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Reincarnations of the Phoenix: myth or allegory?

Sources from Antiquity

Two entertaining riddles have come down to us from Antiquity, the familiar one

about the sphinx and another about the legendary phoenix. The first riddle was solved

by Oedipus, according to Sophocles, but the second continues to challenge our

imagination. As far as we know, the oldest description of the phoenix is by Herodotus

(c.484 - 425 BCE) in a report about sacred animals in Egypt1. After featuring crocodiles

and the hippopotamus, he goes on to say:

Otters also are found in the Nile, and are considered sacred. Only two

sorts of fish are venerated... the lepidotus and the eel. These are regarded

as sacred to the Nile, as likewise among birds is the vulpanser, or fox-

goose. They have also another sacred bird called the phoenix which I

myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity,

even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the

people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix

dies. Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow: The

plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are

almost exactly that of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird does,

which does not seem to me to be credible: that he comes all the way

from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to

the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body....

It is curious that Herodotus pairs the Egyptian fox-goose, a culinary delicacy

that was widely available, with a bird that may not even exist. The commentators of

Antiquity and early Christianity were divided if the phoenix was a real bird or an

astronomical allegory. The latter is suggested by its long lifespan and because its colors

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match Mars, the red planet, and Saturn and Jupiter, which are golden. The alleged flight

of the phoenix from Arabia to Egypt, from the east to the west, happens to be the course

of these planets as seen from Earth, and if Herodotus quoted the accounts from

Heliopolis correctly, the destination of the ‘Temple of the Sun’ should be supported by

the astronomical facts as well.

Temple of the Sun

The Dutch scholar Roelof van den Broek has done substantial research for his

book ‘The Myth of the Phoenix’ and noticed a sudden interest in the phoenix during the

first century when it was ‘mentioned twenty-one times by ten authors’. This suggests a

recent appearance because ‘from the preceding eight centuries we have only nine

mentions of the bird’. 2

We should note that Herodotus begins his report about sacred animals with an

excuse: “If I were to explain why they are consecrated to the several gods, I should be

led to speak of religious matters, which I particularly shrink from mentioning; the points

whereon I have touched slightly hitherto have all been introduced from sheer

necessity.” The reason for his caution may be the fact that Egypt was ruled by the

Persian Empire at the time of his writing. The pharaohs of the 27th dynasty were kings

of Persia and Zoroastrians, and in view of the astrological symbolism of the phoenix,

the ‘people of Heliopolis’ that informed Herodotus could have been Magi.

To mix scientific research with religion is problematic and, like Herodotus, we

quote from Washington’s ‘Science News’3 only

from ‘sheer necessity’ because it had

the following article on Dec. 19, 1936: “Was Star Of Bethlehem Three Bright Planets?

Modern astronomers suggest that it may have been the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars

grouped closely together in a little triangle. Such a grouping, astronomers calculate,

occurred about Feb. 25, in the year 6 BC.” The article mentions several American and

European planetariums that project the ancient skies of Judea “where the three bright

planets are thus shown in a miraculously bright triangle."

The astronomer W. Burke-Gaffney S. J.4 disputed the article at a Jesuit

Seminary in Toronto, Canada, and identified the German astronomer Johannes Kepler

(1571–1630) as discoverer of the triangle. He criticized Kepler’s 'misguided' ideas

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about the Star of Bethlehem5 and claimed that the triangle was not visible for naked eye

observers like the Magi, which he backed up with two prominent astronomers, Charles

Pritchard of Oxford and Ludwig Ideler of Berlin:

Pritchard does not even consider the approach of Mars to Jupiter and

Saturn in February of March BC 6, since neither Ideler nor Kepler had

suggested that these three planets could be mistaken for a single star, for

in Ideler's words: `at about this time Jupiter and Saturn lost themselves in

the rays of the evening sun.

Although their consensus eliminates Kepler’s theory about the Star of

Bethlehem, the disappearance of the planets in the ‘rays of the evening sun’ seems to

support the symbolism of the death of the phoenix in the Temple of the Sun.

