"Magi" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pontus in Asia Minor was anciently dismembered from the monarchy of Persia, by Darius the son of Hystaspes, in favour of Artabazus, who is said, by some historians, to have been the son of one of those Persian lords who conspired against the Magi. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... I proceed to show that the episcopal mitre and the papal tiara are respectively the copies each of a distinct head-dress originally worn by the kings of Persia and the conterminous countries, and by the chiefs of their priesthood, the Magi. The nomenclature alone indicates a foreign extraction. It comes to us through the Romans from the Greeks; both of which nations employed the terms [Greek: mitra], Lat. mitra, and [Greek: tiara], Lat. tiara, to designate two different kinds of covering ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd),—the Lord Omniscient,—and thus were monotheists; while the Hindus were practically poly-theists, governed by a sacerdotal caste, who imposed gloomy austerities and sacrifices, although it would seem that the older Vedistic hymns of the Hindus were theistic in spirit. The Magi—the priests of the Iranians—differed widely in their religious views from the Brahmans, inculcating a higher morality and a loftier theological creed, worshipping the Supreme Being without temples or shrines or ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... developed. Let us fly then from here below and rise to the intellectual world, that we may not fall into a purely sensible life by allowing ourselves to follow sensible images...." It was the fundamental principle of the religion of the Persian Magi. Alexander the Great accepted this idea after coming in contact with the Hindu philosophers. Julius Caesar found that the Gauls had some belief regarding the pre-existence of the human soul. The Druids ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda
... he was honoured as no other foreigner ever was, and went hunting with the king and lived in his family circle, so that he came into the presence of the king's mother, and became her intimate friend, and at the king's command was instructed in the mysteries of the Magi. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Camaralzaman ordered his emir Giondar to put them both to death, but as the young men had saved him from a lion he laid no hand on them, but told them not to return to their father's dominions. They wandered on for a time, and then parted, but both reached the same place, which was a city of the Magi. Here, by a strange adventure Amgiad was made vizier, while Assad was thrown into a dungeon, where he was designed as a sacrifice to the fire-god. Bosta'na, a daughter of the old man who imprisoned Assad, released ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... provinces. We know that Persia, the conqueror of Media, was conquered in turn by the Median religion; we also know that the religion of the Persian kings as read in their inscriptions[2] does not correspond to any of the religious positions held in the Avesta. The Magi, from whom also the religion as a whole derives one of its names, belonged to Media and passed from there to greater power in Iran as a whole. From the Scythians on the north and from Babylonia on the south, ideas and practices were imported; and in these and other ways, forms of religion ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... varied according to the opinions held by the prophets; for instance, to the Magi, who believed in the follies of astrology, the birth of Christ was revealed through the vision of a star in the East. To the augurs of Nebuchadnezzar the destruction of Jerusalem was revealed through entrails, whereas the king himself inferred ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... mother to spin the wool from the sheeps' backs. There were nice little squirrel-fur caps for all the children; there were more yellow gold pieces; and then there was a large package of the most enchanting sweetmeats, such as the Bretons make at Christmas-time; little "magi-cakes," as they were called, each cut in the shape of a star and covered with spices and sugar; curious old-fashioned candies and sugared chestnuts; and a pretty basket filled with small round loaves of the fine, white bread of Bretagne; only instead of the ordinary baking, ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... women being signified by those who advanced towards it. The antiphon was in direct imitation of the other, commencing 'Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores?' Another favourite representation at the same festival was that of the Magi. The development of this is of interest. In its simplest form, the three Magi (or Kings) advance straight up the church to the altar, their eyes fixed on a small lamp (the Star) lit above it; a member of the choir stationed there announces to ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... The Chaldean magi were chiefly founded on astrology, and were much conversant with certain animals, metals and plants, which they employed in all their incantations; the virtue of which was derived from stellar influence. Great attention was always ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... there would descend on earth All manner of evil—plagues and sudden death, Frenchmen and famine." Preachers thumped and raved. Theodore Beza in Calvin's pulpit tore His grim black gown, and vowed it was the Star That led the Magi. It had now returned To mark the world's end and the Judgment Day. Then, in this hubbub, Dancey told the king Of Denmark, "There is one who knows the truth— Your subject Tycho Brahe, who, night by night, Watched and recorded all that truth could see. It would bring honour to all Denmark, ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... admired Zadig's profound and subtle discernment; and the fame of it reached even the King and the Queen. From the ante-rooms to the presence-chamber, Zadig's name was in everybody's mouth; and, although many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burnt as a sorcerer, the King commanded that the four hundred ounces of gold which he had been fined should be restored to him. So the officers of the court went in state with the four hundred ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... consent to prostrate himself before him as having proved himself master, and, taking the oaths traditional among the Persians, should give pledges that they would never again take the field against the nation of the Ephthalitae. When Perozes heard this, he held a consultation with the Magi who were present and enquired of them whether he must comply with the terms dictated by the enemy. The Magi replied that, as to the oath, he should settle the matter according to his own pleasure; as for the rest, however, he should circumvent ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... afraid, the Father is with us, And all the nine angelic hierarchies, The Holy Martyrs and the Innocents, The adoring Magi in their coats of mail, And He who died and rose on the third day, And Mary with her ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire (Little Blue Book#335) • W.B. Yeats
