The Astronomy of the Bible Part 10

"Out of the north cometh golden splendour" would well fit the gleaming of the "Northern Lights," seen, as they often are, "as sheaves of golden rays."

CHAPTER XI

ECLIPSES OF THE SUN AND MOON

We do not know what great comets, or aerolites, or "star-showers" were seen in Palestine during the centuries in which the books of the Bible were composed. But we do know that eclipses, both of the sun and moon, must have been seen, for these are not the results of chance conjunctions. We know more, that not only partial eclipses of the sun, but total eclipses, fell within the period so covered.

There is no phenomenon of nature which is so truly impressive as a total eclipse of the sun. The beautiful pageants of the evening and the morning are too often witnessed to produce the same effect upon us, whilst the storm and the earthquake and the volcano in eruption, by the confusion and fear for personal safety they produce, render men unfit to watch their developments. But the eclipse awes and subdues by what might almost be called moral means alone: no noise, no danger accompanies it; the body is not tortured, nor the mind confused by the rush of the blast, the crash of the thunder-peal, the rocking of the earthquake, or the fires of the volcano. The only sense appealed to is that of sight; the movements of the orbs of heaven go on without noise or confusion, and with a majestic smoothness in which there is neither hurry nor delay.

This impression is felt by every one, no matter how perfectly acquainted, not only with the cause of the phenomenon, but also with the appearances to be expected, and scientific men have found themselves awestruck and even overwhelmed.

But if such are the feelings called forth by an eclipse now-a-days, in those who are expecting it, who are prepared for it, knowing perfectly what will happen and what brings it about, how can we gauge aright the unspeakable terror such an event must have caused in ages long ago, when it came utterly unforeseen, and it was impossible to understand what was really taking place?

And so, in olden time, an eclipse of the sun came as an omen of terrible disaster, nay as being itself one of the worst of disasters. It came so to all nations but one. But to that nation the word of the prophet had come--

"Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them."

G.o.d did not reveal the physical explanation of the eclipse to the Hebrews: that, in process of time, they could learn by the exercise of their own mental powers. But He set them free from the slavish fear of the heathen; they could look at all these terror-striking signs without fear; they could look with calmness, with confidence, because they looked in faith.

It is not easy to exaggerate the advantage which this must have given the Hebrews over the neighbouring nations, from a scientific point of view. The word of G.o.d gave them intellectual freedom, and so far as they were faithful to it, there was no hindrance to their fully working out the scientific problems which came before them. They neither wors.h.i.+pped the heavenly bodies nor were dismayed at their signs. We have no record as to how far the Hebrews made use of this freedom, for, as already pointed out, the Holy Scriptures were not written to chronicle their scientific achievements. But there can be no doubt that, given the leisure of peace, it is _a priori_ more likely that they should have taught astronomy to their neighbours, than have learnt it even from the most advanced.

There must have been numberless eclipses of the moon seen in the ages during which the Canon of Holy Scripture was written. Of eclipses of the sun, total or very nearly total over the regions of Palestine or Mesopotamia, in the times of the Old Testament, we know of four that were actually seen, whose record is preserved in contemporaneous history, and a fifth that was nearly total in Judaea about midday.

The first of the four is recorded on a tablet from Babylon, lately deciphered, in which it states that on "the 26th day of Sivan, day was turned into night, and fire appeared in the midst of heaven." This has been identified with the eclipse of July 31, 1063 B.C., and we do not find any reference to it in Scripture.

The second is that of Aug. 15, 831 B.C. No specific record of this eclipse has been found as yet, but it took place during the lifetime of the prophets Joel and Amos, and may have been seen by them, and their recollection of it may have influenced the wording of their prophecies.

The third eclipse is recorded on a tablet from Nineveh, stating the coincidence of an eclipse in Sivan with a revolt in the city of a.s.sur.

This has been identified with the eclipse of June 15, 763 B.C.

The fourth is that known as the eclipse of Larissa on May 18, 603 B.C., which was coincident with the final overthrow of the a.s.syrian Empire, and the fifth is that of Thales on May 28, 585 B.C.