Furthermore, the special attention the myth had received during the first century

suggests a recent appearance of the phoenix, which is confirmed by one of the ten

authors, the Roman historian Tacitus (56-117 CE):6

During the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius, a bird called the

phoenix, after a long succession of ages, appeared in Egypt and furnished the

most learned men of that country and of Greece with abundant matter for the

discussion of the marvelous phenomenon. It is my wish to make known all on

which they agree with several things, questionable enough indeed, but not too

absurd to be noticed: There is a creature sacred to the sun, differing from all

other birds in its beak and in the tints of its plumage, which is held unanimously

by those who have described its nature. As to the number of years it lives are

various accounts. The general tradition says five hundred years. Some maintain

that it is seen at intervals of fourteen hundred and sixty-one years, and that the

former birds flew into the city called Heliopolis successively in the reigns of

Sesostris, Amasis, and Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian dynasty, with

a multitude of companion birds marveling at the novelty of the appearance. But

all antiquity is of course obscure. From Ptolemy to Tiberius was a period of less

than five hundred years.

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Tacitus regards all antiquity as obscure, but has information about a recent

appearance of the ‘marvelous phenomenon’ that was discussed by ‘the most learned

men’ in Egypt and Greece. The consulship of Paulus Fabius lasted from 11 to 6/5 BCE,

Lucius Vitellius became consul in 34 CE, and both periods were during the life of

Tiberius (42 BCE - 37 CE). The two dates reveal that there were conflicting accounts,

but 34 CE was soon eliminated. Van den Broek writes: “According to Pliny, no one

took this phoenix seriously… Tacitus too notes that it was generally thought that the

phoenix he said appeared in A. D. 34 was a false one, had not come from Arabia, and

had not done any of the things the ancient tradition said it should have done.” 7

Consequently, Tacitus supports 11 to 6/5 BCE, a period of six years that includes the

‘miraculously bright triangle’ of 6 BCE, when the planets were ‘burned’ by the sun.

The phoenix riddle

The riddle was introduced two centuries before Herodotus by the poet Hesiod.

He is a major, historical source for early Greek mythology, astronomy and ancient time-

keeping, which qualifies him as an informed expert. The English translation of the

riddle (below) is from ‘The Precepts of Chiron’ and was accessed at

http://www.bartleby.com/241/

A chattering crow lives out nine generations

of aged men, but a stag's life is four times a crow's,

and a raven’s life makes three stags old,

while the phoenix outlives nine ravens,

but we, the rich-haired Nymphs, daughters of Zeus

the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes.

The chatter of a crow mixed with a Greek chorus of bragging nymphs is a

sound effect that seems to enhance the absurdity of the riddle. There is no way of

knowing how old 'aged men' would have been in Antiquity, and if we were to use sixty

years for the calculation, a crow would have to live 540 years, which Pliny8 mentions

as

lifespans of the phoenix. It is a curious fact that old age is also an important part of the

‘Riddle of the Sphinx’, a winged creature in Greek mythology like the phoenix and is

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also said to have Egyptian roots. As the story goes, the sphinx sat on a high rock and

guarded the entrance of Thebes. Although the exact wording varies in some versions,

she asked each traveler:

“What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon,

and three feet in the evening?" Then the Sphinx strangled and

devoured anyone unable to answer the question, until Oedipus

solved the riddle: "Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby,

walks on two feet as an adult, and with a cane in old age".

Bested at last, the Sphinx threw herself from the rock to her death.

Hesiod may have created the riddle as a 'crutch' to solve the phoenix riddle or it

could be a zeitgeist we find difficult to understand today. That the lifespan of a human

being can be reduced to one day would be a major obstacle to solve any riddle. But if a

generation of 'aged men' could be reduced to ‘one’ in the phoenix riddle, the age of nine

years for a crow would make a more sense. Fortunately, there is a highly qualified

expert who offers such an approach.

