"Magi" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 blue sky ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... 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 teaching regarding the vanity of human life. He ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... 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 ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... story be true, the "Star of Bethlehem" was probably a "new star," like that of 1572. Its first appearance would then have caused the Magi to set out on their journey, though it does not appear how they knew what it signified, unless we suppose that they were informed of it in a dream, just as they were afterwards warned of God not to return to Herod. Whilst they were travelling the course ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... 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
... 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 splendour of his 'Circumcision' it is from the naked child that ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... here occurred that at first alarmed him. It was no less 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 ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... commencement of the Christian era, as is seen from the fire altars on their coins, the Kanerkis or the Scythians of India, the rulers of the Punjaub, seem to have adopted the religion of the Magi (Lassen, in J. B. A. S. ix. 456; Prinsep, Note on Historic Researches from Bactrian Coins, 106). As far as Southern India is concerned, the mention of Brahmani Magi in Ptolemy (150) seems to indicate some relation with ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... 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
... Holy Family," in which the fair Anna posed for the Virgin, and her parents and kinsmen are grouped around her as the Magi and attendants. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... his name is connected is really a reformed and spiritualised kind of that Magism which prevailed in Media and contiguous countries. The priests, who are called "Atharvans," fire-priests, in the Avesta (compare the same name in Hinduism, the Atharvan Veda, etc.) are identical with the Magi, priests of the religion which Zarathustra (Zoroaster) found in his original and adopted home. According to some, the founder of Zarathustrianism lived at a very much earlier time, and there are great scholars (Tiele, Darmesteter, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... 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 blanks in the accounts given of Him in the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... had adopted for herself as being more suited to his moods when with her and more pleasing to her. Cowperwood had protested, but she held to it. "Do you remember that lovely blue of the old man's coat?" (It was an "Adoration of the Magi.") "Wasn't that be-yoot-i-ful?" ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... pillar, is finished off with a head. The 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 ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... mystics, on the other hand, he is Paracelsus the Great, the divine, the most supreme of the Christian magi, whose writings are too precious for science, the monarch of secrets, who has discovered the Universal Medicine. This is illustrated in Browning's well-known poem "Paracelsus," published when he was only twenty-one; than which there is no more pleasant ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... was the Paraclete, whom Jesus, of blessed memory,(85) had previously announced. Mani took the elements of his doctrine from the religion of the Magi and Christianity.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} Before he met Sapor Mani had spent about forty years in foreign lands.(86) Afterward he converted Peroz, the brother of Sapor, and Peroz procured him an audience with ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... 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
... far from Warsaw with materials for a very curious sermon. After having summoned his congregation together, although it was neither Sunday nor festival, and shown them the comet, he informed them that this was the same star that had appeared to the Magi at the birth of our Saviour, and that it was only visible now in the Russian empire. Its appearance on this occasion was to intimate to the Russian eagle, that the time was now come for it to spread out its wings, and embrace all mankind in one orthodox and sanctifying ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... the "Adoration of the Magi," full of fine mundane motives and gorgeous costumes; then the "Sposalizio" (whose marriage I am not certain), the only grandly composed picture of the series, and marked by noble heads; then the ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... different point of view than transport ourselves into it, who, that has an eye and ear faithful to the soul, is not conscious of inexhaustible benefits from some of the works by which sublime geniuses have expressed their ideas?—in the adorations of the Magi and the Shepherds, in the Virgin with the infant Jesus, or that work which expresses what Christendom at large has not begun to realize,—that work which makes us conscious, as we listen, why the soul of man was thought ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... round our feet?" The Magi mused, "more bright than morn?" And voices chanted clear and sweet, "To-day the Prince of Peace ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... hedge themselves around with their individuality, and will be roused by no prince's kiss, but taken only by storm, yet, once captured, are sweeter than the dews of Hymettus? Where are the seers, the prophets, the Magi, who shall unfold for us the secrets of the sky and the seas, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the fairest of all women, her hair was like gold. Their son was Loride (Hloride), who was like his father; his son was Henrede; his son Vingethor (Vingthor); his son Vingener (Vingner); his son Moda (Mode); his son Magi (Magne); his son Kesfet; his son Bedvig; his son Atra, whom we call Annan; his son Itrman; his son Heremod (Hermod); his son Skjaldun, whom we call Skjold; his son Bjaf, whom we call Bjar; his son ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... greatest 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
