It seems there was [such a day], first, when he who is described in 1 Chronicles, chapter 4, verse 22, “made the Sun stand still.” For, as the author of the traditions on that book says: “The Hebrews hand down that this [man] was Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, the father of Mahlon and Chelion; in his time the Sun stood still, on account of the transgressors of the Law, so that, this great miracle being seen, they might be converted to the Lord their God.” Since, therefore, the Sun then had to stand still not for cutting down the bodies of enemies, but for moving, by the magnitude of the miracle, the minds of the unfaithful, and joining them to God, it seems probable it stood still longer than now [in Joshua’s time]. Secondly: in the time of King Hezekiah (Isaiah, chapter 38, verse 8): “The Sun returned by ten lines, through the degrees by which it had descended”; and afterward it descended the same [degrees] again, so that the same space of ten lines was traversed by the Sun three times on the same day — first, by keeping its wonted course; secondly, by returning through a miracle; thirdly, by descending again. But ten lines are ten hours. Therefore that [day] was of thirty hours — that [span] tripled through the ten
lines of the Sun’s passage; to which, if the two other [hours] remaining of that day be added, the light was of 32 hours, and the whole νυχθήμερον [day-and-night] of 44 hours. Thirdly. There is (says St. Augustine, book 21 of the City of God, chapter 8) in the books of Marcus Varro, whose title is On the Race of the Roman People, [a passage] which, in the same words in which it is read there, I will here set down: “In the heaven a wondrous portent arose. For in the star of Venus — most noble, which Plautus calls Vesperugo, Homer Hesperos, calling it most beautiful — Castor writes that so great a portent arose, that it changed its color, magnitude, figure, [and] course: which thing happened so [as] neither before nor afterward. Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Naples, noble Mathematicians, said this happened in the reign of King Ogyges.” Varro, so great an author, would not call this a “portent” unless it seemed to be against nature. I add: and unless Venus so changed its course that it greatly prolonged either the night or the day. For, Venus changing its course, the Sun too must have changed [its course], as will be said below. Fourthly. In the Lives of the Fathers (book 1, chapter 16; and thereafter book 1, Example 12, example 11), it is narrated of Blessed Mutius the hermit, how he made the Sun stand still, until he should come to the village where the sick man whom he had resolved to visit lay. Was not that day longer than this one? Fifthly. Turpin, in the Life of Charlemagne (chapter 28): “While he,” he says, “was running thither after them with his whole army, the Sun stood immovable, and that day was prolonged by the space of, as it were, three days.” Sixthly. The Heathen write that the night of Hercules’s conceiving was a “three-night.” In the other hemisphere, therefore, one day was long, after the manner of three days, the light remaining for 36 hours. For hence [comes] that [passage] of Sosia in Plautus’s Amphitryon, gazing at the heaven:
So. Certainly, by Pollux, I know — if there is anything I may believe, I will hold it for certain — I believe that on this night Nocturnus has slept off his drunkenness. For neither do the Septentriones [the Wain] move anywhere in the heaven, nor does the Moon change anywhere, but, as it once rose, [so it stays]; nor do Orion’s-belt, nor the Evening-star, nor the Pleiades set. Thus the constellations stand fixed, nor does the night anywhere give way to the day.
And a little after:
So. Nor do I think I have seen [a night] longer than this one — except that one which, having been beaten, I hung through [in punishment]. But this one, by Pollux, has surpassed even that by far in length. I believe, by Pollux, that the Sun is asleep — and well soaked [with drink]; it is a wonder if he did not treat himself to a little [too] much at dinner.
But in very truth all these [instances] are no obstacle: so great a day, after that Joshuan one, was never, in that climate or a like one, either seen or heard of. And therefore I answer:
To the first: nothing is had there, in the Hebrew and Greek text, about anyone who “made the Sun stand still.” But there is only named, in [the Hebrew], a certain “Iokim,” and in the Greek “Ἰωακίμ” [Joachim], so that this [matter] about the Sun seems to have been brought into the text by certain [interpreters], because, since the root of that name signifies “to rise” and “to stand”…
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…some began to inquire why it [the name] had [its] name from “standing,” and the Rabbis of the Jews referred it to the Sun — being [as they are] bold to invent and say anything whatever. And when certain of the Christians had heard this, they noted it in the margin of their Bibles; and since our Translator had translated this proper name “who made [it] stand,” others added “the Sun.” For we see many similar proper names translated there — as, in the same verse, “men of lying,” and “of the secure,” and “burning,” for the [proper names] of the men Cozeba, and Joas, and Saraph; in the Greek, ἄνδρες χωζηβὰ καὶ Ἰωὰς καὶ σαραφ. Yet I find, in the Talmudic tractate Baba Bathra (chapter 5, folio 91b), that this very “Iokim” is not Elimelech, but Joshua; and that those others, Joam and Saraph, “the Secure” and “the Burning,” are Mahlon and Chelion, the sons of Elimelech — as I advise on Ruth (chapter 1, question 3). But be it so: granted the Sun truly stood still, commanded by Elimelech; it would be enough for [counting it] a miracle and a permission [granted] to the saints, if the unbelievers had seen it standing three or four hours. Whoever desires other [things] about this, let him unroll our [comment on] Barradas (book 5 on the Gospel, chapter 8).
