Оperis Мajoris (Roger Bacon)

5/26/2018 peris ajoris (Roger Bacon)

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ROGER BACON

OPERIS MAJORIS

PARS QUARTA

MATHEMATICAE IN DIVINIS UTILITAS

ROGER BACON

THE FOURTH PART OF THE OPUS MAIUS:

MATHEMATICS IN THE SERVICE OF THEOLOGY

Sections o inte!est to t"e "isto!# o $eo$!%&"ic%' t"o($"t

%n) c%!to$!%&"# !o* t"e t"i!teent"+cent(!# F!%ncisc%n sc"o'%! Ro$e! B%con,s Opus

Maius -c%. /0123

T!%ns'%tion Co!i$"t /441 5# He!5e!t M. Ho6e

E*e!it(s P!oesso! o C'%ssics7 Uni8e!sit# o 9isconsin+M%)ison

P%$e n(*5e!s in &%!ent"eses !ee! to t"e L%tin e)ition 5# Jo"n Hen!# B!i)$es7 e). The "Opus

Majus" of Roger Bacon. Lon)on: 9i''i%*s %n) No!$%te7 /4.

T"is t!%ns'%tion 6%s *%)e to %i) in 6!itin$ ;Ro$e! B%con on Geo$!%&"# %n) C%!to$!%&"#7; 5#D%8i) 9oo)6%!)%n) He!5e!t M. Ho6e inRoger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays,

e). Je!e*i%" H%c


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imerative, for seven imortant reasons. !irst of all, we must gain a factual"nowledge of the henomena of the heavens# nothing is as imortant as this totheology itself and to those who e$ound it. !or theology is, by %od&s will,manifest in the heavens, and surely no branch of human study is as aroriateto it as astronomy# indeed, throughout the scritures we are summoned away fromearthly matters and urged toward things in the heavens. If we are true'hristians, the ostle tells us, our attention is fi$ed on heavenly things wehoe to gain them, and we believe that in our bodies we will dwell in theheavens and remain there forever. It follows that no "nowledge is as imortantto us as that of the heavens, and that no merely human matter should be aseagerly longed for. nd if our great joy is the e$lanation of scriture, it issurely right to ma"e use of the roerties of lesser matters to e$lain suchthings as scriture roclaims, but which cannot be understood in any other way.'onversely, scriture has many (.181) u**ling assages about the heavens# itfollows that a theologian must be versed in astronomy. +ince, furthermore, thevery magnitude of such things forces us to reverence the greatness of theircreator, and since the ettiness of things here below cannot be comared withthe infinite vastness of things in the heavens, we must admit that such"nowledge is a sort of raise and reverence for our ma"er. hus vicenna in -oo" of his /etahysics assures us that hings lower than the circle of the moonare virtually infinitesimal in comarison to things above it, and (as everyoneversed in astronomy "nows) Ptolemy demonstrates in the lmagest that the wholewide earth with everything here below bears the same ratio to the heavens thatthe center of a circle does to the circumference. ven though a center has nomagnitude whatever, vicenna and Ptolemy agree in concluding that the earth,huge though it is, has this ratio when comared to the heavens. lfraganus toomaintains, in the beginning of his boo", that even the smallest of the starsvisible to our sight is bigger than the earth# but, comared to the heavens as awhole, the smallest star has no effective 2de 3ua sit vis4 magnitude at all.-oo" 8 of the lmagest, and lfraganus as well, ma"e it clear that there are si$magnitudes of the fi$ed stars# each star of the first magnitude is about 105times as big as the earth, while those of the si$th magnitude are only 18 timesits si*e. he sun is about 150 times as big as the whole earth, as Ptolemyroves (lmagest 6). In his view, in site of its unbelievable seed a star only

comletes its ath through the circle of the heavens after 7,000 years, so vastis the length of that ath9though one could wal" all the way round the earth inless than three years. +o we see that the magnitude of things below is simlyincommensurable with that of the heavenly bodies. :or can their effectiveness2utilitas4 be comared, since the effectiveness of things below is caused bythat of things above. he combined influence of the sun below the slantingcourse of the eclitic, and the asects of the lanets above, is the cause ofall that haens here below them on the earth.

