by The Great Christ Comet- Revealing the True Star of Bethlehem (retail) (epub)
Comets were often interpreted by the ruling elite as distinctly bad news, portending the death of a ruler.52 The death of the Emperor Claudius was presaged by a comet.53 As we have seen, when a comet appeared during Nero’s reign, he was so fearful that it was an omen of his death that he consulted his astrologer Balbillus, who recommended that he execute prominent subjects to redirect the wrath of the gods.54 Nero then embarked on a brutal massacre of the nobility that ironically ended up bringing about his own deposition.55 Moreover, according to Cassius Dio,56 the Emperor Vitellius’s death was announced by a number of different celestial phenomena, including “a comet star.” Cassius Dio also records that Vespasian’s death in AD 79 was presaged by “the comet star which was seen for a considerable period” and which Vespasian tried to play down by insisting that the comet’s long hair meant that it was an omen not for him, since he was bald, but rather for the long-haired Parthian king.57 In the case of the Magi’s Star, however, the threat to Herod was based not simply on the fact that a comet had appeared but on the fact that the comet clearly represented the Messiah and indicated that he had now been born.
The negative response of the people of Jerusalem may possibly also have been partly due to a conviction that comets were often portents of disaster and partly due to their belief that this particular comet was announcing ultimate regime change—the end of Herod’s dynasty and even the end of the Roman empire as the Messiah overthrew his enemies and established his kingdom on the earth.58
Ninth, we know that the Babylonians were very interested in comets. They made records of them in their astronomical diaries. In these records they were particularly concerned to note the time and details of a comet’s first appearance and key moments of the apparition such as its heliacal setting and rising. As Stephenson writes, “Even the existing descriptions [of comets by the Babylonians] are fragmentary, but they still enable us to infer the characteristic features of a typical Babylonian cometary account. Whether in the daily reports or the monthly summaries, records of comets were apparently entered only on the following occasions: (1) first sighting; (2) heliacal setting; (3) heliacal rising; (4) any stationary points; and (5) last visibility.”59 In light of this, it is noteworthy that in Matthew 2 the Magi are portrayed as having made a record of the first appearance of the Star and its heliacal rising.
Tenth, in the ancient Near East around the turn of the ages, a cometary apparition was sometimes interpreted as a sign of a great ruler’s birth. Justinus (writing in the second century AD, but no doubt reflecting opinion from the second and first centuries BC) emphasized that the “future excellency” of Mithridates VI Eupator (134–63 BC), king of Pontus and Armenia Minor and formidable foe of Rome, was signaled in the heavens on the occasion of his birth in 135 BC by a brilliant, fiery, long-tailed comet that lasted for 70 successive days and at one stage took four hours to rise and set.60 There is therefore precedent for the idea that a great comet could function as a celestial announcement of the birth of a great leader. Since the Star of Bethlehem was a heavenly sign marking the birth of the messianic King of the Jews, a comet is an ideal candidate for the role.
Eleventh, the proposal that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet has in its favor that it is the earliest explicit identification of the Star of which we know and is the only astronomical explanation of the Star that is suggested by Christian descriptions of the Star in the first three centuries AD. We have already considered evidence for the identification of the Star as a comet from Origen, and we have seen that Ignatius and the Protevangelium of James spoke of the Star in terms that seem to require that it was a comet.61
These arguments form a formidable case that the Star seen by the Magi in their eastern homeland and in Bethlehem in 6–5 BC was a great comet.
We can, however, go further than this.
A Long-Period, Retrograde Comet Narrowly Inclined to the Ecliptic
The most plausible candidate for the role of the Star of Bethlehem is assuredly a long-period comet. Moore observed that short-period comets can be safely discounted, because only rarely do they attain to naked-eye visibility, and even then they are faint and fuzzy.62 His point is valid: some short-period comets, although dormant for long stretches of time, reactivate to such an extent that they cross the threshold of naked-eye visibility for brief seasons, sometimes just for single apparitions (e.g., Comet Helfenzrieder), but other times for up to a few hundred years, with the intensity of their brightness fading over this time (e.g., Comet Encke). But even these comets are generally difficult for the naked eye to make out.
