Tag: Advent

2 min read

Advent

Since Mary was Ever-Virgin, Did She Deliver Her Son in the Normal Way?

Paul Thigpen

December 15, 2022 7:15 am December 15, 2022

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One rather delicate question sometimes raised by Catholics concerns the physical nature of Jesus’ birth: Given that Mary was a virgin, did she deliver her Son in the normal way?…

One rather delicate question sometimes raised by Catholics concerns the physical nature of Jesus’ birth: Given that Mary was a virgin, did she deliver her Son in the normal way? Or was it through a miracle that left her body physically intact?

All faithful Catholics are agreed on Mary’s perpetual virginity. The debate centers on what exactly is meant by “virginity.” Does it consist simply in never having had sexual relations? If so, Mary can rightly be called “ever-virgin” without our assuming that Jesus’ birth was miraculous.

But what if a woman must also be physically intact to be considered a virgin? This understanding, at least with regard to Mary, has probably been the “majority position” throughout much of Church history, represented by many figures who carry considerable weight.

For example, nearly all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church who have addressed the issue seem to believe that Jesus was delivered miraculously, exiting her womb without injuring her flesh in any way. The Lateran Synod of 649, which was a regional rather than an ecumenical council, said specifically that Mary “generated without injury”; several popes spoke in a similar way.

Some have argued that such pronouncements should be considered infallible teachings of the Church’s ordinary and universal Magisterium. But in light of the conditions necessary for infallibility, that is by no means an assured conclusion. Perhaps it’s best to say that in this matter, a solemn clarification or confirmation by a pope or ecumenical council would be most welcome.

In the meantime, let’s pray that pondering these mysteries will deepen our faith.

Paul Thigpen is a former editor of The Catholic Answer.

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2 min read

Saints

The holiness of the virgin-martyr St. Lucy

Michael R. Heinlein

December 13, 2022 4:06 am December 13, 2022

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St. Lucy came from the Sicilian city of Syracuse and died in 304 when she was around 21 years old. Not much is known about her aside from the early traditional…

St. Lucy came from the Sicilian city of Syracuse and died in 304 when she was around 21 years old. Not much is known about her aside from the early traditional narratives that describe her in similar terms to the various fourth-century virgin-martyrs who chose purity for Christ’s sake over life. A variety of details from different legends describe specific details from her life.

According to the prevailing legend, St. Lucy’s mother was terminally ill and arranged a marriage to provide for her daughter’s well-being, unaware of her daughter’s plans to live a life of virginity. Seeking a cure, St. Lucy’s mother made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Agatha, a virgin-martyr who died nearby some 50 years previously. St. Agatha came to St. Lucy in a dream and promised to intercede for her ill mother. In exchange, St. Lucy managed to convince her mother to make an offering of their wealth for the good of the poor. Jealous because he thought the offering should be given to him instead, St. Lucy’s betrothed reported her to the local governor. St. Lucy was arrested and ordered to make amends by offering a sacrifice to the emperor, which she refused to do.

The result of St. Lucy’s faithfulness was a death sentence. She was killed ultimately by sword after many other attempts to violate her purity and bring about her death. Later narratives relate that her death was hastened once her eyes were gouged out, while another says she gouged out her own eyes to deter a suitor. For these legends, St. Lucy is remembered as a patroness of those suffering afflictions of the eye, and in art she typically is depicted holding eyes on a platter. Devotion to St. Lucy spread quickly in the early Church, and her popularity saw a peak in the Middle Ages.