If, then, we consider the study of the heavens from the oint of view oftheology, we see clearly the answers to many 3uestions raised by theologians intheir theories (sententiae) and commentaries on them. !or e$amle, are thecircles in contact with their neighbors or not;


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nd not only collections of theories and commentaries on them, but the sacredte$t itself and discussions of it by the saints, needs this sort of elucidation#for e$amle, the very first chater of %enesis resents all sorts ofastronomical roblems9witness not only the te$t itself, but its e$ositions of-asil, mbrose, and -ede in their boo"s entitled he +i$ ?ays. gain, there isthe assage in Aoshua 210.174 about the length of the day when the sun stoodstill, and, most imortant of all, how the sun went bac" ten degrees 2lineis# IIBings =0.1=4 at the command of the rohet Isaiah# between these two assagesthere seems to be a contradiction. ccording to Aerome, +olomon says in the boo"of cclesiastes 21.64 that every day the sun returns to its starting9lace inthe north# not a single scientist can ma"e head or tail of this, for everybody"nows that from the winter solstice to the summer the sun moves north roughly adegree a day, and the other way in the other half of the year. In cclesiasticus21.74 we find the 3uestion of the height of the firmament# this, and the3uestion in the same boo" of how the sun scorches the land at midday 2cc.C7.74, are astronomically insoluble. he remar"s of the blessed Aob about the>yades and Pleiades, about rcturus and @rion, and about the chambers of thesouth 2Aob .4, resent serious difficulty, esecially since the blessedAerome, commenting on Isaiah, maintains that @rion has == stars, of which thenine brightest are of the third magnitude, nine others of the fourth, and theother four of the fifth9and has no more to say. his can only be understood byreference to -oo" 8 of the lmagest, where si$ degrees of stellar magnitude aredistinguished, and the stars of each degree are listed. here is a racticallyendless number of oints in +criture and the commentaries of the saints on it,matters which affect the science of the heavens and the judgements of astronomy#(187) a theologian must, then, have a good "nowledge of the henomena in theheavens, not just because treatises and commentaries are concerned with such3uestions, but for the sa"e of the te$t itself

he second astronomical root of theology, and esecially of the sacred te$t,comes from its concern with the geograhy of the world, for the whole -ible isfull of geograhical assages, and nothing certain can be learned about the te$tunless we first study these assages. he whole course of +criture is governedby the regions, cities, deserts, mountains, seas, and other sorts of terrain.:obody can have certain "nowledge about these e$cet through the sciences I havementioned, because theirs 2the scholars4 is the tas" of distinguishing habitablelands from desert# of dividing the habitable land into its three great arts(uroe, frica, and sia)# and of further dividing these three into the sevenmajor climates 2climata, *ones, literally inclinations4 lus 2commenting on4a great many local eculiarities

:obody can confidently divide u these *ones into their rovinces, regions, andother divisions without the aid of this 2mathematical4 "nowledge. +o we findthat great and well9"nown cities li"e Aerusalem and -abylon, /eroD andle$andria, ntioch and hesus, thens, arsus, Eome, and any number of others,have been inointed 2notatae4 by astronomers 2astrologis4 in accordance with

their recise distances from each other and from 2fi$ed oints4 north and south,east and west. @nce such distances have been determined, we can identify andlocate other imortant regions whose names have come down to us, including theseas and deserts and mountains mentioned in >oly +criture. his is the greatvalue of these sciences to the student of the -ible# nothing, indeed, moreuseful than these to the student of hilosohy can be found. nd if one does notunderstand the hysical form of the world, history is at to became a stale andtasteless crust.

