"Magi" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glory round our feet," The Magi mused, "more bright than morn?" And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the grandest Gothic structure in the world, its foundation laid in 1248, only two or three years ago completed. More than six hundred years in building. All Europe taxed for its construction. Its chapel of the Magi with precious stones enough to purchase a kingdom. Its chapel of St. Agnes with masterpieces of painting. Its spire springing five hundred and eleven feet into the heavens. Its stained glass the chorus of all rich colors. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... 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 ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Hieroglyphics. He dismissed the idea of engaging the legions of Caucquemarres, because emperors disliked them and also the Romans according to that sulky fellow Tacitus. He rejected the Pechrocholiers in council assembled, the Magi, the Druids, the legion or Papimania, and the Massorets, who grew like quelch-grass and over-ran all the land, as he had been told by his son, Pantagruel, on his return from his journey. The good man calling to mind old stories, had no confidence in any race, and if it had been permissible ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... 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 to that at the present day, according to a more rational observer of ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... Dove sweeps into a ruined hut, a few mean chairs its only furniture, the mean plaster dropping from the bare brick pilasters; without, Joseph at work unheeding, amid piles of worthless timber flung here and there. So in the 'Adoration of the Magi' the mother wonders with a peasant's wonder at the jewels and gold. Again, the 'Massacre of the Innocents' is one wild, horror-driven rush of pure motherhood, reckless of all in its clutch at its babe. So in the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... 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
... 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 ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 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, and expert in the construction of windmills, replied that the man who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Botticelli, by himself, in the "Adoration of the Magi," reveals a powerful physique and a striking personality. The man is as fine as an Aztec, as strong and self-reliant as a cliff- dweller. Character and habit are revealed in the jaw—the teeth of the Aztecs were made to grind corn in the kernel, and as long as they continued grinding dried corn ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... created a man out of brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22) Another of these magi constructed (of like material) a creature that put to shame even the genius of him who made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... enumerate some of these. There are (1) the birth from a Virgin mother; (2) the birth in a stable (cave or underground chamber); and (3) on the 25th December (just after the winter solstice). There is (4) the Star in the East (Sirius) and (5) the arrival of the Magi (the "Three Kings"); there is (6) the threatened Massacre of the Innocents, and the consequent flight into a distant country (told also of Krishna and other Sungods). There are the Church festivals of (7) Candlemas (2nd February), with processions of candles to symbolize ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... vast 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
... thinks it a duty, we will say; that is juster. This young woman 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 Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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, ...
— 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.
... is 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 no firelight whatever. There ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... Libyan ivory, Drawn from the jaws of Afric's prudent beast. Two kings like Saul, much taller than the rest, Their equal armies draw into the field; Till one take th'other pris'ner they contest; Courage and fortune must to conduct yield. This game the Persian Magi did invent, The force of Eastern wisdom to express; 10 From thence to busy Europeans sent, And styled by modern Lombards pensive Chess. Yet some that fled from Troy to Rome report, Penthesilea Priam did oblige; Her Amazons his Trojans taught this sport, To pass the tedious hours ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... determination of the young warrior was required to abolish this sacrifice, it is to be hoped for ever. The succeeding spring, a warrior, who had captured a fine Spanish boy, vowed to sacrifice him to the Great Star, and accordingly placed him under the care of the magi for that purpose. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of all Greek philosophers, it is known, travelled very widely, spending no less than twenty-two years in Egypt. He also spent some considerable time at Babylon, and was taught the lore of the Magi. ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... in Bethlehem in Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold Magi came from the East to Jerusalem, saying, [2:2]Where is the king of the Jews born? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him. [2:3]And Herod the king hearing this was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; [2:4]and assembling ...
