some were too hard of heart to believe when these signs were sent. It
was a point of religious faith that 'God worketh' these 'signs and
wonders in heaven.' When troubles were about to befall men, 'nation
rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, with great
earthquakes in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful
sights,' then 'great signs shall there be from heaven.' Says Josephus,
commenting on the obstinacy of the Jews in such matters, 'when they were
at any time premonished from the lips of truth itself, by prodigies and
other premonitory signs of their approaching ruin, they had neither eyes
nor ears nor understanding to make a right use of them, but passed them
over without heeding or so much as thinking of them; as, for example,
what shall we say of the comet in the form of a sword that hung over
Jerusalem for a whole year together?' This was probably the comet
described by Dion Cassius (_Hist. Roman._ lxv. 8) as having been visible
between the months of April and December in the year 69 A.D. This or the
comet of 66 A.D. might have been Halley's comet. The account of Josephus
as to the time during which it was visible would not apply to Halley's,
or, indeed, to any known comet whatever; doubtless he exaggerated. He
says: 'The comet was of the kind called _Xiphias_, because their tail
resembles the blade of a sword,' and this would apply fairly well to
Halley's comet as seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835; though it is to be
remembered that comets vary very much even at successive apparitions,
and it would be quite unsafe to judge from the appearance of a comet
seen eighteen centuries ago that it either was or was not the same as
some comet now known to be periodic.
The comet of 79 A.D. is interesting as having given rise to a happy
retort from Vespasian, whose death the comet was held to portend. Seeing
some of his courtiers whispering about the comet, 'That hairy star,' he
said, 'does not portend evil to me. It menaces rather the king of the
Parthians. He is a hairy man, but I am bald.'
Anna Comnena goes even beyond Josephus. He only rebuked other men for
not believing so strongly as he did himself in the significance of
comets--a rebuke little needed, indeed, if we can judge from what
history tells us of the terrors excited by comets. But the judicious
daughter of Alexius was good enough to approve of the wisdom which
provided these portents. Speaking of a remarkable comet which appeared
before the irruption of the Gauls into the Roman empire, she says: 'This
happened by the usual administration of Providence in such cases; for it
is not fit that so great and strange an alteration of things as was
brought to pass by that irruption of theirs should be without some
previous denunciation and admonishment from heaven.'
Socrates, the historian (b. 6, c. 6), says that when Gainas besieged
Constantinople, 'so great was the danger which hung over the city, that
it was presignified and portended by a huge blazing comet which reached
from heaven to the earth, the like whereof no man had ever seen before.'
And Cedrenus, in his 'Compendium of History,' states that a comet
appeared before the death of Johannes Tzimicas, the emperor of the East,
which foreshadowed not alone his death, but the great calamities which
were to befall the Roman empire by reason of their civil wars. In like
manner, the comet of 451 announced the death of Attila, that of 455 the
death of Valentinian. The death of Merovingius was announced by the
comet of 577, of Chilperic by that of 584, of the Emperor Maurice by
that of 602, of Mahomet by that of 632, of Louis the Debonair by that of
837, and of the Emperor Louis II. by that of 875. Nay, so confidently
did men believe that comets indicated the approaching death of great
men, that they did not believe a very great man _could_ die without a
comet. So they inferred that the death of a very great man indicated the
arrival of a comet; and if the comet chanced not to be visible, so much
the worse--not for the theory, but--for the comet. 'A comet of this
kind,' says Pingre, 'was that of the year 814, presaging the death of
Charlemagne.' So Guillemin quotes Pingre; but he should rather have
said, such was the comet whose arrival was announced by Charlemagne's
death--and in no other way, for it was not seen by mortal man.