To the second [Hezekiah’s sundial]. Various are the difficulties about the solar regression in Hezekiah, which I tried to explain, on that chapter 38 of Isaiah, in more than 30 little questions. But now I say briefly. First, that some deny the Sun went back, but think that only its shadow went back — as the Rabbi Abarbanel; of ours, Arias Montano (on Isaiah), and Burgensis (in the additions, on 4 Kings, chapter 20); but I disapproved of these there (question 20). I say, secondly, that to others the Sun seems to have gone back, but by the name of “single lines” they understand not single hours, but either half-hours, as Cornelius Bertramus (chapter 3 of the Lucubrations of the Frankenthal [scholars]), or quarter-hours, as others, as I noted on the same place of Isaiah (question 22). I say, thirdly, that to others it is pleasing [to hold] that single hours are single lines — but that the Sun went back through them suddenly, and in one, so to speak, moment of time. And so once said Eustathius of Antioch (in Glycas), and the Author On the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (chapter 28). I say, fourthly: if single lines denoted single hours, and through them the Sun went back, and again advanced step by step, [then] 12 — or otherwise 26 — hours were added to the customary hours of that day; and so the light was of 32 hours, but the whole νυχθήμερον of 44, as is objected. But there is then a threefold response. The first is, that “day” is here taken [as] “complete,” for the whole space of light and darkness, which contains 24 hours; and so the Joshuan light would have been of 36 hours, and therefore greater than the Hezekian, and the whole nychthemeron of 48 hours, and therefore also greater than the Hezekian — to omit, meanwhile, what Lyranus disputes here, and on Isaiah, and on 4 Kings, concerning the reckoning of equal and unequal hours; especially since I judge that neither the Joshuan standstill of the Sun nor the Hezekian going-back of the Sun happened at the [time] which that same Lyranus posits. The second is, that the Hezekian day was indeed simply longer than the Joshuan, but here it is only denied [to be] longer in the slaughter of enemies and a happy victory, as Masius said above (question 24). The third, and easier: that no day was longer than that one, up to the time at which someone inserted this clause into the Book of Joshua — concerning which [I treat] in the prolegomena.
To the third [the Venus portent]. St. Augustine himself responds, first (in the same book 21, chapter 6): “We are not bound to believe all that the history of the Gentiles contains, since the historians themselves, as Varro says, disagree among themselves on many things, as if on purpose and of set industry.” Secondly: Venus is said to have changed its course, not to have stood still, or to have prolonged the day. And perhaps it changed [it] in that manner which the Astrologers afterward noted, and for the sake of which they devised so many eccentrics and deferents.
To the fourth [Mutius the hermit]. It seems the Sun then stood still for a short time — perhaps one hour only, or another — as is understood from the reckoning of the journey, and the Sun’s setting [coming] contrary to expectation, and finally from the words of the story itself; which, since they are beautiful and fruitful, it pleases [me] to adduce here: “At a certain time, Mutius came from the desert to visit the brethren whom he himself had instructed. And when one of them was at the point [of death], it was revealed to him by the Lord that [the brother] was about to die. But the hour was now toward evening. He hastened, therefore, that he might [reach] him [in time]. But the village where the sick man lay was still far off by a [long] space. And, unwilling to enter the village by night, and at the same time meditating within himself the word of the Savior — by which He says, ‘Walk while you have the light in you,’ and ‘he who walks in the light does not stumble’ — when he saw the Sun now sinking, he said to it: ‘In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, stand still a little while in thy course, and wait for me until I come to the village.’ And when [the Sun] had now begun to sink a little, it stood still in part, nor did it set before the man of God reached the village. And this was made manifest to all those who were standing there. Standing and watching the delays of the Sun in setting, all marveled what this might mean — that for so many hours the Sun did not descend to its setting. But seeing father Mutius coming from the desert, they asked him what this sign was that the Sun showed. And he answered them: ‘Do you not remember the word of our Savior, saying: “If you have faith like a grain of mustard, you shall do greater signs than these”?’ And when they understood that by his faith the Sun itself had stood still, they were struck with great fear; and very many of them joined themselves to his discipleship, and began to follow him.”
To the fifth [Turpin]: almost more faith is to be given to Herodotus than to Turpin in history, as is shown more than once by the most Reverend and most Illustrious Baronius.
To the sixth [the Hercules fable]: let the impure fable [perish] from here — impure, [associated] with Joshua — which nevertheless I wished to touch as an argument, that I might in some manner imitate St. Augustine in the books On the City of God, when, from the feigned and incredible [things] which the wretched Gentiles believed, he invites them, and with them all, to believe the true and solid miracles of God. “If,” he says (book 21, chapter 6), “the demons were able to exalt the works of the magicians (whom our Scripture calls ‘sorcerers’ and ‘enchanters’) so far, that the noble poet [Virgil] seemed to agree with the senses of men when he says, of a certain woman who was strong in such art:
She promises by [her] chants to release the minds of whom she will, but to send harsh cares on others; to stay the water in the rivers, and to turn the stars backward; and she rouses the nocturnal ghosts: you shall see the earth bellow under [her] feet, and the mountain-ashes come down from the mountains —
how much more is God able to do [things] which to the unfaithful are incredible, but easy to His power?”
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And to believing this very standstill of Joshua, [Augustine] likewise afterward invites [us] (chapter 8).