HALLEY’S COMET OF 1910, AS SEEN IN NEW YORK,
LOOKING WESTWARD, DURING THE LATTER PART OF MAY.

COMET LORE
Halley’s Comet in History
and Astronomy

By

EDWIN EMERSON

Author of “A History of the Nineteenth Century,” Etc.

PRINTED BY
THE SCHILLING PRESS
137-139 EAST 25th STREET
NEW YORK

Copyrighted, 1910, by Edwin Emerson
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
All rights reserved under Berne Convention

Printed in the United States of America by
the Schilling Press in New York
from the electrotyped plates

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

TO THE COMET

“Thereby Hangs a Tail.”—Shakespeare.

Lone wanderer of the trackless sky!

Companionless! Say, dost thou fly

Along thy solitary path,

A flaming messenger of wrath—

Warning with thy portentous train

Of earthquake, plague and battle-plain?

Some say that thou dost never fail

To bring some evil in thy tail.

W. Lattey.

THE COMING OF THE COMET

The Sun will surely rise and set to-morrow.

Just so surely must a Comet flare forth in our Heavens this Spring.

Star gazers, astronomers and learned men have been waiting for this Comet all over the earth—in America, in Europe, in far China.

They have known for certain that this Comet would come; and they knew just when and where in the Heavens the Comet would first show itself to the naked eye—down to the very night.

All this has been known so surely because this same Comet has been seen by the people of this earth before.

It came and went seventy-four years ago. Seventy-six years before that, it came and went. And seventy-six years before that, the Comet had come and gone.

As long as human beings have lived on this earth—for thousands and thousands of years—human eyes have beheld this same Comet every seventy-six years or so.

The longest time between the Comet’s coming has been seventy-nine years. The shortest interval of all—74½ years—was this time.

For thousands of years in the past, wise men have written down records of this Comet.

Long, long ago, when white men were still savages who dwelt in caves, patient star gazers in China and Chaldea studied the motions of this Comet.

Farther back than that, in the hoary days before the art of writing was known, ancient bards sang of this Star and its hairy tail. Some of their words are still remembered.

Artists have drawn pictures of this Comet. Their pictures are still shown.

Women have stitched images of this Comet into their handiwork. Some of this handiwork can still be seen.

Coiners have stamped designs of this comet on their coins and medals. Those coins are still shown in museums.

Priests, Popes and great Divines have preached about this Comet. Their sermons are still preserved in the records of the Church.

Learned men have written in their books what happened when the Comet came. Those books are read to-day.

The coming of this Comet in olden times has been fixed in lasting records, which he who runs may read.

Nothing in all History is more certain than the story of this Comet.

WHY HALLEY’S COMET?

Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, when this Comet was seen shining over the City of London, the great astronomer, Edmund Halley, made a special study of it.

Halley was the first to say that this Comet had come before and would surely come again. He wrote down the time when the Comet would come again, long after he should be dead.

“If it should return,” he wrote, “according to our predictions, about the year 1758, impartial posterity will not refuse to acknowledge that this was first discovered by an Englishman.”

The Comet returned, as he had foretold, seventeen years after Halley’s death, when it was first seen in 1758, on Christmas night, by a man in Saxony, named Palitsch, who was looking for the Comet.

From that day this Comet has been called after Halley.

Since then many famous astronomers, such as Clairaut, Pontécoulant and Laplace in France, have calculated the dates for the Comet’s return.

Last time, in 1835, Halley’s Comet returned within a few nights of their prediction.

This time, so the astronomers figured seventy-five years ago, the Comet should be plainly seen after dark late this May.

What they predicted has come true.

THE TERROR OF THE COMET

“Canst thou fearless gaze

Even night by night on that prodigious Blaze,

That hairy Comet, that long streaming Star,

Which threatens Earth with Famine, Plague and War?”

—Sylvester.

So long as the memory of man goes back, the appearance of a Comet has always been taken as a just cause for dread.

In the train of Comets, it has ever been held, come wars, bloodshed, fires, floods, plagues, famine and the fall of mighty rulers.

Our Holy Bible confirms this time-honoured belief.

The Saviour Himself said, according to the Gospel of St. Luke, Chap. XXI., Verse 10-11:

“Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from Heaven.”