The reader who chances to be strong as to his dates may have observed
that some of the dates above mentioned for comets do not accord exactly
with the dates of the events associated with those comets. Thus Louis
the Debonair did not die in 837, but in 840. This, however, is a matter
of very little importance. If some men, after their comet has called for
them, are 'an unconscionable time in dying,' as Charles II. said of
himself, it surely must not be considered the fault of the comet. Louis
himself regarded the comet of 837 as his death-warrant; the astrologers
admitted as much: what more could be desired? The account of the matter
given in a chronicle of the time, by a writer who called himself 'The
Astronomer,' is curious enough: 'During the holy season of Easter, a
phenomenon, ever fatal and of gloomy foreboding, appeared in the
heavens. As soon as the emperor, who paid attention to such phenomena,
received the first announcement of it, he gave himself no rest until he
had called a certain learned man and myself before him. As soon as I
arrived, he anxiously asked me what I thought of such a sign. I asked
time of him, in order to consider the aspect of the stars, and to
discover the truth by their means, promising to acquaint him on the
morrow; but the emperor, persuaded that I wished to gain time, which was
true, in order not to be obliged to announce anything fatal to him, said
to me: "Go on the terrace of the palace, and return at once to tell me
what you have seen, for I did not see this star last evening, and you
did not point it out to me; but I know that it is a comet; tell me what
you think it announces to me." Then, scarcely allowing me time to say a
word, he added: "There is still another thing you keep back: it is that
a change of reign and the death of a prince are announced by this sign."
And as I advanced the testimony of the prophet, who said: "Fear not the
signs of the heavens as the nations fear them," the prince, with his
grand nature and the wisdom which never forsook him, said: "We must only
fear Him who has created both us and this star. But, as this phenomenon
may refer to us, let us acknowledge it as a warning from heaven."'
Accordingly, Louis himself and all his court fasted and prayed, and he
built churches and monasteries. But all was of no avail. In little more
than three years he died; showing, as the historian Raoul Glaber
remarked, that 'these phenomena of the universe are never presented to
man without surely announcing some wonderful and terrible event.' With a
range of three years in advance, and so many kings and princes as there
were about in those days, and are still, it would be rather difficult
for a comet to appear without announcing some such wonderful and
terrible event as a royal death.
The year 1000 A.D. was by all but common consent regarded as the date
assigned for the end of the world. For a thousand years Satan had been
chained, and now he was to be loosened for a while. So that when a comet
made its appearance, and, terrible to relate, continued visible for nine
days, the phenomenon was regarded as something more than a nine days'
wonder. Besides the comet, a very wonderful meteor was seen. 'The
heavens opened, and a kind of flaming torch fell upon the earth, leaving
behind a long track of light like the path of a flash of lightning. Its
brightness was so great that it frightened not only those who were in
the fields, but even those who were in their houses. As this opening in
the sky slowly closed men saw with horror the figure of a dragon, whose
feet were blue, and whose head' [like that of Dickens's dwarf] 'seemed
to grow larger and larger.' A picture of this dreadful meteor
accompanies the account given by the old chronicler. For fear the exact
likeness of the dragon might not be recognised (and, indeed, to see it
one must 'make believe a good deal'), there is placed beside it a
picture of a dragon to correspond, which picture is in turn labelled
'Serpens cum ceruleis pedibus.' It was considered very wicked in the
year 1000 to doubt that the end of all things was at hand. But somehow
the world escaped that time.
In the year 1066 Halley's comet appeared to announce to the Saxons the
approaching conquest of England by William the Norman. A contemporary
poet made a singular remark, which may have some profound poetical
meaning, but certainly seems a little indistinct on the surface. He said
that 'the comet had been more favourable to William than nature had been
to Caesar; the latter had no hair, but William had received some from the
comet.' This is the only instance, so far as I know, in which a comet
has been regarded as a perruquier. A monk of Malmesbury spoke more to
the purpose, according to then received ideas, in thus apostrophising
the comet: 'Here art thou again, cause of tears to many mothers! It is
long since I saw thee last, but I see thee now more terrible than ever;
thou threatenest my country with complete ruin.'
