was to be found as an infant. Here now the sacrilegious nonsense and a kind of
80 SAINT A UG USTINE - SERMONS low in lowliness? In the East the Magi see a star, and in Judea they perceive the new-born king. Who is this king, so small, so great; not yet talking on earth, already promulgating edicts in the heavens?
He had given the Magi such a brilliant sign in the sky, and revealed to their minds that he was bom in Judea; and yet for our sakes, because he wanted to become known to us from his holy scriptures, he wished them too to believe his prophets about him. In their search, you see, for the city in which the one had been bom whom they longed to see and worship, they were under the necessity of interrogating the leading Jews; so that these would have to answer them from holy scripture, which they had at their fingertips but not in their hearts; unbe¬ lievers answering believers about the grace of faith, liars in themselves, truthful against themselves. What, after all, would it have cost them to become their companions in their quest for the Christ, when they heard from them that they had seen his star and had come eagerly to do him homage; to guide them to Bethlehem of Judah, which they had pointed out from the divine books, together with them to see, together to understand, together to do homage?
Now, however, having pointed out to others the fountain of life,5 they them¬ selves died of thirst. They became for the Magi just so many milestones; they pointed the way to travellers walking, along the road, but themselves remained inert and unmoving. The Magi were seeking in order to find; Herod was seeking in order to destroy; the Jews read about the city of his birth, but did not understand the time of his coming. Between the loyal love of the Magi and the cruel fear of Herod, they just faded away. They pointed to Bethlehem, but did not then seek Christ who was bom there. When they did see him later, they would deny him; not then when he was a speechless infant, but later when he spoke to them, they would slay him. Blessed rather was the ignorance of the infants whom Herod persecuted in his panic, than the learning of these men whom he consulted in his anxiety. They were able to suffer for Christ, though not yet able to confess him; these others failed to follow the truth of his teaching, though they were able to know the city of his birth.
The Magi from among the Gentiles, the shepherds from among the Jews
3. That star, certainly, led the Magi to the very place where God the Word was to be found as an infant. Here now the sacrilegious nonsense and a kind of unlearned learning, if I may so put it, should blush for shame, which assumes that Christ was bom under the control of the stars, just because it's written in the gospel that when he was bom, the Magi saw his star in the East.6 This wouldn't be true, even if people were generally bom under that sort of control;7 because they are not bom, like the Son of God, according to their own will, but according to the condition of their mortal nature. But now, in fact, so abhorrent to the truth is the idea of Christ having been bom under a star-governed fate, that nobody who has the right faith in Christ will believe that any human being is so bom.
But fine; let empty-headed men speak their foolish opinions about the beget-