The Greek scholar Plutarch (c. 46-120 CE) was an erudite historian and

biographer, a priest of the Pythian Apollo at the Oracle of Delphi and, according to his

own account, initiated in the secret mysteries of Dionysus. (Treatise 10). He admits in

"de defectu oraculorum" (Moralia) 9 that the divine oracles have lost their power

because people have changed, and this led to certain "defects of the oracles". Following

the concept of Plato's ‘Timaeus’, Plutarch creates a lively discussion which is narrated

by his brother Lamprias and features two holy men that meet at the Temple of Delphi:

the grammarian Demetrius of Tarsus who had just returned from a trip to Britain, and

Cleombrotus of Sparta who had spent considerable time in Egypt.

They cover many of Plato’s ideas, including reincarnation, and even the death of

Pan. The phoenix riddle is mentioned briefly in the context of the demigods, which

philosophers placed allegedly midway between gods and men, and they wonder

‘whether this doctrine comes from the wisemen of the cult of Zoroaster, or whether it is

Thracian and harks back to Orpheus, or Egyptian, or Phrygian…’ Cleombrotus points

out that the demigods are immortal, but that some did not “yield to temptation and are

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again clothed with mortal bodies... Hesiod thinks that with a lapse of certain periods of

years the end comes even to the demigods; for, speaking in the person of the Naiad, he

indirectly suggests the length of time with these words:

Nine generations long is the life of the crow

and its cawing, nine generations of vigorous men. (9)

The lives of four crows together

equal the life of a stag, (9x4=36)

and three stags the old age of a raven; (3x36=108)

nine of the lives of the raven the life of the

phoenix do equal, (108x9=972)

ten of the phoenix we Nymphs,

fair daughters of Zeus of the aegis.” (972x10=9720)

The discussion about the riddle exposes Plutarch’s esoteric concept because the

phoenix is never brought up and it’s only about the nymphs. The numbers we inserted

above show how the age of the nymphs is reached, which Cleombrotus calculates

differently by omitting the phoenix. Right after the riddle he starts with the ‘nine

generations of vigorous men’: “Those that do not interpret 'generation' well make an

immense total of this time; but it really means a year, so that the sum of the life of these

divinities is nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty years, less than most

mathematicians think, and more than Pindar (c. 522–443 BCE) has stated when he says

that nymphs are 'allotted a term as long as the years of a tree’ and for this reason he

calls them Hamadryads.”

By quoting Pindar, who was from Thebes and a priest at the oracle in Delphi

five centuries before Plutarch, Cleombrotus raises some serious doubts whether nymphs

can live as long as they are claiming. But Demetrius fails to pay attention and asks:

"How is it, Cleombrotus that you can say that the year has been called a generation?"

Without waiting for a response, Demetrius points out that Plutarch changed Hesiod’s

riddle when he says that those who read ‘in their vigor’ make a generation 30 years, like

Heraclitus… and those who write ‘in their eld’ (i.e. like Hesiod) ‘assign 108 years to a

generation; for they say that 54 marks the limit of the middle years of human life, a

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number which is made up of the first number, the first two plane surfaces, two squares

and two cubes, numbers which Plato also took in his Generations of the Soul.’ The

calculation of the grammarian is 1 + (1x2) + (1x3) +4 +9 + 8 + 27 = 54.

He mentions a ‘veiled reference’ by Hesiod that a conflagration might lead to a

‘disappearance of all liquids’ and ‘extinction of the nymphs’, which Cleombrotus

ignores to continue his argument: "This fact is also clear... that often the measure and

the things measured are called by the same name, as, for example, gill, quart, gallon,

and bushel. In the same way, then, in which we call unity a number, being, as it is, the

smallest number and the first; so the year, which we use as the first measure of a man's

life, Hesiod has called by the same name as the thing measured, a 'generation'."

