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broad and curious hangings of the same length wrought with purple, velvet, scarlet and silk. All the fabrick was so exquisitely rich, that none could imagine any workmanship wanting, for was all covered with many plates of gold, which astonished the holders; the top was all set with rods of gold, sharp at the end less birds should sit thereon, and defile the holy place.
Our Saviour was born in the year of the world, 4004, and the 43d year of Augustus Caesar, many remarkable things were found in the heavens, which caused the wife men to conclude that far more than ordinary person would appear upon the earth; the learned thought it to be Augustus Caesar, who then reigned
prosperously; and others thought it to be whom the prophet he speaks of, that should have the government upon his shoulders, even the Saviour of the world whom the evangelists mention the angels declared to the shepherd, and the star directed the wife men of the east to find out the place of his birth. So that.
As the new earth with a new Sun was blest,
So heaven with a new glorious star was drest.
At Christ’s birth the temple at Rome dedicated to the god Pan fell to the earth, and when it was built, the Romans addressed to the oracle Apollo, to know how long it should endure, who answered till a virgin should bring forth a child, which they judged impossible
therefore they believed that their temple should last eternally.
That night that Christ was born, there appeared in Spain, at midnight, a cloud with so great a light, that it seem’d like midday St. Jerome writes that when the virgin fled with her son into Egypt that all the images of the gods tumbled from their altars to the ground; and that the oracles, or answers, which these gods, or their devils used to give them ceased, and never answered afterwards.
The first year of Christ’s birth, there were many strange things that happened in Germany and in Rome, and a terrible eclipse of the Sun. At the twelfth year of his age he disputed with the devil and at that time there appeared a terrible comet, that the light and
the sun apparently failed, and the heavens seemed to burn, and beams fell from them. In the 22d year of his age, several blood comets were seen,and the river Tyber overflowed the city of Rome.
Publius Lentullus's Epistle to Rome concerning Christ
"There appeared in these our days a man of great virtue called
"Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us and of the people
"called a prophet; but his own disciples call him the Son of Christ
"He raiseth the dead and cureth all manner of diseases; a man
"stature somewhat tall and comely with a reverend countenance
