DARKNESS at NOON and a BLOOD MOON

By Sean M. Wright

Recently I re-read “Dear and Glorious Physician,” Taylor Caldwell’s masterful historical fiction about St. Luke. One of the biblical occurrences cited is “from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” (Mt 27:45; cf. Mk 15:33; Lk 23:44).  Caldwell depicts the celestial events experienced by the Passover throng gathered in Jerusalem as being witnessed by Luke hundreds of miles away.

The Church has always considered this phenomenon as the fulfillment of Amos 8:9, 10: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light . . . I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the latter end thereof as a bitter day.” Through the prophet, the father foretold the death of the son in his humanity.

I was once again struck by a footnote in the novel explaining how Phlegon of Tralles, a distinguished historian and chronicler writing in Greek in AD 137, speaks of an odd eclipse occurring in the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad, the year corresponding to AD 33.

Church historian Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea in 325, quotes a passage from Phlegon’s history: “Now, in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, a great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour [noon] excelling every other before it. Day was turned into such darkness of night that the stars could be seen in heaven. And the earth moved in Bithynia, toppling many buildings in the city of Nicæa.” — Chronicon, Vol. 2

Phlegon calls this a “great” eclipse, accompanied by a darkness so complete stars were visible. It was a totally unexpected event. The ancients knew the mechanics of an eclipse, as will be seen below. They also were aware that an eclipse is utterly impossible when the moon is full.

In AD 221, Catholic scholar Sextus Julius Africanus also mentions this pagan historian for his “History of the World”:

“Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth —manifestly that one of which we speak. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? Surely no such event as this is recorded [lasting] for so a long period. But it was a darkness induced by God, because the Lord happened then to suffer.”

In 248, Origen, the prolific Catholic theologian, refers to Phlegon’s historical incident in connection with the darkness at noon during Christ’s death.

“The time in Phlegon’s work mirrors that given in the Synoptic Gospels. Take further notice that his account of the earth quaking so hard that buildings were shaken, corresponds to Matthew 27:51 ‘And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent.’”

Another ancient authority, Thallus, a Samaritan historian writing about the year 50, published three books of history. Alas, of his works only fragments survive. He is cited in the 2nd century by several writers, including St. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch.

In the 190s both Tertullian, the prolific apologist, and the historian Rufinus of Aquileia, tell of finding notice of an eerie darkness beginning “when the sun was at its zenith” recorded in the official annals of Rome.  

Thallus is most fully quoted by Africanus, who connects the event to the sacrificial death of Jesus: “Concerning each of His deeds and His cures, both of bodies and souls, and the secrets of His knowledge, and His Resurrection from the dead, this has been explained with complete adequacy by his disciples and the apostles before us . . . A most terrible darkness fell over all the world, the rocks were torn apart by an earthquake, and many places both in Judæa and the rest of the world were thrown down.”

Both Thallus and Phlegon attribute the three-hour period of darkness to a solar eclipse, a theory that Africanus dismisses as “nonsense.” Most total solar eclipses last only 2 to 3 minutes, due to the orbit of the moon and the rotation of the earth. The maximum length of an eclipse, therefore, can be no more than 7 minutes and 29 seconds.

According to Exodus 12:6, God commanded that the lamb for the Passover Seder must be prepared for sacrifice on the 14th day of Nisan and eaten that evening after sundown when Friday, 15th day of Nisan, begins. This is always the day of the first full moon of spring. Passover, like Easter, therefore, is always a moveable feast.

With his usual sense of paradox, St. John describes Jesus, the Lamb of God, as dying at 3:00 in the afternoon on the 14th Nisan. Only then, when the true Paschal lamb was sacrificed, did the darkness lift and the temple priests began sacrificing thousands of lambs on the Altar of Holocausts for the throng of pilgrims converging on Jerusalem for Passover.

This incredible solar incident, together with its connection to an earthquake, was thus experienced throughout the known world. The followers of Jesus saw that the sun refused to shine on the death of its Creator, while the earth shuddered in shame and grief. More evidence regarding the date of the Crucifixion is that, according to astronomers, a blood moon rose over Jerusalem in total eclipse at sundown on the evening of April 3, 33. This lunar eclipse began precisely at 3 p.m. as Jesus closed his eyes in death.

Fifty days later, on Pentecost morning, Simon Peter, newly enflamed by the Holy Spirit proclaimed to the people of Jerusalem:

This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: “And moreover, upon my servants and upon my handmaids in those days will I pour forth of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy, And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, Before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall come to pass That whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:16-21, citing Jl 2:28-31).

Taylor Caldwell’s own explanation of the universal darkness is that the sun simply vanished from sight, bouncing back into place three hours later. This may not be such an incredible solution when one reflects on how 70,000 persons swore that they witnessed the “dance of the sun” in Fatima, on Oct. 13, 1917.

(Sean M. Wright, award-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated television writer, is a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Santa Clarita, California. A Master Catechist for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he replies to comments sent him at Locksley69@aol.com.)