88 - The Magi and Halley's Comet

The Magi and Halley's Comet
By William E. Phipps

THE once-in-a-lifetime appearance of Halley's comet during recent months has stimulated those with both religious and scientific curiosity to question what connection, if any, there is between the forecasted comet and the forecasting "star" associated with "magi from the East." There may have been a connection between the two, but the interrelationship may have been quite different from what a literal reading of the Gospel story suggests.

I

Astronomical data, historical happenings, and traditional lore from the first century supplied threads which were skillfully interwoven by a Christian story-teller who lived some decades after Jesus. The evangelist was probably stimulated by two happenings in the year 66: one celestial and one terrestrial. Those events were combined with Jewish lore to produce a nativity narrative imbued with religious meaning. During the last decades of the first century, it was placed at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. The story has ever since been a source of wonder and inspiration.

Astronomers agree that Halley's comet, which has a period ranging from 75 to 79 years, orbited near the earth in the year 66. There are both Chinese and Jewish records of the apparition, so we know the comet had one of its brighter showings that year. When Seneca the Stoic wrote on astronomy about the time of the appearance of Halley's comet in the first century, he observed that comets caught the attention of people who were blind to other unusual stellar phenomena. "They are not quite sure whether to admire or fear the celestial newcomer," wrote the Roman philosopher. "Some people inspire terror by forecasting its grave import."¹ At the outset of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, Josephus describes "a comet resembling a sword hanging over Jerusalem."² After being besieged for a long time, Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. It is understandable that Josephus, writing shortly after its fall, would

William E. Phipps is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Davis and Elkins College, West Virginia. He is the author of Paul Against Supernaturalism (1986) and "Adam's Rib: Bone of Contention" (THEOLOGY TODAY, Oct. 1976). Although Advent and Epiphany might be the appropriate time to relate the magi and the comet, Dr. Phipps points out that early Spring 1986 marks the scientific calendar for Halley's Comet; Feb. 9 being the perihelion or the closest the comet comes to the sun, and April 11 being the moment of closest approach to the earth.
¹ Seneca, Natural Questions, 7, 1.
² Josephus, Jewish War, 6, 288.

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interpret the comet's luminous trail of gases and dust as an ominous sign that the capital city would be put to the sword.

Even though a comet is actually whizzing around the sun, it appears to earthlings to be holding a steady position, or to move slowly across the heavens. Dio Cassius describes the way Halley's comet looked at Rome in 12 B.C. "The star called the hairy-one hung for several days over the city and was finally dissolved into flashes resembling torches."³ For Joseph Lagrange, however, the comet appeared to move rather than hover. "When Halley's comet passed from East to West," he reported from Jerusalem, "everyone was able to observe how its light dispersed over to the West where, after a day or two, it began to shine again." Lagrange thought he was describing Halley's comet, but he confused it with a brighter comet that upstaged it earlier in 1910. This cometary phenomenon caused Lagrange, a Dominican biblical scholar, to claim that the Christmas star was "probably a comet." Drawing on his understanding of ancient literature, he pointed out that "everyone would take it for certain that it was the presage of some glorious reign that was about to take place."⁴

II

The terrestrial happening in the year 66 that may have tantalized the Christmas storyteller was a journey of magi from the Middle East to the Roman empire. Although magi were astrologers, their westward trek was motivated more for political reasons than for understanding the appearance of Halley's comet that same year. Seutonius, Pliny, and Dio Cassius regarded the coming of the magi to be important enough to treat in their Roman histories.⁵ According to them, "Tiridates the magus" - along with a retinue of other magi-went to visit Emperor Nero. Writing a decade after this event, Pliny explained that the journey to Italy was overland because "the magi hold it a sin to spit in the sea or wrong that element by other necessary functions of mortal creatures." Claiming descent from the founder of the Parthian empire, Tiridates hoped Nero would acknowledge him as the rightful ruler of an Asian nation. To obtain this favor, Tiridates paid homage to images of Nero. Then, falling at Nero's feet, he said: "I have come to you, my god, to worship you as I do Mithras." In appreciation of this fawning reverence Nero replied: "By meeting with me face to face, you enjoy my grace. I now declare you to be the King of Armenia." Afterwards there was a lavish banquet at which Nero played his lyre and sang. The magi then, in spite of their taboo against sea travel, boarded a ship to return to Asia.