... 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
... 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
... groups of two and three 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, it is as impossible to go back to plain water as ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... army. They had also silver altars, on which they kept 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 ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... eminence from the study of Eastern philosophy, which was then rising in the opinions of the Greeks as highly worth their notice. He had been travelling in the East; and, boasting that he was already master of all the fabled wisdom of the Magi of Babylon and of the Gymnosophists of India, he was come to Egypt to compare this mystic philosophy with that of the hermits of Ethiopia and the Thebaid. Addressing himself as a pupil to the priests, he willingly yielded his belief to their mystic claims; ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... 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 them it is in use after this manner. All things ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... 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 ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... land. Fust off, us o'ganizes de Temple o' Luck. Den de fust annex is de Swamick Chu'ch, based on de mystic teachin' of Swami de Indian Budda. Nex' do' in de Temple de Soopreem Faith Healer thrives an' collects money f'm folks whut only thinks dey's sick. 'Cross de hall is de Chief Palm Readin' Magi, predictin' pas', present, an' future fo' a dollah. In de Temple Annex is de offices ob de 'Filiated Culled Union ob de worl'. Dis Union is mitigated into th'ee gran' divisions—de Bullshevik, de P'litical, an' de Social. De Social ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... small portion of a photograph of Nicolo Pisano's Adoration of the Magi, on the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery. The intensely Greek character of the heads, and the severely impetuous chiselling (learned from Late Roman rapid work), which drives the lines of the drapery nearly straight, may be seen ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... David and the prophets, who was incarnate in the Virgin, who was born at Bethlehem, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger, who was seen of the shepherds, who was glorified of the Angels, who was worshipped by the Magi, who was pointed out by John, who gathered together the Apostles, who preached the Kingdom, who healed the maimed, who gave light to the blind, who raised the dead, who appeared in the temple, who was not believed on by the people, who was betrayed by Judas, who was laid hold ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... 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 ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... displayed the standard of victory, a warrior in the service of 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, ...
— 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
... extent to different 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; ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... gaze. St. Joseph is at her side and behind her are two young women who are holding and admiring the gifts offered to the Saviour. The infant Jesus has laid his hand on the head of the oldest of the Magi, who, prostrated, kisses his feet with devotion. The two other Kings are much younger than the first one. They are presenting their offerings to the Son of God, and are about to lay their crowns before him. Then follows the retinue of these ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... "that secular learning is not so heathenish, but it may be made Christian. Plato, and Socrates, and Seneca, were not of such a reprobate sense, as to stand wholly excommunicate. The same man may be both a poet and a prophet, a philosopher and an apostle. Virgil's fancie was as high as the Magi's star, and might lead wise men in the West as clearly to their Saviour, as that light did those Eastern sages. And so, likewise, Seneca's positions may become Saint Paul's text; Aristotle's metaphysicks convince an atheist of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... that his abilities 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 to take these two cities; and he was to lead the inhabitants away ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... 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 ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... that Maya, the mother of Gotama, was immaculate. According to St. Matthew, Maria, the mother of Jesus, was also. Previously, in each instance, the coming of a Messiah had been foretold. The infant Jesus was visited by magi. The infant Buddha was visited by kings. Afterward, neither Jesus or Gotama wrote. But both preached charity, chastity, poverty, humility, and abnegation of self. Both fasted in a wilderness. Both were tempted by a devil. Both announced a second advent. Both were transfigured. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... because they 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, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 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 of its sheet! Turns a palace to coal! Whence the straitened cries roll From its ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... just when you are not really so,"[360] so we must deem the most dangerous kind of 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 ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Coquecigrue, because the Egyptians were afraid of them, as it appeared in the 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 ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... finished his last two 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 the Scalzo the allegory of Justice, and the "Baptist ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Mosaic, Oriental and 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. Hoskyns, now remembered, if at all, by some poor little epigrams, belongs to ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... called Seigneurs of Les Baux; and whether they took their title from the rock, or whether, as genealogists would have it, they gave the name of Oriental Balthazar—their reputed ancestor, one of the Magi—to the rock itself, remains a mystery ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... soe that the one lyne end at the end of the whol syllab, and the other begin the next lyne. As, for exemple, if this word magistrat fel to be divided at the first syllab, it behoved to be ma-gistrat; if at the second, it behoved to be magi-strat; but no wayes to parte the m from the a, nor the g from the i, nor the s from t, ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... four sterling adherents who stuck to him through thick and thin, through prosperity and adversity. These were Richard Hakluyt, Jaques Le Moyne, John White and Thomas Hariot. When Wingandacoa makes up her jewels she will not forget these Four, whom it is just to call Raleigh's Magi. ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... this 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
... of the sun, O'er tracts of desert wild, The Magi came on journey lone, To seek the heaven-born child; The star o'erhead their footsteps led, And hope ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... 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 made jewel case. "Some persons see at once, ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... originally included what was afterwards termed Media Magna by the Graeco-Roman geographers. This sovereignty was formed by the amalgamation under a single monarch of six important tribes—the Buzo, Paraatakeni, Struchatas, Arizanti, Budii, and Magi. It extended north-westwards as far as the Kiziluzon, which formed the frontier between the Persians and the Mannai on this side. Northwards, it reached as far as Demavend; the salt desert that rendered Central Iran a barren region, furnished a natural ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... montuosi e piu sterili che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili...." It is our privilege to see the image of this fruitful cultivation of the mountain tops not only in Machiavelli's prose, but on the walls of the Palazzo Riccardi in Gozzoli's Journey of the Magi, where, like King Robert of Sicily, the Magi crossed ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... regular Golgotha—the skulls of the Magi, par excellence, and then the skulls of Saint Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. I wonder where she collected so many! Saint Ursula brought a great force into the field, at all events, and, I presume, commands the right wing of the whole army of martyrs. I went into the golden chamber, where there ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... or regarded, as the Mahometan festival of Beyram or the fast of Ramadan, I ought to explain that, as Christmas Day, by adjournment from Lady Day—namely, March 25—falls uniformly on December 25, it happens necessarily that Twelfth Day (the adoration of the Magi at Bethlehem), which is the ceremonial close of Christmas, falls upon the 5th day of January; seven days in the old, five in the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... romantic. Although some of the figures in these Medici palace frescos are thought to be family portraits, still they hardly seem very lifelike. The subjects selected are a Nativity, and an Adoration of the Magi. In the neighborhood of the window is a choir of angels singing Hosanna, full of freshness and vernal grace. The long procession of kings riding to pay their homage, "with tedious pomp and rich retinue long," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... ignorant peasant of modern times, and the savage tribes of all 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
... 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 is now to ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... pre-eminently to the Gospel that this 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 the crests of the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... still 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, 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
... whether it was by sorcery or legerdemain that the wizards of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, contended with Moses, in the face of the prince and people, changed their rods into serpents, and imitated several of the plagues denounced against the devoted kingdom. Those powers of the Magi, however, whether obtained by supernatural communications, or arising from knowledge of legerdemain and its kindred accomplishments, were openly exhibited; and who can doubt that—though we may be left in some darkness both ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... remarkable effect of his greatness and power. You must know that this city was the metropolis of a mighty kingdom, over which the king 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 rebelled against God. Though I was begotten and born of an adulterous father and mother, I had the good fortune in my youth to have a woman-governess who was a good Mussulman; ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... 