Looking to the skies.
Today, astrology is big business. Yet despite its popularity, I don’t expect governments to start depicting astrological events on their coins and banknotes anytime soon. But around the time of Jesus’s birth, such depictions on the currency of the Roman Empire were commonplace. It is this historical fact that led the astronomer and ancient-coin collector Michael Molnar to speculate on what might have prompted the Magi mentioned in St Matthew’s Gospel to go on an expedition in search of a king.
Around the year 6 AD, Quirinius, the governor of Syria (whom St Luke mentions in connection with the Roman census), issued a coin depicting a ram under a star. It is thought that Quirinius chose the image of a ram because the Zodiac constellation Aries was associated with the provinces under his control. One of those provinces was Judea which Quirinius annexed around the time the coin was issued.
Meanwhile, on 17 April 6 BC, Jupiter’s heliacal rising coincided with its being in conjunction with the moon. Ancient astrologers believed that Jupiter had the power to create kings, and they thought its being in conjunction with the moon was able to magnify its powers. There was also a prominent cluster of the other planets around Aries on this date which astrologers believed to signify spear-bearers guarding the Sun in its procession along the zodiac.
Molnar thinks this would have been a sufficiently auspicious astrological event to mark the birth of a new king. But even if Molnar’s theory is correct, this is no reason to endorse the power of astrology. After all, God could have accommodated Himself to the rules of the Magi in order to guide them to the infant Christ, but it doesn’t follow from this that the planets had any of the powers that the Magi ascribed to them.
In the Church calendar, the visitation of the Magi is associated with the Solemnity of the Epiphany, a solemnity which takes its name from the Greek word epiphaneia, meaning a manifestation or an outward show. The visitation of the Magi is appropriately called an epiphany because this event signified the manifestation of Christ to these representatives of the nations of the world, which caused them to be literally overcome with joy.
We can only speculate on what the astrological rules were that drew the Magi to search for a king in Judea, but we can be pretty sure that their understanding didn’t have much in common with the modern sort of astrology which is characterised by its excessive optimism and extreme vagueness. In the ancient world, astrology was often very depressing and dehumanising. This is how the Church fathers perceived astrology, and was one of the reasons why they were so keen to condemn it.
For many people, however, this kind of astrology was just a standard part of the ancient scientific worldview. But if all that the Magi had previously known was a depressing and dehumanising form of astrology, then we can begin to imagine why they might have been so overcome with joy on their discovery of the baby Jesus. Their astrological rules only got them as far as Herod’s palace, but to find the Messiah in Bethlehem, they needed the help of God’s revelation in sacred scripture.
The Messiah they found there was not the kind of king they were expecting – he was not the kind of king who would lord it over them, like the tyrant Herod. For a tyrant king who ruled from on high and forced his decisions on his subjects would only have confirmed the Magi in their belief that the ultimate rule of life was cold, impersonal fate. But in Jesus they saw a new kind of king – though He was fully divine, He came into the world as a small child, totally defenceless and wanting to share His life with them.
So their discovery didn’t confirm them in their belief in astrology and fate at all, but rather it freed them from it. Their epiphany was that genuine freedom is a real possibility, and this freedom is to be found in Jesus Christ. For Jesus was clearly not subject to the impersonal forces of the stars, but rather it was the stars who were subject to Him, for the Star of Bethlehem announced His presence and bowed down before Him. Thus, the Magi realised that universal authority did not belong to the stars, but rather it belonged to this small defenceless child. This is a truth that is so much more attractive than the fatalistic picture of reality held by astrologers.
Engaging in astrology is not harmless fun. As the Catechism puts it, “consulting horoscopes and astrology… conceals a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honour, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone”. So let’s hope and pray that the many people today who are drawn to astrology may also witness an epiphany, and join the Magi in worshipping the infant Christ.
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