The Great Christ Comet (87 page)

80
 On October 20, 6 BC, it was 0.21 AU from Earth; on the morning of October 23 it was only 0.125 AU away.

81
 When might the Magi have deduced that what was taking place in Virgo was signaling the Messiah's birth? The sight of a bright baby in Virgo's womb at the comet's heliacal rising proper (at the start of the Feast of Tabernacles) was a major clue; it was highly suggestive of Isa. 7:14's oracle concerning the Messiah's birth: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive.” The fact that the comet as a whole at that time evidently looked like a scepter (in accordance with Num. 24:17) would have been a powerful clue as to the identity of the baby. After a few more predawn observing sessions, it would have been natural for the Magi to conclude that what was unfolding in the eastern sky was a heavenly dramatization of an earthly virgin's conception, pregnancy, and delivery of a baby, that this baby was the Messiah, and that the celestial birth would coincide with the terrestrial birth. In addition, the length of the scepter would have grown larger with every passing day, underlining that Num. 24:17 was being fulfilled. During the rest of the comet's time in the eastern sky the Magi would not only have been following developments closely but also presumably would have been eagerly learning more about the prophesied Messiah. In addition, they may have been making preparations to travel to Judea as soon as the astronomical drama in the eastern sky was over.

82
 Between October 23 (evening), when the cometary coma found itself at Ophiuchus's lower left leg (
φ
Ophiuchi), and the 24th (evening), the comet jumped almost 18 degrees to the space between his right thigh and the top of Sagittarius's bow. Its movement through the heavens was evident within a single observing session. On October 25 the comet passed over Sagittarius. On October 26 it was located over Capricornus's head and horns. The size of its jumps within the starry heavens from night to night was decreasing. Then on October 27 it traveled along the left arm of Aquarius (as envisioned by Ptolemy) and above Capricornus's tail-fin, the next day over Aquarius's right hip, and finally, on October 29–31, over his water-jar and water (fig. 10.31).

83
 On October 29 and 30 the large coma was located where, according to Greek and some Babylonian traditions, the water-jar of Aquarius (the Great One) was. It may have prompted the Magi to recall the celestial scene in the first week of August. If the coma was the water-jar and the tail was the water, the scene now was extraordinary—a great river was flowing from the water-jar!

84
 That the comet ceased moving relative to the fixed stars at this time would have been duly noted by the Babylonian astronomers (see Stephenson, “Ancient History of Halley's Comet,” 244).

85
 Azimuth is the distance in degrees, measured clockwise, along the horizon from due north to the point where a vertical line downward from a given celestial object intersects the horizon.

86
 Assuming n=4. This does not take into account the brightness boost that would have resulted from the “forward-scattering” effect—since the comet's nucleus as it set on October 24, 6 BC, had a phase angle of 143 degrees, the sunward side of the coma would have been brighter by about 2.5 magnitudes than our apparent magnitude values based on absolute magnitude and slope values would suggest (see Marcus, “Background and Model,” 57 fig. 15).

87
 Assuming n=4.

88
 Initially the Sun rose when part of the comet was still setting in the west. From near the start of November, the comet would have been sufficiently short that its end could be seen disappearing below the western horizon prior to sunrise.

89
 Could it be that the popular fish (
ichthus
) symbol in early Christianity was ultimately attributable to the Christ Comet climaxing (and conceivably also beginning) its apparition in Pisces the fishes? That seems more plausible than the proposal of Carl G. Jung (
On Christianity
[Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999], 214) that it originated in “astrology.”

90
 It is unclear whether, during the time that the Star was descending in altitude, the Magi anticipated that it was about to pinpoint the very house where the messianic baby was staying. Certainly, however, when they saw the Star standing over the house, they believed that its movements that night had been intended to usher them first to Bethlehem and then to the Messiah.

91
 If the narrowly inclined comet had a visible spike antitail at this point, this could have contributed to the impression that the comet was pinpointing very precisely one particular house.

