"The sky was blue all round the sun, and the effect of the silvery corona projected on it was beyond any one to describe. I can only say it seemed to me what angels' wings will be like."[129:1]
CORONA OF MINIMUM TYPE.
Drawing made by W. H. Wesley, from photographs of the 1900 Eclipse.[ToList]
It seems exceedingly probable that the symbol of the ring with wings owed its origin not to any supposed analogy between the ring and the wings and the divine attributes of eternity and power, but to the revelations of a total eclipse with a corona of minimum type. Moreover the Assyrians, when they insert a figure of their deity within the ring, give him a kilt-like dress, and this kilted or feathered characteristic is often retained where the figure is omitted. This gives the symbol a yet closer likeness to the corona, whose "polar rays" are remarkably like the tail feathers of a bird.
Perhaps the prophet Malachi makes a reference to this characteristic of the eclipsed sun, with its corona like "angels' wings," when he predicts—
"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings."
But, if this be so, it must be borne in mind that the prophet uses the corona as a simile only. No more than the sun itself, is it the Deity, or the manifestation of the Deity.
In the New Testament we may find perhaps a reference to what causes an eclipse—to the shadow cast by a heavenly body in its revolution—its "turning."