Today, astrology is big business. In 2021, the global astrology market size was valued at $12.8 billion, and it is projected to grow to $22.8 billion by 2031. 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.
Molner speculates that it was the association of Aries with Judea that prompted the Magi to journey to Jerusalem in search of a king when they observed a significant astrological event on 17 April 6 BC. The event in question was Jupiter’s heliacal rising. A planet or constellation’s heliacal rising is the date of the year at which it first becomes visible in the dawn sky. For each celestial object, this is an annual event, but what was significant about Jupiter’s heliacal rising on 17 April 6 BC, is that it coincided with Jupiter 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 all-important Sun in its procession along the zodiac. Accordingly, 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.
But we can also think of the epiphany in more personal terms. If someone were to relate to you that they had had an epiphany, you might suppose they were telling you about their experience of some kind of sudden, intuitive perception, or an insight into the reality and essential meaning of something. And according to this meaning, it seems very fitting to say that the Magi also had an epiphany when they found Christ in a stable. But for this to be the case, what they witnessed can’t have simply confirmed their astrological beliefs – for it to have been an epiphany, there would have had to have been an element of great surprise, some sudden realization that didn’t just cause the Magi to be glad, but 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 characterized by its excessive optimism and extreme vagueness. In the ancient world, astrology was often very depressing and dehumanizing. Certainly, this is how the Church fathers perceived astrology, and this was one of the reasons why they were so keen to condemn it.
In ancient astrology, everything was governed by fate. The stars and the planets moved along fixed paths which were predetermined and, in principle, could be calculated. And since there was a correlation between what happened in the skies and what happened here on earth, this meant that you could do nothing to affect your ultimate destiny. Even if it was granted that you could make personal decisions on a day-to-day basis, ultimately, it wouldn’t make any difference to the final outcome of your life, for it didn’t matter what you did, or what you hoped for, or what you strove for: it wouldn’t make any difference, for the supreme rule of life was Fate. Thus, the best form of life was one in which you chose not to fight the inevitable.
For many people, this kind of astrology was just a standard part of the ancient scientific world view. Now modern science is very dismissive of astrology, of course, but there is in fact a trend emerging in modern science that does seem to have rather a lot in common with ancient astrology. This trend is called scientism. Under scientism it is not the configurations of the heavens that govern our fate, but rather the impersonal and deterministic laws of physics. We’re led to believe that physics can explain everything; that we’re just a massive and complex collection of particles which move about in deterministic ways, but ultimately without any fundamental purpose. So just like ancient astrology, scientism is very depressing and dehumanizing.
Now if all that the Magi had previously known was a depressing and dehumanizing 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 in order to find the Messiah in Bethlehem, they needed the help of God’s revelation in sacred scripture. And the Messiah they found there was not the kind of king they were expecting – he was not the kind of king who would lord authority 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 realized 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 have an epiphany, and join the Magi in worshipping the infant Christ.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a milking,
Seven swans a swimming,
Six geese a laying,
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree.
(Image by Sean Jefferson, courtesy David Messum Fine Art.)
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