In the Revelation of St. John the Divine (Chap. VIII., Verse 10) we read:

“There fell from Heaven a great star burning as a torch,” and again (Chap. XII., Verse 3):

“There was seen another sign in Heaven, and behold a great red dragon ... and his tail draweth a third part of the stars in Heaven. And behold the third woe cometh quickly.” (Chap. XII., Verse 14.)

The “flaming sword” in the hands of the angel of the Lord, when Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, many sacred writers hold, can only be interpreted as a Comet.

“For the Almighty set before the door

Of th’ holy park a seraphim that bore

A warning sword, whose body shined bright

A flaming Comet in the midst of night.”

—Todd.

So, too, when Jerusalem was to be wasted by a plague, David beheld a Comet in the shape of a flaming sword:

“And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the Heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.”

—I. Chron. XXI. 16.

The fall of Satan, some sacred writers hold, was marked by the appearance of a Comet. In Isaiah (XIV. 12) we find:

“How art thou fallen from Heaven, O flaming one, son of the morning!”

John Milton, in his “Paradise Lost,” has fixed this image in immortal verse:

“Satan stood

Unterrified, and as a Comet burned

That fired the length of Ophiuchus huge

In th’ arctic sky, and from its horrid hair,

Shakes pestilence and war.”

The Great Deluge, described in Holy Writ, came after the appearance of a mighty Comet (Halley’s Comet), so Dr. William Whiston, Sir Isaac Newton’s successor in the Lucasian chair of Mathematics at Cambridge, set forth in a special treatise. The great French astronomer, Laplace, also reached the same conclusion.

This same Comet (Halley’s Comet) likewise foretold the final fall of the Holy City, Jerusalem, in the year 70 after Christ. This Comet was seen by St. Peter. Josephus in his History of the Jewish Wars recorded the nightly appearance of this Comet over the City of Jerusalem just before the war which ended with the destruction of the Holy City.

“Amongst other warnings,” writes Josephus, who saw this Comet with his own eyes, “a Comet of the kind called sword-shaped, because their tails appear to represent the blade of a sword, was seen above the city for the space of a whole year.”

Josephus at the time rebuked his Jewish countrymen for listening to false prophets while so clear a sign from Heaven was before their very eyes.

This same Comet (Halley’s Comet) reappeared at a critical period of the rule of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor of Rome. He first beheld his sign from Heaven in the midst of battle as it blazed overhead in the sign of a Cross. With the help of his mother, the sainted Helen, Constantine was moved thereby to turn Christian.

Constantinople, the great capital of the Orient, which owes its name to this same Emperor Constantine, was lost to Christendom in the year 1453, when the Turks overran the great city with fire and sword. This event, it is recorded, was heralded by another appearance of a Comet. Three years later, when the Turks were about to descend upon Belgrade, another Comet (Halley’s Comet) spread consternation throughout Europe.

At that time Pope Calixtus III., on the appearance of this Comet, seeing that evils were impending for the human race, called for prayers that the Almighty would turn these evils upon the Turks, the enemies of the Christian faith.

“A SWORD-SHAPED COMET BLAZED
OVER THE DOOMED HOLY CITY.”
—Josephus’ “History of Judea.”

At the same time the Holy Father gave orders for all Church bells to be tolled at noon to remind faithful Christians to pray for those battling against the Turk.

Into the Ave Maria were put the words: “From the Devil, the Turk and the Comet, Good Lord, deliver us!”

Since that time in most Catholic countries the Angelus is still regularly rung at noon. In Italy, even to-day, the cakes sold before the church doors at noon go by the name of Comete.

All the great Fathers of the Church have taught that Comets are to be taken as signs from Heaven.

Baeda, the Venerable, declared in the seventh century in England, that “Comets portend revolutions of kingdoms, pestilence, war, winds, or heat.”

John of Damascus, preaching in the same century in the Orient, laid down the same belief.

St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Light of the Church in the thirteenth century, accepted and handed down the same opinion.

The sainted Albert the Great, the most noted thinker of the Church in the Middle Ages, received and taught the same doctrine.

The teachings of these Church Fathers as to Comets have been commended in our own day by Pope Pius IX.

The great teachers of other religions, likewise, have laid down identical beliefs as to the meaning of Comets.

The sacred books of India are full of awed references to the baleful influence of Comets.

The ancient year books of China, written centuries before white men kept any records, tell of the appearance of Comets and of the disasters they foretold.

