Neither the silence regarding it of the only evangelist who claims to have been present, nor the fact that observers like Seneca and Pliny, who, though they carefully described much less striking occurrences of the same sort and in more remote regions, failed to note any such darkness even in Judea, have availed to shake faith in an account so true to the highest poetic instincts of humanity.
This view of the relations between Nature and man continued among both Jews and Christians.

According to Jewish tradition, darkness overspread the earth for three days when the books of the Law were profaned by translation into Greek.

Tertullian thought an eclipse an evidence of God's wrath against unbelievers.

Nor has this mode of thinking ceased in modern times.

A similar claim was made at the execution of Charles I; and Increase Mather thought an eclipse in Massachusetts an evidence of the grief of Nature at the death of President Chauncey, of Harvard College.