in a curious and valuable passage of a respectable Roman Consul, Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator, about A.D. 514.

"In the consulate of Tiberius Cæsar Aug. V. and Ælius Sejanus, (U.C. 784. A.D. 31.) OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST suffered, on the 8th of the Calends of April: (25th of March) When there happened such an eclipse of the sun as was never before nor since *"

In this year, and in this day, agree also the Council of Cæsarea, A.D. 196, or 198; the Alexandrian Chronicle, Maximus Monachus, Nicephorus Constantinus, Cedrenus; and in this year, but on different days, concur Eusebius and Epiphanius, followed by Kepler, Bucher, Patinus, and Petavius, some reckoning it the 10th of the Calends of April, others the 13th. Amidst this variety of days, we may look on the 26th or 27th of March as the most probable, noticed in the foregoing article.

And indeed that the passover of the crucifixion was an early one, may be collected from the circumstance of "the servants and officers having made a fire of coals in the hall of the highpriest's house, for it was cold, at which they and Peter warmed themselves." John xviii. 19; Luke xxii. 55; Mark xiv. 54. Whereas the passovers of the two ensuing years, A.D. 32, April 14, and A.D. 33, April 3, were later in the season, and probably milder.

The præternatural darkness at the crucifixion was accompanied by an earthquake, which altogether struck the spectators, and among them the centurion and Roman guard, with great fear, and a conviction that JESUS WAS THE SON OF GOD. Matt. xxvii. 51-54.

There was also a remarkable paleness of the sun on the year of Julius Cæsar's assassination, B.C. 44, attributed by astronomers to an unusual number of spots on the sun's disk; which Mark Anthony, in a letter to Hyrcanus, high priest of the Jews, written after the defeat and death of Cæsar's assassins, Brutus and Cassius, attributed to the divine displeasure. "On account of these enormities, the sun, we think, was turned away, who, even himself, viewed with displeasure the crime against Cæsar +."

* His consulibus, Tiberio Cæsare Aug. V. Elio Sejano, DOMINUS NOSTER JESUS CHRISTUS passus est 8 Calend. Aprilis: Et defectio solis facta est, qualis ante vel postmodum nunquam fuit. Scaliger, De Emend. Temp. p. 563.

† Δι ̓ ἁ (ανομηματα) και τον ήλιον απεστράφθαι δοκουμεν, ὃς και αηδώς επειδε Tо επi Kaισaρi μvooç. Joseph. Ant. 14, 12, 3.

II. Eclipses among the ancients, before their cause was known, were considered as signs of the times, and indications of divine displeasure. They are so represented even in SCRIPTURE.

The prophet Amos, who wrote two years before "the great earthquake," which probably happened near the end of Jeroboam II.'s reign, thus predicts it, and an extraordinary eclipse of the sun:--"Shall not the land quake for this? [the sins of the people.] And it shall come to pass, in that day, saith the LORD GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day; and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and your songs into lamentations." Amos viii. 8-10. And our Lord himself, among the prognostics of his second coming in glory, foretels, " And there shall be signs in the sun, and moon, and stars," &c. Luke xxi. 25. Hence, the Jews were warned against the superstitious notions of the heathens, attributing to the luminaries themselves (as in the case of Anthony) sense and intelligence, and a powerful influence over human affairs. "Thus saith the LORD: Learn not the ways of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens, for the heathen are dismayed at them." Jer. x. 2. Thus, the battle between the Medes and Lydians was put an end to by the solar eclipse of B.C. 603; and on the outsetting of Xerxes from Sardis, on the expedition against Greece, (though more probably from Susa the year before) Herodotus relates, that “the sun quitting his place in the heavens disappeared; and though the sky was free from clouds, and perfectly serene, instead of day it became night. Xerxes observing this with surprise, and no small anxiety, enquired of the Magi what might be the meaning of the prodigy? They answered, that the gods by this presage plainly foretold the destruction of the Grecian states, because the sun was the protector of Greece, but the moon of the Persians." Herodot. B. vii. 37. The disastrous issue of this expedition to the Persians remarkably confirmed the observation of Isaiah: "That THE LORD frustrateth the signs of the liars, and maketh the diviners mad; he turneth wise men backwards, and maketh their wisdom foolishness." Isa. xliv. 25. The Magi were the established priests and diviners of the Persian empire.

Livy also mentions an eclipse of the sun, in the consulate of M. Valerius Messala, and C. Livius Salinator, U.C. 561, B.C. 188, July 17, for which the College of Decemvirs decreed a public supplication for three days. Liv. 38, 36.

III. How early Eclipses began to be calculated by the ancients does not appear. In the age of Thales, at least, the elements of the calculation of eclipses were known in Greece; for Herodotus says, that he foretold to the Ionians the year of the remarkable eclipse that put an end to the battle between the Medes and Lydians. Herodot. B. 1. 74. Herodot. B. 1. 74. Anaxagoras, also, predicted that remarkable eclipse of the sun, mentioned by Thucydides to have happened in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, July 1, B.C. 431. And Livy states, that Sulpicius Gallus predicted with great accuracy a lunar eclipse, which happened on the night before the battle of Pydna, in which the Romans defeated Perseus, king of Macedon, June 21, U.C. 586, B.C. 168. "When the Roman soldiers looked on the wisdom of Gallus as almost divine; but the Macedonians and their priests were alarmed thereat, as an ominous prodigy portending the fall of the kingdom, and destruction of the nation; and there was a clamour and a howling in the Macedonian camp, until the moon emerged again into her own light." Liv. 44, 27.

