
the term by the Israelites in Egypt, 36. AllArabia becomes known
to them, 38; consequent change in the meaning of the East, 38; it
comes to mean the Plain of the Euphrates and Tigris, 39. Reasons
for this, 39, 40. Proof of this from  Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Book of
Kings, 43, 44. Description of the Great Plain knowr as the East,
45, 46. Reasons why the Jews continued to call it the East after
the Exile, 47-51; Babylon ceased to give its name to that region,
50; no proper name for it in St. Matthew's time, 50; special reason
for this, the city of Seleucia. St. Matthew used its popular name,
52. His teims the East, and the Far East, correspond to the Hebrew
Mizrach and Kedem, 221-223. W. L. Bevan the first to note this,
222. The Greek and the Aramaic languages both spoken in Palestine, 223-225. The argument as good for the Aramaic as the Hebrew,
226. This use of the East strictly limited to Palestinian Jews, 233.
Why not found in the Septuagint, 226; in other Hebraic Greek liter.
ature, 228-233; and especially not in Philo, or in Josephus, 232.
Bearings of question, Did St. Matthew write his Gospel in Greek, 227
Tradition that the Magi came from Arabia, 233; first mentioned by
Julstin Martyr; his opinion considered, 233-237. St. Chrysostom's
opinion that they came from Persia, 235.   Use of the South for
Arabia, in St. Matthew's Gospel, 237.
Far-East. Use of the phrase explained, 53, 54. Why St. Matthew
could not say Magi of Persia, 54, nor of the Persians, 55, 56. Cyrus
called by Isaiah "the Man from the Far-East," 57, and the Persian
eagle, "the ravenous bird" of the Far-East.
Euphrates and Tigris, 32.
Enquiry of the Magi fbr the King of hie Jews. Its peculiar form, 135;
points to Daniel's Great Prophecy of the " Anointed Prince," 136; of
this the popular, free translation would be the King, 136, 137. Confirmation of this discovered in the Syriac version, 137.
Faith, as intelligent as it is to the unbeliever, mysterious, 187.
(u nesis. The third chapter of, the germ of tlhe Christian doctrine. 209





248


ANALYTICAL INDEX.


Gibbon. Quoted for his translation of words of Herodotus, so translated by Rawlinson as to countenance his crochet that Magianism was
of Scythic origin, 86.
Harmonies of the Kingdom of Grace, 182.
Hope of the Messiah in Syria and the East, Book VI. Importance of this
expectation, 141. Testimony of Tacitus and Suetonius, 140. Proof
that Giesseler, Neander, Ellicott concede too much in saying these
Latin writers may have merely imitated Josephus, 141-143. Proof of
this expectation from general reasons, 141. Common to Assyrian as
well as Syrian Jews, 144. Mode of communication between these by
fire-signals, 144; see also 49. In Babylonia the Magi fully within
the circle of this expectancy, 139, 144.
Hlang. His opinion as to the affinity of Sanscrit and Zend, 67; that the
Zend is older than the Sanscrit, 68; that the struggle with idolatry in
Iran may have lasted for centuries before the ti ne of Zoroaster Spitama, 202; that certain religious ideas of the Jews were not borrowed
from the Persians, 206; as, to some Persian words in later Hebrew
Scripture, 206. Bunsen's opinion as to Dr. Haug's researches in
India, 206.
Inscription. On the Rock of Behistun, 62. On the Tomb of Cyrus the
Great, 61. On Parthian coins in the British Museum, 16.
fIspiration of St. Matthew, Book X. The preceding argument as to his
Historical and Geographical terms the same as if they had been found
in Herodotus or Livy, 176. Inspiration an element of accuracy,
178; bearing of this upon the argument, 179; also, of the correspondences of the Kingdom of Grace, 181-184.
Intercourse throughout Western Asia at an early day shown by the
raid of Chedorlaomer, 113; see also Gen. xxxvi, 37, where "the
river " is the Euphrates, Gen. xxiv, 10; xxviii, 5; Numbers xxii, 5;
xxiii, 7.
Israelites. Always familiar with the use of the East as a geographical
term, 34. Richness of their language in such descriptive terms, 221.
How they named the four quarters of the world, 34. Changes in
their use of the phrase the East, 33-51.
Jews. Their intimate, continued knowledge of Persia and of Babylonia,
10, 11, 56. Their great numbers in the first century in Babylonia,
and constant religious and commercial intercourse with their countrymen in Judea, 47-49.
Jonah. Of the same lineage with the people of Nineveh, 109.
Josephus. References to,19, 31, 43, 49, 53, 55, 58, 139, 141, 225.
Kedem and Mizrach. Hebrew words for the East and the Far-East, 24.
Their difference of meaning, and their usage, 221-223; found in the





ANALYTICAL INDEX.