At the same time, we should bear in mind that Jupiter-family comets are capable of remarkable outbursts of activity that increase their level of brightness dramatically for a brief time, from a day up to a few months (e.g., Comet Holmes). Furthermore, a short-period comet is capable of becoming a striking object in the night sky if it makes a very close pass by Earth63 (e.g., Comet Lexell in June/July of 1770). In addition, a number of astronomers believe that many short-period comets which in the modern era have a weak magnitude were probably brighter a few millennia ago.64 It is sometimes suggested that a given comet may have been brighter in the past by 1 magnitude per millennium,65 although this is not a reliable measure.
However, we do well to remember that virtually all the great historical comets, with the notable exception of Halley’s Comet, have been long-period comets that had made relatively few passes into the inner solar system and hence were still loaded with volatiles.
It is long-period comets whose closest approaches to the Sun are within the orbit of Mercury (at its farthest, just under half the Earth-Sun distance) that are most likely to become bright, large, and long, and hence may put on a compelling celestial display.66 The fact that the Star of Bethlehem was visible for so long reveals that it was intrinsically extremely bright and indeed very large (like Hale-Bopp in 1996–1997, and Sarabat in 1729–1730), meaning that it was a long-period comet. That the tail was very long is suggested not just by the implicit claim that Numbers 24:17’s oracle of the cometary scepter was fulfilled (Matt. 2:2; Rev. 12:5; see also chapter 8 below), but also by the Star’s going ahead of the Magi to Bethlehem and then standing over the house where Jesus was. Long tails are characteristic of long-period comets. Moreover, the awesome nature of the heliacal rising of the Star favors a productive comet with a close perihelion distance, which likewise strongly favors a long-period comet.
Not only was the Star evidently a large, intrinsically bright, long-period comet with a perihelion distance within Mercury’s orbit, but it was also almost certainly narrowly inclined to the ecliptic plane on which Earth orbits the Sun. The fact that the comet, obviously long, stood vertically or near-vertically over the western horizon at the conclusion of the Magi’s journey strongly favors this.67 We are privileged to have a number of glorious images of historical comets standing up over the western horizon. In each case the comet was located in a zodiacal constellation and was setting in approximately the same location as the Sun—the tail pointing upwards because tails are always oriented away from the Sun. The fact that the Star at its climactic appearance was probably first seen in the south-southeast and then crossed the meridian (in the south) and finally set upright (Matt. 2:9, 11) seems to indicate that the scene occurred between October and December. At that time the angle of the ecliptic midway through the night, from the perspective of someone in the ancient Near East, was nearly vertical. Further, a comet that “stands” is most likely a straight-tailed comet. This, coupled with the fact that the Star was regarded as having fulfilled Numbers 24:17, which prophesied that a straight-tailed cometary scepter would signal the Messiah’s coming, favors a narrowly inclined comet. When a comet orbits on or near the plane of Earth’s orbit, the sharp curvature of the tail in outer space is not apparent to Earth-dwellers—the tail appears to be straight.
Moreover, as we saw above, the fact that what most deeply impressed the Magi was what the Star did around the time of its heliacal risin
g is most naturally explained if it was a great comet that ventured very close to the Sun. Comets making close passes by the Sun are generally located within the zodiacal constellations at the time. So it would seem that the comet was in the zodiacal band of sky not only when it seemed to stand over the house where Jesus was in Bethlehem, but also some weeks earlier, when it was at perihelion. This would seem to confirm that the comet was indeed narrowly inclined to the ecliptic.
At the same time, a comet in the zodiacal band would have been perceived to have greater astrological significance than one outside it. The primary task of astrologers at the time of the birth of Jesus was formulating horoscopes based upon a person’s zodiacal birth sign, that is, the zodiacal sign that was heliacally rising at the point of birth. Considering that the Magi interpreted what the Star did in the eastern sky as disclosing the birth of a great leader, it would obviously make most sense if the Star was within a zodiacal constellation/sign.