St. Lucy’s name is derived from the Latin word for “light,” and her Dec. 13 feast day coincided for centuries with the winter solstice until the reforms of the calendar. In Scandinavian countries, where little daylight is seen in the dark days of December, the people celebrate St. Lucy’s feast with much enthusiasm. Young girls dressed in white deliver sweets while caroling. They wear red sashes to commemorate St. Lucy’s martyrdom, and wreaths of lit candles sit on their head, representing the light of Christ that shone through the holiness and purity of the virgin-saint of Syracuse.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

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6 min read

Saints

The Real St. Nicholas

Thomas J. Craughwell

December 6, 2022 7:57 am December 6, 2022

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6 min read

St. Nicholas (died c. 350) was the bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey, where he was famous for his generosity to the poor. The details of his life…

St. Nicholas (died c. 350) was the bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey, where he was famous for his generosity to the poor. The details of his life have not come down to us, but a host of legends have sprung up to fill the void, almost all of them emphasizing Nicholas’ goodness to people in need.

It is said that St. Nicholas rescued three innocent men who had been falsely accused of robbery and were about to be executed, and that he saved the crew of a ship that had lost its mast in a storm and was about to sink.

The most famous legend tells of a widowed merchant whose business went bankrupt. He and his three unmarried daughters survived by pawning their valuables, one by one. At last there was nothing left to sell and no hope that any man would ask for the hand of a young woman who was a pauper; the father feared that his daughters would be forced to become prostitutes.

St. Nicholas heard about the family’s desperate situation, and, so, after dark one evening he walked to the merchant’s house and tossed a bag of gold coins through an open window. Now the eldest daughter had enough for a respectable dowry. The next night, he went again to the merchant’s house and threw in a second bag of gold for the second daughter. Finally, on third night, the merchant and his daughters were waiting for him. As the third bag of coins sailed through the window, the grateful family flung open the door and rushed outside to thank their benefactor.

The story of the three bags of gold is the origin of giving gifts on St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6). But how he became the patron saint of children comes from another legend, which is not for the squeamish.

Nicholas was traveling, and when night came he stopped at an inn where he asked for a room and a meal. The inn-keeper, proud of the opportunity to entertain a bishop, declared he would serve Nicholas a splendid dinner, including meat that had been delivered fresh that day. Bishop Nicholas did not say a word, but pushed the man aside and walked into the kitchen. There, in the middle of the room, stood a large wooden tub brimming with fresh meat. Nicholas made the Sign of the Cross over the tub, and the meat vanished, replaced by three little boys. The innkeeper had murdered the children and planned to serve them to his guests.

After his death, St. Nicholas’ tomb in his cathedral in Myra became a destination for pilgrims. Then, around the year 1085, the Seljuk Turks conquered Myra. Christians across Europe feared that the Turks would desecrate or destroy the saint’s relics.

In Italy, city officials in Venice and Bari resolved to rescue St. Nicholas, but the men from Bari got to Myra first. They took the saint’s casket from the cathedral, and on May 9, 1087, sailed into the Bari harbor bearing the relics of the saint. The relics are still in Bari, enshrined in a crypt beneath the Basilica of St. Nicholas.

For centuries, St. Nicholas was one of the most popular saints, with many churches, chapels and altars raised in his honor. Before the Reformation, there were more than 400 churches dedicated to St. Nicholas just in England. He was named the patron of Greece, Russia, Sicily, the French province of Loraine, as well as many cities and towns. Newlyweds, longshoremen, sailors, pawnbrokers, thieves and children venerated him as their patron saint.

Today, St. Nicholas is still widely venerated in the Orthodox Church and among Catholics of the Eastern rites, and in many parts of Central and Northern Europe his feast day is still celebrated, especially by children. But in the United States, devotion to the saint is virtually nonexistent.

Blame it on Clement Clarke Moore, a professor of biblical studies at the Episcopal Church’s General Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1823 Moore published a poem titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known today as “’Twas the Night before Christmas.”