24R

oldest Hebrew, 226; reason for thinking their equivalents were im
the later Hebrew  or Aramaic, 226; also in colloquial, Palestinian
Greek, 226. Reason why this usage is not now to be found elsewhere than in St. Matthew, 226-232. Use of Kodem with the article
in Gen. x, 30, in a strictly geographical sense, 39.
Kepler. His genius for analogy, 147, and reverential spirit, 163. Discovers, October 17, A. D. 1604, a new Star; this Star preceded by
conjunctions of planets; Kepler divines that the Star of our Lord
might have been preceded in like manner, and rediscovers that Jupiter
and Saturn, and also Mars, were in conjunction near the time of our
Lord's Birth, 146, 148. See Conjunction of Planets.
Light. Ancient, oriental idea of this Element, 73, 74. The manifoldness
of this element revealed, 74. Symbolic use of this element, Light, ia
the New Testament not, as Milman intimates, borrowed from the
Zoroastrian religion, but originating in the first of Genesis and other
Hebrew Scriptures, 204, 205; these anticipate the scientific discovery
of the unity of forces in nature, 204.
Magi. Their history imperfect, 95. Lost classic treatises as to them,
list of these, 95. Lost twenty books of the Zendavesta, 99. Theii
table of contents, 99, 100. With the one now extant, prayers and
hymns combined, the Zoroastrian liturgy, giving the means of' nderstanding this ancient religion, 71. Rawlinson's opinion, that
Magianism was of Scythic origin and a late interpolation into tlhe
Persian creed, may have come from the word Mag' not being in
the Zendavesa; his only shadow of an argument fo, this notion,
for which there is no shred of classic or oriental authority, is
the usurpation of Smerdis, his confounding of the Persian doctrine
and usages as to the element light with Scythic element worship, and his
misunderstanding of Herodotus, as to \which see Gibbon. The narnm
Magi, like Persia, is a Greek, not a Persian name, and yet originated
in a word found in the Zendavesta, 97. Explanation of the revolt of
Smerdis, 103. Fire, as a religious symbol, known    to Zoroaster
Spitama, 76; who refers to ancient customs and words, 202, and
lived at least five centuries before Cyrus, the Persian, 201. Offcee of
the Magi, 97, 98; their Culture and Art, 98, 99. Testimony to their
character, froml Philo, 16, 95. Wisdom of Solomon, (this seems to refer to tire Magi, but there may be doubt as to this,) Justin Martyr,
Plato, Diogenes Laertius, Dion Chrysostom, and others, 96, 97.
Distinguishing characteristic of the Magi, 103, 104. See also 170.
Causes of their moral eminence, 102. Use of the term by Sophocles,
11. Anecdote told by Seneca as to Magi in      Athens, 75-this
may give sometling of his idea of Magi, but he lived too long





250


ANALYTICAL INDEX.