Along these same lines, the discovery of the comet by the Magi the best part of a year, or more, before perihelion, when the comet would have been very dim, is slightly easier to explain if the comet first appeared in an area of the sky in which the astrologers focused their observations—namely, the zodiacal region. It is striking that the surviving Babylonian cometary records seem to reflect a heavy bias toward comets that appeared in the zodiacal band (they specifically mention comets in Scorpius [210 BC], Taurus and Sagittarius [164 BC], Libra [138 BC], and Aries [120 BC]).68
For these reasons, it seems very likely that the cometary Star of Bethlehem was narrowly inclined to the ecliptic, like the planets and most asteroids and Jupiter-family comets. Since we have already made the case for the comet having a long period, we can with some confidence identify it as one of a relatively small group of such comets that are narrowly inclined to the ecliptic.69
We can go further: the comet was probably also retrograde. This is because the only way a narrowly inclined comet can switch rapidly from the eastern to the western sky some weeks after its perihelion/heliacal rising is if it is at that point cutting through the Earth-Sun line. Only a retrograde comet can do this. That the Star proceeded to migrate to the southern evening sky confirms this.
Accordingly, the Star of Bethlehem was most likely a very large, intrinsically bright, narrowly inclined (and hence zodiacal), retrograde, long-period comet that appeared many months before its perihelion passage, rose heliacally in the eastern morning sky around the time of its perihelion, and then subsequently moved between the Sun and Earth, therefore switching to the western evening sky and then the southern evening sky.
Positive Interpretations of Comets in the Ancient World
One of the most peculiar features of recent works on the Star of Bethlehem is their tendency to dismiss cavalierly the comet hypothesis simply by lambasting the notion that the Star was Halley’s Comet and/or by insisting that comets were always interpreted negatively in the ancient world. We have already dealt adequately with the former idea; because of how widely disseminated the latter claim is, we must give careful consideration to it now.
The charge that the comet hypothesis is implausible because it conflicts with the universally negative ancient interpretation of comets is made by many. Moore, for example, asserted that comets were always perceived to be unlucky and evil and therefore no magus would have interpreted one to be an omen of a royal birth.70 Molnar likewise rejects the comet hypothesis on the basis that “The evidence . . . is strong that people of Roman times feared rather than welcomed comets. Long-haired stars were thought to be harbingers of disaster, usually the death of a king or an emperor.”71 Similarly, P. A. H. Seymour dismisses the idea that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet on the ground that comets were always omens of death and disaster and never of happy things.72 Sumners and Allen echo this indictment of the comet view: comets were “considered harbingers of evil. Their appearances foretold war, pestilence, or the death of a ruler, not the birth of a king.”73
Regardless of how much this charge is repeated, it is over-simplistic and indeed profoundly misleading.
First, it stands to reason that, if a comet’s apparition was perceived to be bad news by and for the ruling elite, it would naturally have been interpreted as good news by and for those who were eager to see regime change. As Humphreys puts it, “although a comet was regarded as a bad omen for the king who was about to die or for the side that was going to lose a war, equally a comet was regarded as a good omen heralding a new king or a major victory for those on the winning side.”74 Tacitus wrote concerning AD 60 that “In the meantime a comet star blazed out. The opinion of the masses is that [a comet] portends revolution for kingdoms. Therefore, as if Nero had already been dethroned, [the masses] began to ask who should be chosen [as his replacement]. On the lips of everyone was the name Rubellius Plautus, who inherited his nobility from the Julian family through his mother” (Tacitus, Ann. 14.22).75 This demonstrates that a comet’s announcement of a change of regime was not necessarily perceived by all to be bad news. As we have already highlighted, the Star seen by the Magi in the east was interpreted negatively by Herod but positively by the Magi.