He turns to the “qualities which may be inherent in numbers" while ignoring the

numbers that are inherent in the riddle. He claims that the age of the nymphs has been

calculated by adding the first four numbers and multiply them by four (1+2+3+4=10)

and then multiply the ten by four and five times by three (40 x 35 = 9720).

Even van den Broek, to whom we owe most major references, ignores Plutarch's

warning that ‘Those that do not interpret 'generation' well make an immense total of this

time’ because he is forced by the academic traditions to consider every option and even

calculates that a raven could reach the age of 3,600 years because it symbolizes the

Babylonian ‘sar’.10

He obviously regards the lifespans as purely allegorical and

proposes therefore that the lifespan of the phoenix might reach 32,400 years. He bases

this hypothesis on Plato's 'Great Year' as proposed by the Roman astrologer Manilius

who wrote that the Great Year starts ‘around noon on the day the sun enters the sign of

the Ram’11

, which is an important subject we’ll address in the context of astronomy.

We maintain, however, that the entire life of a human has to be interpreted as a

unit of ‘one’, like the one day in the sphinx riddle, which is suggested in Plutarch’s

hidden calculation of 972 years for the lifespan of the phoenix. In view of his reference

to Pindar, it seems that both priests from the Oracle of Delphi are in agreement that the

solution is as simple as the riddle of the sphinx – that it is simply about the truth!

Plutarch may have replaced the ‘chattering crow’ of Hesiod with a ‘cawing

crow’ to avoid any allusion to the ‘chattering’ Pythia, the priestess of the Delphi oracle.

He also reduced Hesiod’s ‘aged men’ to a generic concept because men can be ‘in their

vigor’ at any age. Finally, there is the problem of ‘ten’ that gives the nymphs 9720

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years. Cleombrotus never brings up that the nymphs claim they live ten timed longer

than the phoenix , only their questionable lifespan of 9720 years. Because he reaches

this number with a different calculation, the 972 and 9720 may not be definite numbers.

For example, 9720 years is wrong if the nymphs are immortal and also if they only live

as long as trees. Hence, their false claim makes the multiplication by ten invalid and

requires a simple subtraction of a lie: 972-10 = 962.

This simplistic solution is validated by the hidden calculation because the nine

years for a crow and the thirty-six for a stag are acceptable lifespans. But we have the

same problem with the ‘old age of a raven’ as we did with the nymphs, because 108

years is not true either and needs to be subtracted as well: 962-108 = 854.

The solution of 854 years as lifespan of the phoenix can only be supported by

religious matters and, following Herodotus, we mention them from ‘sheer necessity’:

The Viennese astronomer Konradin Ferrari d’Occhieppo12

had investigated Kepler’s

theories about the Star of Bethlehem and established from Babylonian tablets that Magi

were able to predict the planetary positions in 7/6 BCE and calculate that the planets

return to the same location in the sky every 854 years. To eliminate the possibility that

the matching of the two numbers could be a coincidence, it is necessary to make a

closer examination of the astronomical allegories Herodotus had learned in Heliopolis.

Astronomical evidence

According to Kepler, there was a triangle of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in 1604

which was regarded as an important omen.13

However, when Mars had moved away and

a supernova appeared above Saturn and Jupiter to top a ‘fiery’ triangle, the wild

speculations were endless, from the end of the world to another Star of Bethlehem, and

Kepler was ordered by his patron Emperor Rudolf II to take an official position. He

wrote in several articles that these were separate events because of the immense

disdance between the planets and the supernova, which had appeared among the fixed

stars like Tycho Brahe’s supernova in 1572. He followed up with a book about the

‘new star’14

and a comparison of the astronomical events in 1604 and 6 BCE in the

appendix, where he suggested cautiously that the Church may have miscalculated the

calendar because it seemed that the Star of Bethlehem had appeared a few years earlier.

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For many decades, and always in time for Christmas, astronomers have written

books about this ‘miraculous star’ because there is a market for an explanation of a

Christian miracle from a scientific point of view. To find a publisher, each astronomer

had to come up with a different hypothesis, which forced them often to either dispute

Kepler’s findings or discredit him as a misguided genius. This could only be achieved

by either ignoring his original works, or by a lack of language skills that allowed them

to pick translations of their peers that supported their revisions.

