Abelard speaks of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem in a sermon for Epiphany.[6] This familiar theme, as we have seen, had often occupied the pens of the church fathers, so that Abelard has nothing new to say. On the contrary, he exhausts neither the authorities nor the subject in the passages which he selects for repetition. His first point is that the Magi were fittingly the first of the Gentiles to become Christian converts because they before had been the masters of the greatest error, condemned by law with soothsayers to death, and indebted for their “nefarious and execrable doctrine” to demons. In short, Abelard identifies them with magicians and takes that word in the worst sense. He is aware, however, that some identify them not with sorcerers (_malefici_) but with astronomers. He repeats the legend from the spurious homily of Chrysostom which we have already recounted[7] of how the magi had for generations watched for the star, warned by the writing of Seth which they possessed, and how the star finally appeared in the form of a little child with a cross above it and spake with them. He also states that they were called _magici_ in their tongue because they glorified God in silence, without appearing to note that this is contrary to his previous use of _magi_ in an evil sense. Abelard believes that a new star announced the birth of Christ, the heavenly king, although he grants that comets, which we read of as announcing the deaths of earthly sovereigns, are not new stars. He also discusses without satisfactory results the question why this new star was seen only by the Magi. [Sidenote: Demons and forces in nature.] In a chapter “On the Suggestions of Demons” in his _Ethica seu Scito te ipsum_,[8] Abelard attempts to a certain extent a natural explanation of the tempting of men by demons and the arousing of lust and other evil passions within us. In this he perhaps makes his closest approach to the standpoint of natural science, although he is simply repeating an idea found already in Augustine and other church fathers. In plants and seeds and trees and stones, Abelard explains, there reside many forces adapted to arouse or calm our passions. The demons, owing to their subtle ingenuity and their long experience with the natures of things, are acquainted with all these occult properties and make use of them for their own evil ends. Thus they sometimes, by divine permission, send men into trances or give remedies to those making supplications to them, “and often when such cease to feel pain, they are believed to be cured.” Abelard also mentions the marvels which the demons worked in Egypt in opposition to Moses by means of Pharaoh’s magicians. [Sidenote: Magic and natural science.]