Second, there is some evidence that in the Greco-Roman world comets were sometimes regarded as being omens of good. Origen, Contra Celsum 1.59, refers to a Stoic called Chaeremon (fl. AD 30–65), who in a work on comets insisted that comets sometimes appeared “when good things were to occur” and proceeded to substantiate his claim with examples.76
It is worth giving a few Greco-Roman examples of comets being perceived to be good omens.
Diodorus Siculus (16.66.3) and Plutarch (Timoleon 8) refer to a bright light that attended Timoleon as he traveled to Sicily. If this was a comet,77 it was a favorable one.
According to Justinus,78 the birth and accession of Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus, in 135 or 134 BC and 120 or 119 BC respectively, were announced by cometary apparitions: “The future excellency of this man was foretold by celestial signs. For both in the year in which he was born and in the one in which he started to reign, on each occasion, a comet star blazed for 70 days in such a way that the entire sky appeared to be on fire.”79 Interestingly, the Chinese80 record comets in the years 135, 134 (possibly), 120, and 119 BC, and it is now widely accepted that Justinus’s claims concerning comets at the time of Mithridates’s birth and coronation are historically reliable.81 Ramsey has argued convincingly that the 135 BC comet is the one that coincided with Mithridates’s birth and that the 119 BC comet occurred at the time of his coronation.82 In Justinus’s account therefore we have excellent historical evidence of two cometary apparitions that were interpreted positively.83
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2.23, records that in 44 BC, just under four decades before the Bethlehem Star, most probably late in July, a dramatic daytime comet occurred in the heavens in the time shortly after the death of Julius Caesar. Octavian, later called Caesar Augustus, regarded this comet as “auspicious.” In his Vita he wrote,
During the very time of these games of mine, a hairy star [comet] was seen during seven days, in the part of the heavens which is under the Great Bear. It rose in about the eleventh hour of the day, was very bright, and was conspicuous in all parts of the earth. The common people supposed the star to indicate that the soul of Caesar was admitted among the immortal gods; under which designation it was that the star was placed on the bust which was lately consecrated in the forum.84
Pliny then comments that “This is what [Octavian] proclaimed in public, but, in secret, he rejoiced at this auspicious omen, interpreting it as produced for himself; and, to confess the truth, it really proved a salutary omen for the world at large.”85
Cassius Dio 45.7 states that “the majority . . . ascribed [the comet star] to Caesar, interpreting it to mean that he had become a god and had been included in the number of the stars” and that Octavian “took courage and set up in the temple of Venus a bronze statue of him with a star above his head.”86 Octavian’s initial nervo
usness about the comet makes plenty of sense—if the comet had been interpreted as a negative omen regarding his reign, it could have spelled serious trouble for him. However, the sources are clear that Octavian was delighted publicly and privately at the prodigious timing of the comet.
What Pliny and Cassius Dio give us here is a clear instance of a comet, indeed one of the most famous comets in history, having a happy association. Molnar, however, in his rejection of the idea that the Bethlehem Star was a comet, offers a different spin on what transpired: “Augustus Caesar, Julius Caesar’s adopted son and political heir, knew that people would speculate that the new comet foretold his own death. . . . However, Augustus stemmed any thoughts about his demise by proclaiming that the comet was the wandering soul of Julius Caesar. Augustus proved to be one of history’s greatest propagandists and spin-control artists: he commissioned coins and statues honoring the comet.”87
FIG. 6.11 The front and back of a silver denarius from about 19/18 BC displaying Caesar’s Comet of 44 BC. The comet’s tail is portrayed as oriented upwards. The other seven rays suggest that it was extremely bright. Image credit: www.forumancientcoins.com.
However, this interpretation of the data by Molnar is overly cynical and contrary to the earliest and most reliable sources. That Octavian exploited the popular interpretation of the comet and used and developed it in his own propaganda is scarcely to be doubted (see fig. 6.11), but that is a long way from his inventing it. The evidence, such as we have, strongly suggests that this comet was almost universally embraced as a positive sign.
We conclude, then, that the great comet that appeared in the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s death, less than four decades before the birth of Jesus, was perceived to be a resoundingly positive omen by most of the people of Rome and by Octavian himself.88
