Rockenbach did not draw any conclusion on the relation of the comet of the days of Exodus to the natural phenomena of that time; his intent was only to fix the date of the comet of Typhon.
Among the early authors, Lydus, Servius (who quotes Avienus),
6J. Hevelius, Cometographia (1688), pp. 794 f.
7 In the library of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
8 "Anno mundi, bis millesimo, quadrigentesimo quinquagesimo tertio, Cometa (ut multi probati autores. de tempore hoc statuunt, ex conjecturis multis) cuius Plinius quoque lib. 2 cap. 25
mentionem facit, igneus, formam imperfecti circuli, & in se convoluti caputq; globi repraesentans, aspectu terribilis apparuit, Typhonq; a rege, tune temporis ex Aegypto imperium tenente, dictus est, qui rex, ut homines fide digni asserunt, auxilio gigantum. reges Aegyptoru devicit. Visus quoq; est, ut aliqui volut, in Siria, Babylonia, India, in signo capricomi, sub forma rotae, eo tempore, quando filii Israel ex Aegypto in terram promissam, duce ac viae monstratore, per diem columna nubis, noctu vero columna ignis, ut cap. 7.8.9.10 legitur profecti sunt."
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Hephaestion, and Junctinus, in addition to Pliny, mention the Typhon comet.9 It is depicted as an immense globe (globus immodicus) of fire, also as a sickle, which is a description of a globe illuminated by the sun, and close enough to be observed thus. Its movement was slow, its path was close to the sun. Its color was bloody: "It was not of fiery, but of bloody redness." It caused destruction "in rising and setting." Servius writes that this comet caused many plagues, evils, and hunger.
To discover what were the manuscript sources of Abraham Rocken-bach that led him to the same conclusion at which we have arrived, namely, that the Typhon comet appeared in the time of the Exodus, is a task not yet accomplished. Servius says that more information about the calamities caused by this comet is to be found in the writings of the Roman astrologer Campester and in the works of the Egyptian astrologer Petosiris.10 It is possible that copies of works of some authors robin-bobin
containing citations from the writings of these ancient astrologers, preserved in the libraries of Europe, were Rockenbach's manuscript sources.
Campester, as quoted by Lydus, was certain that should the comet Typhon again meet the earth, a four-day encounter would suffice to destroy the world.11 This implies also that the first encounter with the comet Typhon brought the earth to the brink of destruction.
But even without this somber prognostication of Campester, we have a very imposing and quite inexhaustible array of references to Typhon and its destructive action against the world: almost every Greek author referred to it. The real nature of Typhon being that of a comet, as explained by Pliny and others, all references to the disas-9 Johannis Laurentii Lydi Liber de ostentis et calendaria Craeca omnia (ed. by C. Wachsmuth, 1897), p. 171. In this work Wachsmuth also printed excerpts from Hephaestion, Avienus apud Servium, and Junctinus.
10 The time when Campester flourished is not Known, but it is assumed to have been in the third or fourth century of the present era. See Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, s.v. The time of Petosiris is tentatively dated in the second pre-Christian era (Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.). But he is mentioned in The Danaides of Aristophanes (—448 to—
388). See also E. Riess, Nechepsonis et Petosiridis fragmenta magica (1890).
11 Campester in Lydus Liber de ostentis; cf. Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (1932-1933), Vol. V, s.v. "Komet."
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ters caused by Typhon must be understood as descriptions of natural catastrophes in which the earth and the comet were involved. As is known, Pallas of the Greeks was another name for Typhon; also Seth of the Egyptians was an equivalent of Typhon.12 Thus the number of references to the comet Typhon can be enlarged by references to Pallas and Seth.
It was not only Abraham Rockenbach who synchronized the appearance of the comet Typhon with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Looking for authors who might have done likewise, I found that Samuel Bochart, a scholarly writer of the seventeenth century, in his book Hierozoicon,13 has a passage in which he maintains that the plagues of the days of the Exodus resemble the calamities that Typhon brought in his train, and that therefore "the flight of Typhon is the Exodus of Moses from Egypt."14 In this he actually follows the passage transmitted by Plutarch.15 But since Typhon, according to Pliny and others, was a comet, Samuel Bochart was close to the conclusions at which we arrive, traveling along another route.
The Spark
A phenomenon of great significance took place. The head of the comet did not crash into the earth, but exchanged major electrical discharges with it. A tremendous spark sprang forth at the moment of the nearest approach of the comet, when the waters were heaped at their highest above the surface of the earth and before they fell down, followed by a rain of debris torn from the very body and tail of the comet.
"And the Angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel,
12 "The Egyptians regularly call Typhon 'Seth'; it means 'overmastering' and 'overpowering,' and in very many instances 'turning back,' and again 'overpassing'." Plutarch, Isis and Osiris (transl.
F. C. Babbitt, 1936), 41 and 49.
13 Bochart, Hierozoicon, I, 343.
14 "Fuga Typhonis est Mosis ex Egypto excessus." Ibid., p. 341.
15 "Those who relate that Typhon's flight from the battle [with Horus] was made on the back of an ass and lasted seven days, and that after he had made his escape, he became the father of sons, Hierosolymus [Jerusalem] and Judaeus, are manifestly, as the very names show, attempting to drag the Jewish traditions into the legend." Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 32.
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removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them . . . and it was a cloud and darkness but it gave light by night." An exceedingly strong wind and lightnings rent the cloud. In the morning the waters rose as a wall robin-bobin
and moved away. "And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued. . . . And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels . . . and the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them."1
The immense tides were caused by the presence of a celestial body close by; they fell when a discharge occurred between the earth and the other body.
Artapanus, the author of the no longer extant De Judaeis, apparently knew that the words, "The Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud," refer to a great lightning. Eusebius quotes Artapanus: "But when the Egyptians . . . were pursuing them, a fire, it is said, shone out upon them from the front, and the sea overflowed the path again, and the Egyptians were all destroyed by the fire and the flood." 2