Halley's comet, with its inconveniently short period of about
seventy-seven years, has repeatedly troubled the nations and been
regarded as a sign sent from Heaven:
Ten million cubic miles of head,
Ten billion leagues of tail,
all provided for the sole purpose of warning one petty race of
earth-folks against the evils likely to be brought against them by
another. This comet has appeared twenty-four times since the date of its
first recorded appearance, which some consider to have been 12 B.C., and
others refer to a few years later. It may be interesting to quote here
Babinet's description of the effects ascribed in 1455 to this comet,
often the terror of nations, but the triumph of mathematicians, as the
first whose motions were brought into recognisable obedience to the laws
of gravity.[42]
'The Mussulmans, with Mahomet II. at their head, were besieging
Belgrade, which was defended by Huniade, surnamed the Exterminator of
the Turks. Halley's comet appeared and the two armies were seized with
equal fear. Pope Calixtus III., himself seized by the general terror,
ordered public prayers and timidly anathematised the comet and the
enemies of Christianity. He established the prayer called the noon
_Angelus_, the use of which is continued in all Catholic churches. The
Franciscans (_Freres Mineurs_) brought 40,000 defenders to Belgrade,
besieged by the conqueror of Constantinople, the destroyer of the
Eastern Empire. At last the battle began; it continued two days without
ceasing. A contest of two days caused 40,000 combatants to bite the
dust. The Franciscans, unarmed, crucifix in hand, were in the front
rank, invoking the papal exorcism against the comet, and turning upon
the enemy that heavenly wrath of which none in those times dared doubt.'
The great comet of 1556 has been regarded as the occasion of the Emperor
Charles V.'s abdication of the imperial throne; a circumstance which
seems rendered a little doubtful by the fact that he had already
abdicated when the comet appeared--a mere detail, perhaps, but
suggesting the possibility that cause and effect may have been
interchanged by mistake, and that it was Charles's abdication which
occasioned the appearance of the comet. According to Gemma's account the
comet was conspicuous rather from its great light than from the length
of its tail or the strangeness of its appearance. 'Its head equalled
Jupiter in brightness, and was equal in diameter to nearly half the
apparent diameter of the moon.' It appeared about the end of February,
and in March presented a terrible appearance, according to Ripamonte.
'Terrific indeed,' says Sir J. Herschel, 'it might well have been to the
mind of a prince prepared by the most abject superstition to receive
its appearance as a warning of approaching death, and as specially sent,
whether in anger or in mercy, to detach his thoughts from earthly
things, and fix them on his eternal interests. Such was its effect on
the Emperor Charles V., whose abdication is distinctly ascribed by many
historians to this cause, and whose words on the occasion of his first
beholding it have even been recorded--
"His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant"--
the language and the metrical form of which exclamation afford no ground
for disputing its authenticity, when the habits and education of those
times are fairly considered.' It is quite likely that, having already
abdicated the throne, Charles regarded the comet as signalling his
retirement from power--an event which he doubtless considered a great
deal too important to be left without some celestial record. But the
words attributed to him are in all probability apocryphal.
The comet of 1577 was remarkable for the strangeness of its aspect,
which in some respects resembled that of the comet of 1858, called
Donati's. It required only the terror with which such portentous objects
were witnessed in the Middle Ages to transform the various streamers,
curved and straight, extending from such an object, into swords and
spears, and other signs of war and trouble. Doubtless, we owe to the
fears of the Middle Ages the strange pictures claiming to present the
actual aspect of some of the larger comets. Halley's comet did not
escape. It was compared to a straight sword at one visit, to a curved
scimitar in 1456, and even at its last return in 1835 there were some
who recognised in the comet a resemblance to a misty head. Other comets
have been compared to swords of fire, bloody crosses, flaming daggers,
spears, serpents, fiery dragons, fish, and so forth. But in this
respect no comet would seem to have been comparable with that of 1528,
of which Andrew Pare writes as follows: 'This comet was so horrible and
dreadful, and engendered such terror in the minds of men, that they
died, some from fear alone, others from illness engendered by fear. It
was of immense length and blood-red colour; at its head was seen the
figure of a curved arm, holding a large sword in the hand as if
preparing to strike. At the point of this sword were three stars; and on
either side a number of axes, knives, and swords covered with blood,
amongst which were many hideous human faces with bristling beards and
hair.'
