Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.
All Commentaries on Matthew 27:45 Go To Matthew 27
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole earth unto the ninth hour. From mid-day, i.e, till3 P.M, which is usually the brightest part of the day. This darkness was supernatural; as though the sun and the whole heavens were veiled in black, as bewailing the ignominious death of Christ their Lord. So S. Jerome and S. Cyprian (de Bono Patient.); and S. Chrysostom (in Catena), "The creature could not bear the wrong done to its Creator, and the sun withdrew his rays, that he might not see the evil doing of the wicked."
Again, it took place at full moon. It lasted much longer than an ordinary eclipse; it was total, the light of the moon as well as of the sun being withdrawn, the stars being seen, and so on.
Over the whole earth. Of Juda, say Origen and Maldonatus. Others, more correctly (as S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others), over the whole world. Dionysius, the Areopagite, is said to have exclaimed at the time, "Either the God of Nature (or, as otherwise quoted, "an Unknown God") is steering, or the fabric of the world is being dissolved." He was afterwards converted by S. Paul"s preaching Christ at Athens as the Unknown God. "This, then, was a token of Christ"s Godhead; for when the sun, the eye of the world, was obscured and dying out, it signified that Christ, its God and Lord, the Sun of Righteousness, was dying on the Cross, and that sun and moon and all the elements were bewailing Him in His agony.
Symbolically: This darkness signified the blinding of the Jews. So S. Chrysostom (de Cruce), Darkness is to this very day upon them; but with us night is turned into day. For it is the property of godliness to shine in the darkness; but ungodliness, though in the light, is in darkness still. Night is for believers turned into day, but for unbelievers their very light is darkness. It is said of believers, "Their darkness is no darkness, and their night shall be clear as the day" ( Psalm 139:11); but for unbelievers even the day is turned into night, for "they shall grope for the wall as the blind" (Isa. lx10), "they will walk in mid-day as in the night" ( Job 5:14).
