At the Lodge - 29th October 2007

Lodge Lecture |Charts Discussion

Lodge Lecture

We were very pleased to welcome Courtney Roberts as our main speaker this evening. Courtney was able to fit in a Monday meeting as well as presenting a paper at yesterday’s History of Astrology seminar. The material was broadly similar but these were two quite different talks. Her history paper focuses on the use of Jupiter Saturn conjunctions in ancient astrology, with due regard to sources and method; a fascinating talk. Tonight she stayed with these techniques but pointed them in a quite different direction.

She began by giving us an overview of the studies that have looked at the phenomenon commonly described as “The Star of Bethlehem” and the various methodologies used. It may sound like the blindingly obvious but astronomers have overwhelmingly used astronomy to investigate; astrologers, contemporary astrological methods and no one, well not until now, has used or looked at the astrology that the Magi themselves would have been using: ancient Persian astrology. Even the more rigorous astrological investigations use classical, Hellenistic astrology which is not what would have been used.

Focusing on the question the various authors asked shows they were all focusing on the phenomenon itself. Courtney felt a quite different question was in order. Rather than concentrating on the phenomenon itself, she put the question: “What is this account doing in the gospel of Matthew? and why is it still there?” Given the amount of judicial re-arrangement which Christianity has been subject to, why didn’t it end up on the cutting room floor?

The answer to this took us on a fascinating journey through ancient history, telling on ancient alliances between the Jews and the Persians, the ongoing antagonism between the Roman and Persian empires. Did you know the Persians not only had the largest empire in the ancient world but they were one of the few who managed to stick it to the Romans? All of this is more fully dealt with, and extensively referenced, in her book The Star of the Magi.

I cannot start to do justice to the mass of information, which is just a part of the material in the book, which Courtney presented to us. Lets focus on a couple of key points.
First, the Persians were not natal astrologers. They were concerned with large cycles and had a big things about millennia, hence their extensive use of Jupiter Saturn cycles with its greater cycle coming out at about 1,000 years. Most authors focus on the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 6 or so BCE, this would have been noted as part of the cycle but it was not what they would have focused on. Their attention was on bigger cycles.

Second, the political situation in Judea around this time was quite complex and the antagonism between the Persian and Roman empires was at a height. Did you know Herod – he of the slaughter of the innocents – was deposed with the help of the Persians, went off to Rome to ask for help and returned with the Roman army to take back his throne? In a situation like this don’t you think that the implications of including Persian astrologers in the first gospel of the New Testament was carrying an unspoken message?
Courtney concluded by pointing out that this may not actually have happened. Matthew was written about eighty years after the death of Christ, more than enough time to include symbolic incidents. Given the political situation, do you really think a group of Persian astrologers were going to march into the royal court and make their reported statement?

Don’t take my word for this, get the book!

Claire Chandler

Class

This week saw a further question and answer session with Roy Gillett and Claire Chandler on the finer workings of the Solar Fire software

Charts Discussion

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Lodge Lecture | Charts Discussion