92
 Personal email message to the author, September 26, 2012.

93
 Gary W. Kronk, personal email message to the author, September 26, 2012, reckons that the magnitude was at least -4.

94
 Venus, which would have set just over an hour after the Sun, on November 23–24 and 30 had an apparent magnitude of around -3.9.

95
 The presence of the 13- to 15-day-old Moon or 18- to 19-day-old waning gibbous Moon nearby on November 23/24–25/26 and November 29/30–November 30/December 1 respectively may have dimmed the view slightly, but the sight would nevertheless have been magnificent. As regards the earlier part of the night, if they were traveling to Bethlehem on November 23–25, 7 BC, the light of the Moon and the brightness of the comet together would have guided the Magi there. If they were traveling from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on the 29th or 30th, the Moon would not have risen at the point that they were on the road. Regardless of whether they traveled on November 23–25 or 29–30, the Moon would have been present when the Magi were looking for the child in Bethlehem (on the 29th to 30th the Moon would have risen within a couple of hours of their arrival in Bethlehem).

96
 It should be noted, however, that the more one moves into December, the more the comet would struggle to guide a traveler in the right direction from Jerusalem to Bethlehem (since it was beginning each night farther to the west).

1
 
http://
ssd
.jpl
.nasa
.gov/?great
_comets
(posted April 2007).

2
 We are counting the 65 great comets concerning which Yeomans denominates a perihelion distance.

3
 Comet ISON of 2013 had a perihelion distance of 0.0124 AU, although it disintegrated catastrophically before it reached perihelion on American Thanksgiving Day of that year.

4
 David Seargent,
The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars
(Berlin: Springer, 2009), 122.

5
 Of course, many other comets that made close passes by Earth are not regarded as “great,” such as comets Lexell in 1770 (perigee: 0.0151 AU) and Tempel-Tuttle in 1366 (perigee: 0.0229 AU). For lists of close approaches, see the Near Earth Object Program's “Historic Comet Close Approaches,”
http://
neo
.jpl
.nasa
.gov
/ca
/historic
_comets.html
(last modified October 27, 2009); Martin Mobberley,
Hunting and Imaging Comets
(Berlin: Springer, 2011), 36–37; and Gary W. Kronk, “The Closest Approaches of Comets to Earth,”
http://
cometography
.com
/nearcomet.html
(last modified September 30, 2006).

6
 
Ecclesiastical History
11.7; translation by Edward Walford,
Epitome of the Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgius
(London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855),
http://
www
.tertullian
.org
/fathers
/philostorgius.htm
(accessed March 26, 2014).

7
 
Ecclesiastical History
6.

8
 Gary W. Kronk,
Cometography: A Catalog of Comets
, 6 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999–), 1:71.

9
 
Ecclesiastical History
8.4.

10
 Translation by Edward Walford,
The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen
(London: Henry G. Bohn, 1885), 367–368. See Kronk,
Cometography
, 1:71–72.

11
 Seargent,
Greatest Comets
, 80.

12
 Ibid.

13
 Ibid., 82.

14
 Kronk,
Cometography
, 1:72.

15
 Seargent,
Greatest Comets
, 80. The Comet of AD 400 had an inclination of 32 degrees.

16
 The period of naked-eye visibility obviously includes times when the comet was not observable due to its proximity to the Sun.

17
 Only 7 of Yeomans's select group of 73 great cometary apparitions in history up to 1996 (and hence before the peak of Hale-Bopp's performance) (for the list, see appendix B in Fred Schaaf,
Comet of the Century
[New York: Springer, 1997], 335–338) were visible to the naked eye for 100+ days, and only 2 were visible to the naked eye for 120+ days—the Great September Comet of 1882 (135 days) and the Great Comet of 1811 (260 days) (ibid., 202–203).

18
 It is worth recalling great ancient comets: for example, Josephus mentions a comet that remained visible for a year, apparently in AD 65–66 (Josephus,
J.W.
6.5.3 [§289]), and Pliny mentions a comet that had lasted for 180 days (
Natural History
2.22).