... great idolaters of fire, ab- horred the burning of their carcases, as a pollution of that deity. The Persian magi declined it upon the like scruples, and being only solicitous about their bones, exposed their flesh to the prey of birds and dogs. And the Persees now in India, which expose their bodies unto vultures, ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... the coming of Christ. Luke says that it was the plainest sort of people, the shepherds, who first greeted that coming. There is the same variety of impression still. Many people now write as if religion were for the magi only. They make of it a mystery, a philosophy, an opinion, a doctrine, which only the scholars of the time can appreciate, and which plain people can obey, but cannot understand. Many people, on the other hand, ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... Houghton Hall collection, Velvet Brughel's Adoration of the Magi, in which were a multitude of figures, all finished with the greatest Dutch exactness; in fact, the ideas are rather a little too Dutch, for the Ethiopian king is dressed in a surplice, with boots and spurs, and brings, for a present, a gold ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... men came there from India, flying from the sword of the Magi, a race of plunderers and tyrants who laid waste their country, and they determined to lead a philosophic life in fellowship with one another. Although the community of wives is not instituted among the other inhabitants of their province, among ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... immensely larger scale, the rich illuminations in an old monkish missal. In fact, we have not now, in pictorial ornament, anything at all comparable to what their splendor must have been. I was most struck with a picture, by Fabriana Gentile, of the Adoration of the Magi, where the faces and figures have a great deal of life and action, and even grace, and where the jewelled crowns, the rich embroidered robes, and cloth of gold, and all the magnificence of the three kings, are represented ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Jacob the chief of the Levites at Bagdat. David was very learned in the law of Moses, and in the books of doctrine, and in all wisdom, even in the languages of the Ismaelites, and in the books of the Magi and the enchanters; and he took it into his head to gather together the Jews who dwelt in the mountains of Haphton, and to make war against the king of Persia, and to go to Jerusalem and win it by assault. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... a phenomenon than an eclipse of the sun. Eclipses were considered in those days as extraordinary and supernatural omens, and Xerxes was naturally anxious to know what this sudden darkness was meant to portend. He directed the magi to consider the subject, and to give him their opinion. Their answer was, that, as the sun was the guardian divinity of the Greeks, and the moon that of the Persians, the meaning of the sudden withdrawal of the light of day doubtless was, that Heaven was about to withhold ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... that the Magas, that is Magi, are the priests of the sun and the proper persons to superintend the consecration of temples and images dedicated to that deity, but the clearest statements about this foreign cult are to be found in the Bhavishya Purana[1155] which contains a legend as to its introduction obviously based upon ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... and unparalleled degree of power over the mass of the population. In this manner we account for the origin, and trace the history, of the Chaldean priests in Assyria, the Bramins of India, the Magi of Persia, the Oracles of Greece, the Augurs of Italy, the Druids of Britain, and the Pow-wows, Prophets, or "Medicins," as they sometimes called them, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... course the more temperate among them drink nothing but whiskey and Lithia water, and those who have important business to do in the afternoon limit themselves to whiskey and Radnor, or whiskey and Magi water. There are as many kinds of bubbling, gurgling, mineral waters in the caverns of the Mausoleum Club as ever sparkled from the rocks of Homeric Greece. And when you have once grown used to them, it is as impossible to go back to plain water as it is to live again in the ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... was given at Hamburg (July 9 to Sept. 9, 1802) its real provenence was recognized, and, accordingly Turandot was no longer the princess of China, but that of Shiraz, her father being transformed into the Shah of Persia and the doctors of the divan into Oriental Magi.[123] At Dresden the same thing happened, and here even Tartaglia and Brigella, who had been allowed to retain their Italian names in Hamburg, were made to assume the Oriental names of Babouk and Osmin. The specifically Chinese riddles disappeared, and instead of Tien and Fohi, Hormuz ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... is a thing of splendour, if one examines it closely in its solitude. These strange upraised domes, which from a distance look like the head-dresses of dervishes or magi, are embroidered with arabesques, and the walls are crowned with denticulated ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... constantly burning what they called the sacred fire. These altars were borne by persons appointed for the purpose, who were clothed in magnificent costumes. Then came a long procession of priests and magi, who were dressed also in very splendid robes. They performed the services of public worship. Following them came a chariot consecrated to the sun. It was drawn by white horses, and was followed by a single white horse of large size and noble ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... abundance at hand. The king distributed huge largesses of money. All day long he sat in his palace-like tent, receiving congratulations from even the lowest of his followers, and bound in turn not to reject any reasonable petition. The Magi sacrificed blooded stallions and rare spices to Mithra the "Lord of Wide Pastures," to Vohu-Manu the "Holy Councillor," and all their other angels, desiring them to bless ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Fessard asked me yesterday if the Magi had come to stay with us when I bought the wax candle. All the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... root, flower, and fruit, A palm with winged imagination in it, Whose roots stretch even underneath the grave; And on them hangs a lamp of magic science In his soul's deepest mine, where folded thoughts Lie sleeping on the tombs of magi dead. ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... is a very sword in the hand of her idea of duty. She can be feminine, too,—there is one who knows. She can be particularly distant, too. If in timidity, she has a modest view of herself—or an enormous conception of the magi that married her. Will she take the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not that while ye ensnared Him, And drove Him with curses of burden and goad, These gentle ones watched where the Magi declared Him, And often have spared Him the long ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... address of the bookseller: "a Paris, en la rue Neufre Nostre-Dame, a l'enseigne Saint Jehan Baptiste;" and decorated with medallions of the four Evangelists, framed at the bottom by the Adoration of the Three Magi, and at the top by the Triumph of Jesus Christ, and His resurrection. And then picture after picture followed; there were ornamented letters, large and small, engravings in the text and at the heading of the chapters; "The Annunciation," an immense angel inundating with rays of ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... thought he drove his car of light round the sky. They worshipped fire likewise as the sign of the light-giving and consuming Godhead; and this notion is not entirely gone yet, so that there are many Parsees, or fireworshippers, still in the East. Their priests were called Magi, and their faith was therefore termed Magian. Though it went astray in adoring these created things, yet it did not teach wickedness, as did the religions of the sons of Ham; and the Persians were a brave, upright race, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the coast of Asia Minor, and hence to Egypt, we may, in following the Mayas' footsteps, notice that a tribe of them, the learned MAGI, with their Rabmag at their head, established themselves in Babylon, where they became, indeed, a powerful and influential body. Their chief they called Rab-mag—or LAB-MAC—the old person—LAB, old—MAC, person; and their name Magi, ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... called it, unless he is initiated in the arts of jockeyship? When this northern star travels towards its own sphere, Lord Hertford will go to Ragley. I shall go with him; and, if I can avoid running foul of the magi that will be thronging from all parts to worship that star, I will endeavour to call at Wentworth Castle for a day or two, if it will not be inconvenient; I should think it would be about the second week in September, but your lordship shall hear ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... decorations for [v.04 p.0850] pianos and organs, and cartoons for tapestry represent his manifold activity. In all works, however, which were only designed and not carried out by him, a decided loss of delicacy is to be noted. The colouring of the tapestries (of which the "Adoration of the Magi" at Exeter College is the best-known) is more brilliant than successful. The range and fertility of Burne-Jones as a decorative inventor can be perhaps most conveniently studied in the sketch-book, 1885-1895, which he bequeathed to the British Museum. The artist's influence on book-illustration ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... by Almamoun did not die with him. About 850 Alkendy made a fresh version of Ptolemy; as early as 840 the Caliph Vatek-Billah sent to explore the countries of Central Asia, and his results have been preserved by Edrisi. A few years later (c. 890) Ibn-Khordadbeh, "Son of the Magi," described the principal trade-routes, the Indian by the Red Sea from Djeddah to Scinde, the Russian by the Volga and North Caspian, the Persian by way of Balkh to China. It was by this last that some have thought ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... about her. Bear them along. The finest effluence of her life in the first century of our era, as in this last, was love. Mary then bore the Christ; other Mary's loved him. Woman was first in his life, and last in it. When the bearded magi adored, she loved; she was the illustrator of his teachings, the repository of his hopes for their future realization. Bring all those memories, visions, yearnings, trusts, faiths—dreams of the good, never yet seen but by the inner sight of the woman-soul,—along, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 'Witch Hammer' signally ratified 120 years later by the Act of Parliament of James I. of England) to 1680 might be characterised not improperly as the era of devil-worship; and we are tempted almost to embrace the theory of Zerdusht and the Magi and conceive that Ahriman was then superior in the eternal strife; to imagine the Evil One, as in the days of the Man of Uz, 'going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it.' It is come ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... Druid, the writer in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana says, "The name Druid is derived from deru, an oak." The Druids were an order of priests; they were divided into three classes, resembling the Persian magi. The first class were the Druids proper; they were the highest nobility, to whom was entrusted all religious rites and education. The second class were the bards; they were principally employed in public instruction, which was given in verse. The third class was called Euvates; whose office ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... ac praecipue patre, quem quidam opificem figulum, plures Magi cuiusdam viatoris initio mercennarium mox ob industriam generum tradiderunt egregieque substantiae silvis coemendis et apibus curandis auxisse reculam.' (Cf. Virgil's treatment of bees in ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... desiderata Effluvium effluvia Ellipsis ellipses Emphasis emphases Encomium encomia or encomiums Erratum errata Genius genii [2] Genus genera Hypothesis hypotheses Ignis fatuus, ignes fatui Index indices or indexes [3] Lamina laminae Magus magi Memorandum memoranda or memorandums Metamorphosis metamorphoses Parenthesis parentheses Phenomenon phenomena Radius radii or radiuses Stamen stamina Seraph seraphim or seraphs Stimulus stimuli Stratum strata Thesis theses Vertex ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... years after the expulsion of the monks in 1834 when the church stood open for any one to go in and do what harm he liked. Some also, including the 'Raising of Lazarus,' the 'Entry into Jerusalem,' the 'Resurrection,' and the 'Centurion,' are now in Lisbon. Four—the 'Nativity,' the 'Visit of the Magi,' the 'Annunciation,' and a 'Virgin and Child'—are known to have been given by Dom Manoel; twenty others, including the four now at Lisbon, are spoken of by Raczynski in 1843,[8] and some at least of these, as well as the angels holding the emblems of the ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... despite, When him above the sea the courser bore, And seldom was the land beneath in sight. But taught to make him beat his wings and soar, Here, there, as liked him best, with docile flight, Returning, he another path pursued; As Magi erst, who ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... weeks having elapsed without notice from me of the Doctor, I receive a reminder of his existence, in which I find that as I am the Daniel who judges the Magi of Babylon, it is to be pointed out that Daniel "bore a certain number, that of a man (beloved), Daniel, ch. 10. v. 11, and which you certainly do not." Then, "by Greek power," Belteshazzar is made 666. Here ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... longer cast down with the pathetic discouragement of the past, seemed looking far away upon some distant scene. She was following in her thoughts the steps of the Magi from the East to where, as yet far distant, the "Star of Bethlehem" glimmered ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... he was about to paint a picture of St. Augustine, as a fresco for the chapel of the Magi of the church I have named. And having seen me and heard that story of mine, he conceived the curious notion of using me as the model for the figure of the saint. I consented, and daily for a week he came to us in the afternoons to paint; ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... very celebrated seventeenth century clock there, with a blue and gold dial which had above it bronze figures that struck the hour on a bell. Moreover, when the noon of Ascension Day came, the people were reminded of this holy feast by seeing the Magi issue forth from a little door and how before the Virgin, who held in her arms the Christ Child. Every noontime for two weeks this scene was enacted, to the vast delight of a simple, childish people. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... after Socrates, nemo veterum neque eorum qui nunc sunt, were ever such, will match, or come near him. Those seven wise men of Greece, those Britain Druids, Indian Brachmanni, Ethiopian Gymnosophist, Magi of the Persians, Apollonius, of whom Philostratus, Non doctus, sed natus sapiens, wise from his cradle, Epicurus so much ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Avesta was composed became practically a dead language. There entered into the Avesta old Chaldaean traditions. It would be strange if the pure faith of Zoroaster should not be corrupted after Persia had conquered Babylon, and even after its alliance with Media, where the Magi had great reputation for knowledge. And yet even with the corrupting influence of the superstitions of Babylon, to say nothing of Media, the Persian conquerors did not wholly forget the God of their fathers ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... road brought us to the hill of Mar Elyas, and the so-called Well of the Magi. Here the legend says the Wise Men halted after they had left Jerusalem, and the star reappeared to guide them on to Bethlehem. Certain it is that they must have taken this road; and certain it is that both Bethlehem and Jerusalem, hidden ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Christmas night," they bore on their saddle-bows three caskets filled with gold and frankincense and myrrh, to be laid at the feet of the manger-cradled babe of Bethlehem. Beginning with this old, old journey, the spirit of giving crept into the world's heart. As the Magi came bearing gifts, so do we also; gifts that relieve want, gifts that are sweet and fragrant with friendship, gifts that breathe love, gifts that mean service, gifts inspired still by the star that shone over the City of David nearly ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... The magi, in vain, From the heights to the plain Their gods' images carry In white tunic: they quake— No idol can make The blue sulphur tarry; The temple e'en where they meet, Swept under their feet In the folds ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... heavenly lights.(89) The sacred books of China tell of similar appearances at the births of Yu, the founder of the first dynasty, and of the inspired sage, Lao-tse. According to the Jewish legends, a star appeared at the birth of Moses, and was seen by the Magi of Egypt, who informed the king; and when Abraham was born an unusual star appeared in the east. The Greeks and Romans cherished similar traditions. A heavenly light accompanied the birth of Aesculapius, and the births of various Caesars were ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... sum up the little girl's conclusions. There enters into her religion in many cases that name which seems so often to sound sweeter when murmured by baby lips than at any other time. The little girl has learned to love the Baby asleep in the hay, the Child before whom the Magi knelt, the obedient and lovable boy who played in Nazareth. Then the new outlook comes and the little girl sees Jesus the Redeemer and God the Father. She listens with eager fascinated interest to the stories of what He did ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... their own co-religionists, who, aloof from the world, have to this day preserved the glorious truths of their once mighty religion, and who, hidden in the recesses of solitary mountains and unknown silent caves, are still in possession of; and exercising, mighty powers, the heirloom of the ancient Magi. Our Scriptures say that ancient Mobeds were Yogis, who had the power of making themselves simultaneously visible at different places, even though hundreds of miles apart, and also that they could heal the sick and work that which would now appear ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... anecdote which I came upon the other day. Perugino fell ill at a village about half-way between Citta di Piese (where, as I may mention, by the by, a second large fresco by his hand, fully equal, I am assured to the well-known Adoration of the Magi still preserved in that little town, has quite recently been discovered) and Perugia. He was very sick, and like to die. The parish priest of the place came to him as a matter of course, and would have proceeded to administer the last sacraments, but the apparently dying artist refused ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... God. The procession included many delightful things splendidly got up, for example, many wagons were drawn along with stagings of ships and other constructions. Then there came the company of the Prophets in their order, and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the Three Magi riding great camels, and other strange beasts, very skillfully arranged, and also how Our Lady fled into Egypt— very conducive to devotion—and many other things which for shortness I must leave out. Last of all came a great dragon, which St. Margaret and her maidens led by a girdle; she was extraordinarily ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... imagination. If, however, he obtained a momentary respite of this kind, it was not, as in the case of Prometheus (whose vulture was of the same brood as his demon), by night, but at sunrise, when the god of the Magi stepped, as it were, upon his throne to receive the homage of the earth. The hour of repose, as night is to the fortunate and the happy, was to him the hour of torture; and he daily lingered about the sea-shore, anxiously watching the setting sun, and trembling more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... hypnotism is a very old subject, though the name was not invented till 1850. In it was wrapped up the "mysteries of Isis" in Egypt thousands of years ago, and probably it was one of the weapons, if not the chief instrument of operation, of the magi mentioned in the Bible and of the "wise men" of Babylon and Egypt. "Laying on of hands" must have been a form of mesmerism, and Greek oracles of Delphi and other places seem to have been delivered by priests or priestesses who ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... flattery not the open but the secret, not the playful but the serious. For it throws suspicion even upon a genuine friendship, which we may often confound with it, if we are not careful. When Gobryas pursued one of the Magi into a dark room, and was on the ground wrestling with him, and Darius came up and was doubtful how he could kill one without killing both, Gobryas bade him thrust his sword boldly through both of them;[361] but we, since we give no assent to that saying, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... happiness. It was not Mary and her heavenly Child that they really beheld, or wished for; but an earthly mother rejoicing over her baby, and displaying it probably to the world as an object worthy to be admired by kings,—as Mary does, in the Adoration of the Magi. Every mother, I suppose, feels as if her first child ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... remoter antiquities, he consulted the learned Robert Burhill. Hariot had since 1606 been lodging or boarding in the Tower at the charge of the munificent Earl of Northumberland. He, Hues, and Warner were the Earl's 'three magi.' For chronology, mathematics, and geography, Ralegh relied upon him. 