after Plato to be even good second-hand authority in this matter.
Magic charged against the Magi, Pliny's statement, 100, 101. Sir
Walter Raleigh's opinion as to this charge, 100. See also 101. Their
astrological ideas, 167-170. Magian rites early known as far West as
Jerusalem, 112. Their intercourse with the learned Chaldeans,
113-114. The Magian mind liberal zed by the conquests of Cyrus,
1 C5, 116. They approve his Decree for the rebuilding of the Temple, 126. Their reverence for Daniel, and knowledge of his propl
ecies, 126-134. The greatest astronomical discovery made by Magi,
170. The inquiry of Magi for the King of tlhe Jews, evidence
of their knowledge of the prophecy of Daniel, 135-i37. The Magian
Symbol of the Evil One, a Serpent, 94. The Magi in Bethlehem, prophetic types; and representatives of the Wise and Good of the
World, 192-194.
Later different and disreputable use of tle name Magi in the Roman world.
Historical explanation of this, 2-6; illustrations of it from Arnobius,
Ignatius, Augustine, Abelard, 6, 7. Character of those who assumed
this name, 5, 6. Shown from Pliilo Jiudmes, 1#-18; from Tacitus,
12-14. St. Luke's use of tlhe word in this sense, 8-10. St. Matthew's
use of the word illustrated by the terms Brahmin and Mandarin, 1, 2.
The word mistranslated in the English version, and correctly retained,
in the Vulgate, 1.. Argument to prove St. Matthew used the word
Magi in its true, ancient, honorable, Persian sense, Book I.
Matthew, St. Not like St. Luke familiar with the Roman world, 9.
Wrote with immediate reference to Palestinian Jews, 229 n. His
Gospel written in both Hebrew and Greek, 227. His use of household words, 52. See also 46.
Medes. The oldest known and largest branch of the people known to
us as Persians, 56. The distinction between tlem known to tlhe Jews
and marked in their writings, 56, 57, referred to in the epitaph of
Darius, 56. Statement of Herodotus that anciently the Medes were
called Aryans, 55, that " the Magi "-like the Levites in the twel.
tribes of Israel-were one of the six tribes of the Medes, 57. Tlie
ten tribes of Israel colonized in cities of the Medes, 117.
Mesopotamia. Extent of the term, 33.
Messiah. See Hope of, in Syria and the East.
Mystic significance of the gifts of the Magi, 172.
Nebuchadnezzar. His crossing the Syrian Desert noted by Berosus, 31.
Nothing comes by chance in the Kingdom of Grace, 194.
Ornnazd. Tlhe Persian name for the Creator, its meaning, 72. Fire, his
creative agent, 73, 74. See also 82-85.
Palestine. Its military importance to the Persian Empire, 119.





ANALYTICAL INDEX.                       251I
Parsees. The modern disciples of Zoroaster in India; their history and
high character, 67. Tenacious of their religion, 64. Why they
ascribed their sacred books to Abraham, 202.
Parthians. They did not give their name to Iran, 55. Under the Parthians the Magi retained their rank, 3. See also 16 n. In the first
century the haughtiest military power in the world next to the Romans,
19. Legend on their coins, 16. Herod's great fear of the Parthians,
and his danger from them in his youth, 19. The Magi, as men of
rank, among the Parthians, safe in Jerusalem, 19.
Persia. The Greek and European name for the country, always called
by its inhabitants Iran, the Aryan land, 54. Statement of Herodotus
that anciently the Medes were called by all nations Aryans, 55. No
appropriate name in Greek for Iran in St. Matthew's time, 54, 55.
Sketch of Persian history, 66, 67.
Persian Religion. The Persians not classed in Scripture with the
hcathen, 80. Schlegel's opinion, 80; yet their religion imperfect, 89,
and containing an element of error, 80. Evidence of their belief in a
Creator of darkness in distinction from the Creator of Light in words
in Isaiah, 78-80, in words of Zoroaster, 81. Dr. Haug, who states his
reasons for what he asserts with such candor as to give proper means
for judging of them, thinks that Dualism was not an article of the
Zoroastrian creed; but it seems clear in these words from the Zendavesta as translated by him. Yet, though Ahriman, Creator of Evil,
seems the equal of Ormazd, Creator of Good; in the Zoroastrian creed,
in the religion he seems in fact inferior; proof of this, 82. Persian
idea of the element Light, and explanation of their worship before the
fire, 72-76. How this fire was prepared, 74. Every good thing representative of the divine glory, 76, 77. The Monarch, Pontiff, and
Representative of the Divine Ruler, 77. This in part the explanation
of the worship of the Wise Men in Bethlehem, 77, 90, 91. Intermixture of idolatry in the Persian Religion, 89. Doctrine as to angels,
78, 85, 214; Redeemer to come. See Sosiosh. The Zoroastrians
looked forward to a golden age, while others, except the Hebrews,
ontly looked back to one, 92.
Persians' Character, 59-65. Their cheerfulness, 82. Their records, 61,
62, and rock-inscription at Behistun, 61, 62. Art, Architecture, and
Science, 62, 63, 99. Their King-worship explained, 77.
Philo Judmus. Sketch of his life, 14. His testimony to the Persian
Magi, 15, F6i 95, 96. Contrast of these with the impostors known in
the Roman Empire as Magi, 14-17, see especially note on this page;
other references, 49, 50. 52, 227, 232.
Plain of the Euphrates and Tigris. Described, 45, 46.
17