There was a popular trend among New Yorkers of the early 19th century to try to “recapture” their city’s Dutch heritage. Influential men such as Moore and the author Washington Irving (who wrote the stories of Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman) invented a host of traditions and folklore that they claimed had been part of day-to-day life in old New Amsterdam. Moore, Irving and their friends were especially enchanted by the stories of St. Nicholas, and so claimed that the first Dutch colonists arrived in Manhattan aboard a ship bearing a figurehead of St. Nicholas (it didn’t); that the first church in New Amsterdam was dedicated to St. Nicholas (it wasn’t); and that the Dutch colonists celebrated St. Nicholas Day (they didn’t).

Moore took these innocent fabrications and used them as the basis for a full-blown treatment of a brand-new Christmas legend, complete with eight flying reindeer, a sleigh full of toys and an elderly overweight man in a red suit who climbed up and down chimneys. It is a delightful poem; and in Santa Claus, Moore has given the world one of the most memorable characters ever, one that is recognized all across the globe.

Moore’s poem kicked off a Santa Claus phenomenon, but it had an unintended side effect — it all but guaranteed that devotion to the real St. Nicholas would not take root in the United States. We shouldn’t be surprised: How could anyone be expected to pray to a saint who is described as “a right jolly old elf”?

We don’t have to choose between St. Nicholas and Santa Claus; they are two different figures, and we can have them both. Let Santa keep what’s his — the big chair in the department store, the reindeer and the sleigh, the magic of presents under the Christmas tree. And let St. Nicholas have what is his — the Mass in his honor on Dec. 6, the tradition of giving children a little gift or some chocolates on his feast day as a prelude to Christmas. Most importantly, let us honor St. Nicholas by imitating his virtues, especially his generosity to people in need.

Thomas J. Craughwell is the author of “Patron Saints” (OSV, $14.95) and “Saints Behaving Badly” (Doubleday, $15.95). This article first appeared in Our Sunday Visitor.

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1 min read

Advent

St. Andrew Christmas Novena

Michael Heinlein

December 4, 2022 5:21 pm December 4, 2022

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The St. Andrew Christmas Novena, also known as the Christmas Anticipation Prayer, begins on the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle on Nov. 30, and lasts until Dec. 24….

The St. Andrew Christmas Novena, also known as the Christmas Anticipation Prayer, begins on the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle on Nov. 30, and lasts until Dec. 24. Tradition says the prayer should be recited 15 times each day. It is a beautiful, evocative and meditative Advent prayer.

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires (mention your intentions here), through the merits of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother.
Amen.

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10 min read

Christmas

What Can We Learn from the Infancy Narratives?

Dr. Peter Brown

October 19, 2022 7:00 am October 19, 2022

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10 min read

Many Catholics are unaware that Advent is a penitential time in which we prepare for the Lord’s coming at the end of time. One way to prepare for that is…

Many Catholics are unaware that Advent is a penitential time in which we prepare for the Lord’s coming at the end of time. One way to prepare for that is to reflect on the Lord’s coming in time — that first Christmas — and reacquainting ourselves with a careful study of the greatest sources we have for the story of Our Lord’s birth: the Gospel passages of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 called the Infancy Narratives.

The Christmas story that most Catholics know is actually an amalgamation of the accounts of the events of Christ’s birth according to Matthew and Luke. Harmonizations like this serve a good purpose — without them we would not have the Nativity scene or the annual school Christmas pageant — but there is a great deal to be learned by reading the two accounts as their authors actually wrote them — that is, as the prelude to two separate Gospels which each shed separate light on the Christ event.

Fulfilling Old Testament

Many will find a few surprises within the Infancy Narratives. For instance, while we see that the baby is wrapped in swaddling clothes (just like King Solomon in Wisdom 7:4-6), neither Luke nor Matthew mention any animals present at the birth. The idea that an ox and ass were present came from a creative reading of Isaiah 1:3, which speaks of these animals at the “manger,” the master’s crib. No stable or cave is mentioned in either Gospel, and there is a decent possibility that the feedbox in which the baby Jesus was laid was used to feed animals kept at the house where Joseph was forced to put the baby because he had run out of space in his room.

