February 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNO^A^^LEDGE ♦ 



16 



^ ILLUSTRATED ^mCAZINE "^ 

 |SCIENCE,L!TERATUR£,& Mfl 



LONDON: FEBRUARY 1, 1888. 



THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 



F there is one feature of popular converge about 

 astronomy which inrlicates more clearly than 

 another the generally-prevalent ignorance of 

 science, it is the absurd nonsense now so often 

 heard respecting what is called " the Star of 

 Bethlehem." I suppose that at least 2,000 

 letters must have been addressed to me with 

 inquiries about this non-existent orb. Again and again I 

 am gravely told that the Star of Bethlehem has already 

 appeared, its place of appearance being at one time York- 

 shire or Devonshire, in England, at another Algiers or Con- 

 stantinople or Tobolsk, at another a village in Kentuck}', 

 at another in Buenos Ayres or Rio Janeiro. 



There are certain times when the Star of Bethlehem is 

 sure to )je discovered somewhere or other. One of these 

 brought with it " Professor " Klein's discovery in Kentucky 

 last summer ; another was distinguished by the discovery 

 of the erratic star by a young lady in Texas last November. 

 Luckily, a j-ear and a quarter must elapse before the same 

 Star of Bethlehem is likely to be discovered — somewhere 

 about March 25, 1889 ; then again after a few months, on 

 or about June (3, we are likely to hear that some village 

 professor or some young girl or some sky-contemplating local 

 lunatic has seen the Star of Bethlehem : after which it will 

 not be till the end of October, 1890, that the mystic orb will 

 be noticed. 



Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the discoverers of the 

 Star of Bethlehem ; but he made a better use of it than the 

 young lady in Texas or the " professor " of Kentucky. He 

 pointed to it as it shone ftuntly in the heavens by day, and, 

 instead of displaying ignorance, he took advantage of the 

 ignoi-ance of his officers, saying, " That is my star I " prob- 

 ably knowing quite well that the orb at which he pointed 

 was Venus, a world nearly as large as that for a small por- 

 tion of whose surfiice he had stained that surface with the 

 blood of myriads of men. 



For all the announced apparitions of the Star of Beth- 

 lehem the Planet of Love has been responsible. She always 

 can be seen in full daylight for a few days at the time of 

 her greatest brilliancy. And, although it is nowhere stated 

 in the Gospel record that the Star of Bethlehem was visible 

 in the daytime, it seems somehow to be taken for granted 

 that it did present and will again present this exceptional 

 peculiarity. Yet, by the singular perversity of ignorance, 

 the very persons who look for the Star of Bethlehem by day, 

 proclaim their belief that it is the star which is called 

 Tycho Brahe's — a star which shone out in 1572 in the con- 

 stellation Cassiopeia, and which could be seen all through 

 the night all the 3-ear round in all the countries and places 

 whence people imagine they have seen the mystic orb. Tycho 

 Brahe's star, the situation of which is perfectly well known, 

 even if the very star has not (as is probable) been identified 



with a catalogued eighth-magnitude star (shown in my large 

 northern chart of 324,198 stai-s), does not pass below the 

 horizon of any place in higher latitude than 2Gi deg. north. 

 Whenever that star changes in brightness even by a single 

 magnitude, astronomers will know of the change and may 

 be trusted to .attend to it ; though not one among their 

 number imagines for a moment that there is the remotest 

 connection between that distant sun, probably at least a 

 hundred years' light-journey from us, and the Star of 

 Bethlehem. 



The story of Tycho Brahe's star has been so often told, 

 that I shall here say little on the subject, directing the 

 reader's attention rather to the real story of t'ae Star of the 

 Nativity, as related by one who was probably not Matthew, 

 since the Ebionites who accepted Matthew's as the only 

 trustworthy Gospel rejected the story of the Nativity as a 

 later addition, dating probably from about the year 110. 



The history of Tycho Brahe's star diilers in no important 

 details from that of the equally brilliant temporary star 

 known as Kepler's. It blazed out suddenly close by the 

 star Kappa of Cassiopeia, the faintest of the four stars 

 which mark the back of the Seated Lady's Chair. At firet 

 it was brighter than Venus iit her brightest. This superiority 

 was not due to the fact that the star was visible at night 

 (whereas Venus is never .seen on a dark sky), for the new star 

 could be seen in the daytime. Probably, by-the-bye, it may 

 be this peculiarity of Tycho Brahe's star which has led to 

 the notion that whenever Venus is seen in the daytime the 

 Star of Bethlehem has returned. But it speaks rather ill 

 for the intelligence and information of the general public 

 that because a star which has certiiinly nothing whatever to do 

 with the Star of the Nativity, and which if visible now at all 

 would show all night, was for a while visible in the day- 

 time, therefore another orb which is not a st;ir at all, and 

 which returns periodically to daylight visibility, should be 

 taken for that orb, although the place of Tycho Brahe's star 

 shows in the night time no star even of tiie sixth or seventh 

 magnitude.* 



The statement that Tycho Brahe's star has been identified 

 with two stars which .shone out respectively in the years 

 945 and 1264 is far from justified by the evidence. Oa 

 hunting over old records, two were found which very 

 doubtfully suggested that celestial objects which might have 

 been stars, but might also have been comets, had been seen 

 in the years 9-45 and 1264, either of which might have 

 appeared where Tycho Brahe's star was seen, or, on the 

 contrary, might have been anywhere within a distance of 

 10 or 12 degrees from it. Of course, if these were merely 

 apparitions of Tycho Brahe's star, which I regard as wildly 

 improbable, then since an interval of 319 years elapsed 

 between their appearance, and an interval of 308 years only 

 between the later of the two and Tycho Brahe's star, it is 

 evident the variable is not regular in its returns. And 

 since 315 years have already passed since Tycho Brahe's 

 star was seen, the prospect of a return of the star to visibility 

 is somewhat doubtful, apart from the more than doubtful 

 character of the evidence on which the identity of the stars 

 or orbs of 945, 1264, and 1572 has been based. If, however, 

 it should happen, as it very well may, that Tj-cho Brahe's 

 star should blaze out within the next few years, the general 



» An attempt was made to save the Texan Star of Bethlehem 

 from detection as an impostor last October by announcing that 

 though it had been visible for several days it had vanished, so that 

 astronomers need not hope to persuade the world that it had not 

 really appeared. But, unfortunately, that self-same supposed star 

 was ijlazing out morning after morning as Venus, the Morning Star, 

 while night after night, all that time, the place of Tycho Brahe's 

 star was absolutely vacant so far as naked-eye vision was con- 

 cerned, and occupied only for telescopic vision by an eighth 

 magnitude star. 



