FATHER LIAM SAYS: The
Gospel that most of us hear at the Christmas Masses each year comes from St
Luke. Like all the writers of the New
Testament – and a few of the writers of the Books of the Old Testament – he
wrote in Greek, the language that most people of the known world at the time
used. Luke is the only one of the gospel
writers who speaks of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem in order to be registered
and the news of the birth of Jesus being brought to shepherds by an angel and
how they found him ‘wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’ Luke tells us how Mary ‘treasured all these
things and pondered them in her heart.’
Luke wants all those who listen to his Good News to treasure all these
things as Mary did, and ponder them in our hearts. For the Gospel is a great treasure – a pearl
of great price – but was not written to satisfy our curiosity about the details
of Christ’s infancy.
I
was reading recently of tremendous treasures of Greek civilisation recovered
from the sea over one hundred years ago.
A Roman vessel was wrecked off an island between the Greek mainland and
Crete in the year 65 BC. It had been
taking home loot from Asia Minor and the wreck was discovered in 1900. In addition to sculptures and other art works
they found a mysterious lump of bronze, later described as the Antikythera
Mechanism, named after the island near which it was lost and found. Scientists are still researching it to this
day and though much has been discovered about this amazing device, more remains
to be discovered.
Scholars
have been studying the Scriptures for two thousand years or more and have
continually been discovering more depths and meaning and realising that the
riches of the treasures can never be exhausted.
But what is this Antikythera Mechanism which had lain hidden in the sea
for over two thousand years? It is one
of the most amazing mechanical devices made in the ancient world. This bronze object is a complex assemblage of
gears unlike anything previously known in Greek civilisation. Inscribed signs of the Zodiac suggest that it
was probably for astronomical rather than navigation purposes. Several techniques were used to determine its
age. Carbon dating of the ship’s timber
put it at around 200 BC but the mechanism could be of much earlier origin than
the wreck. The style of the amphora jars
found on board suggested a date of about 100 BC. Coins found aboard pinned the date to about
65 BC.
The
inscription on the mechanism links it to Corinth and to its colony at Syracuse
where Archimedes flourished. So
Scientists surmised that it might be in a mechanical tradition inspired by
Archimedes. The mechanism was driven by
a handle that turned a linked system of more than thirty gear wheels. Using modern techniques it was possible to
count the teeth on the wheels, see which cog meshes with which and what are the
gear ratios. These ratios enabled them
to figure out what the mechanism was computing.
The gears were coupled to pointers on the front and back of the
mechanism, showing the positions of the sun, moon and planets as they moved
through the zodiac. An extendable arm
with a pin followed a spiral groove, like the stylus of a record player. A small sphere, half white and half black,
indicated the phase of the moon. Even
more impressive was the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses. It was known to the Babylonians that if a
lunar eclipse is observed a similar event will occur two hundred and twenty
three full moons later. This period of
about nineteen years is known as the Saros cycle. It required complex mathematical reasoning
and technology to implement the cycle in the mechanism. This Antikythera
Mechanism could provide accurate predictions of eclipses several decades
ahead. One scientist said that the
discovery was like finding an internal combustion engine in Tutankhamen’s tomb.
This
mechanism has revolutionised our thinking about the scientific legacy of the
Greeks. It is like modern clockwork –
but clocks were invented in Medieval Europe.
It shows that the Greeks came close to our technology. Had not Roman power overwhelmed that of the
Greeks we might today be far in advance of our current level of
technology. The Romans had scant respect
for any of the civilisations they overcame by force of arms. Research is continuing because just one small
cog remains a mystery. (I am indebted to Professor Peter Lynch of University
College, Dublin for this information.)
All
of the Old Testament books predate this extraordinary Greek computer. What a loss after all their labour this
Antikythera Mechanism must have been to the Greeks from whom it was
looted. It might not have been such a
loss to the Romans who looted it because they would have struggled to use
it. Our Christians Scriptures came into
being shortly after this Mechanism went down and they, together with the Hebrew
Scriptures have continued to nourish us ever since. But since they came to birth in a
civilisation very different to ours we find it impossible to fully understand
them. The people of the ancient Middle
East had a rich and advanced civilisation but its literature was much more
comprehensible to the people of that time than it is to us. That is why Scripture Scholars continue to
work away trying to recover for us the fullness of the riches that lay hidden
in the ancient and sacred texts. It is
important that we realise some of the complexity of the scriptures that are
placed before us and treasure and ponder them.
It is very saddening to find the precious Christmas Story mocked and
parodied today and Christmas robbed of its Good Tidings of God’s love. How can we grow in our appreciation of this
great treasure?