— The New Testament • Various
... Ghost, the third person, the Holy Ghost being said to be identical with the Word; and he is thus conceived by himself. He is born, not in Bethlehem in a stable, but in a "cave near the village," because Joseph could find no lodging in Bethlehem ("Dial." 78). The magi come, not from "the East," but from Arabia ("Dial." 77). Jesus works as a carpenter, making ploughs and yokes ("Dial." 88). The story of the baptism is very different ("Dial." 88). In the trial Jesus is set on the judgment ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... tested and tried if he is to become righteous. And the righteous man must have substituted the 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
... 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 ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... frantic exclamation. One part of the mysterious rites of Jupiter Sabazius was to let a snake slip down the bosom of the person to be initiated, which was taken out below[454]. These ceremonies, and this symbolic worship, began among the Magi, who were the sons of Chus: and by them they were propagated in various parts. Epiphanius thinks, that the invocation, Eva, Eva, related to the great [455]mother of mankind, who was deceived by the serpent: and Clemens of Alexandria is of the ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... seeing the Virgin with child; an angel removes that fear; he rejoices at the child's birth, but a great fear succeeds; the furious king seeks to destroy the child, and the whole city is in an uproar to take away his life. This is followed by another joy, the adoration of the Magi; a new sorrow then arises; he is ordered to fly into a foreign unknown country, without help or acquaintance." It is the opinion of the fathers, that upon their entering Egypt, at the presence of the child Jesus, all the oracles of that superstitions country were struck dumb, and the statues ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... kingdom—where were they? Once she had believed that she really was what the angel had called her—the most blessed of women—when she saw Him lying in her lap in His beautiful infancy, when the Shepherds and the Magi came to adore Him, and when Simeon and Anna recognised Him as the Messiah. After that ensued the long period of His obscurity in Nazareth. He was only the village carpenter; but she did not weary, for He was with her in their home; and she was confident that the greatness, the throne, ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... nave, having eight iron hat pegs on each. 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 service books have recently been ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... present Library staircase was put up by Sir Gilbert Scott in place of an older flight attached to the north wall, and upon the latter may be seen (behind the stairs) traces of mural paintings in red and green, representing the Adoration of the Magi and other subjects. The archaic character of these paintings indicates the age of the wall, which, nevertheless (unlike the corresponding wall in the Markenfield Chapel), seems to have been an afterthought, since it differs from the other walls in the coursing of the stone ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... 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
... husband's death; and the uncertainty of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil war were at length removed, by the positive assurance of the Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and would safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the Persians prepared, without delay, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... 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 manifestation, namely, of ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... live amongst, the public opinion of that circle will, sooner or later, obtain a control over us. This is the reason why a life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the magi of letters, all are insensibly guided—moulded—formed—by the judgment of the tribe they belong to, and the circle in which they move. Still more is it the case with the idlers of the great world, amongst whom the only main staple of talk ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Religion, a man of the most acute discernment and profound research, has been raised up by Providence to quell their triumph[128]. He was soon taken from us; but happily for him and for ourselves, not till he had announced, that, like the Magi of old, he had seen the star of Christ in the East, and had fallen down and worshipped him. Another should be mentioned with honour, who is pursuing the track which that great man had pointed out[129]. Henceforth let all objectors against Christianity, on the ground of its being ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... sunt minu' secundae, magi' sunt, nescio quo modo, Suspiciosi; ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis; Propter suam impotentiam ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... menne that bare rule and office emong them. The king, the nobles with the Seniours, and those that had serued in the warres and ware now exempte. Thei had also menne skilfull in the secretes of nature, whiche thei calle Magi, and Chaldei, suche as ware the priestes of Egipte, institute to attende vpon the seruice of their Goddes. These men all their life daies, liued in the loue of wisedome, and were connyng in the cours of the Sterres. And sometyme by foretokenyng of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... 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 and said, tries ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... reign lasted but seven years and five months, during which he was occupied with the invasion of Africa and the subjugation of Egypt. At the conclusion of his reign he was menaced by a singular conspiracy. The Median magi conspired in his absence from the seat of empire to elevate a Mede to the throne. Cambyses, under the impulse of jealous and superstitious fears, had lately put to death Smerdis, his brother. The secret was kept from the multitude, and known only to a few—among others, to the magian whom ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... 