For example, some respected astronomers maintain in their books that Kepler

thought that the planets could have caused the supernova to ‘burst forth’, although he

had debunked this common error in a German article as a ‘childish idea' 16

and joked in

Latin that it would have been ‘like a mosquito giving birth to an elephant'17

.

There were de facto three conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter in 7 BCE, and

Mars joined in 6 BCE to form the 'great conjunction', as Kepler called it. Below are the

planetary positions according to Bryant Tuckerman (IBM) 18

. Note: There was no year 0

and 6 BCE is listed as -5.

The next sketch visualizes these numbers and reveals that there were actually

two triangles in 6 BCE. Moving from right to left, Mars reached 346 degrees on Feb. 12

to form a triangle of ‘watery’ symbolism and it topped a ‘fiery’ triangle when it reached

356 degrees on Feb. 28, 6 BCE, according to Zuckerman.

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In an age before modern conveniences and the media, the ancients had much

more time and interest to contemplate celestial events. Unaware of the Earth’s rotation

and orbit, they observed how the sun, moon, and stars move at different speeds across

the heavens. This made the above scenario very special because a few evenings before

and after May 26, 7 BCE, Saturn and Jupiter were extremely close to each other, about

one degree, and each time followed the sun below the horizon. The planets repeated

their conjunction two more times, and due to the retrograde motion of the planets as

seen from Earth, they seemed to wait nine months for Mars to join them to form the first

triangle with Saturn like an anchor back at the location as the first conjunction. Before

we address the symbolic meaning, we should add that Tuckerman's tables cover ‘only’

601 BCE to CE 1 and 2 CE to 1649 CE. In recent years, astronomers have found a few

flaws in the tables, especially for the positions of Mars, and rely now on the JPL

(Pasadena, USA) where we had obtained in the 1980s the geocentric print-outs for 860

BCE, 6 BCE, and 849 CE: 19

The first numbers are different from Tuckerman’s because they show the sun at

the international dateline. The planetary positions are shown here for the fiery triangles,

but they are two weeks early in 860 BCE because we requested the wrong print-out.

However, every astronomer will be able to calculate and confirm with this data that our

Solar system completed an 854-year cycle on these dates.

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The sketches depict a metamorphosis every 854 years because the planets get

closer to each other and a few degrees closer to Aries, which only an astrophysicist can

explain because it is contrary to the precession of the equinoxes. At right are fusions of

the ‘watery’ and ‘fiery’ triangles into a hexagram, the ancient symbol of magic, which

invokes the magic art of the Magi Plutarch had mentioned. It could be a hidden message

that he brings up right after riddle ‘the order of the triangles' and a companion of Plato.

Although this looks like a ‘star’ on the horizon over Bethlehem, a creative

observer would be able to ignore the perspective and imagine the shape of a bird, with a

head and tail, two feet, and its wings spread wide, in the size of an eagle that soars

above the horizon until it is ‘burned’ by the Sun.

In view of the colors of the planets, their course and their approach to the sun, it

would seem that the phoenix symbolism of Herodotus is herewith confirmed. However,

the celestial event would not have had such importance through the ages if the planets

were not visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately, Burke-Gaffney and Pritchard had

miscalculated the planetary positions next to the sun, which is confirmed by the

astronomers Robert Victor (Abrams Planetarium, Michigan) and John Mosley (Griffith