'Whenever he scrupled anything in phrase or diction,' he would refer his doubt to that accomplished serjeant-at-law, John Hoskyns or Hoskins. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... established, it will be impossible to misunderstand the internal relation between the star of Balaam and the star of the wise men from the East. The star of Balaam is the emblem of the kingdom which will rise in Israel. The star of the Magi is the symbol of the Ruler in whom the kingly power appears concentrated. The appearance of the star embodying the image of the prophet, indicates that the last and highest fulfilment of his prophecies ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... proscribing certain profane mummeries, the law confines the clergy to the representation of such subjects as "the birth of our Saviour, in which is shown how the angels appeared, announcing his nativity; also his advent, and the coming of the three Magi kings to worship him; and his resurrection, showing his crucifixion and ascension on the third day; and other such things leading men to do well and live constant in the faith." (Siete Partidas, tit. 6, ley 34.) It is worth noting, that similar abuses continued ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... from the books of the Magi, that one of these Gods reigns in turn every three thousand years during which the other is kept in subjection; that they afterwards contend with equal weapons during a similar portion of time, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... and toil, And terrible ordeal, and such penance As in itself hath power upon the air, And spirits that do compass air and earth, Space, and the peopled Infinite, I made Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, 90 Such as, before me, did the Magi, and He who from out their fountain-dwellings raised Eros and Anteros,[135] at Gadara, As I do thee;—and with my knowledge grew The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy Of this ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... showed outside. Then comes the Norman chapel, that recalls the work in the abbey of St. George's de Boscherville. Beyond that again is the ninth-century "Saxon" buildings. The archaic quality of the decoration is very notable in the capital that represents the adoration of the Magi, and indicates the relative importance of the personages by the size in which each is carved, just as is done in the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... artist's marriage he painted one fresco, "The Procession of the Magi," in which he placed a very splendid substitute for his wife, namely himself. Afterward he painted the Dead Christ which found its way to France and it laid the foundation for Andrea's wrongdoing. This picture was greatly admired by the King of France who ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... are, come after the Indians. They have acknowledged one only God. They have no subordinate gods. The Magi of Chaldea, the Sabeans, acknowledge but one supreme God, whom they adored in the stars, which are his work. The Persians adored him in the sun. The sphere placed on the frontispiece of the temple of Memphis was the emblem of one only and ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... Anglican^, Oxford School; tractarian^, Puseyite, ritualist; Puritan. Catholic, Roman, Catholic, Romanist, papist. Jew, Hebrew, Rabbinist, Rabbist^, Sadducee; Babist^, Motazilite; Mohammedan, Mussulman, Moslem, Shiah, Sunni, Wahabi, Osmanli. Brahmin^, Brahman^; Parsee, Sufi, Buddhist; Magi, Gymnosophist^, fire worshiper, Sabian, Gnostic, Rosicrucian &c Adj. heterodox, heretical; unorthodox, unscriptural, uncanonical; antiscriptural^, apocryphal; unchristian, antichristian^; schismatic, recusant, iconoclastic; sectarian; dissenting, dissident; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Kingly Gospel. The genealogy shows the royal descent of Jesus. The Magi came seeking him that was "born king of the Jews," and John the Baptist preaches that the "Kingdom of heaven is at hand." Here we have the parables of the kingdom, beginning with "the Kingdom of heaven," ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... energy, the prodigal genius, the royal splendor of the King of Antwerp. In the most modest way in the world he has remarked a student making clever sketches at the Museum, and has ordered a couple of copies from him of the famous Vandyke and the wondrous adoration of the Magi, "a greater picture," says he, "than even the cathedral picture; in which opinion those may agree who like." He says he thinks Miss Kicklebury is a pretty little thing; that all my swans are geese; and that as for that ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... quam dum transissem per multas dietas perueni ad ciuitatem trium Magorum quae vocatur Cassan, [Marginal note: Vel Cassibin.] quae regia ciuitas est et nobilis, nisi quod Tartari eam in magnaparte destruxerunt: haec abundat pane, vino, et alijsbonis multis. Ab hac ciuitate vsque Ierusalem quo Magi iuerunt miraculose, sunt L. dietiae, et multa mirabilia sunt in hac ciuitate quae pertranseo. [Sidenote: Gest.] Inde recessi ad quandam ciuitatem vocatam Gest a qua distat mare arenosum per vnam dietam, quod mire est mirabile et periculosum: In hac ciuitate est abundantia omnium ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... our Lord: i. 1-ii. 23.—Genealogy from Abraham, announcement to Joseph, birth, visit of Magi, flight into Egypt, massacre ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... to show the triumph of good over evil. Not with the sword or the might of great power is the triumph won, says Sandro to us by this picture, but by the little hand of the Christ Child, conquering by love and drawing all men to Him. This Adoration of the Magi is in our own National Gallery in London, and is the only painting which ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... you are to reap the fruit of it, you must redouble your courage. Be not astonished at what you are about to see. This mountain contains in its bosom a treasure which cannot be estimated. These riches are abandoned to magi, like me; but we despise using them for ourselves. Do not spend your time in gathering gold, which you will find here in great quantity: take nothing but precious stones. This is the best ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... sense, and form, Thunder thy voice, thy garments storm, As Eastern Magi say; With sentient soul of hate and wrath, And wings to sweep thy deadly path, And ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... The font is modern, its bowl octagonal, with the monogram I.H.S. and other devices on alternate sides. In the chancel are modern frescoes executed by Miss Alice Erskine, an amateur artist of