Page:Chronologies and calendars (IA chronologiescale00macdrich).pdf/83

 tions, solar eclipses, and the visibility of comets came to have special reference to B.C. and A.D. events, Even now another authority assures us 'the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich, is beseiged, whenever Venus happens to shine brightly in the morning sky, by enquiries as to whether this is not the star of Bethlehem come once more.'

. Quite recently, however, astronomers made intricate calculations in regard to the eve of the Advent conjunction of Venus with the planet Jupiter—the two brightest stars in the visible heavens. These two stars, astronomers averred, formed the compound temporary star which marked the Incarnation; and these two were actually in conjunction, the computations showed, on what we now call the 8th of May, B.C. 6. This abnormal conjunction, being to the west of the sun, would be therefore visible as one conStellation in the east shortly before sunrise on the day in question. The logical conclusions therefore are, (a) that the star was not one star, (b) that the phenomenon was nonsupernatural, and (c) that its being accessory before the fact of the nativity, was accidental. The coming of the Logos is not to create human chronology, but to re-create humanity.

. The eclipse recorded as synchronous with the night of some of Herod's major atrocities, has been astronomically calculated (being a lunar eclipse) to have taken place on the 13th of our March, in the 4th year before the Christian era. But, as has been previously remarked, the whole chronology of Josephus is in a condition of suspended animation. There have been interpolations in