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St. Augustine, in Sermon 4 on the Epiphany (De Temp.
42). From Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, vol. 1, p.
198.
These Wise Men, what were they but the first fruits of the
Gentiles? The shepherds were Israelites, the Magi Gentiles. The former
from close by, the latter from far away; both hasten to the Corner Stone.
(Again, from Serm. 2.) Jesus is made manifest neither to the learned
nor to the just. For ignorance dominated the rusticity of the shepherds,
impiety the practices of the Magi. But that Corner Stone joins them both
to Himself, Who came to select the foolish that He might confound the
wise, and to call not the just but the sinners to repentance; so that
no great one might take pride in himself, and no lowly one despair.
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