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 learn ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... monarch be perfectly accomplished in the mysteries of king-craft, as our Solomon James I. 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 again, unless ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... see the fine old Norman font standing on small pillars and finely sculptured with scenes relating chiefly to the childhood of our Saviour. Joseph with his carpenter's tools and the Virgin Mary seated with the infant Saviour on her knees, the Eastern Magi bringing their offerings, Herod giving orders for the destruction of the young children, Rachel weeping, and others—all damaged in the course of centuries, though still giving one an idea of the great beauty of the font when originally ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... of my heart, I follow from afar. Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are, Where Time is not, and only dreamers are. Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed. O lead me to Jehovah's child Across this dreamland lone and wild, Then will I speak this prayer unsaid, And kiss his little haloed head— "My star and I, we ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... towards the sky, and tried to make out the three stars of Orion's belt. These stars are called the three magi, and an old proverb of the ancient Spanish pilots declares that, "He who sees the three magi is not ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... possible, its illusory nature, and wondered at the power it exerted over his 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, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... 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 city was captured by the Emperor Frederick, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... 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 as ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... prohibited from blowing the fire with their breath or with bellows, lest it should be polluted. Had one done either, he would have been punished with death. The Jews had the real fire from heaven, and the Magi pretended to have received theirs ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Magi, by Van Eyck, the inventor of oil painting, is curious; and a Descent from the Cross, by Hemling, who flourished about 1450, interested me. Amongst the pictures by unknown masters I saw some good ones. I thought the portraits in this class very spirited. One of Bloody Mary ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Italian pictures—many on panels—in the pre-Raphaelite style. Some of these he had picked up in London, others he had found and purchased on the Continent. There were saints with glories or nimbi round their heads, Madonnas and kneeling Magi, the manger under a kind of penthouse, and similar subjects—subjects the highest that could be chosen. The gilding of the nimbi seemed well done certainly, and was still bright, but to the ordinary eye ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... yon hoar summit, mildly bright [Footnote 16] With purple ether's liquid light, High o'er the world, the white-rob'd Magi gaze On dazzling bursts of heavenly fire; Start at each blue, portentous blaze, Each flame that flits with adverse spire. But say, what sounds my ear invade [Footnote 17] From Delphi's venerable shade? The temple rocks, the laurel waves! "The God! the God!" ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... 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. The courtier relents, and ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Winfree said. "I've composed a slogan for this year's drive in my District: 'Make the Magi Come the ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... diligently inquired what was his life, and what his miracles. But they say that the King's wife also begged oil honoured by his blessing, and accepted it as the greatest of gifts. Moreover, all the King's courtiers, being moved by his fame, and having heard many slanders against him from the Magi, inquired diligently, and having learnt the truth, called him a divine man; while the rest of the crowd, coming to the muleteers and servants and soldiers, both offered money, and begged for a share in the oil of benediction. The Queen, too, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... in the South Kensington Museum a carved oak chest, with a centre panel representing the Adoration of the Magi, about this date, 1615-20; it is mounted on a stand which has three feet in front and two behind, much more primitive and quaint than the ornate supports of Elizabethan carving, while the only ornament on the drawer fronts which form the frieze of the stand are moulded panels, in the centre ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... Perozes should 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 ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... certain philosophy of intuition of the present day. He too believed himself a magician and physician, and effected cures by the application of astrology to therapeutics. Agrippa did the same with yet stranger phantasies, passing from absolute scepticism through mysticism to magi and demonology; in his own time and in subsequent centuries enjoying the reputation of a devil ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... cannibals—of gods, whose very names it was impiety to utter,—of ancient dynasties, which had left behind them monuments surpassing all the works of later times,—of towns like provinces,—of rivers like seas,—of stupendous walls, and temples, and pyramids,—of the rites which the Magi performed at daybreak on the tops of the mountains,—of the secrets inscribed on the eternal obelisks of Memphis. With equal delight they would have listened to the graceful romances of their own ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Day of the Kings a curious farce is performed by 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 ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... OF, the three Magi who paid homage to the infant Christ, and whose bones were consigned to the archbishop in 1164; they were called Gaspar, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... 