The Great Christ Comet
Page 16
Babylonian Records
The Babylonians kept astronomical diaries, namely detailed records of their celestial observations, for many centuries, from the middle of the eighth century BC right up to the first century AD. These records refer to a comet as a sallammu or sallummu.143 Unfortunately, no Babylonian records of comets survive from the fifty years either side of the birth of Jesus.144 Only nine Babylonian comet records have survived, and they only in fragmentary form, mentioning comets in 234, 210, 164, 163, 157, 138, 120, 110, and 87 BC.145 The 164 BC and 87 BC comets are believed to be apparitions of Halley’s Comet.146
It is worth briefly overviewing some of these Babylonian cometary records, preserved on surviving fragments of cuneiform texts, to get a sense of what the Babylonian astronomers tended to take note of regarding comets. Concerning the 234 BC comet, they noted that it was first observed in the east in the last watch of the night sometime in January/February. With respect to the 210 BC comet, they recorded that it first appeared along the ecliptic in Scorpius, with its tail pointing eastward, in June/July. Regarding the 164 BC comet (Halley’s), the Babylonians took note of the fact that the comet had appeared in the area of the Pleiades and Taurus and then, with its tail 7½ degrees long and oriented northward, moved to about 2½ degrees from Jupiter within Sagittarius. One cuneiform fragment noted that the 163 BC comet had a southward-oriented tail and was located 1½ degrees above the star α (Alpha) Coronae Borealis on September 5; another, more damaged fragment compares the comet’s location to that of the same star and identifies the time as the first watch of the night. Only the date of the 157 BC comet, in October/November, has survived. With reference to the 138 BC comet, the Babylonians noted where and when the comet became stationary, and the zodiacal location (Libra) and date (May 28) of the comet’s heliacal setting (its final visible setting in the evening in the run-up to a period when it is invisible due to its closeness to the Sun) in the west. With respect to the 120 BC comet, fragments of several records have survived, detailing: (1) the celestial location of the comet on May 18; (2) where and when it became stationary (May 20); (3) that its tail pointed southward on June 16; and (4) that the comet was seen on July 13 at the beginning of the night and that it had previously appeared in Aries in the east on day 29 of an earlier Babylonian month (probably equivalent to May 18). Concerning the comet of 110 BC, the Babylonians noted, on November 23, the part of the sky—the east—where the comet was and indeed its precise celestial location and the orientation of the tail—pointing westward. A later record recalled that initial observation and mentioned that the comet had subsequently migrated into the northern sky (or perhaps simply north of some celestial entity). Finally, with regard to the 87 BC (Halley’s) comet, the Babylonians recorded that it was seen in the first part of some night in July/August and commented on the rate of its motion through the sky (“day beyond day one cubit”) and the northwestern direction of the 10-degree tail.147
From these surviving Babylonian records, we can get a good idea of what typical Babylonian cometary records looked like. Stephenson deduces from the Babylonian evidence that the Babylonian astronomers included entries concerning comets at particular stages of a comet’s apparition—at the first observation of the comet, at its heliacal setting, at its heliacal rising, whenever the comet (i.e., coma) became stationary relative to the fixed stars and constellations, and when the comet last appeared.148 Each entry after the initial one made a summary reference back to a previous entry concerning the comet.149 The Babylonians commented on the comet’s locations within the sky generally (east, west, north, equatorial zone, south) and specifically within the constellations, and the direction and length of the tail.150 Moreover, Stephenson points out that they obviously knew that the very same comet could be observed both prior to conjunction with the Sun and after it.151 Interestingly, the surviving Babylonian cometary records seem to reflect a bias toward comets that are located within the zodiac (the band of sky through which the Sun, Moon, and planets seem to traverse).
Strangely, Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca 15.50.3, reports that the Babylonians were believed to be able to predict cometary apparitions accurately on the basis that comets complete cycles through age-long movements in appointed courses. Hermann Hunger et al. highlight that the logical deduction of what Diodorus Siculus claims is that the Babylonians compiled extensive tables of data regarding comets, as they did for eclipses.152 It is not unlikely that there were, included in these records, cometary observations dating back as far as the eighth century BC.
As we have already seen, Babylonian records of Halley’s Comet in 164 BC and 87 BC have survived, the latter only in fragmentary form. Concerning the Halley’s apparition of 12 BC, Hunger et al. comment that, although the Babylonian astronomers no doubt analyzed the comet very closely, no trace of their records has survived.153
Chinese Records
A major boon for students of the history of astronomy is the surviving records of celestial phenomena kept in the Far East, particularly in China and Korea. They provide an invaluable collection of cometary observations all the way back to the first millennium BC.
For our purposes, however, the records we have from Korea are few and far between and of questionable reliability, and those from ancient China, largely preserved in a multivolume historical work known as the Han shu,154 while more numerous and reliable, are far from complete.
