Darkness at Midday

It is written that during our Lord’s suffering there was darkness over the earth from the sixth hour until the ninth. You will find the prophet bearing witness to this too: “Your sun will go down at midday.” And again the prophet Zechariah: “On that day there will be no more light. There will be cold and frost on one day, and that day is known to the Lord; and it will be neither day nor night, but at evening time there will be light.” What plainer language could the prophet have used, so that his words seem less a prophecy of the future than an account of the past? He foretold both the cold and the frost. For Peter was warming himself at the fire because it was cold; and he was suffering cold not only because of the time of day, the early hour, but also in his faith. Then is added, “and that day will be known to the Lord; and it will be neither day nor night.” What is “neither day nor night”? Did he not plainly speak of the darkness that came in the middle of the day, and of the light that was afterward restored? It was not day, for it did not begin with sunrise. Nor was it fully night, for it did not come when the day was over, nor did it take its proper span from the beginning or stretch it to the end. But the light that had been driven away by the crime of wicked men is restored at evening time. For after the ninth hour the darkness is driven off, and the sun is given back to the world. Another prophet also bears witness to the same thing: “The light will be darkened upon the earth in the daytime.” [a]