s 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. God 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 passed 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 God, 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. o