There can be little doubt that the Chinese astronomers at the end of the first century BC observed many, if not most, naked-eye comets. However, a large number of these reports were not available to the writers of the Han shu, either because they were not made the subjects of memorials to the emperor and therefore were not formally included in the court register, or because they had been lost in the subsequent period. Of the records of cometary apparitions that were available to the historians, they elected to use only certain ones that were in accord with their ideological reading of the larger narrative of the Former Han dynasty. The criteria for inclusion rather than exclusion were not the brightness or coma/tail size, but rather the perceived astrological significance of the comet and especially the usefulness of the apparition in advancing the historian’s ideological agenda.155
As John T. Ramsey and A. Lewis Licht put it, “Our extant sources clearly reflect but a small fraction of the records that were once kept by the imperial Astronomical Observatory, and the records that do survive are far less detailed and complete than the accounts from which they were drawn. We should not, therefore, conclude from the absence of a report in the Chinese sources available to us today that the sighting of a given comet was not necessarily made from China.”156
How Comprehensive Are the Surviving Ancient Records?
Unfortunately, even when we combine all the records for any given ancient period, they fall far short of a comprehensive list of visible comets.
In his study of how many naked-eye cometary apparitions there would ordinarily be each century, Licht calculated that there would be an average of 87.157 Ramsey and Licht wrote about the situation in the first century BC:
To take the first century B.C. as an example, Hasegawa lists 34 naked-eye comets seen during those hundred years, out of which 16 were seen by only the Romans and/or Greeks, 15 by only the Chinese and/or Koreans, and 3 by observers both in the Mediterranean and in the Far East. However, based upon the statistics in Hasegawa’s catalogue for recent centuries, for which our records are fullest, there should have been as many as 87 naked-eye comets visible during the first century B.C.158
According to the analysis of Hughes, the rate of naked-eye-observed long-period comets has been rather consistent over the past 2,000 years at approximately 81–99 per century.159
For the period 50 BC to AD 50 we have surviving records of at most one-third of all visible comets.
Consequently, any investigation of ancient comets must bear in mind that relatively few records have been preserved. As Ramsey and L
icht highlight, “The vast majority of comets have come and gone without leaving a trace.”160
FIG. 5.32 Comet Ikeya-Zhang (on March 20, 2002), which now has an orbital period of 367 years, visited the inner solar system in 1661 and 2002. Image credit: The High School Astronomy Class at Alssundgymnasiet Sønderborg, Denmark, www.astronomy-ags.dk.
Ancient Views of Comets
The influential Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that comets were merely meteorological phenomena, the product of the earth’s warm exhalations rising to the highest part of the sphere of air and indeed to the border of the sphere of fire, where they ignited. Thereafter they were transported around the region of the upper air.161
Seneca, following the Babylonians, had more sensible ideas concerning comets. He accurately predicted that “one day a human will be able to show the regions in which comets have their orbits, why their course is so far from the other stars, what size they are, and of what they are constituted” (Seneca, Natural Questions 7.26.1).162 Unfortunately, it was Aristotle’s atmospheric view of comets that dominated Western thinking about comets until the modern era.
These “hairy stars,” as the Egyptians and Greeks thought of comets, were widely regarded by the ancients as heralds of important events on Earth.
The Romans, particularly the ruling elite, could assign great significance to the appearance of comets. For example, Suetonius, Nero 36, relates how Nero, in the middle of the first century AD, responded to a comet during his latter years: “It chanced that a comet had begun to appear on several successive nights, a thing which is commonly believed to portend the death of great rulers. Worried by this, and learning from the astrologer Balbillus that kings usually averted such omens by the death of some distinguished man, thus turning [the omens] from themselves upon the heads of the nobles, he resolved on the death of all the eminent men of the State.”163
Rulers from across the ancient world, from Europe to the Near East to the Far East, were acutely aware of the need to be kept abreast of any strange astronomical phenomena, in particular eclipses and comets, that might augur ill for them, their dynasty, or their kingdom. They also knew that celestial signs, and any unfavorable interpretations of them by court astrologers that might leak out, risked empowering enemies inside and/or outside their realm, because to those eager for change, comets could be important portents of hope.
Even Aristotle and Seneca believed that cometary apparitions were harbingers of disaster.
Because bright comets have orbits that may cut across the ecliptic at any angle and hence are frequently located well away from the zodiac, they often did not fit neatly into the standard Babylonian and Greco-Roman system of astrological interpretation focused on the zodiac. A different interpretive approach was therefore called for in the case of comets.
Pliny the Elder (Natural History 2.22–23) set out principles by which cometary apparitions could be interpreted; by taking note of the comet’s appearance, its placement within the sky, and the way in which its tail pointed, one could figure out the nature and geographical location of the doom of which the comet was warning:
It is thought important to take note of the direction in which [the comet] shoots, the star from which it receives its influence, what it looks like, and in what places [in the sky] it shines. If it looks like a flute, it is an omen regarding the art of music; if it appears in the private parts of constellations, it is an omen for immoral behavior; it portends genius and erudition if it forms an equilateral triangle or a rectangular quadrilateral in relation to some of the fixed stars; and it portends poisonings if it appears in the head of either the northern or the southern Serpent.164
Ptolemy held a view similar to Pliny, stating that the shape, the zodiacal constellation in which the coma appeared, the direction of the tails, the timing and duration of the apparition, and the position of the comet relative to the Sun were important clues for determining the meaning and target audience of a comet.165
From Pliny and Ptolemy we get a good idea how the astrological system of interpretation with regard to comets worked. When one factors in that comets often move around through different parts of the sky, one begins to appreciate the number and complexity of messages that astrologers might divine from them.
