Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 56

The pa.s.sover moon was then at the full, so that it could not have been an _eclipse_. The early Fathers, relying on a notice of _an_ eclipse that _seemed_ to coincide in time, though it really _did not_, fancied that the darkness was caused by it, but incorrectly."

Perhaps "the _origin_ of this darkness" may be explained from what we shall now see.

At the time of the death of the Hindoo Saviour _Crishna_, there came calamities and bad omens of every kind. A black circle surrounded the moon, _and the sun was darkened at noon-day_; the sky rained fire and ashes; flames burned dusky and livid; demons committed depredations on earth; at sunrise and sunset, thousands of figures were seen skirmis.h.i.+ng in the air; spirits were to be seen on all sides.[207:1]

When the conflict began between _Buddha_, the Saviour of the World, and the Prince of Evil, _a thousand appalling meteors fell; clouds and darkness prevailed_. Even this earth, with the oceans and mountains it contains, though it is unconscious, _quaked like a conscious being_--like a fond bride when forcibly torn from her bridegroom--like the festoons of a vine shaken under the blast of a whirlwind. The ocean rose under the vibration of this earthquake; rivers flowed back toward their sources; peaks of lofty mountains, where countless trees had grown for ages, rolled crumbling to the earth; a fierce storm howled all around; the roar of the concussion became terrific; _the very sun enveloped itself in awful darkness, and a host of headless spirits filled the air_.[207:2]

When _Prometheus_ was crucified on Mount Caucasus, _the whole frame of nature became convulsed_. The earth did quake, thunder roared, lightning flashed, the wild winds rent the vexed air, the boisterous billows rose, and the dissolution of the universe seemed to be threatened.[207:3]

The ancient Greeks and Romans, says Canon Farrar,[207:4] had always considered that the _births_ and _deaths_ of great men were announced by _celestial signs_. We therefore find that at the death of _Romulus_, the founder of Rome, the sun was darkened, _and there was darkness over the face of the earth for the s.p.a.ce of six hours_.[207:5]

When _Julius Caesar_, who was the son of a G.o.d, was murdered, there was a darkness over the earth, _the sun being eclipsed for the s.p.a.ce of six hours_.[207:6]

This is spoken of by _Virgil_, where he says:

"He (the Sun) covered his luminous head with a sooty darkness, And the impious ages feared eternal night."[207:7]

It is also referred to by Tibullus, Ovid, and Lucian (poets), Pliny, Appian, Dion Ca.s.sius, and Julius Obsequenes (historians.)[207:8]

When _aesculapius_ the Saviour was put to death, _the sun shone dimly from the heavens_; the birds were silent in the darkened groves; the trees bowed down their heads in sorrow; and the hearts of all the sons of men fainted within them, because the healer of their pains and sickness lived no more upon the earth.[208:1]

When _Hercules_ was dying, he said to the faithful female (Iole) who followed him to the last spot on earth on which he trod, "Weep not, my toil is done, and now is the time for rest. I shall see thee again in the bright land which is never trodden by the feet of night." Then, as the dying G.o.d expired, _darkness was on the face of the earth_; from the high heaven came down the thick cloud, _and the din of its thunder crashed through the air_. In this manner, Zeus, the G.o.d of G.o.ds, carried his son home, and the halls of Olympus were opened to welcome the bright hero who rested from his mighty toil. There he now sits, clothed in a white robe, with a crown upon his head.[208:2]

When _dipus_ was about to leave this world of pain and sorrow, he bade Antigone farewell, and said, "Weep not, my child, I am going to my home, and I rejoice to lay down the burden of my woe." Then there were _signs_ in the heaven above and on the earth beneath, that the end was nigh at hand, _for the earth did quake, and the thunder roared_ and echoed again and again through the sky.[208:3]

"The Romans had a G.o.d called _Quirinius_. His soul emanated from the sun, and was restored to it. He was begotten by the G.o.d of armies upon a _virgin_ of the royal blood, and exposed by order of the jealous tyrant Amulius, and was preserved and educated among _shepherds_. He was torn to pieces at his death, when he ascended into heaven; _upon which the sun was eclipsed or darkened_."[208:4]

When _Alexander the Great_ died, similar prodigies are said to have happened; again, when foul murders were committed, it is said that the sun seemed to hide its face. This is ill.u.s.trated in the story of _Atreus_, King of Mycenae, who foully murdered the children of his brother Thyestes. At that time, the sun, unable to endure a sight so horrible, "_turned his course backward and withdrew his light._"[208:5]

At the time of the death of the virgin-born _Quetzalcoatle_, the Mexican crucified Saviour, _the sun was darkened_, and withheld its light.[209:1]

Lord Kingsborough, speaking of this event, considers it very strange that the Mexicans should have preserved an account of it among their records, when "the great eclipse which sacred history records" is _not_ recorded in profane history.