The Mohametans and their wise Arab star gazers, when they saw a Comet in the Heavens, knew that it meant war.

The woe of one Comet (Halley’s Comet of 1456), which had the shape of a Turkish scimitar, so the Arab soothsayers foretold, would be turned against their enemies. This was the same Comet which brought such fear to the hearts of Pope Calixtus III. and all his Christian followers.

Thus it can be seen that Comets have been held to foretell disaster on one side, and victory on the other.

The Comets which conquerors hailed as their guiding stars, have meant war and bloodshed and disaster to those whom they came to conquer.

The same Comets which shone upon the birth of mighty rulers, have blazed in warning of their death.

Julius Caesar, who was born under a Comet, saw his bloody end foretold by another Comet.

Therefore, Shakespeare in his play “Julius Caesar,” makes Calpurnia say to Caesar:

“When beggars die, there are no Comets seen;

The Heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”

On the night of Caesar’s assassination, when the Comet was seen blazing at its brightest, the Romans said that it had come to bear away the great soul of the murdered Caesar.

At the death of Nero, the Roman Emperor, who persecuted the Christians, a Comet blazed forth again. The Roman historian Suetonius, who wrote the Life of Emperor Nero, thus described this Comet:

“A blazing star, which was commonly held to portend destruction to Kings and Princes, reappeared above the horizon several nights in succession.”

Another great Comet (Halley’s again) reappeared when Attila, the King of the Huns, the “Scourge of God,” was overthrown in the greatest battle of Christendom on the Catalaunian fields.

Claudius, a Roman writer of that period, then stated that “a Comet was never seen in the Heavens without implying some dreadful event.”

This has ever been the belief of all the great poets of olden time.

Homer, the greatest poet of Ancient Greece, a thousand years before the birth of Christ, sang of:

“The red star, that from his flaming hair

Shakes down diseases, pestilence and war.”

Let it be explained here that the word Comet in Greek means “long-haired,” from kome,—hair.

Virgil, the greatest Roman poet, sang of “the baleful glare of bloody Comets,” and again, of “dreadful Comets blazing in the sky.”

Tasso, the greatest of Italian poets after Dante, sang thus of Comets in his “Jerusalem Delivered”:

“Qual con le chiome sanguinose horrende

Splender Cometa suol per l’aria adusta,

Che i regni muta, e i feri morbi adduce,

Ai purpurei tiranni infausta luce.”

—Gerusalemme Liberata,

Canto VII., Stanza 52.

Rendered thus by Wiffen into English:

“As with its bloody locks let loose in air

Horribly bright, the Comet shows whose shine

Plagues the parched World, whose looks the Nations scare,

Before whose face States change, and Powers decline,

To purple Tyrants all, an inauspicious sign.”

The great English poets, on their part, have lifted up their voices to sing of the dire effects of Comets.

Shakespeare, the greatest of them all, abounds in allusions to these dread wandering stars.

Thus he makes Horatio in the first scene of “Hamlet” speak with awe of:

“Stars with trains of fire and dews of blood;

And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on.”

More briefly Shakespeare in his “Henry VI.” refers to:

“A Comet of revenge

A prophet to the fall of all our foes”;

and again, in “The Taming of the Shrew” to:

“Some Comet or unusual prodigy.”

Spenser in his “Faerie Queene” sings of a woman’s hair loosely dispersed in the wind:

“All as a blazing starre doth farre outcast

His heavy beames, and flaming lockes dispredd,

At sight whereof the people stand aghast;

But the sage Wizzard telles, as he has redd,

That it importunes death and doleful drearyhedd.”

John Milton, besides likening Satan to a Comet, as before quoted, also showed that he shared in the belief that the flaming swords mentioned in Holy Writ were Comets:

“High in front advanced

The brandish’d sword of God before them blazed

Fierce as a Comet.”

The poet Young, in his “Night Thoughts,” aptly writes of the Comet:

“Hast thou ne’er seen the Comet’s flaming light?

Th’ illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds

On gazing Nations, from his fiery train.”

The poets of other nations have written of Comets in like vein. There is an old German rhyme, sung by German school children even to-day, which has been put into English by Dr. Andrew D. White in his “History of the Doctrine of Comets”:

“Eight things there be a Comet brings,

When it on high doth horrid range;

Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings,

War, Earthquake, Floods and Direful Change.”