his is true artly because of its innumerable lace names, but even more sobecause of the manifold errors in subse3uent coies. If, then, one wants to gaina vivid icture of the laces 2of the world4 and their relations to each other9distance and location, latitude and longitude, height and deth# who wants to

understand their variations in heat and aridity, cold and dam, color, taste,and smell, beauty, ugliness, charm, fertility and barrenness9he finds his climbto siritual heights sorely hamered, and can only dimly understand what hereads. -ut if he can icture to himself what the laces named are li"e, and has


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learned their ositions, their distances 2from each other4, their distance u ordown, their longitude and latitude (not to mention how they differ in heat anddrought or cold and dam# in color, taste, and smell# in beauty, ugliness, andcharm# in the bounty or scantiness of their cros, and has become e$ert in alltheir other eculiarities9then the letter of history will fill him withleasure, and he can easily and confidently advance to a reali*ation of itssiritual sense.

:obody can doubt that material aths oint to journeys of the sirit, or that(18C) earthly cities hint at the goals of siritual roads to arallel siritualcities. !or location has the roerty of limiting motion from lace to laceand of setting a boundary to the region around. n understanding of geograhy,then, gives not only understanding of the words we read, as I have ointed out,but also reares the way to siritual understanding. ll this is amly rovenby the words, the deeds, and the writings of the saints. !irst of all, considerthat, as Aerome oints out in the rologue to II 'hronicles, he man who hasviewed Audaea with his own eyes, and who has committed to memory the doings ofcities of old and their names9original or later altered9will view >oly +criturefar more clearly, :e$t, reflect on the *eal of the saints who have toiled tosee and to travel about those laces, which is why, in the same rologue, Aerome

tells us I went to great ains to erform the tas", with the most learned ofthe Aews, of travelling over the whole rovince, whose raises are sung by thechurches of 'hrist throughout all the world. his is something he would nothave done for any other reason end than enlarging his "nowledge of +criture.hirdly, remember that Aerome wrote a great many boo"s about various arts ofthe world, in which he ma"es 3uite definite their distance, their location, andother facts about them. @rosius, too describes these regions to ugustine with awonderful eye to utility and a transarent concern for truth# Isidore, in manyassages, establishes more clearly, if I may say so, than anyone before him, thefacts about cities and whole regions# and 'assiodorus, does not fail to ointout their differences in climate. usebius of 'aesarea, as Aerome tells us inhis boo" @n Places, wrote in his own hand about the land of Audaea and the artsinherited by each tribe, and at the end added a ma 2icturam4 of Aerusalemitself and the temle in that city, with a short commentary. his he did inorder to collect for our benefit from the whole of +criture the names of almostall the cities, mountains, rivers, and villages of all sorts9names which arestill unchanged, those which have been comletely altered, and those which havebeen artly corruted. @rigen, called damantius, is said to have written aboutthe te$t roer of Aoshua, and a sort of commentary on chater 18 2=7. /igne,Patrologia Greca 1=. 78 ',?. (@rigen, tr. by Eufinus4. In this he sea"s of thegreat number of laces mentioned in the +critures, and among his raise ofthese laces he admonishes us in these words ?o not read all this with raisedeyebrows, or regard it as a trifling bit of +criture added out with a lot ofroer names. :o# you may be certain that in these names mysteries are concealedtoo great for human seech to e$ound or human ears to hear. :ow If ourreverend scholars, our holy teachers, have labored so in these matters, (186)and have declared what mysteries they contain, we can be sure that it isimerative for us to use every device we can to understand the >oly +critures.-ut the very reason for the e$istence of astrology and astronomy is theimarting of rational and certain information about the regions of the universe,and in this regard these sciences are most necessary.

nd this can be clearly shown by e$amles. If someone hears the stories whosescenes are the regions around the Eiver Aordan, Aericho and its lain, /ount@livet, the Falley of Aosahat, and Aerusalem, without a icture in his mind ofthe regions and what they are li"e, he simly cannot "now even the literalmeaning of the story, and, naturally, the se3uence of history will hold noleasure for him, and its siritual meaning will also remain hidden. -ut if he"nows their latitudes and longitudes, their heights and deths# their varied

eculiarities of hot and cold, dry and dam, and the effects of their mi$turesof these four (solid and tenuous, rough and smooth, dry and wet, sliery, andany number of others defined in ristotle&s /eteorology C), not to mention theircolors, tastes, smells, their beauty or ugliness, their charm, their sterility


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or fertility, their rogress to erfection or decay, and the 3ualities oositeto all these, which must be considered for each lace9if, I say, he "nows allthese, he will be able to gras and delight in the ure and literal sense of the+critures, and be able to advance with ride and confidence to their siritualmeaning.