Gibbon, the historian, speaking of this phenomenon, says:

"Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth,[209:2] or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire,[209:3] was involved in a perpetual darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, pa.s.sed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the life-time of Seneca[209:4] and the elder Pliny,[209:5] who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect.[209:6] But the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe."[209:7]

This account of the darkness at the time of the death of Jesus of Nazareth, is one of the prodigies related in the New Testament which no Christian commentator has been able to make appear reasonable. The favorite theory is that it was a _natural_ eclipse of the sun, which _happened_ to take place at that particular time, but, if this was the case, there was nothing _supernatural_ in the event, and it had nothing whatever to do with the death of Jesus. Again, it would be necessary to prove from other sources that such an event happened at that time, but this cannot be done. The argument from the duration of the darkness--_three hours_--is also of great force against such an occurrence having happened, _for an eclipse seldom lasts in great intensity more than six minutes_.

Even if it could be proved that an eclipse really happened at the time a.s.signed for the crucifixion of Jesus, how about the earthquake, when the rocks were rent and the graves opened? and how about the "saints which slept" rising _bodily_ and walking in the streets of the Holy City and _appearing to many_? Surely, the faith that would remove mountains,[209:8] is required here.

Shakespeare has embalmed some traditions of the kind exactly a.n.a.logous to the present case:

"In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."[210:1]

Belief in the influence of the _stars_ over life and death, _and in special portents at the death of great men_, survived, indeed, to recent times. Chaucer abounds in allusions to it, and still later Shakespeare tells us:

"When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."

It would seem that this superst.i.tion survives even to the present day, for it is well known that the dark and yellow atmosphere which settled over so much of the country, on the day of the removal of President Garfield from Was.h.i.+ngton to Long Branch, was sincerely held by hundreds of persons to be a death-warning sent from heaven, and there were numerous predictions that dissolution would take place before the train arrived at its destination.

As Mr. Greg remarks, there can, we think, remain little doubt in unprepossessed minds, that the whole legend in question was one of those intended to magnify Christ Jesus, which were current in great numbers at the time the Matthew narrator wrote, and which he, with the usual want of discrimination and somewhat omnivorous tendency, which distinguished him as a compiler, admitted into his Gospel.

FOOTNOTES:

[206:1] Luke, xxiii. 44, 45.

[206:2] Matthew, xxvii. 51-53.

[206:3] Amberly: a.n.a.lysis of Religious Belief, p. 268.

[206:4] Life of Christ, vol. ii. p. 643.

[207:1] See Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 71.

[207:2] Rhys David's Buddhism, pp. 36, 37.

[207:3] See Potter's aeschylus, "Prometheus Chained," last stanza.

[207:4] Farrar's Life of Christ, p. 52.

[207:5] See Higgins: Anacalypsis, vol. i. pp. 616, 617.

[207:6] See Ibid. and Gibbon's Rome, vol. i. pp. 159 and 590, also Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, book xiv. ch. xii. and _note_.

[207:7]

"c.u.m caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit Impiaquae aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem."

[207:8] See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i. pp. 159 and 590.

[208:1] Tales of Ancient Greece, p. 46.

[208:2] Ibid. pp. 61, 62.

[208:3] Ibid. p. 270.

[208:4] Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 822.

[208:5] See Bell's Pantheon, vol. i. p. 106.

[209:1] See Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 5.

[209:2] The Fathers of the Church seem to cover the whole earth with darkness, in which they are followed by most of the moderns. (Gibbon.

Luke, xxiii. 44, says "_over all the earth_.")

[209:3] Origen (a Father of the third century) and a few modern critics, are desirous of confining it to the land of Judea. (Gibbon.)