6. Selden. Uxor. Heb. lib. ii. cap. 1.
7. This remarkable time cannot be stated with any certainty. The earliest antiquity determines nothing upon the subject. Towards the end of the second, or beginning of the third century only, was this attempted; when those who were most curious in their researches fixed it about the twentieth of May. Clemens Alexandrinus thinks that it was the twenty-eighth year after the battle of Actium; that is, the 41st year of Augustus; but Joseph Scaliger places it in his forty-second year; and, after a most laborious investigation, shows that Christ was born about the autumnal equinox, the latter end of September, or beginning of October. SCALIG. Animad. ad Chron. Euseb. p. 174, et seq.--It was not till the fourth century that this great event was believed to have occurred on the twenty-fifth of December. They have not failed to assign what they deemed important reasons for this decision. As the sun, they say, is then beginning to rise on our hemisphere, and again to approach our pole, it is the proper period to which the rising of the Sun of Righteousness should be referred. The Romans have another reason, deduced from the preceding. At the return of the sun the feast of the Saturnalia was celebrated at Rome. It was thought proper to substitute in the place of this feast, which was distinguished by its profane rejoicings, that of our Saviour's birth, for the purpose of inducing the people to separate joy from riot. It is, however, the event, and not the day, we celebrate. Comp. SAURIN, Discours Historiques, Critiques, &c. continuez par Beausobre, tom. ix. p. 146-148, 8vo.
8. Compare Lev. xii. 2, 4, 6, 8. Numb. viii. 16, 17. xviii. 15, 16. Five shekels amounted to about twelve shillings and sixpence of our money.
9. "This (wise men from the East) is not only an indefinite, but an improper version of the term. It is indefinite, because those called μαγοι were a particular class, party, or profession among the Orientals, as much as Stoics, Peripatetics, and Epicureans were among the Greeks. They originated in Persia, but afterward spread into other countries, particularly into Assyria and Arabia, bordering upon Judea on the East. It is probable that the Magians here mentioned came from Arabia. Now to employ a term for specifying one sect, which may with equal propriety be applied to fifty, of totally different, or even contrary opinions, is surely a vague way of translating. It is also, in the present acceptation of the word, improper. Formerly the term wise men denoted philosophers, or men of science and erudition: it is hardly ever used so now, unless in burlesque. Some say Magi; but Magians is better, as having more the form of an English word." CAMPBELL'S Translation of the Four Gospels, vol. ii. notes.
10.
"Salvete, flores Martyrum,
Quos, lusis ipso in limine,
Christi insecutor sustulit,
Ceu turbo nascentes rosas.
Vos, prima Christi victima,
Grex immolatorum tener,
Aram ante ipsam, simplices,
Palma et coronis luditis."
12. Josephus has given an affecting account of this awful death. Vide Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 6. and Bell. Jud. lib. i. cap. 33.