This little rhyme was originally put forth for German school children by two Protestant preachers of Basle, Switzerland, at the time of the great Comet of 1618, which heralded the outbreak of the great “Thirty Years’ War.”

These Protestant ministers got their belief in Comets and their evil influence upon mankind not from the Church of Rome, but from the Bible teachings of such great Protestant reformers as Martin Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, John Knox of Scotland, Bishop Jeremy Taylor and John Howe, the great Nonconformist divine.

Martin Luther preached in one of his Advent sermons:

“The heathen write that the Comet may arise from natural causes; but God creates not one that does not foretoken a sure calamity.”

Luther’s friend, Melanchthon, in a letter, declared Comets to be “heralds of Heaven’s wrath.”

Zwingli, in 1531, declared that the great Comet of that year (Halley’s Comet) was sent by God to betoken calamity.

John Knox, preaching in his Scottish kirk at Edinboro, declared that he saw in Comets tokens of the wrath of Heaven.

The great divines of the Church of England,—from Cranmer, Bishop Latimer, Archbishops Spottiswoode and Bramhall, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, down to our own times, clearly preached the doctrine that Comets must be taken as tokens from Heaven.

Thus the Comet of 1572 was pointed out from the pulpits of England and Scotland as a token of Heaven’s wrath and warning at the St. Bartholomew Massacre on the night of August 24, 1572, when thirty thousand Huguenots were murdered in the streets of Paris and elsewhere in France.

Across the sea, in the new Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the great New England divine and President of Harvard College, Increase Mather, on the apparition of the great Comet now known as Halley’s, in 1682, preached on “Heaven’s Wrath Alarm to the World—wherein is shown that fearful sights and signs in the Heavens are the presages of great calamities at hand.”

Increase Mather preached on the text taken from the Book of Revelation: “And the third Angel sounded, and there fell a great Star burning as a Torch, ... and behold the Third Woe cometh quickly.”

In this sermon the great preacher told of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who, when warned of the omen of a Comet, made fun of it, and then died miserably.

So Mather preached: “For the Lord hath fired his beacon in the Heavens among the stars of God there. The fearful sign is not yet out of sight.... Do we not see the sword blazing over us?... Doth God threaten our very Heavens? O pray unto Him, that he would not take away stars and send Comets to succeed them!”

THE TERROR OF THE COMET OF 1531.
FROM AN OLD NUREMBERG WOOD-CUT.

The profound Russian thinker Tolstoy, in his great book “War and Peace,” has written of the flaming Comet of 1811. This was the famous “Comet of Napoleon,” which blazed over Western Europe when Napoleon was gathering his grand army for its disastrous march into Russia and to Moscow.

At Moscow, the ancient capital of Russia, this Comet was observed by anxious thousands. One night there was this talk between a novice nun and the Abbess of her Convent. On their way to vesper service one evening in Moscow the nun suddenly beheld the Comet for the first time and asked: “What is that star?”

The Abbess answered: “It is not a star. It is a Comet.”

“But what is a Comet?” asked the young nun. “I have never heard that word.”

The Abbess then answered: “Comets are signs in Heaven, which God sends before misfortunes.”

Shortly after this the bloody battle of Borodino was fought, and Napoleon, with his army, appeared before the gates of Moscow. The hundred-towered city was abandoned by the Russians and was given over to the flames.

Years afterward this same nun thus told her story, as printed in the “Revue des Deux Mondes”:

“Every night the Comet blazed in the Heavens, and we all asked ourselves: What misfortune does it bring? Then the enemy came, and our sacred city was put to the torch. Our convent, together with all other cloisters, monasteries and churches, was burned to the ground.”

Many other writers of the time who saw the great Comets that blazoned Napoleon’s destructive wars have recorded how they were universally taken as omens of the great conqueror’s bloody trail.

Napoleon himself gloried in this dread omen and hailed the Comet as his “guiding star.”

All this has been fully set forth by the famous French astronomer Messier, a latter-day observer of Halley’s Comet, who wrote a special book on “The Wonderful Comet which appeared at the Birth of Napoleon the Great.”

As for the many Comets that have blazed down upon other great conquerors and other bloody wars, before the comparatively recent Comets of the American Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars, they are all set down in a special History of Comets.