Based on what Pliny and Ptolemy wrote, we can set forth a series of questions that astrologers in the Greco-Roman and probably Babylonian environment around the turn of the ages would have asked in order to determine a comet’s meaning and significance:166
Where in the sky did the comet first appear?
What did the comet as a whole look like? For example, did it seem similar to a beam of wood, a sword, a javelin, a flute, a trumpet, a horn, a torch, a beard, a mane, a goat, a discus, a jar, or a cask? What was its color? Shape? Size? Movement? Brightness?
What did the comet’s coma (or head) look like?
In what zodiacal constellations was the comet seen?
Where within constellations did it appear? The private parts of a human constellation figure such as Hercules, Orion, or Andromeda? The head of one of the celestial serpents? Etc.
In what direction did the comet seem to point?
What events in the heavens or on the earth coincided with the comet’s appearance? For instance, a comet that occurred at the time of an eclipse or the commencement of a new ruler’s reign was liable to be interpreted with reference to that event.
Where in the sky did the comet seem to pause?
How long did the cometary apparition last?
With which stars was the comet in conjunction? How did it relate to established celestial entities like the stars, the planets, the Moon, and the Sun?
What was the position of the comet relative to the Sun? This revealed the beginning of the augured events: if it was to the west, it meant the onset of the prophesied woes was delayed; to the east, it meant the onset was imminent (Ptolemy).
Of course, many of these principles for the interpretation of comets would have been adopted well beyond the circle of astrologers. One did not need to buy into an astrological system of interpretation to conclude that a serpent-shaped comet in a serpentine constellation might be bad news for a ruler or dynasty, or to believe that a large and bright sword-like comet hanging over a city was an omen of judgment against that city. Josephus, the Jewish historian, made it clear that he believed that a cometary sword standing over Jerusalem in AD 65–66 was a powerful omen auguring the destruction of the city in AD 70.
Although comets were often perceived to be negative omens in the ancient world, on many occasions they were interpreted positively, as we shall see in the following chapter.
Comets in the Bible?
In the Biblical tradition, comets seem to be regarded as capable of functioning as messengers from God. Genesis 1:14–15 appears to have comets chiefly in mind when it refers to “lights” that are “for signs”:
God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.
No member of the starry host is more equipped to communicate meaning (“for signs”) than the comet. As comets move across the sky through the constellations, they are susceptible to being interpreted as conveying all kinds of messages, even complex ones, to human observers. While the Hebrew Bible has a very negative view of astrology, it does hold out the possibility that God could at certain times communicate messages through comets.
An important example is found in Numbers 24:17, a text we shall explore in detail in chapter 8. Here we find a striking prophecy from the Mesopotamian seer Balaam: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.” Balaam’s mysterious reference to a celestial body identified as “a star” and “a scepter” (note the synonymous parallelism) is most naturally interpreted as speaking of a long-ta
iled comet. He is envisioning the Messiah as a cometary scepter, strongly intimating that his coming will be attended by a great comet. Balaam seems to imply that this comet would do something extraordinary in connection with its rising to announce the Messiah’s coming. In particular, the oracle appears to prophesy that the comet would look like a scepter at a key stage of its apparition.
A second prophetic oracle that declares that a cometary apparition would convey a positive message from God is found in Isaiah 9:2, another verse that we shall examine closely in chapter 8: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Isaiah’s description is strongly suggestive of a great comet. “Deep darkness” most naturally refers to the time when the Sun and the Moon are absent from the sky. “Great light” implies that the celestial body was, like the two great lights of Genesis 1 (the Sun and the Moon), large and bright. The only large and bright object with a steady beam that can light up the night in the absence of the Moon is a great comet. Isaiah is therefore, it would seem, prophesying that an extraordinary comet that shone during the deep darkness of night would be the heavenly signal of the coming to fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation through the Messiah. Like Balaam, Isaiah portrays the Messiah himself in terms of the comet that coincided with his birth.
We can see, therefore, that the Hebrew Bible assigns comets a positive, hopeful role in salvation-history.
Conclusion
Comets have fascinated and mystified humans since the dawn of civilization. They are remarkably diverse icy balls of dirt and dust. To ancient sky observers, they turned the heavens into something akin to a celestial movie screen conveying divine messages. In ancient thought, they were often understood to be negative portents, but could also be interpreted positively. The Hebrew Bible reflects a positive view of comets, even prophesying that one will appear to signal the Messiah’s coming, and portraying him in terms of it. The question to which we must now turn is whether a comet might have performed the role of the Star in the story of the Nativity.