Part 19 (1/2)
(98) For Bodin, see Theatr., lib. ii, cited by Pingre, vol. i, p. 45; also a vague citation in Baudrillart, Bodin et son Temps, p. 360.
For Polydore Virgil, see English History, p. 97 (in Camden Society Publications). For Cranmer, see Remains, vol. ii, p. 535 (in Parker Society Publications). For Latimer, see Sermons, second Sunday in Advent, 1552.
In 1580, under Queen Elizabeth, there was set forth an ”order of prayer to avert G.o.d's wrath from us, threatened by the late terrible earthquake, to be used in all parish churches.” In connection with this there was also commended to the faithful ”a G.o.dly admonition for the time present”; and among the things referred to as evidence of G.o.d's wrath are comets, eclipses, and falls of snow.
This view held sway in the Church of England during Elizabeth's whole reign and far into the Stuart period: Strype, the ecclesiastical annalist, gives ample evidence of this, and among the more curious examples is the surmise that the comet of 1572 was a token of Divine wrath provoked by the St. Bartholomew ma.s.sacre.
As to the Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems to have been active in carrying the superst.i.tion from the sixteenth century to the seventeenth, and Archbishop Bramhall cites Scripture in support of it. Rather curiously, while the diary of Archbishop Laud shows so much superst.i.tion regarding dreams as portents, it shows little or none regarding comets; but Bishop Jeremy Taylor, strong as he was, evidently favoured the usual view. John Howe, the eminent Nonconformist divine in the latter part of the century, seems to have regarded the comet superst.i.tion as almost a fundamental article of belief; he laments the total neglect of comets and portents generally, declaring that this neglect betokens want of reverence for the Ruler of the world; he expresses contempt for scientific inquiry regarding comets, insists that they may be natural bodies and yet supernatural portents, and ends by saying, ”I conceive it very safe to suppose that some very considerable thing, either in the way of judgment or mercy, may ensue, according as the cry of persevering wickedness or of penitential prayer is more or less loud at that time.”(99)
(99) For Liturgical Services of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, see Parker Society Publications, pp. 569, 570. For Strype, see his Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. iii, part i, p. 472; also see his Annals of the reformation, vol. ii, part ii, p. 151; and his Life of Sir Thomas Smith, pp. 161, 162. For Spottiswoode, see History of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh reprint, 1851), vol. i, pp. 185, 186. For Bramhall, see his Works, Oxford, 1844, vol. iv, pp. 60, 307, etc. For Jeremy Taylor, see his Sermons on the Life of Christ. For John Howe, see his Works, London, 1862, vol. iv, pp. 140, 141.
The Reformed Church of Scotland supported the superst.i.tion just as strongly. John Knox saw in comets tokens of the wrath of Heaven; other authorities considered them ”a warning to the king to extirpate the Papists”; and as late as 1680, after Halley had won his victory, comets were announced on high authority in the Scottish Church to be ”prodigies of great judgment on these lands for our sins, for never was the Lord more provoked by a people.”
While such was the view of the clergy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the laity generally accepted it as a matter of course, Among the great leaders in literature there was at least general acquiescence in it. Both Shakespeare and Milton recognise it, whether they fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke of Bedford, lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say:
”Comets, importing change of time and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky; And with them scourge the bad revolting stars, That have consented unto Henry's death.”
Milton, speaking of Satan preparing for combat, says:
”On the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood. Unterrified, and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from its horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war.”
We do indeed find that in some minds the discoveries of Tycho Brahe and Kepler begin to take effect, for, in 1621, Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy alludes to them as changing public opinion somewhat regarding comets; and, just before the middle of the century, Sir Thomas Browne expresses a doubt whether comets produce such terrible effects, ”since it is found that many of them are above the moon.”(100) Yet even as late as the last years of the seventeenth century we have English authors of much power battling for this supposed scriptural view and among the natural and typical results we find, in 1682, Ralph Th.o.r.esby, a Fellow of the Royal Society, terrified at the comet of that year, and writing in his diary the following pa.s.sage: ”Lord, fit us for whatever changes it may portend; for, though I am not ignorant that such meteors proceed from natural causes, yet are they frequently also the presages of imminent calamities.” Interesting is it to note here that this was Halley's comet, and that Halley was at this very moment making those scientific studies upon it which were to free the civilized world forever from such terrors as distressed Th.o.r.esby.
(100) For John Knox, see his Histoire of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1732), lib. iv; also Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii, pp 410-412. For Burton, see his Anatomy of Melancholy, part ii, sect 2. For Browne, see the Vulgar and Common Errors, book vi, chap. xiv.
The belief in comets as warnings against sin was especially one of those held ”always, everywhere, and by all,” and by Eastern Christians as well as by Western. One of the most striking scenes in the history of the Eastern Church is that which took place at the condemnation of Nikon, the great Patriarch of Moscow. Turning toward his judges, he pointed to a comet then blazing in the sky, and said, ”G.o.d's besom shall sweep you all away!”
Of all countries in western Europe, it was in Germany and German Switzerland that this superst.i.tion took strongest hold. That same depth of religious feeling which produced in those countries the most terrible growth of witchcraft persecution, brought superst.i.tion to its highest development regarding comets. No country suffered more from it in the Middle Ages. At the Reformation Luther declared strongly in favour of it. In one of his Advent sermons he said, ”The heathen write that the comet may arise from natural causes, but G.o.d creates not one that does not foretoken a sure calamity.” Again he said, ”Whatever moves in the heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of G.o.d's wrath.”
And sometimes, yielding to another phase of his belief, he declared them works of the devil, and declaimed against them as ”harlot stars.”(101)
(101) For Th.o.r.esby, see his Diary, (London, 1830). Halley's great service is described further on in this chapter. For Nikon's speech, see Dean Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, p. 485. For very striking examples of this mediaeval terror in Germany, see Von Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, vol. vi, p. 538. For the Reformation period, see Wolf, Gesch. d. Astronomie; also Praetorius, Ueber d. Cometstern (Erfurt, 1589), in which the above sentences of Luther are printed on the t.i.tle page as epigraphs. For ”Huren-Sternen,” see the sermon of Celichius, described later.
Melanchthon, too, in various letters refers to comets as heralds of Heaven's wrath, cla.s.sing them, with evil conjunctions of the planets and abortive births, among the ”signs” referred to in Scripture. Zwingli, boldest of the greater Reformers in shaking off traditional beliefs, could not shake off this, and insisted that the comet of 1531 betokened calamity. Arietus, a leading Protestant theologian, declared, ”The heavens are given us not merely for our pleasure, but also as a warning of the wrath of G.o.d for the correction of our lives.” Lavater insisted that comets are signs of death or calamity, and cited proofs from Scripture.
Catholic and Protestant strove together for the glory of this doctrine.
It was maintained with especial vigour by Fromundus, the eminent professor and Doctor of Theology at the Catholic University of Louvain, who so strongly opposed the Copernican system; at the beginning of the seventeenth century, even so gifted an astronomer as Kepler yielded somewhat to the belief; and near the end of that century Voigt declared that the comet of 1618 clearly presaged the downfall of the Turkish Empire, and he stigmatized as ”atheists and Epicureans” all who did not believe comets to be G.o.d's warnings.(102)
(102) For Melanchthon, see Wolf, ubi supra. For Zwingli, see Wolf, p.