-y studying a few characteristics of the laces I have just mentioned, we can

e$ound their rofound meanings in moral, allegorical, and anagogic terms.


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heart, the eace which follows erfection of the life of the sirit. o theungodly there is no eace, says the Gord. -ut the saints ossess the eace of%od, which transcends the senses of man"ind. !ree from all troubles, he willrest in the eace of the 'hurch /ilitant9the eace un"nown to the faithless andsinful, who drag on in the state of damnation, lagued by the ?evil and drivenfrom one sin to another, unished for one, then tormented for another. ven inthis life he must lay his art, as it is said, by sure and certain hoe and byrevelation, in that blessed vision of the eace of Aerusalem that is above,which by the grace of %od he will win after his death.

hese well9"nown sites between the Aordan and Aerusalem are not the only onesthat both throw light on history and ma"e clear its siritual meaning# anynumber of others between a li"e air of boundaries can be found in thescritures. Indeed, whoever wants to go more deely into the other 3ualities Ihave listed will be able to e$tract their divine content far better than I andin ways that cannot be comared, content which will becomes clearer and cleareras he studies. !or the moment, though, it is enough to hint at how much one candeduce from how little, what great things from what trifles, what light fromwhat dar"ness. -ut remember, the laces of the world can only be "nown throughastronomy, so first of all we must learn their longitudes and latitudes.

Gatitude is measured from the e3uator and longitude from the east# by them we"now under what star each lace lies, and how far it is from the ath of thesun. !or by observing these 2coordinates4, we reali*e by the information of oursenses that the things of this world are in a state of flu$, a statement truenot only of material subjects, but of morals as well.


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in matters human where disagreement is ossible 2in distinctione de sectis4. Ifin human affairs, esecially those of this sort, such an aroach is both validand useful, how much more so in the study of nature, in details as well as insubjects of larger sweeJ

@f course, when defending mathematical learning, and even earlier when comaringthe heavenly virtues with those on earth, (=85) I had to touch on our "nowledge

of the various arts of the world and the erishable things in it, discussingthem and comaring them with their arallels in the heavens. -ut now I mustconsider them more fully, as I ass on to the medicine of the human body9"nowledge which is more necessary to our race than anything else in this world.I must not only reveal how we find out how matters stand in distant arts of theearth, but how they are brought about in the same laces at different seasons ofthe year. veryone agrees that an effect can only be understood by "nowing itscause. -ut the causes of things here below are to be found in realms above, andwe can only learn about transitory 2generabilia4 matters by first studying theiruncreated causes 2ingenerabilia4 in the heavens. ristotle has roved thatheavenly forces are not only universal causes, but also the causes of individualand articular events of things below. In boo" = of de %eneratione et'orrutione 2=..77a691=4 he tells us that the material elements are less