The word in Luke 2:7 usually translated “inn” is not the usual word for inn that we see later on in Luke 10:34. The term in Luke 2:7 is more the generic term for “accommodation,” so it may be that Joseph has his own ancestral house in Bethlehem, his town of origin, where he must go to enroll in the census. This would fit Matthew’s version in which he speaks of a “house” in Bethlehem (see Mt 2:11) where the Magi visit. At any rate, Bethlehem is important as a place because it fulfills the prophecy in Micah 5:2.

In the Line of David

But as interesting as it is to speculate on details surrounding the birth of Jesus, there is a great deal also to be learned from the more mundane aspects of the stories — and nothing is more mundane to Western ears than the genealogies — Jesus’ family history. Matthew’s genealogy might be recognized as the Gospel reading at the Christmas Vigil Mass. Perhaps boring to us, it is the most exciting thing to Jewish ears because it speaks of the return of the long-awaited Davidic king! All of Jesus’ ancestors listed from David down to Josiah, all once sat upon the throne of Judah.

Besides this, Matthew has made the curious choice to include four women in his genealogy of Jesus — Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Each woman was important in her respective biblical story while at the same time being of questionable repute. (See Genesis 38 for the story of Tamar and Joshua 2 concerning Rahab.) Bathsheba’s indiscretions with David are, of course, pretty well known.

The mention of these women, then, has three functions. First, the Gentile identity of each of the women establishes the international basis of Jesus’ background, hinting at the Abrahamic promise to bless the nations through the Davidic line (see Gn 12:1-3; 17:1-8; 22:15-19), thus explaining why Jesus is called “son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1). Second, it prepares the reader for the marriage between Mary and Joseph and the apparent impropriety that surrounded that case. But, third, including these four women in Jesus’ family tree also serves to connect Jesus even to the less savory aspects of the Davidic family. This is fitting, since as one who has come to save His people from their sins, Jesus stands as someone who bears on His shoulders the full weight of the transgressions of the house of Judah.

But the Davidic connections continue as we notice that the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew is broken into three parts of 14, the number which just happens to be the numerical value of the Hebrew spelling of David.

A few verses after the genealogy, Matthew famously cites Isaiah 7:14. This explains Jesus as not only the heir apparent to the Davidic King Hezekiah, but also the one who brings about God’s act of salvation to Israel through the pregnancy of a lowly virgin. As Emmanuel (“God with us”), God himself would come to dwell amidst His people.

The visit of the Magi illustrates that even Gentiles search for the true king of the world in contrast to the Herodian pretender, and that even earnest Gentiles need help from divine revelation (in this case Micah 5:2) to know precisely where the new king of the world would be born. The Magi’s gifts of gold and incense both befit their royal beneficiary and echo the journeys of foreigners in the days of Solomon bearing gifts to hear the wisdom of the Davidic king, and also the prophecy of Isaiah 60:6 regarding Gentile gifts to the restored Israel.

But Matthew does not only want to connect Jesus to David personally as a descendant who follows a preset template. Matthew wants to exploit the idea that David was a representative of the whole people. Indeed the title “Son of God” to which we are first introduced here in Matthew had several meanings. It can refer both to Israel as a whole (see Ex 4:22) just as it can to the Davidic king specifically (2 Sm 7:14). Certain Psalms refer to the son of God when discussing both David and his people (see Ps 2 and 8). This is why Jesus’ fleeing to Egypt and returning fulfills the prophecy of Hosea 11:1. As the new Israel, Jesus, the Davidic “son of God,” must do what Israel “the son of God” did. Just as Israel made a round trip from Canaan to Egypt, so Jesus must do likewise. St. Augustine called this the “head and body” principle.