252                 ANALYTICAL INDEX.
Pr tchard, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society. His astrohomical refutation of the theory that the Star of our Lord was a conjunction of Planets, 153.
Rab-Mag. The title of a Chaldean official present at the capture of
Jerusalem. Sir Henry Rawlinson doubts if there be any reference in
this to the Magi, 112.
Itelation of Hebrew and Persian Religions. Three opinions as to this:
first, 200-203; second, 203-207; third, 237-245. Dr. Haug's opinion,
206.  Bunsen's, 206. Persian words in Hebrew Scripture, 206.
Zoroastrianism not the source of the New Testament imagery drawn
from the element Light, 204, 205. Persian and Hebrew idea of the
Evil One compared, 209-213. Of Angels, 213-215. Of the Resurrection, 214, 213.
Raphall, Dr. His admirable history of the Jews, 48.
Raleigh, Sir Walter. His opinion of the science of the Magi, 100.
Seleucia. Bearing of the independence of this Greek city on the use by
St. Matthew of the name, the East, for the Plain of the Euphrates, 50.
Shinar. The oldest name for the Southern Plain of the Euphrates, the
oldest gathering place of men, the site of the Tower of Babel and of
Babylon, 108, 46, 50. The Star of our Lord there first seen by human
eyes, 53.
Sosiosh. The name of the Redeemer looked for by the Persians. Antiquity of this belief, 92. Light ihe instrument of his mission, 92, 93.
To bring in "life everlasting," 93. Possibly a reminiscence of the
promise recorded in Gen. iii, 93, 94. To be born in the family of
Zoroaster, 132. Three Prophets to come, of whom he would be the
last, 133. Remarkable change in the course of time in this belief, 215.
Star of Our Lord. Preceded by three Conjunctions-see this Title-of
the Planets Jupiter and Saturn, and also a fourth together with
Mars, 145-148. Astrological belief that the conjunction of Jupiter
and Saturn was a sign portending great events in Judea, and most
of all when occurring, as did these, in the Fiery Trigon-see that
Title-which liappens only once in 800 years, 149, 150; see also, 146,
note 2. By these planetary signs the Magi identified the new Star as
tlhat of the King of the Jews, 157-165. Their words refer to Daniel's
prophecy of a King, as it is rendered in the Syriac version, 135-137.
Their belief in such a Star originated in the Chaldean prophecy of
Balaam, 128.
Syriac Version. Its rendering of Daniel's Great Prophecy, 137.
Tacitus. His ignorance as to the origin, morals, and usages of the Jews,
4. His statement that an Empress was banished from Rome on the
charge of interrogating Magi, 5. His record of the trial of Libo,





ANALYTICAL INDEX.


253


(A. D. 14,) for the same crime, 12-14. His testimony to the Jewish
presentiment of the Messiah, 139-143.
Temple. Decree for the rebuilding of, 119-126. Prayers there to be
said for the King and people of Persia forever, 58. Collections taken
up annually among the Jews of Babylonia for the temple-service, 49.
Explanation and defence of the statement of Herodotus, denied by
Rawlinson, that the Persians had no temples, 102. Thus illustrated
and confirmed by similar language of Fraser as to the Parsees, 102-3.
Ten Tribes. Colonized in towns of the Medes, 117.
Themistocles. Initiated into the order of the Magi, 131.
Tigris. Curious remark of the Magi as to this river, 32.
Trigon. The note 146, should thus continue. Astrologers divided the
Zodiac into sections called the fiery, earthly, aerial, aqueous Trigons.
1. Aries, Leo, Sagittarius.
2. Taurus, Virgo, Capricornus.
3. Gemini, Libra, Aquarius.
4. Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces.
Saturn may be in Conjunction-see that Title-with Jupiter every
twenty years or so, but in the Fiery Trigon, astrologically the great
one, only after periods of 800 years, for it rounds its course in about
that time. The four Conjunctions took place as Saturn was about
entering the Fiery Trigon, and were near the time of our Lord's birth,
148. In the coincidence of these events is the explanation of how the
Magi knew his Star. There was no miracle in that; none is named;
none was needed. Comparing the planetary wonders before the new
Star he himself beheld with those earlier ones, and pronouncing those
the greater, Kepler had no doubt the planets and the Star warned the
Magi "ex ipsorum regulis hodie extantibus de mxinus rebus et totius
mundi renovatione universale " according to rules of theirs existing to
this day, of the universal renovation of the world. Joannis Kepleri,
Astronomi Opera Omnia, Frankfort, 1863. De Nova Stella, chap.
xxvi, p. 135.
Zendavesta. Meaning of the term, 71 and note. Its antiquity, 201.
See also 131. Its discovery by Anquetil Du Perron, 201.
Zend Language. Older than the Sanscrit, 68.
Zenophon. His use of the word Arabia, 32.