In this great work, entitled “A History of All Comets,” the Latin scholar Lubienitius has pointed out all the calamities and dire events which attended the appearance of each and every Comet recorded in history.

THE EFFECTS OF COMETS ON MAN

Some thinkers have pointed out that there has often been a direct connection between the feelings produced in the human soul by the appearance of a Comet and the human deeds of violence or the human epidemics and excessive mortality following the widespread terror produced by Comets.

Only this year (1910) the appearance of Inness’ Comet over Mexico caused a panic-stricken holy pilgrimage to the Shrine of Talpa. In China, too, it caused terror, resulting in Christian massacres.

Hence, also, several Jewish massacres inspired by Comets in the past and hence also so many terrifying plagues connected with Comets.

Thus Ambroise Paré, the “Father of French Surgery,” who flourished in the sixteenth century, has recorded the effect produced upon his contemporaries by the Comet of 1528.

“This Comet was so horrible,” wrote Dr. Paré, “so frightful, and it produced such great terror among the common people, that many died of fear and many others fell sick.”

Dr. Paré himself appears to have come under the influence of this fear, judging from his awestruck description of the appearance of this Comet:

“It appeared to be of excessive length; and was of the colour of blood. At the summit of it was seen the figure of a bent arm, holding in its hand a great sword as if about to strike.

“At the end of the point there were three stars. On both sides of the rays of this Comet were seen a great number of axes, knives, and blood-coloured swords, among which were a great number of hideous human faces with beards and bristling hair.”

Hannibal committed suicide on account of a Comet. So did Mithridates. So did one Toma, in Hungary, only this year.

King Louis “the Debonair” of France, died from fear of a Comet (Halley’s Comet) in 837 A. D.

Emperor Charles V., of Germany and Spain, the monarch who boasted that “the sun never set on his dominions,” was so moved by the appearance of a Comet in 1556, that he gave up his crown and became a monk.

Certain metaphysicians have held that there is a substance in a Comet, or in its tail, which has a weird effect on man’s brain, as moonshine is believed to have on some men, making them lunatics. As a matter of fact, as Arago pointed out, Comets have caused tremendous spring tides just like the moon. The same irresistible pull of gravity or electricity or light-pressure must perforce affect other substances besides water, such as human brains.

According to this metaphysical theory, the close approach of a Comet to the earth affects and disturbs men’s brains, so that men are inwardly stirred with warlike impulses. Hence the great wars almost invariably following the appearance of Comets.

Hence, too, the appeal to Comets made by so many conquerors, from William the Conqueror down to Napoleon. In the homely phrase of one writer, “the inner eye of man, under the weird effect of a Comet, sees red and makes him thirst for blood.”

Those rare beings who have lying latent within them the gift of Second Sight or divination, according to this same metaphysical theory, upon the near approach of Comets find themselves stirred to prophesy. Hence, so many marvellous prophesies inspired by Comets since the ancient days of Merlin, the seer.

“THE COMET OF 1910 SO ALARMED THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO
THAT MANY THOUSANDS WENT ON A HOLY PILGRIMAGE TO
THE SHRINE OF TALPA IN XALISCO.”—Mexican Herald.

THIS YEAR’S PROPHECIES

The return of Halley’s Comet in this Year of Our Lord 1910 has already called forth several memorable prophesies.

On January 20th the French astrologer and prophetess Madame de Thebes, who predicted the disastrous French floods of this year, as well as the coming of Inness’ unexpected Comet, uttered the following prophesies:

“This year, 1910, will be one to look back to with trembling.

“The earth is under a terrific strain from Comets and planetary revolutions. Human destiny is red. That means blood. Political events are black. Terrible changes are imminent.

“This winter, France will be swept by terrible floods. Paris will be under water. The influence of form changes in other planets and the coming of a Comet will affect us for the worse.

“The strain of the stars will be most severely felt in America. The people of America will have to pay dearly for all their riches and sudden prosperity. With the coming of another Comet disaster will descend upon America.

“A financial crash is impending, to be followed by a long string of suicides. Black ruling us, men will commit all manner of crimes and knaveries for money.

“The times are swaying toward degeneration. We are swinging within the evil influence of a strange orbit. Our souls are jarred from their proper bearings. I dare not say all that is revealed to me. It would be too terrible.”