The earth goes round the sun once in a year, the moon goes round the earth once in a month, and sometimes the three bodies are in one straight line. In this case the intermediate body--earth or moon--deprives the other, wholly or partially of the light from the sun, thus causing an eclipse. If the orbits of the earth and moon were in the same plane, an eclipse would happen every time the moon was new or full; that is to say, at every conjunction and every opposition, or about twenty-five times a year. But the plane of the moon's...o...b..t is inclined to the plane of the earth's...o...b..t at an angle of about 5, and so an eclipse only occurs when the moon is in conjunction or opposition and is at the same time at or very near one of the nodes--that is, one of the two points where the plane of the earth's...o...b..t intersects the moon's...o...b..t. If the moon is in opposition, or "full," then, under these conditions, an eclipse of the moon takes place, and this is visible at all places where the moon is above the horizon at the time. If, however, the moon is in conjunction, or "new," it is the sun that is eclipsed, and as the shadow cast by the moon is but small, only a portion of the earth's surface will experience the solar eclipse. The nodes of the moon's...o...b..t are not stationary, but have a daily retrograde motion of 3' 1064''. It takes the moon therefore 27{d} 5{h} 5{m} 36{s} (2721222{d}) to perform a journey in its...o...b..t from one node back to that node again; this is called a Draconic period. But it takes the moon 29{d} 12{h} 44{m} 287{s} (2953059{d}) to pa.s.s from new to new, or from full to full, _i. e._ to complete a lunation. Now 242 Draconic periods very nearly equal 223 lunations, being about 18 years 10-1/3 days, and both are very nearly equal to 19 returns of the sun to the moon's node; so that if the moon is new or full when at a node, in 18 years and 10 or 11 days it will be at that node again, and again new or full, and the sun will be also present in very nearly its former position. If, therefore, an eclipse occurred on the former occasion, it will probably occur on the latter. This recurrence of eclipses after intervals of 1803 years is called the Saros, and was known to the Chaldeans. We do not know whether it was known to the Hebrews prior to their captivity in Babylon, but possibly the statement of the wise king, already quoted from the Apocryphal "Wisdom of Solomon," may refer to some such knowledge.

Our calendar to-day is a purely solar one; our months are twelve in number, but of purely arbitrary length, divorced from all connection with the moon; and to us, the Saros cycle does not readily leap to the eye, for eclipses of sun or moon seem to fall haphazard on any day of the month or year.

But with the Hebrews, a.s.syrians, and Babylonians it was not so. Their calendar was a luni-solar one--their year was on the average a solar year, their months were true lunations; the first day of their new month began on the evening when the first thin crescent of the moon appeared after its conjunction with the sun. This observation is what is meant in the Bible by the "new moon." Astronomers now by "new moon" mean the time when it is actually in conjunction with the sun, and is therefore not visible. Nations whose calendar was of this description were certain to discover the Saros much sooner than those whose months were not true lunations, like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.

There are no direct references to eclipses in Scripture. They might have been used in the historical portions for the purpose of dating events, as was the great earthquake in the days of King Uzziah, but they were not so used. But we find not a few allusions to their characteristic appearances and phenomena in the books of the prophets. G.o.d in the beginning set the two great lights in the firmament for signs as well as for seasons; and the prophets throughout use the relations of the sun and moon as types of spiritual relations. The Messiah was the Sun of Righteousness; the chosen people, the Church, was as the moon, which derives her light from Him. The "signs of heaven" were _symbols_ of great spiritual events, not _omens_ of mundane disasters.

The prophets Joel and Amos are clear and vivid in their descriptions; probably because the eclipse of 831 B.C. was within their recollection.

Joel says first, "The sun and the moon shall be dark;" and again, more plainly,--

"I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come."

This prophecy was quoted by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost. And in the Apocalypse, St. John says that when the sixth seal was opened, "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood."

