CHAPTER V.
FOURTH DAY.
Section I.—The Sun.
Signs — Names — Nature — Motions — Form — Magnitude — Distance — Suspension — Idolatrous worship of the Sun — The Sun an Emblem of Christ.
On the fourth day, “God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.” The light which had hitherto been scattered and confused, was now collected and formed into several luminaries, and so rendered more glorious and of greater utility.
A sensible and pious author observes, that not only the two great lights, which were made after a special manner to rule the day and the night, but, in general, all the lights in the firmament of the heaven, are said to be for signs and for seasons; or, as some render the words, “for signs of the seasons.” And indeed this seems to be the meaning of the inspired writer. As for the manner of expression, “for signs and for seasons,” it is very common in the Hebrew, as well as in many other languages, and is a figurative way of speech, expressing those things disjunctively, which must by the understanding be joined together. First, these lights are said to be for signs, and then the things are mentioned which they are to signify, namely, the seasons, the days, and the years: whereas, if we understand the word signs in an indefinite sense, and not confined to what follows, we are through the whole text left in great uncertainty; seeing that there are signs appointed in the heaven for some purpose or other, but not knowing for what. Besides, if we must take all the parts of the text disjunctively, then “the lights in the firmament” must be taken for seasons, and for days, and for years, as well as for signs. But we know, that the celestial bodies are not themselves seasons, and days, and years, but only signs of them, by such particular motions and aspects, as God, according to the laws of nature, has ordained them. Neither can I see reason to believe, that every motion or position of the heavenly bodies has a special signification in it: though serving in general to display the wisdom and power of God, in their regular courses. The sun, indeed, which is called the greater light, is said to rule the day, as it is by the appearance of his light, increasing and decreasing, that we measure the length of the day; and the moon likewise to rule the night, partly on the like account. Thus likewise the sun’s course (if we may so call it) is a determining sign of the beginning and ending of the year, and of its various seasons. And in general, the sun, the moon, and the other lights, are necessary signs of the seasons of sowing, reaping, planting, and are useful in navigation, as well as other arts.
Costard, in his History of Astronomy, makes some critical remarks on the name of this greater light. He says, The sun is, by the Greeks, called Ἡλιος: which is nothing more than the Hebrew word אל El, modelled after the Greek manner of pronunciation, and signifies Lord; the first idolatrous worship being paid to this planet. In the Hebrew language it is called שמש Shemesh, and in the Chaldee שמשא Shimsha, from שמש Shamesh, to minister, on account of its administering light and heat to this world. From this property of communicating heat, it is also called המה Hammah. By the Phœnician idolaters it seems to have been called בעל Baal, or בעל שמים Baal-Shamim, the Lord of Heaven. And on account of the supposed swiftness of its diurnal motion from east to west, it had a chariot dedicated to it at Sidon, an ancient town of Phœnicia. Such a chariot is still seen on the coins of that place. This superstition was likewise imitated by the idolatrous Jews: for we read of the horses which the kings of Judah had given, or dedicated, to the sun. By the Chaldeans it seems to have been called בל Bel, and by the Assyrians פל Pul; and, with the addition, sometimes of אב ab, or אף ap, i.e. father, אף-פל Ap-Pul, or Father-Lord; from whence the Greeks formed their Απολλων, another name given by them to the sun. The name of this luminary, among the Romans, was sol; given more probably, on account of his scorching heat in the summer, or from his determining the length of the year by his course, than because he appeared solus, alone, according to the derivation given by Macrobius.
The nature of the sun is a subject which has not only excited the most diligent inquiry among men of scientific knowledge, but the opinions concerning it have passed through a variety of vicissitudes. The sun being evidently the source of light and heat, was by the ancients considered to be a globe of fire. But Dr. Herschell’s discoveries, by means of his immensely large telescopes, tend to prove, that what we call the sun is only the atmosphere of that luminary: “that this atmosphere consists of various elastic fluids, which are more or less transparent; that as the clouds surrounding our earth are probably decompositions of some of the elastic fluids belonging to the atmosphere itself, so we may suppose that in the vast atmosphere of the sun similar decompositions may take place, but with this difference, that the decompositions of the elastic fluids of the sun are of a phosphoric nature, and are attended by lucid appearances, by giving out light.” The body of the sun this celebrated astronomer considers as hidden generally from us, by means of this luminous atmosphere; that what are called maculæ, or spots on the sun, are real openings in this atmosphere, through which the opaque body of the sun becomes visible; that this atmosphere itself is not fiery nor hot, but is the instrument which God designed to act on the caloric or latent heat; and that heat is only produced by the solar light acting on and combining with the caloric or matter of fire contained in the air, and other substances which are heated by it.
This indefatigable investigator of the heavenly phenomena shows, by many substantial proofs, drawn from natural philosophy, that heat is produced by the sun’s rays only when they act on a calorific medium; and that they cause the production of heat by uniting with the matter of fire which is contained in the substances that are heated,—as the collision of flint and steel will inflame a magazine of gunpowder, by uniting with its latent fire, and bring the whole into action. This point is capable of a very clear elucidation. “On the tops of mountains, and at heights to which the clouds seldom reach to shelter them from the direct rays of the sun, we always find regions of ice and snow. Now if the sun’s rays themselves conveyed all the heat we find on the earth, it would of course be hottest in situations similar to the tops of mountains, where their course is least interrupted. But all those who have ascended in balloons confirm the coldness of the upper regions of the atmosphere; and, therefore, since even on the earth the heat of the situation depends on the facility with which the medium yields to the impression of the sun’s rays, we have only to admit, that, on the sun itself, the fluids composing its atmosphere, and the matter on its surface, are of such a nature as not to be capable of any excessive heat from its own rays. It is also a well known fact, that the focus of the largest burning lens thrown into the air, will occasion no heat in the place where it has been kept for a considerable time, although its powers of exciting heat, when proper bodies are exposed to it, should be sufficient to melt or fuse the most refractory metals.” That the sun is a luminous, and not an igneous body, has met with the general consent of modern philosophers; an opinion to which every new discovery in philosophy gives additional support.
The telescope, said to have been invented by the children of a spectacle-maker at Middleburgh, in the year 1590, but first brought to such a degree of perfection by Galileo as to make any considerable discoveries in the celestial regions, has led to the most important results in the science of astronomy. Among which are the spots in the sun’s disk, by whose motion from west to east the sun is perceived to revolve upon his own axis in 25 days, 14 hours, 8 minutes. This revolution of the sun round his own axis is probably not the only motion which this luminary experiences. There is great reason to believe that he has another motion, either rectilinear, or round some indefinitely remote centre of attraction. In this last course, he carries along with him, through space, the entire system of planets, satellites, and comets; in the same manner in which each planet draws his satellites along with him in his motion round the sun. He communicates light and heat to at least twenty opaque bodies, which revolve round him, at different distances, in ellipses that differ but little from circles.