Jews living then were also aware of other stories of magi and of comets. One of their legends (midrashim) tells about a Pharaoh and his

³ Dio Cassius, History, 54.
⁴ M. J. Lagrange, The Gospel of Jesus Christ (Westminster, Md., 1938), vol. 1, p. 44.
⁵ Suetonius, Nero, 13; Pliny, Natural History, 30, 3; Dio Cassius, History, 62-63.

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magi in the generation before the Israelite exodus. The Egyptian magi predicted that the child of a then pregnant woman would save the people of Israel and subdue the king of Egypt. Pharaoh became alarmed and ordered every male drowned who was born during the next year.⁶ Another story is about a Gentile wise man and a star. The book of Numbers tells of a diviner named Balaam "from the East," who, according to the New English Bible translation, predicts that a "comet" shall arise from Israel.⁷ Shortly before the coming of Christianity, the forecasted comet was associated in Judaism with a messianic teacher!⁸

Some famous Christian interpreters have presumed that the Christmas star was a comet. Origen, a leading scholar of the early church, was the first to take what was then known of astronomy and relate it to the star story at the beginning of the New Testament. Writing some years after the Halley's comet apparition in 218, he suggests that "the star which appeared in the East to be classed with the comets which occasionally occur."⁹ In the medieval era, Giotto was so stimulated by the 1301 appearance of Halley's comet that he featured it when he painted a Bethlehem nativity scene. A comet with a fiery beard dominates the sky in the "Adoration of the Magi" fresco of the Padua chapel.

III

There are striking parallels between the nativity story in Matthew and some aspects of the various ancient events and traditions which have been noted. It is likely that the narrative was composed by someone who knew about a recent visit by magi from the East to the ruler of the Roman empire. Both stories conclude by reporting that magi "fell down and worshipped" the ruler they had travelled far to find, and that they then returned by another route to their own country.

The legend about Egyptian magi prophesying the rise of a Jewish deliverer who would overpower an oppressive Pharaoh was also probably

⁶ Midrash, Ex. 1, 18; Josephus, Antiquities, 2, 205.
⁷ Num. 23:7; 24:17.
⁸ Qumran, The War of the Sons of Light,116.
⁹ 0rigen, Against Celsus, 1, 58.

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known by the Christian nativity writer. Occasionally, Jesus is viewed in the Gospels as a Moses-like liberator, so it would be as fitting for the life of Jesus as it was for the life of Moses to tell of a child arising from outside the court nobility who is destined to triumph over "the powers that be." The ruthless opposition to the promised redeemer is graphically depicted by Herod's slaughter of the innocents, an action that parallels Pharaoh's harshness.

The flamboyant Halley's comet in the year 66 may also have been an experience remembered by the Christian nativity storyteller. Possibly he talked with aged people who recalled the appearance of a similar comet during the reign of Herod the Great at the time of Jesus' birth. Ancient people tended to think of a strange astral apparition as a herald of the birth of someone who would be prominent.

Playing on that traditional association, Mark Twain announced that he came with Halley's comet and so he must go out with it. It is even more amusing for the humorist's survivors, for they know he died the very month that people were watching the return of Halley's comet in 19 10.

The writer who blended strands into the variegated infant Jesus story was not concerned with historical literalism. It is unlikely that he expected his readers to believe that a star actually guided magi the few miles between Jerusalem and Bethlehem and "came to rest over the places where the child was." This belonged as much to the realm of fantasy then as the tale of Santa coming down the chimney does now. Also, had Herod after Jesus' birth actually "killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under," it is incredible that no one else would have even alluded to that atrocity against his own people. Josephus records Herod's reign rather fully, including some cruel acts motivated by jealousy of possible rivals. But the Jewish historian tells of nothing approaching the madness that would cause, or the civil unrest that would result from, a regional massacre of many infants over many months.

Of course, historicity is not necessarily intrinsic to meaning. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar may reveal human character better than a factual chronicle of Caesar's administration. There is a subtle political message hidden beneath the fascinating Christmas story in Matthew. Its creator found Nero repulsive, along with Roman emperors who suc-

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ceeded him, not only because they arrogated to themselves divine status, but because they persecuted those who refused to participate in Roman civil religion. This story-teller saw those rulers as contemporary expressions of the tyrannical Pharaohs and the sinister Herods of the past. The moral is transparent: a king worthy of a heavenly sign and earthly worship is altogether different from the haughty rulers of history. He is one who rises from humble circumstances and triumphs over persecution with a Gospel of love.