truth, when during Christ's passion he wrote the title The king of the Jews, which
88 SAINT A UG UST1NE - SERMONS such devotion, desired it with such loyal and deep feeling, if they hadn't recog¬ nized as the king of the Jews the one who is also the king of the ages?
The Magi and Pilate
2. Thus it is that Pilate too was certainly breathed upon by some light air of truth, when during Christ's passion he wrote the title The king of the Jews, which the incorrigible Jews attempted to correct.5 He answered them, What I have written, I have written (Jn 19:19.22), because it had been foretold in the psalm, Do not corrupt the inscription of the title.6 And so let us pay the closest attention to this great and wonderful sacrament, or significant fact. The Magi were from the Gentiles, Pilate too was a Gentile. They saw a star in the sky, he wrote a title on the tree; both, however, were looking for, or acknowledging the king, not of the Gentiles, but of the Jews. Thus already there was a prefiguring of what the Lord himself spoke about later: Many will come from the East and the West, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom will go into outer darkness (Mt 8:11-12). The Magi, you see, had come from the East, Pilate from the West. So they bore witness to the king of the Jews rising, that is to his being bom; he to the king of the Jews setting, that is to his dying; so that they might take their seats in the kingdom of heaven7 with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, from whom the Jews derived their descent. They weren't descended from them, of course, in the flesh, but grafted into them by faith. Thus the wild olive the apostle talks about, that was to be grafted into the olive, was already being prefigured.
That's why it was the king of the Jews, not of the Gentiles, who was either being looked for or being acknowledged by these same Gentiles; because the wild olive was going to come to the olive tree, not the olive tree to the wild olive. And yet the branches that were due to be broken off, that is the unbelieving Jews, both answered the Magi's inquiry where the Christ would be bom, In Bethlehem of Judah (Mt 2:5); and also with insistent savagery overbore Pilate when he remonstrated with them for wanting to crucify their king. And so the Magi worshiped him, when the Jews showed them the place where the Christ was bom; because it's in the scriptures which the Jews had received that we get to know Christ. Pilate from among the Gentiles washed his hands when the Jews were demanding the death of the Christ;, because it is with the blood of Christ, which the Jews shed, that we have washed away our sins. But there's another time and place for discussing Pilate's testimony by the title, in which he wrote that Christ is the king of the Jews, the time of the passion.
The Jews carry around the divine testimonies, not for their own, but for the Gentiles'salvation and acceptance
3. But now, as regards the manifestation of Christ when he was bom, let us say a few things that remain to be considered about the day of his manifestation, which is given the Greek name of Epiphany; the day on which he began to be