ABSTRACT
Early Christians appropriated these views but saw comets and meteors as warnings from God. Medieval chronicles recorded apparitions that heralded the death of holy men and kings and augured wars of religion and civil strife. According to some early church Fathers as well as later theologians, these heavenly signs also demarcated critical periods in the history of the world and of Christianity. Thus, Origen (c. 185-251) and John of Damascus (c. 675-748) thought that the Star of Bethlehem had been a comet, whereas Jerome (c. 347-420), Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-74), Martin Luther (1483-1546), and Thomas Burnet (c. 16351715) expected comets and fiery meteors to precede the Day of Judgment and the consummation of all things. Illustrations of the adoration of the Magi and the Book of Revelation (such as those to be found in the fresco by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua [1304] and in the Apocalypse woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer [1498, 1511]) popularized these views.
