The Theology of the Darkness From the Sixth Hour Until the Ninth Hour (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

The Theology of the Darkness From the Sixth Hour Until the Ninth Hour

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Homily Delivered on Great Friday in the Church of Saint Paraskevi in Nafpaktos in 2019)

The Passion, the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ are events that create great inspiration in those who study and read them. They are events that are not only connected to the life of Christ, but also to our own lives.

The Events of the Crucifixion

When one reads the holy and sacred Gospels, then one sees the Passion of Christ as a whole. On the evening of Great Thursday, Christ was arrested by the Scribes and the Pharisees and throughout the night of Great Thursday, He was brought by Annas to Caiaphas and interrogated, followed by the beatings that Christ suffered, the fall of the Apostle Peter with the denial of Christ and many others. On the morning of Great Friday the Great Council of the Jews met, because according to the law they were not supposed to meet during the night. They decided to put Christ to death and led him to Pilate to issue the decision. The relevant interrogation was carried out by Pilate and at about nine o'clock on the morning of Great Friday the condemnatory decision was issued that Christ should be put to death by the Cross.

The Evangelist Mark writes: “It was the third hour and they crucified him” (Mark 15:25), meaning that this happened at nine o’clock in the morning, when the decision was made and the process of the crucifixion and passion of Christ began. From that hour until twelve o’clock in the afternoon, all the events described by the Holy Evangelists took place. Immediately afterwards, as we heard earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, “from the sixth hour until the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45), that is, from twelve o’clock in the afternoon until three o’clock in the afternoon, there was complete darkness over the whole land, the sun was darkened.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the ninth hour, as they called it then, Christ gave up His spirit and immediately there was a great earthquake, the veil of the temple was torn in two, the tombs were opened and many who had fallen asleep came out of them and appeared in the city after His resurrection. Then the soul of Christ, together with His Divinity, descended into Hades to conquer death and His Body remained in the Tomb together with the Divinity. Until the morning of the Resurrection there was silence, the observance of the Sabbath. Today I would like to limit my discourse mainly to this darkness which occurred at twelve o'clock in the afternoon and lasted until three in the afternoon, as the Evangelist says: "From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour" (Matt. 27:45). The other two Evangelists say the same thing, and the Evangelist Luke in particular writes "of the sun being eclipsed" (Luke 23:44). We must look a little at the theology of this darkness of the sixth hour, that is, the darkness of the twelfth hour, as we characterize it today.

What Was This Darkness?

As we have seen, this darkness lasted three hours, from twelve o'clock in the afternoon until three o'clock in the afternoon when Christ gave up His spirit to His Father. This darkness lasted three hours. What was this darkness that occurred before the Lord gave up His spirit to His Father? What is evident from the writings of the Holy Fathers is that it was not a darkness that was the result of an eclipse of the sun due to the intervention of the moon, but it was a supernatural event. The sacred Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid, of the eleventh century AD, explains: “The darkness that occurred was not according to a natural sequence, which naturally occurs from the eclipse of the sun.” In other words, it was not a natural phenomenon, as happens with a solar eclipse, because there was absolute darkness. And as he explains later, on that day when the Passover of the Jews took place, the moon was fourteen days old and this natural phenomenon could not have occurred.

Continuing, he says: “So the passion was supernatural,” that is, the darkness of the sun was a supernatural phenomenon, not natural. And he continues that it was not a partial event, an event that happened in Jerusalem, in Palestine, but “a cosmic event,” it was an event that happened in the entire world. There was darkness over the whole earth that lasted three hours. We have a testimony that comes from Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who was then a Gentile and a member of the Areopagite Council in Athens, and that day he was in Egypt. In a letter that he later sends to Saint Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, he refers to this event. He writes of someone named Apollophanes:

“Say to him, however, 'What do you affirm concerning the eclipse, which took place at the time of the saving Cross?' For both of us at that time, at Heliopolis, being present, and standing together, saw the moon approaching the sun, to our surprise (for it was not the appointed time for conjunction); and again, from the ninth hour to the evening, supernaturally placed back again into a line opposite the sun. And remind him also of something further. For he knows that we saw, to our surprise, the contact itself beginning from the east, and going towards the edge of the sun's disc, then receding back, and again, both the contact and the re-clearing, not taking place from the same point, but from that diametrically opposite. So great are the supernatural things of that appointed time, and possible by Christ alone, the Cause of all, Who works great things and marvelous, of which there is no number.”

In the biography of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite it is written that, when he saw this darkness at the hour when he was in Egypt at noon on Great Friday, he said: “Either God suffers or all is perishing.” That is why when Saint Dionysius the Areopagite later heard the Apostle Paul in Athens speak on the Areopagus about the Death and Resurrection of Christ, he and his family immediately believed and he is that great theologian who later left us the writings in which he speaks about the darkness and the light, about this entire experience of theosis. I repeat that all of this comes from the miracle that Saint Dionysius saw, the miracle and theology of the darkness of the sixth hour of that day, that is, at twelve o'clock at noon on Holy and Great Friday.

Why Did It Become Dark At That Time?

The question, however, is: Why did this darkness occur when Christ was on the Cross, before He gave up His spirit? Why did God allow darkness to fall on the whole earth at that time? The interpretation is again given by the sacred Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid. He says that this happened for four reasons.

First, “so that it may be shown that creation mourns over the suffering of the Creator.” That is, creation also had to mourn for this terrible Passion of the Creator and Maker of the world. And we heard this in many of the hymns that we chanted today.

Second, to show that “the light has departed from the Jews.” That is, the Prophets foretold and prophesied that Yahweh would become man, as we heard earlier what the Prophet Isaiah, who lived eight hundred years before Christ, said about the Passion of Christ. And yet the Jewish people, who read these prophecies that Yahweh would come to take on flesh to save the human race, condemned Him to death. The descendants of those Prophets were unable to understand this fact, that Christ had come, so the light of God was removed from the Jews and went to the nations.