Soon after this prophesy was uttered came the first of such suicides. Adam Toma, a wealthy landowner of Szozona, Hungary, cut his throat because of the Comet. He left a note saying that the Comet was the cause of his death.

Cardinal Gibbons later expressed his profound belief that the Paris floods of this year were sent by God as a punishment to the Parisians for their frivolities and sins, of which the Comet was a fiery warning.

Commenting on Madame de Thebes’ predictions and her connection of the Comet of 1910 with this year’s spring-floods in France, Italy and Germany, the French astronomer Henri Deslandres, late Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Meudon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, said:

“However distant Comets may be, it is not at all impossible that their enormous tails, measuring 75,000,000 to 125,000,000 miles in length, may come in contact with our atmosphere. The theory that a Comet may disturb the atmosphere of the earth, causing rains of great duration, and consequently inundations and the sudden overflow of rivers, is not at all absurd. It can be sustained by scientific reasoning.”

It should be remembered here that Laplace, one of the greatest of all astronomers, credited the deluge to a Comet.

Before Madame de Thebes’ ominous prophesy concerning Halley’s Comet and its effects upon America were cabled over to this country, another, no less dire prediction of financial disaster in the United States, coincident with the appearance of Halley’s Comet, was made by W. E. Corey, the President of the American Steel Trust.

THE COMET OF 1910,
FROM A TELESCOPIC PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT GREENWICH.

Mr. Corey then warned his friends to “call in their money and get from under” because a calamitous financial crash and general business ruin would surely come during the Spring of 1910.

The most ominous of all prophesies connected with the coming of Halley’s Comet this year was made by the venerable General Ballington Booth, the head of the Salvation Army. Speaking in London, immediately after Halley’s Comet had been located, early this year, General Booth said:

“We are, this year, rapidly approaching the end of all things, with similar results, but far surpassing in horrors any disaster that has gone before.

“All things will be wound up. Besides a deluge of water sweeping parts of the world and its inhabitants there will be fierce destruction by fire.”

FAMOUS COMETS OF OLDEN TIMES

Bacon, the great English thinker, has said: “Comets have some action and effect on the universality of things.”

All Comets recorded in history, so Lubienitius has shown in his “Universal History of All Comets,” appeared in connection with some great event or catastrophe in the History of Man.

George F. Chambers, one of the most up-to-date writers on Astronomy and Comets, on the second page of his “Story of the Comets” (1909), declares:

“It is the general testimony of History during many hundreds of years, one might even say during fully 2,000 years, that Comets were always considered to be peculiarly ‘ominous of the wrath of Heaven and as harbingers of wars and famines, of the dethronement of Monarchs and the dissolution of Empires.’”

Reaching back into remotest history, the sacred books of India show that the births of Krishna and of Buddha were foretold by moving lights in the Heavens.

The ancient records of China tell of the appearance of a moving beacon in Heaven at the birth of Yu, the first ruler of the Celestial Empire, and again at the birth of the great Chinese prophet, Lao-Tse.

The ancient Greeks have recorded similar appearances of Comets. Aesculapius, the divine healer and first physician, was born under a Comet.

The oldest traditions of the Jews tell us that when Abraham was born a moving star was seen in the East.

Another moving star with long radiant gleams of light streaming behind it shone forth at the birth of Moses. This Comet was seen by the Magi of Egypt, who pointed it out to the King as an omen meant for him. Hence Pharaoh’s order, as recorded in the Old Testament, for the slaughter of all male Jewish infants then born in Egypt.

GREAT EVENTS CONNECTED WITH
HISTORIC COMETS IN ANTIQUITY

The earliest Comet of which there is any historic record was a Comet mentioned in the oldest cuneiform inscriptions of Babylonia several thousand years before our Christian era, recently found on the north bank of Nahr-al-Kalb, near Beyrut in Syria. This Comet is recorded to have been visible to the naked eye for 29 nights.

At the time Lubienitius wrote his big “History of all the Comets” the exact date of this Comet had not been fixed. Lubienitius, though, had a record of this same Comet, the date of which he fixes at the year 2312 before Christ, the date computed by him and other writers for the beginning of the deluge.

In modern times the great French astronomer Laplace credited a Comet with causing huge floods at the time of the great Deluge.

Two hundred and eighty-eight years after the great Deluge, according to the records of the Chaldean star gazers, there appeared another Comet. This is the date, computed by Lubienitius, for the building of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues.

