Saturn Makes Way for Jupiter: Finding Hope in the Night Sky
Picture taken by David Russell Mosley, a meeting of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn in January of 2019.
Dear Friends,
Our waiting continues. We wait for the conclusion of this accursed pandemic, and in reality all ills as we await ills to end with the return of Christ. In the midst of all our terrestrial woes, however, something spectacular will be happening in the heavens. As some of you may know, there will be a great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter on December 21st, the Winter Solstice for this year and thus the shortest day of the year.
The last time such a great conjunction happened was 1623, but then it was too close to the Sun to be seen. So the last time we have seen such a conjunction was in 1226. And the next such great conjunction won't happen until March 15, 2080.
In the Middle Ages, as Christianity became the norm for most of Europe, the Greco-Roman understanding of the planets was maintained, but baptized. Now, instead of gods, the planets were angels, or at least moved by angels. And the poets still saw in those angels, baptized versions of the gods who once ruled them. Now, instead of a Jupiter who was just as likely to steal your wife as he was to bless the Romans, we have a Jupiter who stands as a symbol of joviality and whose planetary influence, caused by the rays of light coming from it, bring about great joys, giving him the nick name, Fortuna Major. If we look, then, at the night sky through Medieval Eyes, we may be able to discern some hope.
Jupiter, as I have said, represents joviality. This term is difficult to define. C.S. Lewis in his book, The Discarded Image, asks us to imagine a king, for Jupiter is King of the gods, but a king at peace in his festal hall, rejoicing with his people. He is a magnanimous king and a joyful as well as jolly one. Saturn, on the other hand, represents the saturnine. While Dante makes Saturn the sphere of the contemplatives, he was more often associated with death, decay, disease, the end of time. He was often called Infortuna Major.
They're coming together in the sky reminds us of one important fact. Saturn's reign will end. Saturn, called Kronos by the Greeks, is the origin of our picture of Father Time and later even of Death, as a robed figure holding a scythe. He is the last of the planets in medieval cosmology (they could not see Neptune, Uranus, or Pluto). Yet, even though in the ordering of the planets, Jupiter comes before his father, he also overcomes him. Saturn, death itself, must ultimately make way and be outshone by the King.
Nowhere is this more evident than in C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle. Following Michael Ward's argument that the seven books of the Chronicles of Narnia map onto the seven planets of the medieval cosmos, The Last Battle is the Saturn book. There are many ways this is evident, from Father Time rising at the end, to the destruction of Narnia and the judgment of its citizens. However, after all the judgment and death and destruction is over, the surviving characters make their way "further up and further in." Saturn does not have the last word, rather they make their way to Aslan's country, home, as we may recall from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, of the Emperor-over-the-sea. Time itself seems almost to work backwards as the Pevensie children meet all those who have long since died and find them alive again. Saturn's reign must make way for Jupiter, but now not in his angelic representation, but in the true Lord, the true King.
So look to the heavens, watch as Saturn and Jupiter come closer and closer until they finally come together on December 21 and remember that death has lost its sting, its victory. Christ, the true Jove, has defeated death by death. "The heavens declare the Glory of the Lord," we just need the eyes to see.
Sincerely,
David Russell Mosley