Such peculiarities of shape, and also those affecting the position and
movements of comets, were held to be full of meaning. As Bayle pointed
out in his 'Thoughts about the Comet of 1680,' these fancies are of
great antiquity. Pliny tells us that in his time astrologers claimed to
interpret the meaning of a comet's position and appearance, and that
also of the direction towards which its rays pointed. They could,
moreover, explain the effects produced by the fixed stars whose rays
were conjoined with the comet's. If a comet resembles a flute, then
musicians are aimed at; when comets are in the less dignified parts of
the constellations, they presage evil to immodest persons; if the head
of a comet forms an equilateral triangle or a square with fixed stars,
then it is time for mathematicians and men of science to tremble. When
they are in the sign of the Ram, they portend great wars and widespread
mortality, the abasement of the great and the elevation of the small,
besides fearful droughts in regions over which that sign predominates;
in the Virgin, they imply many grievous ills to the female portion of
the population; in the Scorpion, they portend a plague of reptiles,
especially locusts; in the Fishes, they indicate great troubles from
religious differences, besides war and pestilence. When, like the one
described by Milton, they 'fire the length of Ophiuchus huge,' they show
that there will be much mortality caused by poisoning.
The comet of 1680, which led Bayle to write the treatise to which
reference has just been made, was one well calculated to inspire terror.
Indeed, if the truth were known, that comet probably brought greater
danger to the inhabitants of the earth than any other except the comet
of 1843--the danger not, however, being that derived from possible
collision between the earth and a comet, but that arising from the
possible downfall of a large comet upon the sun, and the consequent
enormous increase of the sun's heat. That, according to Newton, is the
great danger men have to fear from comets; and the comet of 1680 was one
which in that sense was a very dangerous one. There is no reason why a
comet from outer space should not fall straight towards the sun, as at
one time the comet of 1680 was supposed to be doing. All the comfort
that science can give the world on that point is that such a course for
a comet is only one out of many millions of possible courses, all fully
as likely; and that, therefore, the chance of a comet falling upon the
sun is only as one in many millions. Still, the comet of 1680 made a
very fair shot at the sun, and a very slight modification of its course
by Jupiter or Saturn might have brought about the catastrophe which
Newton feared. Whether, if a comet actually fell upon the sun, anything
very dreadful would happen, is not so clear. Newton's ideas respecting
comets were formed in ignorance of many physical facts and laws which in
our day render reasoning upon the subject comparatively easy. Yet, even
in our time, it is not possible to assert confidently that such fears
are idle. During the solar outburst witnessed by Carrington and Hodgson
in September 1859, it is supposed that the sun swallowed a large
meteoric mass; and, as great cornets are probably followed by many such
masses, it seems reasonable to infer that if such a comet fell upon the
sun, his surface being pelted with such exceptionally large masses,
stoned with these mighty meteoric balls, would glow all over (or nearly
so) as brightly as a small spot of that surface glowed upon that
occasion. Now that portion was so bright that Carrington thought 'that
by some chance a ray of light had penetrated a hole in the screen
attached to the object-glass by which the general image is thrown in
shade, for the brilliancy was fully equal to that of direct sunlight.'
Manifestly, if the whole surface of the sun, or any large portion of the
surface, were caused to glow with that exceeding brilliancy, surpassing
ordinary sunlight in the same degree that ordinary sunlight surpassed
the shaded solar image in Carrington's observations, the result would be
disastrous in the extreme for the inhabitants of that half of the earth
which chanced to be in sunlight at the time; and if (as could scarcely
fail to happen) the duration of that abnormal splendour were more than
half a day, then the whole earth would probably be depopulated by the
intense heat. The danger, as I have said, is slight--partly because
there is small chance of a collision between the sun and a comet, partly
because we have no certain reasons for assuming that a collision would
be followed by the heating of the sun for a while to a very high
temperature. Looking around at the suns which people space, and
considering their history, so far as it has been made known to us, for
the last two thousand years, we find small occasion for fear. Those suns
seem to have been for the most part safe from any sudden or rapid
accessions of heat; and if they travel thus safely in their mighty
journeys through space, we may well believe that our sun also is safe.
