ed_, 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, passed 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
assigned 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.

Shakes