imortant 2deterius agunt4 in the eyes of a craftsman than the tools andinstruments he uses in his wor". -ut we attribute the whole act of creationrimarily to the craftsman, not to his tools to the builder, not to his a$e. Itfollows, then, that the rime control of all lower things must be attributed tothe heavens, since the only active causes are the heavens themselves and theelements they use as tools. his is clear too by inductive reasoning no onedenies that the heavens are the cause of every inanimate thing, !or inanimatethings cannot generate anything, not even individuals of their own secies aroc" cannot roduce another roc", as a don"ey roduces a don"ey or a man a man.It is therefore evident that a ower of the heavens, embodied in the materialelements, roduces all things, those ossessed of soul and those without, insimilar ways by utrefaction# nothing else than heaven and the elements e$istscaable of laying a art in the generation of things. /oreover, in /etahysics5 verroDs tells us that the ower of the sun acts in the same way on utrefyingmatter as the ower of a man through his semen# we must therefore assume thatsomething in the heavens, acting on individual things, is the cause that ma"esthem advance from concetion to birth (coelum esse causam articularem us3ue adgenerationem rerum e$ roagatione). nd I can rove that the two cases areali"e in the de Plantis ristotle informs us that the sun is the father and theearth the mother of lants, and in the de %eneratione nimalium he imlies thatthe same is true of creatures with souls. s for humans, where this seems lessli"ely, he oints out in Physics = that the sun joins one human in generatinganother out of material. !or obviously a father does not continue the rocess ofdeveloment after emitting his seed, nor does he bring develoment to an end# heonly starts it. 'onse3uently, that which continues and comletes the rocess ofgeneration must be the sun, or some ower in the heavens. he heavens, moreover,cause (=88) not only normal reroduction, but natural errors and anomalies. svicenna tells us in de nimalibus 18, If an embryo is incaable of inheritinga comletely human form, it may ta"e on that of an animal, as haens withanomalies 2in rebus monstruosis4 where the son of a human has received the headof a ram, or a lamb a bull&s head. In every such case the generative owerwor"ing on the embryo has engendered the shae of something in the heavens. Ifwe carry such reasoning further, we will be better able to study the causes ofthings here below by investigating things in the heavens.

nd this is the first a$iom of our study every oint on the earth is the ae$of a yramid which transmits the ower of the heavens. o ma"e simler and morecertain the line of the reasoning I am roosing, we must turn our attention tothe diversity of the regions of the earth# how any region changes with the

assage of time# and how different things in the same region are subject todifferent influences at the same time. -ut we cannot understand all this withoutclear ictures of the si*e and shae of the habitable earth and its divisions or*ones 2climata4.


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o attain such definitions, we must assume that the world has a sherical form,something I have shown above.


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middle of the earth under the e3uinoctial circle u to the oint beneath thenorth ole 2of the heavens49is bounded by the lines from east and west 2on the3uator4, which meet at the ole, or rather at the oint on the earth directlyunder the ole of the heavens. his is the 3uarter of the earth we have beenloo"ing for, our familiar dwelling lace, which lies under the 3uarter of theheavens I have delimited above.

he habitability of the world must be considered in two ways, the first beinghow it is affected by the heavens9in how much of it the sun allows us to dwell,in how much it does not. I have already mentioned this roblem in general terms,and will have more to say later. +econdly, we must use a different aroach instudying how the sea affects the matter, and how far it hinders 2coloni*ation4#let us now ass on to studying this. Ptolemy, indeed, in his boo" de?isositione +haerae,suggests that, because of the water, only about a si$th ofthe earth can be inhabited# all the rest is covered by the sea. !or this reason,he assumes in lmagest = that we "now nothing of habitation anywhere but in the3uarter of the world where we live. Its longitude from east to west is half ofthe 3uator and its latitude is from 3uator to ole, a 3uarter of the colure.ristotle, however, suggest at the end of de 'aelo = 2=. 1C.16 =8a4 that morethan a 3uarter of it is inhabited, a statement confirmed by verroes. ristotle,

moreover, suggests that the sea between the west of +ain and the eastern edgeof India is of no great e$tent. In the NfifthO first boo" of Huestions about:ature, 2:H 1, r.174, +eneca informs us that this sea can be crossed in a fewdays if the wind is favorable. Gi"ewise Pliny, in his :atural >istory 2=.191504, tells us that (=1) eole have sailed all the way 2around frica4 fromthe rabian %ulf to 'adi*. >e goes on to tell us that somebody, running away interror from his sovereign, made his way to the gulf of the Eed +ea that theycall the rabian. his is about the same distance as the annual voyage fromthe Indian @cean, as Aerome tells us in a letter I will discuss later. :ow thelatitude of the region through which the Eed +ea asses is indeed very great# itis clear, then. how far the eastern boundary of India must be from us and from+ain, once we reali*e how far it is from the 2eastern4 boundary of rabia toIndia. !rom 2the west4 of +ain so little room is left for the sea the otherside of (sub) the world that it cannot ossibly cover three 3uarters of theglobe. 2In other words (1)