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 ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... under the palm trees drinking whiskey and soda; though of 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, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... great religions were born in the desert. Our grandest philosophers budded and burgeoned in the wilderness. The noblest poesy that ever swept the human harpsichord was born in the brain of a beggar, came bubbling from the heart of the blind; and when all the magi of the Medes, and all the great philosophers of Greece had failed to furnish forth a jurisprudence just to all, semi- barbarous Rome laid down those laws by which, even from the grave of her glory, she still rules the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and twenty elders of Re-Veilings are twenty-four stars of the Chaldean Zodiac, "counsellors" or "judges," which rose and set with it. Astrology was brought into great prominence by the visit of the magi, the zodiacal constellation Virgo, the "woman with a child," ruling Palestine, in which country Bethlehem is situated. The great astronomer and astrologer, Ptolemy, judged the character of countries from the signs ruling them, as to this ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... 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 ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... to the suite which was decorated by Pinturicchio for Alexander VI. We looked at the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Magi, and the Resurrection. Somehow I was more moved by these paintings than by anything I had yet seen in Rome. The soul of this painter took possession of me. Then recalling what Isabel had said I asked ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... by all those people massed upon the roads as though for the passing of a gigantic Corpus Christi procession, and whom this visit of an Eastern prince to a child of their own country reminded of the legends of the Magi, or the advent of Gaspard the Moor, bringing to the carpenter's son myrrh and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... which the 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 in their old Bactrian home. And it is ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... ago. Indeed, I only know he must have been an adopted of the Spirit by his leaving behind him the Tao, or Law, still observed among the Chinese as their standard of virtue.... Here also is the Avesta, most revered remains of the Magi, from whom, as many suppose, the Wise Men who came up to Jerusalem witnesses of the birth of the new King of the Jews were sent." This too he identified with his finger. "Its teacher is Zarathustra, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... as a member of his suite for some time, and the philosophical ideas of India were not without influence on his teachings. Oriental philosophy was not unknown in Greece long before the time of Pyrrho, but his personal contact with the Magi and the Gymnosophists of the far East, apparently impressed upon his mind teachings for which he was not unprepared by his previous study and natural disposition. In his indifference to worldly goods we find a strong trace of the Buddhistic ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... each to its own place. Here and there were high-backed signorial chairs, thrones, and stools. Against the walls were sideboards on whose carved panels were bas-reliefs representing the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi. On top of the sideboards, beneath lace canopies, stood the painted and gilded statues of Saint Anne, Saint Marguerite, and Saint Catherine, so often reproduced by the wood-carvers of the Middle Ages. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the Magi from the East Who came their gifts to bring, And bow in rev'rence at the feet Of Salem's ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... he took in his 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
... numerous and is considered the richest in all France. The most notable are a reliquary of gold, set with sapphires and pearls, containing a fragment of the True Cross, given by Charlemagne in the year 800; four magnificent tapestries of the time of Charles V., representing the "Adoration of the Magi;" and the pontifical robes of St. Thomas (a Becket), chasuble, aube, stole, manipule, cordon, two mitres, and two collars. This courageous archbishop, persecuted by Henry II., took refuge in Sens in 1162. An elaborate tomb (of the eighteenth century), by Constant, is the mausoleum ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... disregarding these warnings, caught the contagion and mingled the sacred tradition they had inherited with magical ideas partly borrowed from other races and partly of their own devising. At the same time the speculative side of the Jewish Cabala borrowed from the philosophy of the Persian Magi, of the Neo-Platonists,[40] and of the Neo-Pythagoreans. There is, then, some justification for the anti-Cabalists' contention that what we know to-day as the Cabala is not ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... a little fatigue, but reflecting that 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 method of enriching ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... 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 Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... The Druids were magi as they were priests in the same sense that the American Indian shaman is both magus and priest. That is, they were medicine-men on a higher scale, and had reached a loftier stage of transcendental knowledge than the priest-magicians of more barbarous races. Thus they may be ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... exorcist succeeded in making her repeat some prayers, and then sounded her as to the name and number of the demons in possession, whereupon she said three times that there was one called Achaos. The bailiff then directed Barre to ask if she were possessed 'ex pacto magi, aut ex Aura voluntate Dei' (by a pact with a sorcerer or by the pure will of God), ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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