Observatory, Los Angeles). Victor saw the Mars-Saturn conjunction on Feb. 20, 1966,

with the naked eye although the planets were closer to the sun than in 6 BCE, and

observed from higher latitude than the Near East. In 1981, Mosley referenced Victor’s

observation in an article and confirmed that the triangle in 6 BCE was ‘clearly

visible’.20

But why is the return of a phoenix regarded as such an important omen? When

all planets that were known in ancient times vanish from the night sky and return one

after the other in Aries, the ‘great Platonic year’ comes to mind, which is often

interpreted as the 26,000 years of an orbit of planetary precessions, but this is just one

of interpretation21

. According to Otto Neugebauer ‘almost any period can be found

sometime or somewhat honored with this name’.22

That the 854-year cycle may be a

better choice is also indicated by Cicero23

(106 - 43 BCE) who writes in ‘De Natura

Deorum’ that “the ‘great year‘ is completed when the sun, moon and five planets having

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finished all their courses have returned to the same position”. It is important that he

adds that ‘the length of this period is hotly debated’. Our JPL print-outs show the

planetary triangles in 854-year intervals, followed by Mercury and Venus. In a book

about Matthew’s Gospel, the Rev. A. J. Maas, a Jesuit like Burke-Gaffney, writes that

Kepler ‘found that Jupiter and Saturn had been in conjunction A.U.C. 747 (i.e. 7 BCE),

and that Mars had made his approach the following

February and March; later on, the Sun, Venus, and

Mercury were added, so that in March, April, and May

A.U.C. 748 (i.e. 6 BCE) there was a perfect

conjunction.’ 24

This means that after the planets had

disappeared from the night sky, they returned one after the

other for a new beginning in Aries. This sketch is based on

JPL data and shows that Earth is isolated reach time on the

far side of the sun. The four line-ups are on 1. March 20,

860 BCE, 2. February 28, 6 BCE, 3. February 2, 849 and

4. January 18, 1703 CE. The is evidence that the phoenix

of Tacitus is identical with the Star of Bethlehem. That

both events were confused in the Christian tradition is shown by R. van den Broek25

with a Coptic sermon that mentions an appearance of the phoenix at the time of Christ’s

birth, and with St. Clement I (d. 99 CE), one of the first bishops of Rome, who wrote at

about the phoenix and referred to it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.

Tentative conclusions

We know from contemporary references that most works from Antiquity are no

longer extant. Consequently, our attempt to ‘connect the dots’ between a few surviving

works is quite a risk and questionable from an academic point of view. However, a wise

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man of our era, Albert Einstein, once said ‘imagination is more important than

knowledge’, and these words inspired these interdisciplinary researches in the 1980s.26

Although we have a plausible solution for the phoenix riddle, the question

remains why so many wise men could have been so wrong for so long? If we use our

imagination, we can’t exclude the possibility that the people in Antiquity could still

‘feel’ external force fields like so many species in the animal kingdom, and tried to

describe this inexplicable experience. Hence, a study of some superstitious beliefs

might reveal that they pertain to these ‘forces’.

Although Kepler rejected astrology as a ‘disease that infected a great part of

humanity’, he headlined an essay with a warning for theologians, doctors and

philosophers that it would be unprofessional to dismiss astrology as a whole because

they may be ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater'. On the cover of the article, he

goes on joke in his Baroque humor that he offers "many, extremely important, never

before raised or discussed philosophical questions for all true lovers of the secrets of

nature as a necessary instruction." 27

To entertain his readers with the possibility that there is a 'grain' of truth in the

dung of superstition, Kepler put the above vignette on the cover of ‘de stella nova’ with

a scratching hen and her ten chicks on a pile of manure. That it is difficult to understand

Kepler’s speculative ideas today is confirmed by Einstein: ‘The reader should note the

remarks on astrology. They show that the inner enemy, conquered and rendered

innocuous, was not yet completely dead.’28

Kepler had to address the Zodiac with ‘watery’ and ‘fiery’ triangles and Trigons

to be able to communicate in a superstitious environment. But he also added the above

‘grains’ of truth to his works, like the dismissal of the shapes of planetary triangles and

Trigons as utterly meaningless, and that it only matters how many planets join together

and how close they get to each other.29

This claim takes us straight to Kepler’s ‘inner enemy’ that was not completely

dead. He assumed apparently that close planetary massings radiate some kind of energy

he was able to ‘experience’ because he describes ‘stormy, meteorological agitations’

(Erregungszustände) of planet Earth during the line-up in 1604 that drove everyone to

do everything with a greater energy and passion.30

As this sort of astrophysical

‘agitation’ is unknown in modern science, it is a fact that Earth's eccentricity varies due

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to interactions with the gravitational fields of Saturn and Jupiter. Therefore, we could

imagine that some gravitational fields interact with and the magnetic fields of the

planets, which redirect an unknown ‘radiation’ towards Earth during the line-ups.

The claim by the ancients that the direction of each line-up has a different effect

is even more of a science-fiction because it would involve a direct energy transfer from

outer space. As strange as it may be, this hypothesis is supported by the importance of

Aries in the context of the Zodiac, including Plato’s ‘Great Year’, and the Chaldean

priest Berossus who held, according to Seneca,31

that the line-ups of the planets under

the sign of Cancer would cause major conflagrations, and major inundations if they line

up under Capricorn.

In other words, even if 854 years is the solution of the phoenix riddle, more

questions are raised than can be answered. Until new discoveries can validate Kepler’s

observation that unknown force fields affect life on Earth, the celestial events that got

so much attention from the prophets, poets, and philosophers are merely figments of

their imagination and meaningless superstitions.

BACK

Notes

1. Henry R. Immerwahr, Herodotus, Cambridge History of Classical Greek Literature:

Greek Literature, (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 430-431, 440.

2. Roelof van den Broek, The Myth of the Phoenix, (Leiden, 1972), pp. 393, 394

3. Science News Letter, Washington D.C., December 19, 1936, p.393

4. J. Burke-Gaffney, S.J., Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada,

Toronto, 1937, pp. 416-425

5. J. Burke-Gaffney, S.J., Kepler and the Jesuits, (Milwaukee, 1944, p. 56. He

dismissed his theories about the Star of Bethlehem as ‘typically Keplerian – born of erudition

wedded to astrology by misguided genius.” Einstein was a contemporary of the Jesuit, and he

evaluated Kepler differently: “There we meet a finely sensitive person, passionately dedicated

to his research for a deeper insight into the essence of natural events, who, despite internal and

external difficulties, reached his loftily placed goal…” Quoted from a book by Carola

Baumgardt, Johannes Kepler - Life and Letters, (New York, 1951), pp. 9-13.

6. Tacitus, The Annals, tr. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodrib, Book VI.

7. Van den Broek, see above 2, p. 115

8. Pliny the Elder, X, 4: ‘vivere annis DXL’

9. Plutarch, de defectu oraculorum, Moralia, Vol. XI, (Cambridge, 1927), pp. 381-387

10. Van den Broek, (see above, n. 2), p. 97

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11. Ibid., p. 103

12. Konradin Ferrari d'Occhieppo, Hypothese zu einer 854-jährigen Planetenperiode in

der Babylonischen Astronomie, (Vienna, 1969). Based on cuneiform tablet 35429 (British

Museum) and others. Also his book Der Stern der Weisen, (Vienna-Munich, 1969).

13. Johannes Kepler, Gründtlicher Bericht Von einem vngewohnlichen Newen Stern in /

wellicher im October ditz 1604. Jahrs erstmahlen erschienen, (Prague, 1604).

14. Johannes Kepler, De Stella Nova, Mysterium Cosmographicum, Gesammelte

Werke, vol. 1, ed. Max Caspar, (Munich, 1938), pp. 441-61.

15. David Hughes, The Star Of Bethlehem, An Astronomer's Confirmation, (New York,

1980), p. 134: "It is possible that in Kepler's view the conjunction had caused the development

of the nova and it is even possible that he had thought the conjunction at the time of Christ's

birth caused the nova of 5 BC." See also Michael R. Molnar, The Star of Bethlehem, Legacy of

the Magi, (New Brunswick, 1999), p. 147. "...it was natural for him (Kepler) to suspect that the

conjunction had caused the bright star to burst forth."