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+eneca, we must agree that the area of 2otherwise4 habitable land 2in ourhemishere4 that is covered by water must be 3uite small. :ear the oles of theearth it is natural that there should be an abundance of water, since thosearts of the world are cold, because (==) they are far from the sun, and coldmagnifies damness 2frigus multilicat humores4. his water, conse3uently, runsdown into the body of the ocean from one ole to the other 2a olo in olum#resumably to the north in winter, the south in summer4. his water, the @cean,e$tends from the west of +ain to the east of India, which is no great distance.he 2eastern4 boundary of India must, then. be far east of the half9way oint onthe e3uator on the other side of LsubM the earth# indeed, it must be 3uite nearthe western boundary of +ain.

-ut to avoid merely dismissing the correct answer to this 3uestion as false, wemust reali*e that +ain here does not mean only uroean +ain, but frican aswell 2>isania acciitur non ro citeriori sed ro ulteriori# under the Eomanmire the names were used for the eastern and western rovinces of the Iberianeninsula4, about which reliable authors tell us. +o we are told by Pliny in his:atural >istory 27.C4# /erlin in his rohecy, @rosius in his @rmesta /undi21.=.84, and Isidore in tymologica N1CO 217.16.=4. Pliny 27.C964 tells us 2ofthe tradition4 that at one time no water flowed between the regions now called

+ain and frica, but that in remote anti3uity the land was continuous. Gater,though, the @cean burst through into the low9lying land 2east of %ibraltar4. andjoined the yrrhenian +ea, which runs along the coasts of the rovinces ofragon and Italy. >ither +ain, then, ran from the Pyrenees all the way to'arthage, but !urther +ain ran 2from the modern Portugal4, across the +traitsof %ibraltar and as far 2east4 as the rovince of frica. 2o the southwest4 ite$tended to the tlas /ountains. I felt I had to 3uote the views of theseauthors, if only to rotect ristotle and his commentator from the jeers ofthose who say he "new nothing of !urther +ain, when, in his attemt to rovehow little sea lies between +ain and India, he ointed out 2de 'aelo =.1C =8b4that elehants are found only in these two regions. It is 3uite true that thereare lenty of elehants around the tlas /ountains, as Pliny 28.=4 tells us, andristotle sea"s in the same way of India 2imlying that there must be lenty ofelehants in !urther +ain4. -ut ristotle actually says that elehants cannote$ist in those laces unless 2the laces4 have a similar nature# if they aresearated so far, they cannot have a similar nature elehants therefore 2may4not e$ist only in those laces. his is why he concludes that these laces arenot far aart, and there must be only a little sea between them.

he sea, than, does not cover three 3uarters of the earth, as has been guessed.+uose abcd 2insert diagram4 is the northern 2suerior4 half of the earth2viewed from above the ole4, of which one 3uarter, abc, is the habitable artwe "now. 'learly a good deal (=7) of that 3uarter will lie under our feet,since its eastern and western boundaries are close together, and only a littlesea divides them from the rest of the earth. Eather it follows that thehabitable art of the earth will not be limited to half the length of the

3uator# not to half the globe&s circumference# not to 2the distance the suntraverses in4 twelve hours, as eole have guessed. :o# it is far more than halfthe earth&s circumference, far more than half a revolution of the heavens. rue,its actual si*e has not been calculated in our age, nor do we find it laid downin clear language in the boo"s of the ancients. @f course notJ /ore than half ofthe 3uarter in which we live is still 3uite un"nown, and its towns are notfamiliar even to hilosohers, as will resently be aarent. nd as for theother two 3uarters if we ursue the same line of reasoning and consider theaths which natural hilosohy has followed, we must conclude that they li"ewiseare not covered by water, as mathematicians have as a rule suosed. +ince the2two4 oles and the regions near them are the same distance from the sun and thelanets, as we learn by comaring their relations at the e3uino$es 2lit in themiddle of the heavens between the two troics4, it follows that the situation