... and bravery had been proved by experience, or his Median birth would have prevented his being placed in high command by Darius. He appears to have been the first Mede who was thus trusted by the Persian kings after the overthrow of the conspiracy of the Median Magi against the Persians immediately before Darius obtained the throne. Datis received instructions to complete the subjugation of Greece, and especial orders were given him with regard to Eretria and Athens. He was ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... angels were present at Calvary. Angels are present also at the Mass. If we cannot assist with the seraphic love and rapt attention of the angelic spirits, let us worship, at least, with the simple devotion of the shepherds of Bethlehem and the unswerving faith of the Magi. Let us offer to our God the golden gift of a heart full of love and the incense of our praise and adoration, repeating often during the holy oblation the words of the Psalmist: "The mercies of the ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... Save in the old-time; and with time 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 most ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... ages. Classical writings, the literature of the Middle Ages, and the popular beliefs of the present day all contain views concerning teratologic subjects which so closely resemble those of the Chaldean magi as to be indistinguishable from them. Indeed, such works as those of Obsequens, Lycosthenes, Licetus, and Ambroise Pare only repeat, but with less accuracy of description and with greater freedom of imagination, the beliefs of ancient Babylon. Even at the present time the most impossible cases ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... where our Saviour was shewn to the worshipping Magi is but few paces distant. An altar is erected opposite, on the place where the manger stood in which the shepherds found our Lord. The manger itself is deposited in the basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome. This altar belongs to the Roman Catholics. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... beautiful thought is applicable, for the Gospel is not merely the narration of what has been; it is the sublime narration of what is and what always will be. Ever will the Saviour of the world be adored by the kings of intelligence, represented by the Magi; ever will He multiply the eucharistic bread, to nourish and comfort our souls; ever, when we invoke Him in the night and the tempest, will He come to us walking on the waters, ever will He stretch forth His hand and make us pass over ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... 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 ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the edge of thy sword, and so as they may never fail thee when thy need is at the utmost.' 'Thou art, then, a brother of the Sacred Fire,' said Baron Herman of Arnheim; 'and I may not refuse thee the refuge which thou requirest of me, after the ritual of the Persian Magi. From whom, and for what length of time, dost thou crave my protection?' 'From those,' replied the stranger, 'who shall arrive in quest of me before the morning cock shall crow, and for the full space of a year and a day from this period.' 'I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... birthplace, Citta della Pieve, inviting him to paint a fresco there. This was on February 20, 1504, and, after some correspondence as to terms, in March following the contract was concluded, and the fresco painted in the same year. The subject of this fine fresco is the Adoration of the Magi. Hidden away in its little township, it is not easily accessible to visitors, and escaped the plunder of the French. I have not yet been able to visit it, but my friend Dr. G. C. Williamson, who drove to Citta across the mountains from Perugia, was deeply impressed by the painting and the place, ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... 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
... fertile plain by Thessalian Larissa, feasted on the 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 the arms ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... led by the bridle by slaves. If you want to do things right and leave nothing out, you must skilfully arrange above the crib a yellow-colored glass in which burns a flame, which represents the star that the Magi perceived and which stopped over the grotto at Bethlehem. Candles and tapers burn before the crib, which is surrounded by some pious women, and a number of children, who never grow weary of admiring the Holy ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... 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; ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... company with Dickens' Christmas Carol, Henry van Dyke's The Other Wise Man, and Thomas Nelson Page's Santa Claus's Partner, at the Christmas season, and it has the advantages of extreme brevity, a fresh breeziness of style, surprise in the plot, and romantic interest. The magi brought various gifts to the Child in the manger—gold, frankincense, myrrh—but only one gift, that of love. O. Henry does not often moralize, but no reader ever finds fault with his concluding paragraph. The author's real name was William Sidney Porter. He ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... ascending 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 from each other by the rising ground, are clearly visible ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Devil magic Stripped all the glory off. No angels singing, No star of Bethlehem, no magi kneeling, No Mary crowned, no Jesus King, no mystic Blood for sins' remission—just a barn, A stall, two cows, a lantern—all the glory— Swept from the gospel. That's my punishment: My poor weak brain filled full ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... Magi Spheres are considered the best. The price a few years ago was L3 3s. each, but the sale having become larger and the process less expensive, they are now sent packed with instructions for 15s. 6d., in a velvet-lined specially ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... 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 with the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... again to England, and built a gallery for their reception in Hampton Court. Originally there were twelve of these Cartoons, but four of them have been destroyed by damps and neglect. The subjects were the adoration of the Magi, the conversion of St. Paul, the martyrdom of St. Stephen and St. Paul before Felix and Agrippa. Two of these were in the possession of the King of Sardinia, and two of Louis XIV. of France, who is said to have offered 100,000 louis d'ors for the seven, which are justly represented as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... Magi, advise Perozes to deceive the Ephthalitae, I. iii. 18 ff.; entrap Arsaces, I. v. 19 ff.; advice to Cabades at the siege of Amida, I. vii. 19; announce to Chosroes that he will capture Sura, II. v. 9; answer Cabades' enquiry with regard to Edessa, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... then. But Monsieur Fessard asked me yesterday if the Magi had come to stay with us when I bought the wax candle. All the town will know ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... cavalry with their bulls-hide targets and long lances, the heavy Persian cuirassiers, the Median and Assyrian archers with their ponderous wicker-shields, stood in rank waiting only the word that should dash them as sling-stones on Pausanias and his ill-starred following. The Magi had sacrificed a stallion, and reported that the holy fire gave every favouring sign. Mardonius went from his tent, all his eunuchs bowing their foreheads to the earth and chorussing, "Victory to our Lord, to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... 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
