The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford

The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford: "t iyffiórtc avTütv ПарбиаТо In all these countries there were magi at least persons who in the wider sense of the word were now known by the name Their words in ver 2 seem to point to some land not very near Judœa as also the result of Herod's inquiry as to the date shown in ó jr íieroSc 2 If we place together a the prophecy in Num xxiv 17 which could hardly be unknown to the Eastern astrologers and 3 the assertion of Suetonius Vesp c 4 Percrebuerat Oriente toto vêtus et cotisions opinio esse in fatis ut eo tempore Judsea profecti rerum potirentur and Tacitus v 13 Pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotum literis contineri eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens profectique Jucltea rerum potirentur and y the prophecy also likely to be known in the East of the seventy weeks in Daniel ix 24 we can I think be at no loss to understand how any remarkable celestial appearance at this time should have been as it was (3) "

The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford: "There is no ground for supposing the magi to have been three in number nor to have been kings The first tradition appears to have arisen from the number of their gifts the second from the prophecy in Is Ix 3 2 ovroi TOV atrripa This expression of the magi we have seen his star docs not seem to point to any miraculous appearance but to something observed in the course of their watching the heavens Now we learn from astronomical calculations that a remarkable conjunction of the planets of our system took place a short time before the birth of our Lord In the year of Rome 747 on the 20th of May there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the 20th 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 most noble events On the 27th of October in the same year another conjunction of the same planets took place in the 16th degree of Pisces and on the 12th of November a third in the 15th degree of the same sign On these two last occasions the planets were so near that an ordinary eye would"

The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford: "brightness Ideler Handbuch der Chronologie ii 399 sqq also Winer Rcälworter buch under Stern der Weisen which see Supposing the magi to have seen the first of these conjunctions they saw it actually in the East for on the 20th of May it would rise shortly before the sun 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 November conjunction in 15 of Pisces would be before them in the direction of Bethlehem coming to the meridian about 8 o clock P.M. These circumstances would seem to form a remarkable coincidence with the history in our text They are in no way inconsistent with the word aaripa which cannot surely be pressed to its mere literal sense of one single star but understood in its wider astrological meaning nor is thia explanation of the star directing them to Bethlehem at all repugnant to the plain words of w 9 10 importing its motion from s.E. towards s.w. the direct ion of Bethlehem We may further observe that no part of the t"



The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford: "We may further observe that no part of the text respecting the star asserts or even implies a miracle 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 If this subservience of the superstitions of astrology to the Divine purposes be objected to we may answer with Wetstein Supercst igitur ut illos ex regulis artis sute hoc habu isse existimemus quœ licet certissime futi lis vana atque fallax esset casu tarnen ali quando in verum incidere potuit Admira bilis hinc elucet sapientia Dei qui homi num crroribus ct sccleribus usus Josephum per scelus fratrum in Egyptum deduxit regem Babclis per haruspicia et sortes Judiéis immisit Ezech xxi 21 22 et magos hic per astrologiam ad Christum direxit It may be remarked that Abar banel the Jew who knew nothing of this conjunction relates it Maajne haschnah cited by Munter in Ebrard Wissensch Kritik p 248 as a tradition that no conjunction could be of mightier import than that "


The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford: "of Jupiter and Saturn which planets were in co7 j A.M. 2305 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 "

The Greek Testament: With a Critically Revised Text: a Digest of Various ... edited by Henry Alford: "of these planets in that sign in his own timo л D 1 3 betokened the near approach of the birth of the Messiah And as the Jews did not invent astrology but learnt it from the G haldceans this idea that a conjunction in Pisces betokened some great event in Judoca must have prevailed among Clmlda an astrologers Iv тд ауат Not at its rising in which case we should expect to find aurov if not here certainly in ver 9 but in the East i.e. either in the Eastern country from which they came or in the Eastern quarter of the heavens as above explained In ver 9 Iv т afar is opposed to l-r i i-i où TJI та iraifíov irpoçKVKrjoui To do homage to him in the Eastern fashion of prostration Ne ccsse c t cnim si in conspectum vcneris vcncrari te Regem juod illi TrpocKvvtiv vocant Corn Nep Conon 3 3 ira рахвт Josephus Ant xvii 24 represents these troubles as raised by the Pharisees who prophesied a revolution puty "