In the second half of the sixteenth
century the recognised capital of orthodox Lutheranism was
Magdeburg, and in the region tributary to this metropolis no Church
official held a more prominent station than the "Superintendent,"
or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It was this
dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in 1578,
gave to the press his _Theological Reminder of the New Comet_. After
deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the
phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to
sinful man, he assures his hearers that "whoever would know the
comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and stare at
the scientific theory that it is an earthy, greasy, tough, and
sticky vapour and mist, rising into the upper air and set ablaze by
the celestial heat." Far more important for them is it to know what
this vaponr is. It is really, in the opinion of Celichius, nothing
more or less than "the thick smoke of human sins, rising every
day, every hour, every moment, full of stench and horror, before
the face of God, and becoming gradually so thick as to form a
comet, with curled and plaited tresses, which at last is kindled by
the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge.
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