... "The Magi," it is said, "have but to follow their Star in peace.... The Divine action marvellously adjusts all things. The order of God sends each moment the appropriate instrument for its work, and the soul, enlightened by ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... hang 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, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... in 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Child are the ox and the ass—for those good animals helped with their breath through that cold night to keep him warm. In the foreground are the two ravi—a man and a woman in awed ecstasy, with upraised arms—and the adoring shepherds. To these are added on Epiphany the figures of the Magi—the Kings, as they are called always in French and in Provencal—with their train of attendants, and the camels on which they have brought their gifts. Angels (pendent from the farm-house ceiling) float in the air above the stable. Higher is ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... des Rois, a parade in costume was led by a crowned king in scarlet robes, accompanied by his fool, by his knights and his minstrels. Music and dancing and feats of arms were followed by a religious ceremony, and at night-fall after the play, the king's banquet, where white-bearded magi offered him gifts of gold and silver goblets, of frankincense and myrrh, finished ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... is "The Holy Family," in which the fair Anna posed for the Virgin, and her parents and kinsmen are grouped around her as the Magi ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... Scope of the Evangelists; which was by the description of the life of our Saviour, to establish that one Article, Jesus Is The Christ. The summe of St. Matthews Gospell is this, That Jesus was of the stock of David; Born of a Virgin; which are the Marks of the true Christ: That the Magi came to worship him as King of the Jews: That Herod for the same cause sought to kill him: That John Baptist proclaimed him: That he preached by himselfe, and his Apostles that he was that King; That he taught the Law, not as a Scribe, but as a man of Authority: ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... science of spiritual things, and a false 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 to worship ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... effect of his greatness and power. You must know, that this city was the metropolis of a mighty kingdom, over which the sultan my father reigned. That prince, his whole court, the inhabitants of the city, and all his other subjects, were magi, worshippers of fire, and of Nardoun, the ancient king of the giants, who ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... no water was, striking the rock like Moses, and drawing forth a rill, which remained in perennial existence—a fountain surrounded by a special sanctity. In the next page he deals with a well in the hands of the Magi. They had put a demon of theirs into it to such effect, that any unfortunate person washing himself in the well or drinking of its water, was forthwith stricken with paralysis, or leprosy, or blindness of an eye, or some ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... frescoes in the court of the Servites, than which none of his works was more admired— the "Nativity of the Virgin,'' which shows the influence of Leonardo, Domenico Ghirlandajo and Fra Bartolommeo, in effective fusion, and the "Procession of the Magi,'' intended as an amplification of a work by Baldovinetti; in this fresco is a portrait of Andrea himself. He also executed at some date a much-praised head of Christ over the high altar. By November 1515 he had finished at ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 paid to the positions and ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... I mean it. Come. I was going to Mayence to see the Magi and Van Dyck's Christ. We will go to Soignies instead, and study green leaves. I will paint your face by sunlight. It is the best way to paint you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should she have the ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... themselves with it, as dignified as Magi, and silent as fish. The time in which they give themselves to this absolute rest, composed of black coffee and silence, bears with them the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... 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 common among the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... the old national faith and ritual fell into decay and neglect. Early in the third century of the Christian era, Ardeshir overthrew the Parthian dominion in Persia and established the Sassanian dynasty. One of his first acts was, stimulated doubtless by the surviving Magi and the old piety of the people, to reinaugurate the ancient religion. A fresh zeal of loyalty broke out, and all the prestige and vigor of the long suppressed worship were restored. The Zoroastrian Scriptures were now sought for, whether ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Is a 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," etc. In Luke ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... enthroned, unmoved, with all the serenity of a goddess, while in another part the angel brings her the message with the gesture of an orator. Consider, then, those horses' heads in the Adoration of the Magi, or the high priest in the Presentation, and then compare them with the rude work of Bonannus on the south transept door of the Duomo; no Pisan, certainly no Tuscan, could have carved them thus in high relief with the very splendour ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... the frescoes that adorn the Collegio del Cambio, now held as a priceless treasure hall of art. They still glow with rich coloring,—the Christ seen on the Mount of Transfiguration; the Mother and Child with the adoring magi; and the chariot of the dawn driven by Apollo a century before Guido painted his "Aurora" in ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... very rare master, there hangs an Adoration of the Magi, marked May, 1423. One always feels grateful to such of the Quattrocentisti as enlarged the sphere of artistic action, by going out of the conventional circle of holy families, nativities, and entombments. There is a dash about Gentile, a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various |