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, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... has been selected, chiefly, because, in most works treating upon magic we find it wrongly used, and therefore, take the opportunity of explaining the matter, for, there were no such terms in the vocabulary of the ancient Magi. ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... 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 it from oracles and the direction ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... Fiorelli is set high among the olive groves above the village of Settignano. There are Medicean balls on a shield over the great wrought-iron gates, and the swarthy splendid banker princes appear as the Magi in the faded fresco painting of the Nativity in the chapel. They have knelt there in the straw of the stable of Bethlehem for more than four hundred years. The nobili of Florence were used to loiter long ago on the ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... 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 ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the mystery; Shepherds tell the wondrous tale; Bearing gifts to lay before Him From the East the Magi hail; Taught by angel words to sing, We ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... conjurors 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 united labor of fifty thousand fleshy ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and even more startling revelation from Chicago, given to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of Adusht Ha'nish, prophet of the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra Magi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar of Zoroastrian Breathing and Envoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and International Head of Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the town of Mendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto Hanisch, you might at ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... 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 in manuscript or in the memories of the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... note. "Suse" and "Sause" were common expressions in the cradle songs which used to be sung to the Christ-child in the German churches at Christmas when the decadent nativity plays (now dwarfed to a mere tableau of the manger, the holy parents, and the adoring shepherds and magi) were still cultivated. From the old custom termed Kindeiwiegen, which remained in the German Protestant Church centuries after the Reformation, Luther borrowed the refrain, "Susaninne" for one of his Christmas chorales. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... 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 ceremony of his coronation. A royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in the midst of the palace; the diadem was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... extended narrative, forms an important part of the Esoteric Teachings of the Mystic Brotherhoods, and Occult Orders of the Orient, and which is also known to the members of the affiliated secret orders of the Western world. The story of THE MAGI is embedded in the traditions of the Oriental Mystics, and we shall here give you a brief outline of the story as it is told by Hierophant to ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Concina, who, after having listened to the doctrines of the reformation, had become reconciled to the church. Here is Paul's piety, naively displayed by giving to the Virgin all the courtly graces of a high-born signorina. He paints, too, the Adoration of the Magi, because it gives such a good opportunity to deal with camels, jewels, turbans, and all the trappings of Oriental royalty. The Virgin and Child are a small part of the affair. I like Paul because he is so innocently unconscious of any thing deep to be expressed; so honestly ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... masters, set in deep frames of ebony and gold, hung at wide distances upon the wall. There was the head of an ecclesiastic, cut from a large picture by Spagnoletti; a Venetian senator by Tintoretto; the Adoration of the Magi by Caravaggio. An ivory crucifix was the only object upon the high, ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 will soon ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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
... 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 ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... Diodorus, Plutarch, the elder Pliny, and many writers of the first centuries after 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 ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... for Connaught; and when near Rath Cruaghan, met the daughters of King Laeghaire, the princesses Ethnea and Fethlimia, who were coming, in patriarchal fashion, to bathe in a neighbouring well. These ladies were under the tuition of certain druids, or magi; but they willingly listened to the instruction of the saint, and were converted ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... John having never heard of it or forgotten it. What an incongruous jumble of absurdities! A poor fairy tale of the world's childhood, utterly insignificant beside the stupendous revelations of science. From the fanciful story of the Magi following a star to Shelley's "World on worlds are rolling ever," what an advance! As I retired to sleep on my plank-bed my mind was full of these reflections, and when the gas was turned out, and I was left in darkness and silence, I felt serene ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... deity of very uncertain origin, and that the name "Ashima" may be very well compared with the Persian "asuman" ("heaven"); in "Zend," "acmano," so Gesenius in his Man. Lex., 1832. This also, according to the magi, is the name of the angel of death, who separates the souls of men from their bodies, Cal. Dic., p. 106. Cones are to be seen in the British Museum which are probably of the character which represented Elah-Gabalah, the sun-god, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... Mari Lwyd, which I have heard translated "grey mare." Llwyd certainly is grey, but Mari is not a mare, in Welsh. I think I have heard that there is some connection between it and the camel which often appears in old pictures of the Magi offering their gifts. Can any of your readers inform me of the real meaning of the name, and the origin of the custom, and also whether a similar custom does not prevail ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... first author to mention him. This Otto wrote a chronicle to the date 1156. He says that John was of the family of the Magi, and ruled over the country of these Wise Men. Otto tells us that Prester John had ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... of Oengus, came to him; and he healed him from lameness at the fountain to the west of Cross-Patrick; and he (Aedh) presented to him a plot of land there, where he founded a residence, and he left two of his family there—viz., Teloc and Nemnall. Enna saw the druids (magi) wishing to kill Patrick, and he said to his son Conall, "Go and protect Patrick, that the magi may not kill him." Patrick perceived them, and ethereal fire burned them, to ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... the opinions of writers before Christ; whether they were derived from Scripture, it is not now my purpose to discuss. See also Lipsii Physiologia. On the agreement of the systems of the Stoics, of the Magi, and of the Edda, see Bishop Percy's Notes to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... 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 ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... Kings of the East were no ordinary saints; to the relics of the Three Magi, who followed the Star of Bethlehem, and were the first potentates of the earth who adored its Saviour, well might the pious Catholic suppose that a peculiar power and a healing sanctity would belong. Each of the circle (St. Amand, who had ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... and disgusting features with which devilish malice has disguised you." Poor little Poinsinet looked, and came back in tears. "But," resumed the magician,—"ha, ha, ha!—I know a way in which to disappoint the machinations of these fiendish magi." ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 the manes of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... 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; ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... famous '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 to that at the present day, according to a more ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... 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 ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... 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 ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... pure white wool, thrown over a tunic of silk; and a white, pointed cap, with long lapels at the sides, rested on his flowing black hair. It was the dress of the ancient priesthood of the Magi, ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... thou feeling, 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 fangs to tear ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... strange mark is that it "cometh without observation." And these Kingdoms rising tier above tier in ever increasing sublimity and beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in the past, their progress, and the direction of their progress, being facts in Nature still, are the signs which, since the Magi saw His star in the East, have never been wanting from the firmament of truth, and which in every age with growing clearness to the wise, and with ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, proclaim that "the Kingdom of God ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... and well-wrought narrative. As we study these lyrics of the early Church, we feel anew the mighty change that Christianity wrought in Roman life by its doctrine of immortality, and we note the curious fascination which the circumstances of the Nativity and especially the Adoration of the Magi had for the Western world. Prudentius had a great vogue in the Middle Ages, and the modern renewal of interest in mediaevalism invests with fresh dignity a poet whose works at the Revival of learning provoked the admiration of Erasmus[1] and the researches of numerous scholars ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be taken away by the King of the Assyrians"—or spiritually, "before His birth He will save His people solely by invocation," as a gloss expounds it. Augustine however (Serm. xxxii de Temp.) says that this was fulfilled in the adoration of the Magi. For he says: "Before He uttered human words in human flesh, He received the strength of Damascus, i.e. the riches which Damascus vaunted (for in riches the first place is given to gold). They themselves were the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... love me. I could speak to her in the language of all countries, and tell her the lore of all ages. I could trace the nursery legends which she loved up to their Sanscrit source, and whisper to her the darkling mysteries of Egyptian Magi. I could chant for her the wild