Jesus and Moses

Finding of Moses, altarpiece on altar of Our Lady in the Church of Saint Matthew in Stitar, Croatia. Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com

Just as Matthew’s Nativity has made great use of the many traditions concerning David, similarities abound also between Jesus and Moses. Both figures were forced into exile to escape the tyranny of evil rulers who sought to put all male children to death in order to protect their earthly kingdoms (compare Ex 1 and Mt 2:16-18). Both Moses (see Ex 4:19) and Jesus (through Joseph his father, Mt 2:20) were commanded by supernatural means to return home at the death of the respective kings who had sought their death.

According to extra-biblical Jewish traditions, there was a story of Moses’ father (like Joseph) needing the reassurance of a dream during Pharaoh’s decree, just as there was a story of Pharoah learning of the existence of Israel’s future liberator through his palace scribes who urged him to kill Moses. There was even a tradition of Moses’ mother being barren and aged and needing to conceive by supernatural means, and one oral tradition reflected that Moses received gifts in his infancy. There is more throughout the Gospels to illustrate the extensive similarities between the two men.

Despite their differences, Matthew and Luke agree on quite a number of key details: the miraculous Virgin Birth in Bethlehem, the names of the principal characters and so forth. Luke, like Matthew, also goes to great lengths to emphasize Jesus’ Davidic ancestry. The famous Annunciation includes references to David and his kingdom! Read Luke 2.

Jesus and John the Baptist

Luke’s Nativity account has some interesting differences. Unlike Matthew’s account, in which Joseph drives the action, the real star in Luke’s Gospel is Mary. In Luke, the means of divine communication of important events are angelic appearances and conversations, unlike the dreams in Matthew’s Gospel. The first angelic visit is to Zechariah and then to Mary herself, and then, finally, to the shepherds.

A detailed study of Matthew’s whole Gospel would show that he constructs an elaborate parallel between the careers of John the Baptist and Jesus. So it is fascinating that Luke places the pair in tandem as well, although his parallel occurs entirely in the infancy account. Gabriel announces both boys as miraculous births (see Lk 1:14-20; 1:28-38), and both boys are named by the announcing angel (Lk 1:13; 1:31). At the time that the two boys met, while both in the womb, the Holy Spirit came to “overshadow” Mary (Lk 1:35) while He “filled” Elizabeth (Lk 1:41). Zechariah sings a prophetic canticle about John while Mary sings one about Jesus. After birth the two boys are both circumcised on the eighth day (Lk 1:59; 2:21), they are both marveled at by the people (Lk 1:63; 2:18), and they both grow and become strong (Lk 1:80; 2:40).

There is indeed a literary diptych in Luke 1-3 with John the Baptist on one side and Jesus on the other. Catholics often miss much of this because we tend to overlook the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah in Luke 1 and how it prefigures Mary and Jesus’ story in Luke 2.

Luke’s Gospel is one of prophecy and prayer. In addition to the two annunciations by Gabriel and the two prophetic canticles by Zechariah and Mary, we see Anna’s prophesy complementing the marvelous prophecy of Simeon — that the boy Jesus would be a sign of contradiction and Mary’s heart would be pierced. It reminds us that no Advent reflection can shut out of mind the cross of Christ, prefigured even in the infancy of Jesus.

Gospel of Joy

Above all though, Luke’s Gospel is one of joy, and there is no shortage of that in the first two chapters. The birth of John causes an abundance of “joy” to the family and friends (see Lk 1:14,58), as does the birth of Jesus to the shepherds (2:10). Mary “rejoices” over God her savior who made both miraculous births possible (1:47). Indeed the joy of Mary’s pregnancy is so superabundant that it even reaches John the Baptist, in utero, who leaps in the womb (1:44).

This is the same joy described by Pope Francis in his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), in which he states that the Gospel’s joy “fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus…. With Christ joy is constantly born anew” (No. 1).

Each Advent and Christmas gives an opportunity for us who await the Lord’s second coming to allow the Holy Spirit to make us experience the joy of those who met Him when He came among us as man.