Third, this darkness came about because at that time, as we read in the Gospels, when Christ was speaking, they asked Him for a sign from heaven, if He were the Son of God. They said to Him: “We hear what you say, show us a sign.” And He reminded them of the sign of the Prophet Jonah, who was three days and nights in the belly of the big fish. And the sacred Theophylact says that this sign that they were then asking from heaven was given at the hour of the Crucifixion, when the sun was darkened and therefore “the Jews who were asking for a sign from heaven, now saw the sun darkened.”

The fourth reason for which this darkness occurred is that on the sixth day of creation God created man, Adam and Eve, and in the sixth hour of the sixth day Adam ate the forbidden fruit and turned away from the true light and fell into profound darkness. That is, the darkness of his nous came and he lost communion with God and then, when he left Paradise, he began to worship idols, being in darkness. And now the Son and Word of God came who took on flesh and became man, took on human nature, and then on the sixth day of the week, Friday, and at the sixth hour at noon of that day, as they counted then, that is, at twelve noon, he was crucified in order to regenerate man.

And just as the whole world was created out of darkness, out of the abyss, since as the Old Testament says, in the beginning there was darkness over the whole earth, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the abyss, so now it becomes darkness and the regeneration of man follows. Ultimately, darkness has a mystery within it, just as night has a mystery and we await the dawn of another day, we await the light to come again. So too, man, in these dark hours when he endures, will gain communion with God and become luminous through Grace. Can we think a little about this fact? At such a time there should be a lot of sun, because it is noon and immediately everything goes dark, as if it were twelve o'clock at midnight and we could not see anything, especially when we do not have electricity.

We know that at Golgotha, before it became dark, one of the thieves told Christ to come down from the Cross, so that they would believe that He was the Son of God. Christ did not come down from the Cross. Saint John Chrysostom says: "For this (i.e. darkness) is more miraculous than to come down from the Cross." That is, the darkness at that hour was more wondrous than Christ descending from the Cross to show His Divinity. Thus, what the thief asked for was done, but in a different way. And we ask God to reveal Himself to us in the way we want, and God reveals His power and His presence to us in another different way. Because we are short-sighted and cannot see those things that exist in reality. This is the theology of the darkness of the sixth hour, that is, the twelfth hour of noon of Holy and Great Friday.

The Darkness In Our Lives

However, this fact has a very great meaning in our lives. Because we, as Christians, follow the life of Christ. We listen to Christ teaching us and because we want to live according to what Christ teaches, many times we also accept the cross, we are crucified in the name of Christ and for Christ. Many times we are crucified by our passions and the darkness of despair follows. Other times we are crucified by people. People do not understand us, they slander us and curse us. They do not understand the life we live, what it means to be an Orthodox Christian. And so many of us experience all these Passions that Christ suffered in various ways in our lives.

We experience the process of the course of all the Passions of Christ, with a more moderate adaptation, even of the interrogations by the Scribes and Pharisees of our time, we also experience the interrogation many times by the political authorities, as Pilate was at that time. We experience the persecution, the crucifixion, the flogging, the mocking, the beatings and the sufferings. And of course we also accept the cross. These are all normal events in the Christian life. And when many times we are on the cross, like Christ at the twelfth hour of noon, then a darkness comes, our mind darkens, we reach a point where we have various thoughts, and a despair takes over our soul, a darkness not intellectual, but of the soul, heart darkness, we are darkened by hopelessness, by despair, we do not know what to do, when we find ourselves in temptations and difficulties. Sometimes God allows this to happen in the course of our spiritual life, it is what the saints call the cessation of divine Grace or the abandonment of God, which the ascetic Fathers of our Church speak of.

One begins his spiritual struggle, reads Christian books, lives a Christian life, and at some point not only does he see people as being against him, but at the same time he does not even feel the presence of God. And what happens is approximately what Christ said: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Of course, the Father did not abandon His Son, human nature was never abandoned by the divine nature, Christ was always united with His Father, but He said this because, as Saint Gregory the Theologian says, “it typifies us,” that is, it essentially typifies what we were living in our lives when we departed from God. And then someone cries out and says: “Everyone has abandoned me." The Prophet David says, "My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord has taken me up” (Ps. 26:10). But there come moments when we do not even see the presence of God and we say: “Where are you, God? If you exist, help me. Why have you disappeared, why have you fled from me, why have you abandoned me in the darkness of hopelessness and despair?" We live this theology and the mystery of the darkness of the sixth hour. But, brethren, we must not be disappointed in those hours, because other events will follow in our lives.

The darkness lasted for three hours, during the Crucifixion of Christ. Then at three o'clock in the afternoon, Christ gave up His spirit. There was an earthquake, great events followed, and then silence, and then the light of the Resurrection shone. This process also happens to us, the disciples of Christ. So when we pass through this mystery of the darkness of the twelfth hour, then our rebirth is carried out internally and secretly. This darkness of the contraction of divine Grace hides a great mystery, then our resurrection is conceived.

Therefore, brethren, do not despair. Whatever events may come into your life, whatever difficulties, whatever persecutions, whatever blows, whatever setbacks, whatever persecutions may come, and even when hopelessness and despair have come, do not be afraid. This state is the theology of the mystery of darkness, and the theology of the mystery of light will follow. For out of this darkness, when we are patient and pray in those difficult hours, the Risen Christ will rise in our hearts and we will be filled with hope and eternal life. This is the mystery of the darkness of the twelfth hour which, with the Grace of God and our prayer, can be transformed into a mystery of hope and resurrected life. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.