Two thousand and sixty-four years before Christ, another Comet appeared, as recorded by the Chaldeans. This is the date given for the birth of Abraham.

When Abraham was seventy years old, in the year 1949 B. C., a Comet was seen shining over the Valley of Siddim for twenty-two nights. This is the date given by Bible historians for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities of iniquity which lay in the Vale of Siddim.

Jewish annalists record a Comet in Egypt in the year corresponding to B. C. 1841. This Comet shone at the time of the bitter persecution of the Jews by the Egyptians.

Arabian star gazers have recorded a Comet shining over Arabia 1732 B. C. In that year there was a terrible famine, of which mention is made in the Old Testament.

The ancient Chinese year books record the appearance of a Comet over northern China and Manchuria in the year corresponding to 1537 B. C. The appearance of the Comet, so the Chinese chronicles tell, was followed by a great flood and disastrous famine.

The next Comet of which we have any record, appeared 1515 B. C. This was at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Egypt.

In the year B. C. 1194, we are told by Hyginus that “On the fall of Troy, one of the Pleiades group of stars rushed along the Heavens toward the Arctic pole, where the star remained visible with dishevelled hair, to which the name of Comet is applied.”

We are informed by Pliny, the Roman historian, that in B. C. 975, the “Egyptians and Ethiopians suffered from a terrible famine, the dire effects of a Comet. It appeared all on fire, and was twisted in the form of a wreath, and had a hideous aspect. It seemed not to be a star, but rather a knot of fire.”

Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions tell us that about 575 B. C., when Nebuchadnezzar overran Elam, “a star arose whose head was bright as day, while from its luminous body a tail extended like the sting of a scorpion.”

According to Pliny, again, a Comet in the form of a horn was seen in the year B. C. 480, just before the great invasion of Greece by Xerxes ending in the bloody sea fight of Salamis.

The next Comet mentioned by Lubienitius appeared in B. C. 466, when it was seen for 75 nights all over Greece. In that year Greece was ravaged by war between the Spartans and Athenians, and the city of Sparta was all but destroyed by an earthquake.

The next Comet appeared one generation later in 431 B. C., and was seen through 60 nights all over the ancient world. This Comet was followed by a terrible pestilence which swept over Aethiopia, Egypt, Athens, and Rome. War broke out all over Greece. It was the beginning of the great Peloponnesian War, which devastated Greece for a generation to follow.

In the year 394 B. C., there was another Comet seen in Greece, followed by the great Corinthian War with the bloody battles of Knidus and Koronea.

Aristotle records a Comet seen by him in his fifteenth year, 371 B. C. The sight of it inspired the youth to a special study of astronomy. The Comet was visible until the end of the first week of July. On July eighth was fought the great battle between the Thebans and Spartans, when Epaminondas, one of the greatest generals of antiquity, overthrew the Spartans.

The next Comet, that of 338 B. C., which was likewise observed by Aristotle, who had then become the teacher of Alexander the Great, marked Alexander’s first public entry into the history of the world. The Comet blazed its brightest on the eve of the bloody battle of Chaeronea, Alexander’s first victory and achievement in war.

In the year 344 B. C., there was another Comet, followed by another war in Greece and Sicily. Diodorus of Sicily wrote of this Comet: “On the departure of the expedition of Timoleon from Corinth for Sicily with all his war ships, the Gods foretold success by an extraordinary prodigy: A burning torch appeared in the Heavens for an entire night and went before the fleet into Sicily.”

The Comets of Carthage.

Nearly a hundred years passed before the appearance of another Comet in 240 B. C. This is the first recorded appearance of Halley’s Comet. By the light of this Comet, Hamilcar, the great Carthaginian general, made his young son Hannibal swear eternal enmity to the Romans. Hamilcar was then in the midst of preparations for the war against Rome, which broke out soon afterward.

Comets appear to have been stars of special omen to Hannibal and to his native city, Carthage. Twenty years later, appeared another Comet which shone over Carthage for 22 nights. Its appearance was followed by the outbreak of the great war between Hannibal and the Romans, and by a terrible earthquake in Greece.

The next Comet shone in 204 B. C., when Hannibal suffered his first bloody defeat by Sempronius, while Scipio, Hannibal’s arch enemy, was crossing over to Africa, for the first attack upon Carthage.

