[15:6] Matt. ii. 3. The evangelist does not positively assert that the wise men met Herod at Jerusalem. On their arrival in the holy city he was probably at Jericho—distant about a day's journey—for Josephus states that he died there. ("Antiq." xvii. 6. § 5. and 8. § 1.) We may infer, therefore, that he "heard" of the strangers on his sick-bed, and "privily called" them to Jericho. The chief priests and scribes were, perhaps, summoned to attend him at the same place.
[16:1] Matt. ii. 16. The estimates formed at a subsequent period of the number of infants in the village of Bethlehem and its precincts betray a strange ignorance of statistics. "The Greek Church canonised the 14,000 innocents," observes the Dean of St Paul's, "and another notion, founded on a misrepresentation of Revelations (xiv. 3), swelled the number to 144,000. The former, at least, was the common belief of our Church, though even in our liturgy the latter has in some degree been sanctioned by retaining the chapter of Revelations as the epistle for the day. Even later, Jeremy Taylor, in his 'Life of Christ,' admits the 14,000 without scruple, or rather without thought."—Milman's History of Christianity, i. p. 113, note.
[16:2] Matt. ii. 11.
[16:3] Luke ii. 38. It is a curious fact that in the year 751 of the city of Rome, the year of the Birth of Christ according to the chronology adopted in this volume, the passover was not celebrated as usual in Judea. The disturbances which occurred on the death of Herod had become so serious on the arrival of the paschal day, that Archelaus was obliged to disperse the people by force of arms in the very midst of the sacrifices. So soon did Christ begin to cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. See Greswell's "Dissertations," i. p 393, 394, note.
[17:1] Luke ii. 40.
[17:2] Luke ii. 52.
[17:3] Mark vi. 3.
[17:4] John vii. 15.
[18:1] Luke ii. 46, 47.
[18:2] Luke iv. 16.