Nevertheless, there _have_ been catastrophes here and there. Now one sun
and now another has blazed out with a hundred times its usual lustre,
gradually losing its new fires and returning to its customary
brightness; but after what destruction among those peopling its system
of worlds who shall say? Spectroscopic analysis, that powerful help to
the modern astronomical inquirer, has shown in one of these cases that
just such changes had taken place as we might fairly expect would follow
if a mighty comet fell into the sun. If this interpretation be correct,
then we are not wholly safe. Any day might bring us news of a comet
sailing full upon our sun from out the depths of space. Then astronomers
would perhaps have the opportunity of ascertaining the harmlessness of a
collision between the ruler of our system and one of the long-tailed
visitors from the celestial spaces. Or possibly, astronomers and the
earth's inhabitants generally might find out the reverse, though the
knowledge would not avail them much, seeing that the messenger who would
bring it would be the King of Terrors himself.
It was well, perhaps, that Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation,
and the application of this law to the comets of 1680 and 1682 (the
latter our old friend Halley's comet, then properly so called as studied
by him), came in time to aid in removing to some slight degree the old
superstitions respecting comets. For in England many remembered the
comets of the Great Plague and of the Great Fire of London. These comets
came so closely upon the time of the Plague and the Fire respectively,
that it was not wonderful if even the wiser sort were struck by the
coincidence and could scarcely regard it as accidental. It is not easy
for the student of science in our own times, when the movements of
comets are as well understood as those of the most orderly planets, to
place himself in the position of men in the times when no one knew on
what paths comets came, or whither they retreated after they had visited
our sun. Taught as men were, on the one hand, that it was wicked to
question what seemed to be the teaching of the Scriptures, that changes
or new appearances in the heavens were sent to warn mankind of
approaching troubles, and perplexed as they were, on the other, by the
absence of any real knowledge respecting comets and meteors, it was not
so easy as we might imagine from our own way of viewing these matters,
to shake off a superstition which had ruled over men's minds for
thousands of years.
No sect had been free from this superstition. Popes and priests had
taught their followers to pray against the evil influences of comets and
other celestial portents; Luther and Melanchthon had condemned in no
measured terms the rashness and impiety of those who had striven to show
that the heavenly bodies and the earth move in concordance with
law--those 'fools who wish to reverse the entire science of astronomy.'
A long interval had elapsed between the time when the Copernican theory
was struggling for existence--when, but that more serious heresies
engaged men's attention and kept religious folk by the ears, that
astronomical heresy would probably have been quenched in blood--and the
forging by Newton of the final link of the chain of reasoning on which
modern astronomy is based; but in those times the minds of men moved
more slowly than in ours. The masses still held to the old beliefs about
the heavenly bodies. Defoe, indeed, speaking of the terror of men at the
time of the Great Plague, says that they 'were more addicted to
prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales,
than ever they were before or since.' But in reality, it was only
because of the great misery then prevailing that men seemed more
superstitious than usual; for misery brings out the superstitions--the
fetishisms, if we may so speak--which are inherent in many minds, but
concealed from others in prosperous times, out of shame, or perhaps a
worthier feeling. Even in our own times great national calamities would
show that many superstitions exist which had been thought extinct, and
we should see excited among the ill-educated that particular form of
persecution which arises, not from zeal for religion and not from
intolerance, but from the belief that the troubles have been sent
because of unbelief and the fear that unless some expiation be made the
evil will not pass away from the midst of the people. It is at such
times of general affliction that minds of the meaner sort have proved
'zealous even to slaying.'