much taste. The subject on the north wall is the visit of the Magi to the Infant Saviour, while on the wall to the south of the east window are representatives of the Archangels St. Michael and St. Gabriel. Gifts of handsome brass candlesticks for the Holy Table, and ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... shall see me there,—provided I neither marry myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval. I wish one was—I don't know what I wish. It is odd I never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it—and repenting. I begin to believe with the good old Magi, that one should only pray for the nation, and not for the individual;—but, on my principle, this would not ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... heavens; that when Mane, Thecel, Phares, is written upon the ethereal wall, they have no inward faculty to read them withal; and that when they go elsewhere for one learned in tongues, instead of taking Daniel, who is used to converse with Angels, they rely on Magi or Chaldeans, who know only the languages of earth. So it was with the miserable population of Sicca now; half famished, seized with a pestilence which was sure to rage before it assuaged, perplexed and oppressed by the recoil upon them of the population whom they had from time to time sent out ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... a comparison of the two translations of a simple narrative text taken at random. The essential changes (improvements?) made by Mr. Sawyer are in the words which we have Italicized. Two of these changes, the substitution of "Magi" for "wise men," and of "destroyed" for "slew," we shall pass with the single observation, that the rendering of the common version is in both instances the more accurate and better expressed. Mr. Sawyer substitutes "despised" for "mocked," as the translation of [Greek: henepaichthae]. Is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... had given to my Lord Rosenberg, the Lord Rosenberg had given it to the Emperor. Dec. 23rd, I went to the new made citie Kaiser Radnef Stadt, by Budneis, to ovirsee what Joachim Reimer had done abowt my coaches making. Radulphus Sagiensis Gallus Normannus, venit Trebonam, chimi et naturalis magi studiosus. ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... magic, that science perverted: a view of the matter which I propose here to adopt. The word "magic" itself is derived from the Greek "magos," the wise man of the East, and hence the strict etymological meaning of the term is "the wisdom or science of the magi"; and it is, I think, significant that we are told (and I see no reason to doubt the truth of it) that the magi were among the first ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... by some that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was also part of the Zoroastrian creed. Theopompus assigned this doctrine to the Magi; and there is no reason to doubt that it was held by the priestly caste of the Arian nations in his day. We find it plainly stated in portions of the Zendavesta, which, if not among the earliest, are at any rate of very considerable ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... by figures which are for the most part representations of Patriarchs and Prophets, carrying scrolls[31] upon which are written words of their own, bearing more or less forcibly upon the coming of the Messiah. The eleventh subject has, properly speaking, no supporters, but the Shepherds and the Magi are so arranged as to carry on the artistic effect of a central group with conspicuous lateral figures. In the twelfth and last subject, the picture extends entirely across the ceiling; in the centre is the Lord Jesus in His glorified humanity, seated on a throne, round about which ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... the Birth of Christ, 14 The place of His Birth, ib. The visit of the angel to the shepherds, 15 The visit of the Magi—the flight into Egypt—and the murder of the infants at Bethlehem, ib. The presentation in the Temple, 16 The infancy and boyhood of Jesus, 17 His baptism and entrance upon His public ministry, 18 His mysterious movements, 19 The remarkable ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... was entirely painless, earthquakes loosed the bases of mountains and caused great bodies of water, whose names were unfortunately not specified, to wither away or overflow; the sacred fire of Zoroaster which, under the jealous care of the Magi, had spouted ceaseless flames for nearly a thousand years, was extinguished. All the idols in the world except the Kaaba tumbled to earth. Immediately after the babe was born an ethereal light dazzled the surrounding territory, and, on the very moment ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... the Bible alone he finds that astounding declaration, which leaves all human philosophy at an immeasurable distance—'Ye must be born again.' God only can effect the wondrous change—man, priest, prophet, or magi, can do him no good—his terror-stricken conscience drives him to his Creator, and faith in the Redeemer causes consolation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... will of God for his individual will, if he is to become a saint. And this new man, this regenerate being, is the spiritual man, the heavenly man, of which the Vedas speak as well as the gospel, and the Magi as well ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tiles in the land of the magi are the records of a million years. In the unpolluted tombs of Osorapi the history of life and of time is written on the cerements of kings. Where the bells ring at the neck of the camels of Iran is a stretch of columns on which are inscribed the words of those that lived ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... that such ensigns of their majesty should be carried before them. These fires, according to Quintus Curtius, were considered as holy and eternal, and were carried at the head of their armies on little altars of silver, in the midst of the magi who accompanied them and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... in Bethlehem, 'T was night, but seemed the noon of day; The stars, whose light Was pure and bright, Shone with unwavering ray; But one, one glorious star Guided the Eastern Magi from afar. ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... whilst them I buried alive by the help of my negresses, who thus spent their last moments greatly to their satisfaction. With respect to Dilara, who ever stood high in my favor, she hath evinced the greatness of her mind by fixing herself near in the service of one of the Magi, and I think ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in any age, that is, little or nothing at all. He was firmly persuaded, notwithstanding the new philosophy of the times, that the year consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours, and that the sun was in the center of the world. But when the principal magi told him, with a haughty and contemptuous air, that his sentiments were of a dangerous tendency, and that it was to be an enemy to the state to believe that the sun revolved round its own axis, and that ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... his march through the Troad, before invading Greece (B.C. 480) arrived at the Scamander and went up to Priam's Pergamus, as he wished to see that citadel; and, after having seen it, and inquired into its past fortunes, he sacrificed 1,000 oxen to the Ilian Athena, and the Magi poured libations to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... servant reclining in an armchair with his head resting against the shoulder of Michael Angelo—a fairly powerful but somewhat academic version of the incident—which looks at first glance like the work of a not very important "old master;" The Star of Bethlehem, showing one of the Magi on the terrace of his house looking at the strange star in the East, while below are indications of a revel he has just left. Duett, Sisters, Sea Echoes, and Rustic Music, ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... no 'effect of light' here arrived at, I beg you at once to observe as a most important lesson. The subject is St. Francis challenging the Soldan's Magi,—fire-worshippers—to pass with him through the fire, which is blazing red at his feet. It is so hot that the two Magi on the other side of the throne shield their faces. But it is represented simply as a red mass of writhing forms of flame; and casts ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... of Persia under the Macedonian and the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually adopted and corrupted each other's superstitions. The Arsacides, indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. [601] The memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians, [7] was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... With thee, sweet Claude! Thee! and blind Maeonides would I dwell By streams that gush out richness; there should be Tones that entrance, and forms more exquisite Than throng the sculptor's visions! I would dream Of gorgeous palaces, in whose lit halls Repos'd the reverend magi, and my lips Would pour their spiritual commune 'mid the hush Of those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... pictures in the collection. It has a nuance of the Byzantine and of the hieratic, but the portraits are enchanting in their crystalline quality. Quentin Matsys' Legend of St. Anne is much admired, though for sincerity we prefer The Passion of the Master of Oultremont. Gerard David's Adoration of the Magi is no longer attributed to him. It was always in doubt: now the name has been removed, though the picture has much of his mellowness. Dr. Scheuring, the old man with the shaved upper lip, beard, and hair over his forehead, by Lucas Cranach, and Jean ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... and reign of the caliph Omar, distinguished by such great and striking events, were at length brought to a sudden and sanguinary end. Among the Persians who had been brought as slaves to Medina, was one named Firuz, of the sect of the Magi, or fire-worshippers. Being taxed daily by his master two pieces of silver out of his earnings, he complained of it to Omar as an extortion. The Caliph inquired into his condition, and, finding that he was a carpenter, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... with the marvellous holiness of the figures. The expression of reverent humility and gentleness in the face of the Holy Mother, as she bent over the Child; the deep intelligence in the eyes of the Holy Child, as though he saw something afar; the triumphant silence of the Magi, amazed by the Divine Miracle, as they bowed at his feet: and finally, the indescribable peace which emanated from the whole picture—all this was presented with such strength and beauty, that the impression it made was magical. All the brethren threw themselves on their knees before it; ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... depositories of sacred lore, and interpreters of the will of the gods, expressed of old to the first men, and handed down, either orally in divine poems, or preserved in a sacred literature, known only to the initiated. In most instances they were an hereditary caste, Druids, Brahmans, or Magi. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... inlaid with precious stones of all sorts and of great value, containing the bones of the identical three Kings (it is said) who came from the East to worship the infant Jesus at Bethlehem. The Scriptures say it was three wise men or Magi. The legend however calls them Kings and gives them Gothic names. Let schoolmen and theologians reconcile this difference: ce n'est point notre affaire. To me it appears that when the German tribes embraced Christianity and enrolled themselves ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Elias. Some say Jeremiah. Some say John. Some say that with a camel train didst thou go to the Far East while thou wert yet a lad and in the schools of the Magi, far beyond the Punjab valley and the Indus, did ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... legend connected with this talisman. It was framed by some of the magi in the train of the ambassadors of Aaroun-al-Raschid to the mighty Emperor of the West, at the instance of his spouse Fastrada, with the virtue that her husband should be always fascinated towards the person or thing on which it was. The constant love of Charles to this ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... of all kinds, were made of the most costly material, and encrusted with gems. One of these ancient works may still be seen in Cologne Cathedral—the chasse, or reliquary, containing the reputed skulls of the three Magi, of whom we shall soon have to speak more fully. This remarkable work is studded all over with engraved intaglios of Roman workmanship. Churchmen at this time were clever artificers; and St. Dunstan, great statesman ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... Who were among the first to adore the Infant Jesus? A. The shepherds of Bethlehem, to whom His birth was announced by Angels; and the Magi or three wise men, who were guided to His crib by a miraculous star, were among the first to adore the Infant Jesus. We recall the adoration of the Magi on the feast of the Epiphany, which means appearance or ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... like the Samaritan among thieves; he became a Sublime Hermetic Philosopher; overwhelmed with solicitations, he fraternised with the Brethren of the New Reformed Palladium, and optimated with the Society of Re-Theurgists, from whom he ultimately received the veritable initiation of the Magi. Everywhere lodges opened to him, everywhere mysteries unveiled; everywhere in the higher grades he found spiritism, magic, evocation; his atheism became impossible, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... with the conception and birth of the mythical Christ as recorded in the New Testament, the fact is observed that the latter appears to be closely connected with the central figure of Persian mythology. It has been found that the visit of the Magi, who, following a star, were guided to the spot where the young child lay, was the fulfilment of a Persian prophecy, which is to be found in the life of Zarathustra as recorded in the Zendavesta, while the subsequent ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... round our feet?" The Magi mused, "more bright than morn?" And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... the effect as a whole, the tourists proceeded to examine the church in detail. Behind the high altar is the shrine of the Three Kings of Cologne. They are represented as the Magi, who came from the east with presents for the infant Saviour. Their bodies are said to have been brought by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, from the Holy Land to Constantinople, and then sent to Milan; and when this ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... dictating to his amanuensis, and had just completed a book. His works are wonderful for his time, and not the less interesting for a fine cobweb of fable which is woven over parts of them, and which seems in keeping with their venerable character. Thus, in speaking of the Magi who visited the infant Redeemer, he is very particular in describing their age, appearance, and offerings. Melchior, the first, was old, had gray hair, and a long beard; and offered 'gold' to Christ, in, acknowledgment of His sovereignty. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of is Mr. Beauford, who derives the name of our Round Towers from Tlacht—earth; asserts that the foundations of temples for Vestal fire exist in Rath-na-Emhain, and other places (poor devil!)—that the Persian Magi overran the world in the time of the great Constantine, introducing Round Towers in place of the Vestal mounds into Ireland, combining their fire-worship with our Druidism—and that the present towers were built in imitation of the Magian Towers. This is all, as Mr. Petrie says, pure fallacy, without ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... Quintus with the views of Laelius and Seneca, among the Roman inquirers, and with the teachings of the great Grecians who have spoken in classic Athens. But now the question leaps to the front. Quintus is in the city where Ayran travelers and Persian magi and Egyptian priests are busy telling their theories of immortality. He is in the very streets, besides, where a sandaled Teacher from Nazareth is declaring that the dead shall live again. If but half is true that this ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... Christ. The worship of the Magians is described by Herodotus before Plato. Herodotus gives very minute accounts of the ritual, priests, sacrifices, purifications, and mode of burial used by the Persian Magi in his time, four hundred and fifty years before Christ; and his account closely corresponds with the practices of the Parsis, or fire-worshippers, still remaining in one or two places in Persia and India at the present day. "The Persians," he says, "have no altars, no temples ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... bands of the lowest orders of the people, which demonstrates the apparently endless naivete of their class. In every coterie of water-carriers, or mozos de cordel, there will be one found innocent enough to believe that the Magi are coming to Madrid that night, and that a proper respect to their rank requires that they must be met at the city gate. To perceive the coming of their feet, beautiful upon the mountains, a ladder is necessary, and the poor victim of the comedy is loaded with this indispensable "property." ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the BLAZING STAR of five points an allusion to the Divine Providence, is also fanciful; and to make it commemorative of the Star that is said to have guided the Magi, is to give it a meaning comparatively modern. Originally it represented SIRIUS, or the Dog-star, the forerunner of the inundation of the Nile; the God ANUBIS, companion of Isis in her search for the body of OSIRIS, her brother and husband. Then it became the image ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... deliverer. Some had become weary of the hollowness of philosophical speculation, and, like Pilate, were asking 'What is truth?' whilst, unlike Him, they waited for an answer, and will believe it when it comes from the lips of the Incarnate wisdom. Such were the Magi who were led by their starry science to His cradle, and went back to the depths of the Eastern lands with a better light than had guided them thither. Such were not a few of the early Christian converts, who had long been seeking hopelessly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Magi, or Magicians; Sixtus Senensis says, they were such as wrought by Covenants with Devils, but turn'd to it from their Wisdom, which was to study the practical Part of Natural Philosophy, working admirable Effects by the ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the wilderness is described as being of the "colour of bdellium," and was also like hoar-frost;[3] hence the idea that b'dolach was a crystal. But a fragrant and precious gum-resin seems more likely. The Magi who came to worship the Infant Saviour from near this locality, brought offerings of gold, and also fragrant gums and myrrh. Was "bdellium" (as probably being a fragrant gum) ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... might and splendour and effeminacy. He has married his daughter, the princess Mandane, to Cambyses, seemingly a vassal-king or prince of the pure Persian blood. One night the old man is troubled with a dream. He sees a vine spring from his daughter, which overshadows all Asia. He sends for the Magi to interpret; and they tell him that Mandane will have a son who will reign in his stead. Having sons of his own, and fearing for the succession, he sends for Mandane, and, when her child is born, gives it to Harpagus, one of his courtiers, to be slain. ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... hearth, and its red brick floor. A tub half full of bright water, stood on one side; and the mother was bending over her baby, which, undressed for the bath, she was holding out for the admiration of the Magi. Immediately behind the mother stood, in the garb of a shepherd, my father, leaning on the ordinary shepherd's crook; my mother, like a peasant-woman in her Sunday-best, with a white handkerchief crossed upon her bosom, stood beside him, and both ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... (differenced from the tenets of the first French constitution only by the mode of wording them, the figures of speech being borrowed in the one instance from theology, and in the other from modern metaphysics), were urged on the convention and its vindicators; the magi of the day, the true citizens of the world, the plusquam perfecti of patriotism, gave us set proofs that similar results were impossible, and that it was an insult to so philosophical an age, to so enlightened a ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the advent of this age. The time is now at hand."[181] Forty years later the Christ appeared. Whether Virgil had been influenced by Hebrew prophecy it is impossible to say. It may be that the so-called Sibyl had caught something of the same hope which led the Magi of the East to the cradle of the infant Messiah, but in any case the eclogue voiced a vague expectation which prevailed ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... about Thanksgiving Day. Then she told him of Christmas, and how the Christmas festival was kept. She related the story of the birth of the Christ Child, and of the Bethlehem star, of the singing angels in the sky, of the Magi, and the manger; of the presents of gold and myrrh and nard. She told him how that now all people of "good will" made presents to each other like the magi to ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth |
