Kings And Heaven

Et venimus, inquiunt, adorare eum. Adorare, quem Deum stella famulante intelligunt. Alioquin Herodem, quem regio cultu renitentem cernebant, primum debuerant adorare. Sed quia divinitus agebantur, ut latentem Deum in cunis, vl inter praesepia vagientem, ad adorandum requirerent, hunc nec regem intendunt, nec eum veneratur, nec aliquid eum esse computant. Quo sane inspirationis affectu et illud gestum dixerim, quod Octavianus Augustus, eo tempore quo totum sibi subditum atque subjectum persenserat orbem, atque populus universus in concione, quod supra memini, dominum eum totius terra voluerit acclamare, nequaquam passus est: sed legibus hoc prohibuit, quod nullus unquam regem ante fecisse legitur. Hinc profecto patet quia vis divina, quae istos devotionis intus agebat affectu, ipsa hunc cohibuit principem, ne sibi applauderet indebite, quod potentatu alterius totus terrarum orbis sub monarchia Romani imperii subdebatur. Sed corybanta Herodes, audiens alium quam se Judaeorum regem requirere, turbatus dicitur, et omnis Hirosolyma cum illo. Moliebatur enim, cum esset alienigena ignobilis genere, legitimus Judeorum rex videri. Unde et omnes codices, teste Josepho, quibus Judaeorum genealogia texebatur, igne cremaverat, ne notarent eum, reticendo, ignobilem, et prosapiae ordinem tribus Judae clarissimum commendarent. Aestimans se itaque nobilem videri posse, si nullis sacrae Scripturae fascibus premeretur. Sanctus Paschasius Radbertus Corbeiensis, Expositio In Evangelium Matthaei, Liber II, Caput II Source: Migne PL 120.130c-131a

'And we have come,' they said, 'to adore him.' 1 To adore Him whom they understand to be God by the guidance of the star. Yet Herod, who they noted to be the celebrated one of that land, they should have first adored. But because they were moved by heaven, so they sought to adore the hidden God in the cradle, and crying out in a manager, whence they do not deem Herod to be a king, nor do they venerate him, nor do they reckon him to be anything. Which affection of inspiration and act I would say that Emperor Octavian felt deeply in himself, who in that age had subdued and subjected the whole world, for with all the people gathered together, as I mentioned before, when they wished to acclaim him as the lord of all the earth, he would not allow it, but he made laws to prohibit it, which it is not recorded that any king did before. 2 Whence undoubtedly it is manifest that some Divine power worked on the interior affection of these men, and restrained the prince, lest he celebrate himself unduly, since it was another potentate who subdued the whole orb of the earth beneath the monarchy of the Roman empire. But the maddened Herod, hearing that they sought someone else and not him as the king of the Jews, is said to be troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. For being born of foreign ignoble stock, he yet strove to appear as the rightful king of the Jews. Whence Joseph testifies that he had every book in which the Jews set down their genealogies burnt with fire, lest they judge him, though silently, as ignoble, and commend the most famous line of the lineage of the tribe of Judah. Thus he is only able to think that he appears noble if he is not oppressed by any of the books of Holy Scripture Saint Paschasius Radbertus, Commentary On The Gospel of Saint Matthew, Book 2, Chapter 2 1 Mt 2.2 2 122c