Ptolemy’s Almagest and Canon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 16, 1908

Ptolemy’s Almagest and Canon

THE astronomical records of the ancients, by whose means we are able to fix with certainty the chronology of the earlier centuries of the “times of the Gentiles,” are contained in the “Syntaxis,” or “Almagest,” of Ptolemy.

In the existence of this invaluable work, and in its preservation as a precious remnant of antiquity, the hand of Providence can clearly be traced. The same divine care which raised up Herodotus and other Greek historians to carry on the records of the past from the point to which they had been brought by the writings of the prophets at the close of the Babylonish captivity,—the Providence which raised up Josephus, the Jewish historian, at the termination of New Testament history, to record the fulfilment of prophecy in the destruction of Jerusalem,—raised up also Ptolemy in the important interval which extended from Titus to Hadrian, that of the completion of Jewish desolation, to record the chronology of the nine previous centuries, and to associate it in such a way with the revolutions of the solar system as to permit of the most searching demonstration of its truth.

Ptolemy’s great work, the “Almagest,” is a treatise on astronomy, setting forth the researches of ancient observers and mathematicians with reference to the position of the stars, the exact length of the year, and the elements of the orbits of the sun, moon, and planets. This work was written in Greek, and subsequently translated into Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Latin, etc.; it became the text-book of astronomic knowledge both in the East and in Europe, and retained that high position for about fourteen centuries, or till the time of Copernicus, and the birth of modern astronomy, three centuries ago.

The chronological value of the “Almagest” is owing to the fact that it interweaves a series of ancient dates with a series of celestial positions. It contains a complete catalogue of the succession of Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchs, from Nabonassar to Hadrian and Antoninus, together with the dates of their accession and the duration of their reigns. Its astronomic events are referred to definite historic dates, and by this connection there is conferred on the latter the character of scientific certainty. . . .

With reference to Ptolemy’s Canon, or chronological list of the monarchs of the four great empires, Lindsay says:—

“The complete harmony that is to be found in this canon with the dates previously determined by eclipses, entitles it to our highest confidence. That Ptolemy was its author, and not Theon, is confirmed by the fact that it is not continued beyond Antoninus, in whose reign our author dates most of his observations. We have had abundant evidence that he was philoponos and philaethes, a lover of labor and a lover of truth, and are fully warranted to regard this canon as giving to ancient history mathematical

exactness. . . . The motions and phases of the luminaries are visible every day, and with these alone we have been able to authenticate the whole of the ‘Almagest.’ Even the errors of Ptolemy augment, if possible, the evidence for the authenticity of the ‘Syntaxis,’ and a foundation is laid for chronology sure as the stars.”

In addition to this primary Babylonian date, these astronomic records fix directly the times of the Babylonian monarchs Mardocempadus and Nabopolassar, the Persian monarchs Cambyses and Darius, the Grecian dates employed by Hipparchus, and the dates of the Roman emperors Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius; while indirectly they enable us to determine the dates of all the intermediate reigns recorded in Ptolemy’s “Astronomical Canon,” a list of fifty-five successive reigns, extending over a period of nine hundred seven years, from Nabonassar of Babylon to the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius.

This invaluable Canon, representing the unbroken imperial rule administered by successive dynasties of Gentile empires, is divided by Ptolemy into four distinct parts:—

I. Babylonian kings, twenty in number.

2. Persian kings ten in number, terminating with Alexander the Great, of Macedon, eleven names in all.

3. Grecian kings, twelve in number.

4. Roman emperors, twelve in number.

The sum of years given in the calendar is divided into two parts: first 424 years, from Nabonassar to Alexander of Macedon; and secondly 493 years, from Philip Aridæus to Antoninus Pius. The striking and important agreement between the historical and chronological outline given in the Canon of Ptolemy and that set forth in the fourfold image of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, described and interpreted by Daniel, is referred to by Faber in the following words:—

“As the good Spirit of God employs the four successive empires of Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, in the capacity of the calendar of prophecy, so Ptolemy has employed the very same four empires in the construction of his invaluable Canon; because the several lines of their sovereigns so begin and end, when the one line is engrafted upon the other line, as to form a single unbroken series from Nabonassar to Augustus Cæsar. In each case the principle of continuous arrangement is identical. Where Ptolemy makes the Persian Cyrus the immediate successor of the Babylonian Nabonadius, or Belshazzar, without taking into account the preceding kings of Persia or of Media, there, in the image, silver joins itself to the gold; where Ptolemy makes the Grecian Alexander the immediate successor of the Persian Darius, without taking into account the preceding kings of Macedon, there, in the image, the brass joins itself to the silver; and where Ptolemy makes the Roman Augustus the immediate successor of the Grecian Cleopatra, without taking into account the long preceding roll of the consular Fasti and the primitive Roman monarchy, there, in the image, the iron joins itself to the brass. In short, the Canon of Ptolemy may well be deemed a running comment upon the altitudinal line of the great metallic image. As the parts of the image melt into each other, forming jointly one grand succession of supreme imperial domination, so the Canon of Ptolemy exhibits what may be called a picture of unbroken imperial rule, though administered by four successive dynasties, from Nabonassar to Augustus and his successors.”—“Light for the Last Days,” by H. Grattan Guinness, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1893, pages 395-401.