19
 See Gary W. Kronk, “C/1995 O1 [Hale-Bopp],”
http://
cometography
.com
/lcomets
/1995o1.html
(last modified October 3, 2006).

20
 The Chinese recorded comets with tail lengths of 200 and even 300 degrees, but none are regarded by Yeomans as among the great comets (
http://
ssd
.jpl
.nasa
.gov/?great
_comets
[posted April 2007]).

21
 The “iron” color may suggest that the comet tail was not merely dusty but also gassy, like Hale-Bopp.

22
 Gary W. Kronk,
Comets: A Descriptive Catalog
(Hillside, NJ: Enslow, 1984), 36.

23
 This comet's tail in outer space was longer than the distance from the Sun to Mars (Patrick Moore and Robin Rees,
Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011], 257).

24
 IRAS-Araki-Alcock grew to be a maximum of 2.0–2.5 degrees in size (Storm Dunlop and Will Tirion,
Collins Night Sky and Starfinder
[London: Collins, 2011], 123; Andreas Kammerer, personal email correspondence, October 30, 2012).

25
 Patrick Moore,
Comets: An Illustrated Introduction
(New York: Scribner, 1973), 84; Mobberley,
Hunting and Imaging Comets
, 46.

26
 Andreas Kammerer, personal email message to the author, October 30, 2012.

27
 As Richard Schmude,
Comets and How to Observe Them
(New York: Springer, 2010), 35, has noted, generally speaking, the larger the nucleus, the larger the coma and the brighter the comet.

28
 See Kronk,
Cometography
, 1:396.

29
 Zdenek Sekanina, “Statistical Investigation and Modeling of Sungrazing Comets Discovered with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory,”
Astrophysical Journal
566.1 (2002): 582.

30
 For December 1–3 and 4–8 the values for n=4 are lower than the stated value for December 10–17, 7 BC, by 0.2 and 0.1 respectively.

31
 That is approximately when John the Baptist was conceived.

32
 Personal email message to the author, September 26, 2012. Kronk's comments were based on my orbit and the fact that the comet was first spotted between one and two Jewish years before Herod's slaughter of the innocents.

33
 Seargent,
Greatest Comets
, 82.

34
 David Seargent stated back in 1982 that “we have no reason to suspect, from examination of the appearances and durations of historical comets, that any comet for which an orbit has not been calculated was of noticeably higher absolute magnitude [i.e., greater intrinsic brightness] than these [the comets of 1577, 1811 and 1882, among others]” (
Comets: Vagabonds of Space
[Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982], 110–111). The year-long comet mentioned by Josephus may be an exception to this, as may be the progenitor of the sungrazer system of comets (reckoned to have had a nucleus of 120 km in diameter and an absolute magnitude of -5—see Schaaf,
Comet of the Century
, 73–74; cf. Brian G. Marsden, “The Sungrazing Comet Group,”
Astronomical Journal
72 [1967]: 1170–1183; Peter Jenniskens¸
Meteor Showers and Their Parent Comets
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006], 424), and certainly the Christ Comet was an exception.

35
 Personal email message to the author, January 9, 2013. Kronk's comments were based on his calculations of the comet's brightness, assuming my orbit and the fact that the comet was first sighted at least one Jewish year before the slaughter of the innocents.

36
 Had the comet been visible on September 27, 6 BC, the apparent magnitude might have been as dramatic as -15.8 to -19.4 (if n=4).

37
 Assuming n=4.

38
 Assuming n=4.

39
 Joseph N. Marcus, “Forward-Scattering Enhancement of Comet Brightness. I. Background and Model,”
International Comet Quarterly
29 (2007): 61–62; idem, “Forward-Scattering Enhancement of Comet Brightness. II. The Light Curve of C/2006 P1 (McNaught),”
International Comet Quarterly
29 (2007): 119. Marcus points out that, of the thirteen comets counted “great” by Bortle in his 1997 study of great comets (John E. Bortle, “Great Comets in History,”
Sky and Telescope
93.1 [1997]: 44–50), nine passed between Earth and the Sun, producing good forward-scattering geometry, and eight had phase angles peaking at between 155 and 180 degrees, with six of them having phase angles peaking at between 166 and 180 degrees (“Background and Model,” 62).