16. Kepler, (see above, n.13), vngeschickten kindischen gedancken.

17. Johannes Kepler, de stella nova in pede serpentarii, Über den neuen Stern im Fuss

des Schlangenträger, tr. Otto & Eva Schönberger, Eberhard Knobloch, (Würzburg, 2006),

p.159, Oder hält es jemand für wahrscheinlich, dass eine Mücke einen Elefanten hervorbringt?

18. Bryant Tuckerman, Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positions, (Philadelphia, 1979).

19. This is the full print-out for Feb. 14-24, 6 BCE, from JPL to confirm its authenticity

and to validate our illustration of Tuckerman’s planetary positions:

20. John Mosley, Common Errors in "Star of Bethlehem" Planetarium Shows, the

Planetarian, (Los Angeles, 1981), also available online.

21. Plato: Complete Works, Timaeus, ed. John M. Cooper, Indianapolis, 1977), p.1243

22. Otto Neugebauer, A History of Ancient mathematical astronomy, Berlin –

Heidelberg – New York, 1975, p. 618

23. Cicero, de natura deorum academica, tr. H. Rackham, (Cambridge Massachusets –

London, 1967)

24. A.J. Maas, S.J., The Gospel according to Saint Matthew with an explanatory and

critical commentary, 2nd. ed., (St Louis, 1916), p. 20.

25. Van den Broek (see above, n.2), p. 119: An excerpt from the Coptic sermon:

‘According to the number of its years it was the tenth time since genesis after the sacrifice of

16

Abel that it made a sacrifice of itself: in this year the Son of God was born in Bethlehem. And

on the day the priest Zechariah was killed, they installed the priest Simeon in his place. The

phoenix burned itself on the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. On the eighth day after the

holy Virgin had brought fourth our Savior, she took him with Joseph to the temple in order to

make a sacrifice for him as firstborn, he was named Jesus. From that moment on no one has

ever seen this bird up to this day.

26. W. v. Chmielewski, Hexagrams in the Sky: from the Star of David to the Holy

Grail, presented at the annual meeting of Southern California Academy of Sciences at

California State University San Bernardino, May 1986. Abstract 60: "According to astronomical

computations, the relative positions of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, as seen from Earth, changed

within ten days from a watery to a fiery triangle in 6 BC and AD 849, at the vernal equinox,

followed by a massing in Aries of all planets known to the ancients with the Sun. This

transformation symbolizes the fusion of ‘wise men’ into a hexagram, the ancient symbol of

magic. Evidence from the Bible, mythology, philosophy, and literature suggests that planetary

hexagrams appeared in intervals of approximately 854 years, with different meanings in

different civilizations...”

27. Johannes Kepler, de fvndamentis astrologiae certioribis, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4,

ed. Max Caspar, Franz Hammer, (Munich, 1941).

28. Carola Baumgardt, (see above, n. 5)

29. Johannes Kepler, (see above, n. 14), pp. 210-11. In reference to the 1604

conjunction: "Es besagt ja nichts für die Veränderung des menschlichen Zustandes, ob ein

Dreieck nach dem Feuer oder dem Wasser benannt wird; doch darin liegt der grosse

Unterschied, ob viele oder wenige Planeten und ob diese eng oder locker und entfernt

zusammentreten."

30. Johannes Kepler, (see above, n. 14), p. 448. Max Caspar sums up: ‘Er sagt, die

Erfahrung habe ihm gelehrt, dass zur Zeit der Planetenkonjunktionen und gewisser anderer

Aspekte die Erde Erregungszustände zeige, die sich in stürmischen meteorologischen

Erscheinungen äussern, und dass die Menschen zu solchen Zeiten das, was sie unter den

Händen haben oder zu tun beabsichtigen, mit grösserer Energie und Leidenschaft betreiben.‘

31. Van den Broek, (see above, n. 2), p. 74

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