chorus that rang in the dishevelled Eleusinian revel: I could tell her and I would, the watchword never known but to one woman, the Saban Queen, which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of Solomon—You don't attend. Psha! you have drunk too ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... see light upon all the paths of duty. It is wonderful how, when a man lives near God, he gets to know what he ought to do. That great Light, which is Christ, is like the star that hung over the Magi, blazing in the heavens, and yet stooping to the lowly task of guiding three wayfaring men along a muddy road upon earth. So the highest Light of God comes down to be 'a lantern for our paths and a light ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of virgins which issues forth from this castello is led by S Eufemia, who does not bear a palm, but carries her crown in her two hands. Before her go the three Magi, Balthassar, Melchior, and Caspar, bearing their gold, frankincense, and myrrh under the palms of the long way, guided by the star to where Madonna sits enthroned with her little Son between ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... growing among the marble quarries of Arabia, on the side of Persia," just as the Egyptian didi was obtained near the granite quarries at Aswan. "By means of this plant [aglaophotis], according to Democritus, the Magi can summon the deities into their presence when they please, "just as the users of the conch-shell trumpet believed they could do with this instrument. I have already (p. 196) emphasized the fact that all of these ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... him 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 ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... or white hair, their long gowns of another age, whose lugubrious colors could not be distinguished, dropping, at rare intervals, words which were both majestic and severe, little Marius stared at them with frightened eyes, in the conviction that he beheld not women, but patriarchs and magi, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Death of Virginia," of the Morelli Collection, Bergamo, and the sketched figures in the repainted "Adoration of the Magi," lately exposed in ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... the ovals that are on each side of the throned bishop, a prominent figure in the lower half of the central light, one of the Christ enthroned, the other of the Virgin. The two medallions below them he believes represent "Zacharias in the Temple," and "The Adoration of the Magi." The later glass now in the same window may be either Flemish work brought hither from Dijon, or possibly partly from Rouen, and partly from a church near Exeter. It has been conjectured that in the south lancet the figures represent SS. Peter and Francis, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... is my favorite," and Miss Sherwin took from a portfolio a photograph of the Magi on the way ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... besides the Orvieto Resurrection, his most superb and poetical work. The figures, only three inches high, have his highest quality of powerful grandeur, solemnly rustic in the kneeling shepherds—solemn in the very swagger, hand on hip, of the parti-coloured bravoes of the Magi; the landscape, only a few centimetres across, is one of the amplest and most austere that ever has been painted: a valley, bounded by blue hills and dark green ilex groves, wide, silent, inhabited by a race larger and stronger than the human, with more than human passions, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... 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 manifestation, namely, ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... of the most distinguished of them was Democritus, born 460 B.C. He came of noble descent, and belonged to so wealthy a family of Abdera that his father was able to entertain Xerxes on his return to Asia. The King left some Chaldean Magi to instruct his son, who, early in life, evinced a great desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and after studying under Leucippus, travelled to Egypt, Persia, and Babylon. He almost seemed a compound of two different characters, uniting the intellectual energy of the sage with the social feelings ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the Holy Child, Holding a globe and sceptre, sweet and mild; The Magi bring their gifts with reverent looks, And the rapt Shepherds ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... 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; ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... the thatched roof of Pepe Garcia, though somewhat less sound than that of the Three Magi in their tomb at Cologne, lasted until a ray of the morning sun had penetrated the open-work walls of the hut. The colonel rapidly dressed himself, and aroused the others. A disquieting silence reigned around the modest mansions of Chile-Chile. The interpreter was away, Juan of Aragon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... there is in the first chapel, left on entering, a"Nativity" by A.Semini. The figure of the Virgin appears rather large, but the contour and expression of the others are admirable. In another chapel on the same side of the church is an "Adoration of the Magi" by Albert Durer, in the form of a triptych. In a small church, called the Capella di Christo, over the altar within a niche, is a wooden figure of our Lord, said to be 800 years old. In the sacristy are two reliefs in black marble from 400 to 500 years old. The Emperor Pertinax, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... poisonous mist, touched by the wrath of God To fire; from which 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, sire, If ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... little 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various |