The appearance of the next Comet, twenty years later, 184 B. C., which shone through 88 nights over Asia Minor “with a horrible lustre” was followed by the death of Hannibal. Soothsayers at the court of King Prusias of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, whither Hannibal had fled from the Romans, told the King that the Comet betokened Hannibal’s early death. This so wrought on Hannibal’s spirit that he ended his life with poison.

In the year 150 B. C., appeared another Comet “of horrible size.” It was seen for many nights running all over the Mediterranean Sea. Its appearance was followed by the outbreak of the third great Punic War between Rome and Carthage.

Within four years another Comet, blazing over northern Africa in 146 B. C., was followed by the fall of Carthage, which was stormed and utterly destroyed by the Romans.

Mithridates’ Star.

Mithridates, King of Pontus, and conqueror of Asia Minor, another arch foe of the Romans, having been born under a Comet, seems to have fallen under the bane of Comets.

During the Winter of 134-135 B. C., preceding Mithridates’ birth, a Comet of unusual lustre flared over Asia Minor through 72 days. This Comet was so bright that its long, flaming tail was plainly visible even in day time. The ancient historian Justinus thus described it:

“Its splendour eclipsed that of the midday sun and occupied the fourth part of Heaven.”

The next Comet, burning through 72 nights again, preceded Mithridates’ accession to the throne of Pontus, 119 B. C.

Mithridates’ fourth Comet, now identified as Halley’s Comet, was seen over Asia Minor through the Winter months of 87-88 B. C., just before the horrible massacre of 150,000 Italians ordered by Mithridates.

Twenty-five years later, 63 B. C., Mithridates saw his Comet for the last time when his own son rose up in arms against him. The omen of the Comet so wrought on Mithridates that he first poisoned himself and then had one of his own soldiers despatch him with his sword.

No other Comet is recorded in ancient history during this century, except the one which was seen shining over Italy preceding the birth (July 11, 100 B. C.) of Julius Caesar, destined to become “The foremost man of all this world,” as Shakespeare calls him.

“Caesar’s Comet” as it came to be known (now identified as Halley’s Comet) appeared again over Italy during the great Civil War between Marius and Sylla, when Caesar was first entering into public affairs and earned his spurs as a warrior.

“Caesar’s Comet” shone again over Rome in the year 60 B. C., when Julius Caesar, together with Pompey and Crassus, took charge of the government of Rome and presently seized supreme power as Consul of Rome.

Ten years later “Caesar’s Comet” was seen once more in Italy in the Winter months of 49-50 B. C., when Caesar, returning from his conquest of Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and began the great Civil War against his rival for power, Pompey.

The last appearance of “Caesar’s Comet,” was in 44 B. C., on the death of Caesar. Its coming was foreseen in a dream by Caesar’s wife Calpurnia, who warned him of the omen, as immortalized in Shakespeare’s lines, put into the mouth of Caesar’s wife:

“When beggars die, there are no Comets seen,

The Heavens themselves blaze forth the death of Princes”;

followed by Caesar’s famous answer, as culled from Plutarch by Shakespeare:

“What can be avoided,

Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?

Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions

Are to the world in general as to Caesar.”

On the following morning Caesar was murdered at the foot of Pompey’s statue in the Curia.

Immediately after Caesar’s death, records the Roman historian Suetonius in his “Life of Caesar”: “A Comet blazed for seven nights together, rising always about eleven o’clock, visible to all in Rome. It was taken by all to be the soul of Caesar, now received into Heaven; for which reason, accordingly, Caesar is represented in his statue with a star on his brow.”

Only one more Comet is recorded in ancient history before the birth of Christ. This was the Comet, now identified as Halley’s Comet, which shone over the dense forests of Germany, eleven years before the birth of Christ, when Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, was warring against the ancient Germans and robbing them of their last vestige of liberty. At the same time fell the death of Agrippa, who ruled over the Roman Empire in the absence of Augustus.

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM

The coming of the Messia, according to the sacred legends of the Jews, was to be foretold by a flaming star.

Many sacred writers have held, and many still hold, as did the distinguished American astronomer R. A. Proctor, that the “Star of Bethlehem,” whose shining trail guided the Wise Men from The East, was a Comet. Lubienitius in his “History of Comets” expressly mentions the Star of Bethlehem as the most important Comet of history.