TALLUS (Thallus, Θάλλος, but in Jacoby, Fragm. d. gr. Historiker, “Αλλος”). — Historian, a native of Samaria, freedman of Tiberius, author of a Greek *Chronography* in three books, narrating events from King Belus of Assyria to the beginning of the imperial era. In a passage from Book III of his history, cited by Julius Africanus (PG 17, 309), he refers to the darkening of the sun at the death of Jesus as an eclipse. Africanus expresses himself thus: “This darkness, T., in the third book of his *Histories* interprets as an eclipse of the sun, unreasonably in my opinion.” If it is accepted that T. wrote in Rome around A.D. 50, this text acquires considerable importance, since it reveals that by that date “in Rome, in circles close to the imperial court, people spoke of Christ and wrote polemics against Christians, based on accounts of the Passion” (Tondelli).
The impossibility of an eclipse occurring on a day of full moon, such as the Jewish Passover, provided anti-Christian polemicists, especially Celsus, with an argument against Christianity. But Origen, St. Jerome, and St. John Chrysostom easily countered that it was not an eclipse but an extraordinary and supernatural darkening (ἐκστόλων 6 ἦλους: Lk. 22:45) which, together with other phenomena, followed the death of the Redeemer.
As for the eclipse which, according to Phlegon of Tralles, a freedman of the time of Hadrian (author of a *Chronicle* in 16 books divided by Olympiads), is said to have occurred in the third year of the 202nd Olympiad, i.e., in A.D. 32, this does not refer to the episode following the death of Jesus. Indeed, neither St. Justin, nor Tatian, nor Arnobius, nor Lactantius, nor St. Jerome (except insofar as he translates Eusebius’ *Chronicle*) mention Phlegon’s *Chronicle*.