Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/744

722 legends a star appeared at the birth of Moses, and was seen by the Magi of Egypt, who informed the king; and when Abraham was born an unusual star appeared in the east. The Greeks and Romans held similar traditions. A heavenly light accompanied the birth of Æsculapius, and the births of various Cæsars were heralded in like manner.

As to the nature of these heavenly bodies, the fathers of the Christian Church were divided. Origen thought them living creatures possessed of souls, and the belief was thought warranted by the beautiful Song of the Three Children which the Anglican communion has so wisely retained in its liturgy. Other fathers of the Church thought the stars abiding-places of the angels, and that shooting-stars were moved by angelic hands. Philo Judæus believed the stars beneficent spirits, and this belief was widely held by Jews, Greeks, and Christians. Among the Mohammedans we have curious examples of the same tendency toward a kindly interpretation of stars and meteors, in the belief of certain Mohammedan teachers that meteoric showers are caused by good angels hurling missiles to drive evil angels out of the sky.

As to eclipses, they were regarded in a very different light, and were supposed to express the distress of Nature at earthly calamities. The Greeks believed that darkness overshadowed the earth at the