40
 Assuming n=4 and the latest possible date of first observation. If n=5 and the comet was spotted at the latest possible date, the comet would have had zero magnitude or greater from May 1, 6 BC, to February 14, 5 BC, or over 9 months.

41
 See Seargent,
Comets: Vagabonds of Space
, 51, on the Great Comet of 1843.

42
 Ibid., 109.

43
 Ibid., 115.

44
 This was one of the most frequently cited extracanonical texts in the history of the early church (Harry O. Maier, “Ignatius
Ephesians
19.1–3,” in
Prayer from Alexander: A Critical Anthology
, ed. Mark Christopher Kiley [London: Routledge, 1997], 267; J. B. Lightfoot,
Apostolic Fathers, Pt. II. S. Ignatius. S. Polycarp. Revised texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations
[London: Macmillan, 1885], 76).

45
 If vv. 2–3a are part of a hymn, v. 3b (“That which had been prepared by God began to come into effect. Therefore all things were perturbed, because the abolishing of Death was being worked out”) is best regarded as Ignatius's own theological comment regarding the cited tradition.

46
 For example, H. F. Stander, “The Starhymn in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians (19:2–3),”
Vigiliae Christianae
43 (1989): 209–214; Maier, “Ignatius
Ephesians
19.1–3,” 267–269; Matthew E. Gordley,
Teaching through Song in Antiquity
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 353–354. The style and hymnic/poetic vocabulary are regarded as evidence that 19:2–3a were originally a hymn. Schoedel, however, maintains that Ignatius himself composed vv. 2–3, albeit heavily dependent on preexisting tradition (William R. Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985], 87–88).

47
 Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, 92.

48
 William R. Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Reception of the Gospel of Matthew in Antioch,” in
Social History of the Matthean Community: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches
, ed. David L. Balch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 156.

49
 Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, 89.

50
 So ibid., 90n18.

51
 Lightfoot,
Apostolic Fathers
, 80, nicely summarized Ignatius's thought: “These mysteries . . . were foreordained and prepared in silence by God, that they might be proclaimed aloud to a startled world.”

52
 Although Michael W. Holmes,
The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations,
3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007), 199, renders the text, “How, then, were
they
revealed to the ages?” (italics his), implying that Ignatius had in mind the conception, birth, and death of Jesus, this is most unlikely. After all, the death of Jesus is introduced with “likewise also,” underlining its parenthetical nature, and vv. 2–3 are exclusively focused on the birth of Jesus, as Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, 90, points out. The apostolic father is referring to a single (note the singular: “How then was
it
revealed to the Aeons?”) complex mystery consisting of Mary's virginal conception and her delivery of Jesus—hence our rendering “the virgin birth.” A surprising number of translations render the subject of the first verb in v. 2 “he,” namely Christ (e.g., Bart Ehrman,
The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader
, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 328; Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, 87). However, the contrast between v. 1 and v. 2 is between what was “hidden from the prince of this Age,” first and foremost Mary's virginal status when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus (note 18:2 also), and the revealing of this to the Aeons (cosmic powers).

53
 Schoedel,
Ignatius of Antioch
, 91.

54
 The theology, rites, and ceremonies of the Magi are probably in view. The word had also come to refer more generally to magic, but in this context, where the historical Star of the Magi is in view, it most likely retains at least something of its original sense.

55
 We are translating the imperfects in v. 3a as inceptive (see ibid., 94). As the end of v. 3 makes clear, the victory that God won over the forces of evil began with the Star but will not be fully worked out until the eschaton.