Dr. Peter Brown received his doctorate in Biblical Studies at The Catholic University of America, which includes advanced studies in Greek and all biblical languages. He currently is academic dean at Catholic Distance University where he teaches several courses.

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8 min read

Christmas

What was the Star of Bethlehem?

Dr. Peter Brown

October 11, 2022 9:38 am October 11, 2022

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8 min read

Every year around Advent, Catholics are reminded of the story of the Nativity of Our Lord. Actually, for those keeping score, there are two stories of this in the Bible,…

Every year around Advent, Catholics are reminded of the story of the Nativity of Our Lord.

Actually, for those keeping score, there are two stories of this in the Bible, which are often amalgamated in the Christian imagination. The Gospel of Luke presents the notion that the birth of Jesus itself took place in a stable, as he was “laid in a manger” (2:7), or what we would call today an animal feedbox. Matthew’s presentation climaxes in a house, probably sometime after the birth of Christ. Besides the Holy Family itself, the most famous part of Matthew’s account is the Magi, these mysterious three men who journey from the “east,” probably Persia, in search of a young boy born King of the Jews. The Magi have greatly outdistanced Luke’s poor shepherds in the popular imagination.

One question that keeps arising is what was the “star” that not only revealed the fact of the Savior’s birth but led the Magi on an over 1,000-mile quest to the exact place of the baby in Bethlehem?

Natural Phenomenon?

The most popular solutions today usually involve various and sundry astronomical phenomena — most commonly a comet, a planetary conjunction, a supernova or (rarely) a meteor. Those who promote these theories run the gamut, ranging from the merely curious, to fundamentalist Christians always eager to use science to “prove” the veracity of biblical stories, to serious historians looking to use known times of past astronomic events to more precisely date the birth of Jesus Christ.

But we don’t need to be experts in astronomy to note the fundamental problems with such readings. Stars, planets, comets and so forth are very distant from earth. While they do indeed move (or at least appear to move from our vantage point), they do not naturally move in ways that can lead people to exact locales on the earth’s surface, let alone to come to rest over a young boy in a house. For a star to do this, it would need not only to shine day and night to guide the Magi on their journey but also to drop out of the firmament and come much closer to earth. Evidently what we are dealing with is a one-off “star” that was behaving in supernatural or preternatural ways. And this means that modern astronomy, which like all science limits itself to purely natural occurrences, is of no use to us at all in telling us what it was.

Ancient interpreters of Matthew didn’t know modern astronomy. They were unaware that stars and comets are massive burning objects that would engulf our happy planet in a seething inferno were they ever to approach sufficiently close to the earth’s surface to lead Magi to a city, a house or a person. But they did surmise the basic facts: the star that Matthew describes was not behaving the way stars ordinarily behave. If anything, the Star of Bethlehem was behaving like an angel!

“Under the Form of a Star”

Indeed, in his masterful article, “The Magi’s Angel,” which appears in his book “Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present,” New Testament scholar Dale Allison not only reminds us that in the ancient world of Matthew stars were not only closely related to angels, but that many famous Christian commentators up to the Enlightenment thought that the star might well have been an angel, or at least a specially created star moved under angelic guidance. Interpreters like John Chrysostom, Ephraem, Augustine, Origen and Theophylact assumed that the star was either specially created and not part of the heavenly system, the Holy Spirit or an angelic being under the guise of a star. St. Thomas Aquinas — well aware of the folly of holding the star a natural occurrence — thought that what Matthew describes was an “invisible force made visible under the form of a star” — something out of the reach of normal astronomy.

It is easy to see how ancient interpreters would so closely relate stars to angels. Like Matthew’s star, angels are bright (see Mt 28:3; Acts 6:15; 2 Cor 11:14), they come down to earth (Dn 8:10; Mk 13:25; Rv 1:20; 9:1-2; 12:3-4), they reveal things to people (too many examples to list here) and they serve as guides. Most famously the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night that guided Israel in the wilderness was the angel of the Lord (Ex 13:21).

