Caesar's Comet and the Christmas Star

Imperial Propaganda and Christian Theology

Caesar’s Comet: Imperial Propaganda

Julius Caesar, the dictator of Rome, was murdered by political rivals in March 44 BCE. His eventual successor to the throne was named Octavian. Octavian eventually took the title Caesar Augustus. You might recognize him from the gospel of Luke. He gets a shoutout.

But how did Julius Caesar go from a dead man, to a title that Octavian took for himself? It had to do with the pervasive Roman belief that Julius Caesar had been a man who became god.

Earlier, Julius Caesar’s assassination exposed the fact the Empire had no clear plan of succession. At first, a contentious triumvirate ruled the empire. But, predictably, a three-way rule that included Octavian became a violent game of king of the hill. (This can be literal since, yes, Rome was built on seven hills. Wordplay is fun.)

Who emerged triumphant as the sole imperial ruler? None other but Octavian, the future Caesar Augustus. Octavian successfully consolidated his claim to the Imperial Throne away from competitors like Marc Antony through armed conflict. But it also had a lot to do with propaganda.

Augustus was politically savvy. He knew his claim to the throne needed the support of the public the same way it needed the spears of Roman legions. So Augustus decided to strengthen his public image—not just in Rome but across the Empire: He, Augustus, was the rightful heir to Caesar.

This public relations effort was almost immediate. Just a few months after the assassination, Octavian/Augustus decided to commemorate Julius Caesar posthumously by hosting games in Rome. Hosting entertainment in Rome was a form of public relations. And Octavian knew there was much to be gained by hosting this event in Julius Caesar’s honor.

But during the games, a comet hung in the sky over Rome. It was said the comet was Caesar's soul, ascending to the gods.

Augustus realized the comet was a powerful symbol. It carried and embodied not only Caesar's legacy, but his divinity. The Roman Senate eventually recognized Julius Caesar’s apotheosis, setting the stage for the Imperial Crown to be invested with divine rights.

Augustus decided to us this symbol of a comet to bolster his rule and claim to the throne. How? He placed a comet on coinage with his likeness.

Here is one of those coins. You can see the comet symbol on the right side. These coins were minted and spread throughout the empire.

In a world without digital media or mass print media, most people only knew the Emperor’s name or saw his face on coins. This coin then was a potent piece of propaganda in Augustus’ arsenal. It associated him with Julius Caesar, and made an explicit claim to his right to succession—not only to the Imperial throne. It underwrote this political claim with a theological one: that Caesar was God.

The Star of Bethlehem as Imperial Subversion

In Matthew’s gospel, he makes mention of the “star” (lit. “fire” or “flame”) in the night sky over Bethlehem. It attracts the attention of Magi in the East. These scholars come to Herod. But they say nothing about Caesar in Matthew’s account. Instead, they came steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures, with its hopeful expectation and prophecy.

But of course, we should acknowledge the recipients of Matthew’s gospel could read a multiplicity of meanings into the astral event. This was likely a Jewish community, but it was also a Jewish community immersed in the Roman world. Caesar’s comet coin had passed through their hands. They knew the cultural significance of a heavenly sign legitimizing a claim to divinity and to a kingdom.

Caesar’s comet adds a richness to the reading of the birth narrative. Not only does the gospel account challenge Caesar’s claim to political control. It also subverts the foundation of that political claim by reversing his theological claim to divinity. Matthew’s star in the Roman context emphasized not just the fulfillment of Israel’s longing (the “great light” of Isaiah 9:2) but also foreshadowed the embrace of the Gentiles.

In this theological reading, the star is a sign that ultimately foreshadows the entire work of Christ, announcing ahead of time the scandalous claim of Jesus as Lord and the radical form this Lordship manifests through a Roman Cross. The astral event signaled that the baby in the manger is the King. If Caesar was a man become god, what are we to make of God become man? Of a Lord whose path to the throne was paved by first leaving a throne. Put simply, the astral event understood in connection to Caesar’s comet contests the entire Roman theo-political project.

This reading can add richness to the text, if we let it.

The Star: A Significance Beyond Mere Existence

I grew up hearing a bunch of theories about which specific astrological event created the Christmas Star. You’ll find these theories everywhere: a comet, a supernova, Venus and Jupiter aligning…

This quest reduced the significance of the “Christmas Star” down to its mere existence. It was as if our scientific ability to reconstruct the specific event that blazed over Bethlehem gave fresh historical validity and theological authority to the advent of Jesus. I think this is a problem.

Now, it really is amazing we can recreate the night sky from thousands of years ago. I don’t want to discredit these quests, or science writ large. I welcome their insights. I simply want to interrogate the priority we assign them in rendering our readings.

Because this quest to describe in detail the astral event is alien to the agenda of the text. Forcing the Bible to take up this quest reflects a biblicist impulse. It’s the height of ironies that anti-science ideology usually imposes a deeply scientific lens and standard on the Scriptures. This impulse tries to “legitimize” the Bible by imposing standards which are foreign to it.

The Crisis of Faith

But the gospel account of Jesus’ birth (and the Spirit who animates faith in those who hear it) cannot be strengthened, legitimized, or confirmed by our ability to name the specific astral phenomena that broke out in the evening skies during Jesus’ early years in Roman Judea. Like the star, there are plenty of historical cases for Jesus’ existence. But the significance of his existence cannot be deduced from bare history alone.

But it’s easy to ignore this. Many claim to take the Bible “seriously” while expressing that commitment in ways which impose ideological assumptions to “prove” the Bible. Not only does this project ultimately collapse, but it creates readings conditioned by a forced evacuation of theology from the text.

And so, I’m less concerned over what specific astrological phenomena created the “Star of Bethlehem”. I’m not an archaeo-astrologist. (I don’t know if that’s a thing, but how cool is that title?) I’m concerned with the theological significance of this star in the eyes and ears of Matthew’s audience.

So maybe instead of asking what sort of star it was, we can reflect a bit on why it might have mattered for Matthew’s audience.

When we do this, we’re confronted with the explicit political challenge of Jesus’ Kingdom to worldly powers. Jesus’ kingdom is not of the world but it still takes shape in the world. Faith carries a cost and consequences.

There is a piety that shrinks back from politics and seeks the safety of privileged, bourgeois apolitical Christianity. This is the “too conservative for liberal” and “too liberal for conservatives” middle way. But Jesus represents a radical third way that is destructive to our defensive neutral ground. The way of Jesus manifests a preferential bias towards and identification with the marginalized, the poor, the disabled, the abused, and neglected.

Ultimately, this reading confronts us with the question—or really crisis— of faith. It’s easy enough to see how this connection could be used to try and discredit Christian confession. It’s not an original argument, but it’s one we can consider.

Linking the Roman ideology of imperial divinity to the development of Christology could be used to write off Christian claims entirely. We could argue these connections are ultimately constructions or borrowed abstractions imposed anachronistically on the Christ event, ultimately to make it palatable and legitimate to a Roman world.

But the crisis of faith exists right here in the midst of the questions and tension. It’s a crisis not because it beckons us to suspend our belief in what is real. It is a crisis that invites us to extend our perception of all reality through the event of God becoming man in Jesus.

Sources:

Larry Kreitzer, “Apotheosis of the Roman Emperor” in The Biblical Archaeologist (Vol 53, No. 4) December 1990 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3210166