“Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.” This is cited as an eclipse allusion by Johnson, who points out that the utterance of this caution preceded by about fifteen years the celebrated eclipse of Thales (585 B.C.). But surely this is far-fetched. I shall be inclined to attach the same criticism to his next citation. Ezekiel employs these expressions:—“When I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the Sun with a cloud, and the Moon shall not give her light” (xxxii. 7). This language resembles, in no small degree, Isaiah’s, already quoted, and, like that, might apply to the phenomenon of a solar eclipse, but whether that was actually the prophet’s intention is another matter. He may have witnessed the eclipse of 585 B.C. on the banks of the river Chebar, and that spectacle may have put this imagery into his head. Further than this it seems hardly safe to go.
This seems an appropriate place to mention a very interesting matter, to which attention has been called by Oriental scholars in recent times, who have investigated Assyrian and Egyptian monuments, and other monuments of the same type. The story would be a long and interesting one if presented in detail, and would far exceed my limits of space. I must, therefore, be content with such a summary as that which has been worked out by Mr. E. W. Maunder. Briefly the facts are these. There are to be found in many places carvings in stone, symbolic of the Sun-god once worshipped in the East. The general design, with of course variations, is a circle with striated wings extending right and left to two diameters of the wing, more or less, with a lesser extension in a downward direction. Allowing for the roughness of the art, and for the fact that the material was stone, it does not require any very great stretch of imagination to see in these carvings the disc of a totally-eclipsed Sun with, right and left and below it, that form of corona which we have come to associate with total eclipses occurring at periods of Sun-spot minima.[34] This idea should not seem far-fetched if we bear in mind the fact that the ancient Orientals worshipped the Sun, Moon, and Planets; and one of the natural outcomes of this is submitted for our consideration by Maunder in the words following[35]:—
“There can be little doubt that the Sun was regarded partly as a symbol, partly as a manifestation of the unseen, unapproachable Divinity. Its light and heat, its power of calling into active exercise the mysterious forces of germination and ripening, the universality of its influence, all seemed the fit expressions of the yet greater powers which belonged to the Invisible. What happened in a total solar eclipse? For a short time that which seemed so perfect a divine symbol was completely hidden. The light and heat, the two great forms of solar energy, were withdrawn, but something took their place. A mysterious light of mysterious form, unlike any other light, unlike any other single form, was seen in its place. Could they fail to see in this a closer, a more intimate revelation, a more exalted symbolism of the Divine Nature and Presence? Just as in the various Greek ‘mysteries’ the student was gradually advanced from one set of symbols to another even more abstruse and esoteric, so here, on the broad face of heaven itself, vouchsafed for a brief space of time and at long intervals apart, the Deity revealed Himself to the initiated by a higher and more difficult symbol than ordinarily. The symbol would vary in shape. We may take it for granted that the old Chaldeans, as modern astronomers to-day, had at one time or another presented to them every type of Coronal structure. But there would, no doubt, be a difficulty in grasping or remembering the irregular details of the Corona as seen in most eclipses. It occasionally happens, however, that the Corona shows itself under a form of grand and striking simplicity. It is now widely recognised that the typical Corona of the minimum of the Sun-spot cycle consists chiefly of two great equatorial streamers.”
Maunder then goes on to cite certain American pictures by Trouvelot and others of the eclipse of July 29, 1878, in which the great extension of the Corona to the East and the West is specially shown. One drawing in particular, by Miss K. E. Wolcott, exhibits the Sun with a perfect bright ring round it from which the Coronal streamers emanate in the directions mentioned. Maunder then remarks that he has a strong conviction that it was a Corona of this type which was the origin of the “Ring with Wings,” the symbol which on Assyrian monuments is always shown as floating over the head of the ring which is designed to indicate the presence and protection of the Deity. In the article cited he gives illustrations of two forms under which the “Ring with Wings” appears on Assyrian and Egyptian monuments respectively, remarking that “Egyptians too were Astronomers and Sun-worshippers and were experts in the language of symbols. Equally with the Chaldeans the Egyptian priests should have regarded the Corona as a symbolical revelation of the Deity whose usual manifestation they recognised in the Sun, and accordingly we find them employing a symbol which is almost as perfect a representation of the Corona of minimum as that which the Assyrians adopted.” Another curious point commented upon by Maunder is that the Assyrians frequently insert the figure of their Deity within the ring, and attach thereto a kilt-like dress. Even when they show the ring without the figure the “kilt,” as it may be called, is still there, indicating that it is not simply a garment worn by the figure, but an integral part of the symbol. This “kilt” is represented as pleated, and the resemblance of the pleatings to the polar rays shown in Trouvelot’s drawing of the Corona, is “practically perfect.” On this point Maunder adds:—“If this be a mere chance coincidence, it seems to me a most extraordinary one.” He concludes by saying that these symbols, so frequently met with, and so clearly designed to indicate the presence of the Deity, “are, in their origin, drawings of the solar Corona, as seen at the Sun-spot minimum, and as such are the earliest eclipse representations which have been preserved to us.”
I give these ideas for what they are worth; they are very ingeniously worked out, and though the argument is not conclusive, yet I do think that there is enough in it to be worth attention.
Footnotes:
[23] Less certain is the allusion in Amos v. 8:—“Seek him that ... maketh the day dark with night.”
[24] Annales, A.M., 3213, p. 45. Folio Ed.
[25] Minor Prophets, p. 217.
[26] Athenæum, May 18, 1867.