Crucifixion Darkness and Eclipse - Ancient Historians

Ancient Historians

The 3rd-century Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus, in a section of his work surviving in quotation by George Syncellus, stated that the chronicler Thallus had called the darkness during the crucifixion a solar eclipse. Africanus objected based on the fact that a solar eclipse could not occur during Passover; the festival is held at a full moon while a solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon. It is unclear whether Thallus himself made any reference to the crucifixion.

Africanus also cites the 2nd-century chronicler Phlegon of Tralles: "Phlegon records that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar there was a complete solar eclipse at full moon from the sixth to the ninth hour". The church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (264 – 340), in his Chronicle, quotes Phlegon as saying that during the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (AD 32/33) "a great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour that excelled every other before it, turning the day 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 Nicaea". It has been suggested that this was the eclipse of November 24, 29 AD in the first year of the Olympiad, the number Α' (1st) having been corrupted to Δ' (4th). In a 2005 paper, Nicolas Ambraseys points out that the sources do not mention Jerusalem in connection with the earthquake.

Tertullian, in his Apologeticus, tells the story of the darkness that had commenced at noon during the crucifixion; those who were unaware of the prediction, he says, "no doubt thought it an eclipse". He suggests that the evidence is still available: "You yourselves have the account of the world-portent still in your archives."

The early historian and theologian, Rufinus of Aquileia (between 340 and 345 – 410), in his expanded work of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, includes a part of the defense given to Maximinus by Lucian of Antioch, shortly before he suffered martyrdom in 312. Lucian, like Tertullian, was also convinced that an account of the darkness that accompanied the crucifixion could be found among Roman records. Ussher recorded Lucian's corresponding statement given to Maximinus as, “Search your writings and you shall find that, in Pilate’s time, when Christ suffered, the sun was suddenly withdrawn and a darkness followed.”

The next prominent Christian historian after Eusebius, Paulus Orosius (375 – 418), wrote c. 417 that Jesus "voluntarily gave himself over to the Passion but through the impiety of the Jews, was apprehended and nailed to the cross, as a very great earthquake took place throughout the world, rocks upon mountains were split, and a great many parts of the largest cities fell by this extraordinary violence. On the same day also, at the sixth hour of the day, the Sun was entirely obscured and a loathsome night suddenly overshadowed the land, as it was said, ‘an impious age feared eternal night.’ Moreover, it was quite clear that neither the Moon nor the clouds stood in the way of the light of the Sun, so that it is reported that on that day the Moon, being fourteen days old, with the entire region of the heavens thrown in between, was farthest from the sight of the Sun, and the stars throughout the entire sky shone, then in the hours of the day or rather in that terrible night. To this, not only the authority of the Holy Gospels attest, but even some books of the Greeks."