In the Sanctus we invoke the “Lord of hosts.” These “hosts” (Saba’oth in Hebrew) are angelic armies closely related in the Bible to stars (see 1 Kgs 22:19; Is 24:21-23; Jer 19:13; Neh 9:6; Dn 8:10). If we were to look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and extra-biblical literature of both ancient Judaism and Christianity, these examples of the kinship between stars and angels could be multiplied ad nauseam. For these reasons many ancient paintings depict an angel (sometimes also with a star) leading the Magi.

The ancients readily saw stars as living beings, whose patterns could reveal things and tell stories about the world. In Eastern Christianity, this belief was partly carried over from Greek philosophy of Plato popular with many of the Church Fathers, but lingered because it fit in well with cosmology of the Bible. The view of an animate cosmos had currency well into the Middle Ages. Aristotle himself was unsure whether stars had souls. But in Aristotelean cosmology (the most up-to-date available in Aquinas’ day), stars were seen as the prime movers who in turn were moved by the unmoved prime mover, God. But in this way they were part of the chain of motion which could move things upon the earth. It was debated in the Middle Ages to what degree astral movements could actually predict happenings on earth. Aquinas used the terms “astronomy” and “astrology” interchangeably.

Astrology lost credence as the Middle Ages progressed and observers of the night skies developed the ability to make far more precise observations and mathematical computations. Mostly this was a salutary development. Astrology as a matter of fact could never effectively predict events on earth. On the other hand, astronomy could eventually reveal many truths of the universe while launching satellites, rockets, space shuttles and putting a man on the moon.

The separation between astrology and astronomy was much like the gulf that emerged between alchemy and chemistry. Wizards with esoteric “knowledge” have given way to geeks in lab coats. Stars have become the exclusive property of astronomy — gaseous giants that generate enormous quantities of heat, light and gravitational pull. But this was never Matthew’s notion of “stars,” nor that of any of his original interpreters.

Modern Thinking

The world is mostly the better for the changes. But we should be aware that the de-animation and de-supernaturalization of the universe has had some adverse effects in the way moderns think and read Scripture. It was Enlightenment thinkers, unconsciously reading a rationalistic framework into the Bible, who insisted that everything unusual in the Bible must have some natural explanation. We get annoyed — or should — when someone insists that the miracles of the Bible are really just natural phenomena that were exaggerated or misunderstood by the ancients. Jesus healing the sick and the blind was “really” just “spontaneous natural cures” to which medical literature attests. Jesus walking on water is “really” just him appearing to walk on very shallow water. Jesus quieting the storm was “really” just microbursts of wind that meteorologists affirm can come and go rapidly in the sea of Galilee. The multiplication of loaves was “really” everyone sharing their own lunch.

We don’t take these “explanations” that seriously because they implicitly deny the supernatural power of Jesus. Showing this was the whole motivation of narrating the miracles in the first place. But for some reason many still look to modern science to inform us what the Star of Bethlehem “really” was in terms of the underlying astronomy: the “star” in Matthew “must have been” a planetary alignment or a comet or supernova or planetary conjunction or something of this nature.

Modern biblical scholarship is saturated with just this scientific paradigm. Its conceit is that newer knowledge of the world is always superior to older knowledge. Often, new knowledge really is better, but not always! But the Star of Bethlehem is a classic example of how modern assumptions about the world can lead us seriously astray in interpreting an ancient text whose authors did not share those assumptions. Ignoring the interpretive tradition in this case has made many modern interpreters look very foolish and has misused otherwise valuable astronomical knowledge. Like much else the Bible recounts, the star of the Magi was a special intervention in the world by God, probably carried out with the intermediation of one of his angels. It was a Christmas miracle. And for all that modern astronomy can tell us, it cannot tell us anything about that!

Peter Brown, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in Scripture from The Catholic University of America. He serves as academic dean for the Catholic Distance University.

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