The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-05-18
A WE'LL A TTEST,ED. MIRACLE.

n WILL n LhOIED uLhACLE.
1t is known only to the learned that
there exist important heather testimo-
MES to the miraculous darkness at the
time of our Saviours crucifxion referred
to by the three synoptic evangelists.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all state that,
as Jesus hung upon the cross, from the
sixth az NJ to the ninth hour 6 P.M.),
there was darkness over the whole land.
Now Tertullian, one of the most reliable
of all the Church fathers, writing about
A. D. 200, says, in his Apology, At the
same time, at MONDAY there was great
darkness. :. And some have denied it,
not knowing the cause of such darkness
And yet you have that remarkable event
recorded in your archives" (Apol. C. 81,
p. 22). Is it likely that Tertullian Gone
of the ablest men of his day. would have
told the Romans, You have this thing
recorded in your archives if it had not
been so? But, hundred years later,
the martyr Lucian, in his Apology makes
the same declaration "Look into your
own annals; there you will find that in
the time of Plate, when Christ suffered
the sun was obscured, and the light of
the day was interrupted with darkness"
(Euseb. Fl. E. |. 9. C. 6. ex versione Ru-
fnD.
The most remarkable reference (for
such it seems to be) to this event is that,
however, of the chronicler Phlegon, a
pagan writer who lived in the reign of
the emperor Adrian, and wrote about
A. D. 40. Phlegon was the author of
several works, one of which was entitled
The Olympiads and Chronicles in six
teen books,-a kind of general history Of
the world, brought down to the times of
Adrian. In the thirteenth book of these
Chronicles occurred the following pas
sage, preserved by Eusebius in his Eccle-
siastical History:
In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad
there was great and extraordinary eclipse of
the sun, distinguished among all that had hap
pened before. AT the sixth hour the day was
turned into dark night, so that the stars in the
In Bithynia which overthrow many houses in
the city of Nice.
This passage is quoted by Eusebius,
and referred to very explicitly by Origen
(see Euseb. Chr. p. II, and Orig. contr
Gels l. 2. p. 80. Cant. al sect. 33).
This fourth year of the 2O2nd Olympiad
was the 18th year of Tiberius Cesar, and
is calculated to correspond with the year
of the crucifxion.
Another heather historian, Thallus,
(who seems to have lived in the first CEN
tury), as quoted by Julius Africanus, re-
fers to the same event:
"There was" says Africanus 1.-THE intimate
friend of Origen and eminent Christian histo.
rian, about A. D. 220), "a dreadful darkness
over the whole world, and the rocks were rent
by an earthquake, and many buildings were
overturned in Judea and in other parts Of the
earth. This darkness Thallus calls an eclipse of
the sun, in the third book of his histories but
as seems to me- very improperly; for the Jews
keep the passover in the fourteenth dav of the
moon at which time an eclipse Of the sun is
impossible" (Euseb Canon. Chron. Grace. p.
DR.. Seyfarth, in his learned astronom-
ical investigation (Chronologja Sacra,
Leipzig, 1S46), puts this eclipse on the
10Th Of March, A. D. SO.
The arguments that have been made
against the identity Of the event referred
to by Phlegon and Thallus with that re-
ferred to by the evangelists, by Lardner
and DIR. Adam Clarke, appear to us as
possessing no great weight