Costard conjectures that Thales and Anaxagoras, in their computations, made use of the celebrated Chaldean Saros, or cycle, mentioned by Pliny; which " was a period of 223 lunations in the course of 18 Julian years and 11 days: in which the returns of eclipses, and other phænomena of the moon's motions, are very regularly performed;" in the judgment of Halley, that great astronomer, who, from an eclipse of the sun, observed at London and Dantzic, June 22, 1666, by the help of the Chaldean Saros, was enabled to calculate another, eighteen years after, July 2, 1684, with an exactness little inferior to the observation itself at the time. Costard. Astron. p. 94.

To this Chaldean period Theocritus probably alluded, when he styled Adonis, or the sun,

Οκτωκαιδεκατης η εννεακαιδεκ ̓ ὁ γαμβρος,

"The bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years.”—Idyll. 15.

The ecliptic conjunctions of the sun and moon being represented, in mythological language, as a marriage.

The same imagery was used in SCRIPTURE by David, near 800 years before Theocritus, where he describes the sun as " a bridegroom coming out of his chamber." Ps. xix. 5.

IV. Eclipses are justly reckoned among the surest and most unerring characters of Chronology: for they can be calculated with great exactness backwards as well as forwards; and there

is such a variety of distinct circumstances of the time when, and the place where they were seen; of the duration, or beginning, middle, or end of every eclipse, and of the quantity, or number of digits eclipsed; that there is no danger of confounding any two eclipses together, when the circumstances attending each are noticed with any tolerable degree of precision.

Thus, to an eclipse of the moon incidentally noticed by the great Jewish Chronologer, Josephus, shortly before the death of Herod the Great, we owe the determination of the true year of our Saviour's nativity.

During Herod's last illness, and not many days before his death, there happened an eclipse of the moon on the very night that he burnt alive Matthias, and the ringleaders of a sedition, in which the golden eagle, which he had consecrated and set up over the gate of the temple, was pulled down and broke to pieces by these zealots. This eclipse happened, by calculation, March 13, U. C. 750, B. C. 4. Antiq. 17, 6, 4. p. 768. Hudson's Edit. But it is certain from Scripture, that CHRIST was born during Herod's reign; and from the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem from the East," (año avaroλwv) from the Parthian empire, to enquire for the true "born king of the Jews," whose star they had seen "at its rising;" (Ev Tη avaτoλn *) and also from the age of the infants massacred at Bethlehem, " from two years old and under." Matt. ii. 1—16. It is no less certain, that JESUS could not have been born later than U. C. 749, or B. C. 5, which is the year assigned to the nativity by Chrysostom, Petavius, Prideaux, and adopted in this work.

The star seen by these eastern Magi could not have been an ordinary star, or meteor; for when it re-appeared on their way to Bethlehem, " it conducted them, till it came and stood over the house where the young child was." Matt. ii. 9. It was, probably, the same "glory of the Lord" which, on the night of the nativity," shone round about" the pious shepherds near Bethlehem, and might therefore have been of a globular form, which "ascended into the heaven," along with the celestial choir, Luke ii. 8-15, and might have been seen in its ascent by the Magi at the distance of five or six hundred miles, diminished to the size of a star, or meteor, and rising from the land of Judea, in the south-west quarter of the horizon, an unu

* Avaroλai denote the "risings" of the stars in general, or the East; but the singular, ἡ ανατολη, the rising" of a particular star.

sual region, which must have strongly attracted their notice and attention. And if, according to Theophylact, these Magi were the descendants of Balaam, the celebrated Chaldean diviner, who prophesied of " the Star to rise out of Jacob, and the Sceptre from Israel;" Numb. xxiv. 17; and also of the School of Daniel, the prophet, at Babylon, who was appointed Archimagus by Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. ii. 48, and foretold the precise time of the coming of" Messiah, the Prince," Dan. ix. 25, we may naturally account for their journey to Jerusalem, their enquiry, their excessive joy on the re-appearance of the star, and their adoration of the divine child, who was indeed " a light to lighten the Gentiles, and a glory to his people Israel;" Luke ii. 23; "the day-spring (ʼn avaroλn) from on high;" Luke i. 78; "the bright and morning star;" Rev. xxii. 16; "the day star which rises in our hearts;" 2 Pet. i. 19.

Tables of ancient eclipses before the Christian Era, from B. C. 753 are furnished by Playfair in his Chronology, and by Ferguson in his Astronomy; and from B. C. 1000, computed by Pingré, Hist. Acad. Bell. Lettr. Paris, 1786. Among the most remarkable and important are the following:

B. C.

TABLE IX. ANCIENT ECLIPSES..

753. S. April 21. Old calculation; the day of the foundation of Rome. Plutarch.

S.

721. M.

720. S.

720. M.

July 5. Aft. 4, 30; dig. 4.

March 19. Aft. 10, 34, total; first year of Mardok
Empad, king of Babylon. Ptolomy.

February 22. Morn. 10; dig. 81. China.

March 8. Aft. 11, 56; dig. 3; second of Mardok
Empad. Ptolomy.

715. S. May 26. Aft. 5, 12; dig. 93; death of Romulus.

Livy.

621. M. April 21.

Morn. 6, 22; dig. 21; fifth of Nabopolassar. Ptolomy.

607. S. July 30. Aft. 1, 55; dig. 8; supposed eclipse of Thales, according to Calvisius.

603. S. May 18. Morn. 91, total; same, Costard, Montucla,

Kennedy.

601. S. September 19. Morn. 10, 57; dig. 9; same, Usher.