The darkening of the third of the luminaries of the Greco-Latin Catholic firmament by smiting them; so that the Day and the Night of their system were without ruling lights, and therefore, shone not for a third of them.

A.D. 476

"And the fourth angel sounded, and the third of the sun, and the third of the moon, and the third of the stars, was smitten; so that the third of them was darkened, and the day shone not the third of it, and the night likewise."
 
 

Apoc. viii. 12

1. Symbols Explained

"For the understanding of the prophesies," says Sir Isaac Newton truly, "we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the figurative language of the prophets; which is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic."

The sun, moon, and stars are therefore prophetic symbols taken from the natural world. "The Lord God is a Sun, and Shield" (Psal. lxxxiv. 11). He is the universe’s Ruler and Lightgiver, and Protector. This is the signification of sun, as a symbol, in its largest sense. But, in Jer. xv. 9, it is used restrictedly in the testimony of the Spirit against Jerusalem; as "Her sun is gone down while it is yet day." In this instance the sun symbolized the sovereign power and glory of the commonwealth, of which Jerusalem was the capital. It went down when the state was destroyed by the Chaldeans. But it shone forth again; and again went down, when the kingdom was taken away from the Pharisees -- when "the sun was darkened, the moon gave no light, and the stars fell from the Heaven;" and were thenceforth suppressed superlatively "until He come whose right it is," even "the sun and shield." Then, the Spirit saith to Jerusalem, "the sun shall no more be thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but Yahweh shall be unto thee an everlasting light," or sun; "and thine Elohim thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for Yahweh shall be to thee for the Light," or sun, "of the Olahm;" and which is explained to signify, that "the days of Zion’s mourning shall be ended" -- she should no more lose her sovereignty, and mourn the withdrawal of her ecclesiastical institutions and privileges.

Again, when the Spirit revealed his purpose to subvert the Egyptian monarchy by the Chaldean power, he said to the King of Egypt, whom he likened to a dragon, in the seas, in Ezek. xxxii. 6-8, "I will water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest; and when I shall extinguish thee, 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. All the bright lights of heaven, will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith Adonai Yahweh." The Chaldean power under Nebuchadnezzar was the "cloud" that covered the sun of Egypt, and made the stars of its heaven dark, and its moon eclipsed; and the Pharaoh-Dragon thenceforth swam no more in Egypt.

After the same manner the prophets spoke when they predicted the overthrow of the kingdoms of Babylon and Idumea. In foretelling the subversion of the former power by the Medes and Persians, Isaiah says in symbolizing ch. xiii. 9, "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine" (ver. 10); which in verse 11, is interpreted to signify the punishing of the Chaldean world for evil, "and the wicked for their iniquity."

The threatening against the Idumean sovereignty is in the highly symbolic style of the sixth seal. "All the host of heaven," says the Spirit in Isai. xxxiv. 4, "shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven;" then follows the exposition: "Behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse to judgment."

Thus, we see, that the moral universe, the Israelitish, the Egyptian, the Chaldean, and the Idumean, kingdoms and empires, have all their suns, moons, stars, and constellations, as well as the natural world or system of things. The supreme civil and military authority of a state is the sun which sheds forth all the light, power and glory of the polity. The moon, stars and constellations are the ecclesiastical and aristocratic orders, which reflect its beams upon the earth or subjects of the state. They rule the day and the night of their own polity, which, without their shining, has no distinction of day or night. Like the natural world luminaries, they are affected by eclipses, darkening, and so forth, which become causes intercepting or suspending their regular and peaceful influences upon the peoples.

Daniel’s fourth beast system of powers has its sun, moon, and stars, as well as the polities by which it was preceded. Under its pagan constitution, the authority and power vested in the imperial and senatorial orders were the sun of the Roman orb; its moon, the priestly orders of the state; and subject kings, nobles, and magistrates, its stars and constellations. When the pagan constitution that hindered was taken out of the way, the aerial, or political expanse, transmitted the rays of the same lights, only that they emitted influences less intensely heathen than before. The sun, moon and stars which continued to shine had become "catholic." They radiated the malign influences of the Laodicean Apostasy, and were essentially, though not professedly and in detail, as devilish as of old.

In the earlier years of Constantine’s reign, the Roman Sun was the one solar investment of three emperors -- Constantine, Licinius, and Maximin. So also, when "the silence in the heaven about half an hour" had ended, his three sons were clothed with the sun. In these instances, each emperor’s jurisdiction was representative of "the third of the sun;" and the ecclesiastical orders in each imperial jurisdiction, of "the third of the moon;" and the nobles and magistrates also in each, "the third of the stars". If one of these emperors made war upon another of them, and defeated him, and incorporated the dominion of the vanquished in his own jurisdiction, then "the third of the sun and the third of the moon, and the third of the stars," would be "darkened" by smiting; and there would be no political "day" nor "night" peculiar to that smitten third.

Now, in the days of the third trumpet, the sun of the Roman Heaven clothed the emperors of the eastern and western thirds, to say nothing of the Illyrian. The smiting of one of these thirds to obliteration from the political map, would be the darkening of that third in its imperial, ecclesiastical, and aristocratic relations to the subject peoples of its eclipsed jurisdiction. The unsmitten third would be "the third of the men," which so long as it continued a distinct and independent power, would be regarded as living, or not "killed" (Apoc. ix. 18).

When there are no heavenly bodies visible to a spectator supposed to be standing upon the earth, the alternations styled day and night, do not exist. To blot out the sun, moon, and stars of the natural universe, would be to extinguish day and night, and to establish "darkness upon the face of the deep." The effect would be analogous in the political universe. For, as in the case of Egypt, when Pharaoh’s dominion was abolished, to make all the bright lights of heaven dark, would be to set darkness upon the land. But, as in the instance of the Greco-Latin Catholic dominion, if only one third of its sun, moon, and stars be smitten into obscuration, the day and night of the whole polity would not be extinguished, but only a proportional third. The imperial catholic day and night would be restricted to the unsmitten thirds, where the bright lights of their heaven would still be observed to shine.