In these references, the two kinds of eclipses are referred to--the sun becomes black when the moon is "new" and hides it; the moon becomes as blood when it is "full" and the earth's shadow falls upon it; its deep copper colour, like that of dried blood, being due to the fact that the light, falling upon it, has pa.s.sed through a great depth of the earth's atmosphere. These two eclipses cannot therefore be coincident, but they may occur only a fortnight apart--a total eclipse of the sun may be accompanied by a partial eclipse of the moon, a fortnight earlier or a fortnight later; a total eclipse of the moon may be accompanied by partial eclipses of the sun, both at the preceding and following "new moons."

Writing at about the same period, the prophet Amos says--

"Saith the Lord G.o.d, I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day,"

and seems to refer to the fact that the eclipse of 831 B.C. occurred about midday in Judaea.

Later Micah writes--

"The sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them."

Isaiah says that the "sun shall be darkened in his going forth," and Jeremiah that "her sun is gone down while it was yet day." Whilst Ezekiel says--

"I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord G.o.d."

But a total eclipse is not all darkness and terror; it has a beauty and a glory all its own. Scarcely has the dark moon hidden the last thread of sunlight from view, than spurs of rosy light are seen around the black disc that now fills the place so lately occupied by the glorious king of day. And these rosy spurs of light s.h.i.+ne on a background of pearly glory, as impressive in its beauty as the swift march of the awful shadow, and the seeming descent of the darkened heavens, were in terror. There it s.h.i.+nes, pure, lovely, serene, radiant with a light like molten silver, wreathing the darkened sun with a halo like that round a saintly head in some n.o.ble altar-piece; so that while in some cases the dreadful shadow has awed a laughing and frivolous crowd into silence, in others the radiance of that halo has brought spectators to their knees with an involuntary exclamation, "The Glory!" as if G.o.d Himself had made known His presence in the moment of the sun's eclipse.

And this, indeed, seems to have been the thought of both the Babylonians and Egyptians of old. Both nations had a specially sacred symbol to set forth the Divine Presence--the Egyptians, a disc with long outstretched wings; the Babylonians, a ring with wings. The latter symbol on a.s.syrian monuments is always shown as floating over the head of the king, and is designed to indicate the presence and protection of the Deity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE a.s.sYRIAN "RING WITH WINGS."]

We may take it for granted that the Egyptians and Chaldeans of old, as modern astronomers to-day, had at one time or another presented to them every type of coronal form. But there would, no doubt, be a difficulty in grasping or remembering the irregular details of the corona as seen in most eclipses. Sometimes, however, the corona shows itself in a striking and simple form--when sun-spots are few in number, it spreads itself out in two great equatorial streamers. At the eclipse of Algiers in 1900, already referred to, one observer who watched the eclipse from the sea, said--

"The sky was blue all round the sun, and the effect of the silvery corona projected on it was beyond any one to describe.

I can only say it seemed to me what angels' wings will be like."[129:1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORONA OF MINIMUM TYPE.

Drawing made by W. H. Wesley, from photographs of the 1900 Eclipse.]

It seems exceedingly probable that the symbol of the ring with wings owed its origin not to any supposed a.n.a.logy between the ring and the wings and the divine attributes of eternity and power, but to the revelations of a total eclipse with a corona of minimum type. Moreover the a.s.syrians, when they insert a figure of their deity within the ring, give him a kilt-like dress, and this kilted or feathered characteristic is often retained where the figure is omitted. This gives the symbol a yet closer likeness to the corona, whose "polar rays" are remarkably like the tail feathers of a bird.

Perhaps the prophet Malachi makes a reference to this characteristic of the eclipsed sun, with its corona like "angels' wings," when he predicts--

"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings."

But, if this be so, it must be borne in mind that the prophet uses the corona as a simile only. No more than the sun itself, is it the Deity, or the manifestation of the Deity.

In the New Testament we may find perhaps a reference to what causes an eclipse--to the shadow cast by a heavenly body in its revolution--its "turning."

"Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with Whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning."

FOOTNOTES:

[129:1] _The Total Solar Eclipse of May, 1900_, p. 22.