2as regards the effect of sun and lanets on the two hemisheres4 is the same inour 3uarter as in that in the 3uarter the other side of the 3uator, toward the2south4 ole. he same must be true of the 3uarter which reaches down to the3uator but lies beneath our feet 2i.e. in north latitude but east longitude4.


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their distance from the east or west, what we call the lace&s longitude. In myassigning of climata, and li"ewise of latitude and longitude, I shall ma"e useof the restige and e$erience of the wisest scholars. o locate each city inits roer lace 2on this ma4 by its longitude and latitude, which have alreadybeen discovered by my authorities, I shall use a method by which their ositionsmay be shown by their distances north and south, east and west. he device isthis arallel to the e3uator (already drawn on a lane surface), a straightline 2i.e. a arallel of latitude4 is drawn. his intersects another straightline 2a meridian4, from the oint corresonding to the number of degrees oflatitude of the lace. his oint is also mar"ed on the colure (the 3uarter ofthe great circle that asses from the e3uator to the ole of the universe), andis, in fact, an arc of the colure. his rocedure is both easier and better2than anything now in use4, and a ma drawn in this way is 3uite caable ofreresenting to the senses the location of any oint in the world.

long with the latitude 2of the southern boundary4 of any clima, I shall dislaythe number of miles each climae$tends# how many degrees 2gradus4 in the heavencorresond to each# and how many hours long is the longest day 2the summersolstice4 in each clima. he height of the ole 2star4 above the hori*on in anyclimais the same as its latitude9i.e. its distance from the e3uator9, so you

can calculate the 2angular4 distance of the *enith from the e3uator, since it isthe same as the latitude and the elevation of the ole. I shall also include thetotal number of miles in the seven climatatogether. -ut we must remember that,although the theorists sea" of only seven climata, they recogni*e otherregions, both north and south of these 2ante...ost...4 !or Ptolemy informs usthat an e$edition, aid for by the "ings of gyt, once marched all the way tothe e3uator. !ew men have traversed so far beyond the climata, and that onlyrarely, for the distance is enormous# an even greater hindrance is the lac" ofinterest by rinces, the very men who ought to lend aid to those who ursue such"nowledge I shall therefore indicate three regions (=5) beyond the climatawe"now of, which regions 2together4 embrace more land than any 2single4 *one we"now, and I shall, moreover, set out the number of miles of southernmost4 clima.I shall li"ewise show how many miles there are from the e3uator to the end ofthe seventh clima, and finally divide u the sace beyond the climata2in eitherdirection4. In the second boo" of the lmagest Ptolemy sets a boundary to thatsace by adding a 3uarter of an hour to the length of a day in the climabefore2i.e. nearer the e3uator4, until he reaches the latitude of the region whichbegins at 1K# from there on he adds half an hour, which brings him to CK# thenhe distinguishes the ne$t area by adding an hour, u to latitude K. !rom therenorth is continuous night at the winter solstice, e$cet that half the sunsuddenly os u over the hori*on. t the summer solstice, conversely, there iscontinuous daylight, but that is true only far to the north of +cotland. fterthat day 2the summer solstice4 the sun is always visible, even far to the northand near the ole.

-eyond the climata, the region is divided u in a remar"able way, by the length

of a single day, 2which may last4 for from one to si$ months. he eole wholive close to the ole have a day lasting half the year, the sun being above thehori*on for si$ months and below it for the other si$. et there is eveningtwilight for seven wee"s and a day, from +et. 1 2in the Aulian 'alendar4,when, as things are now 2at this stage in the recession of the e3uino$es4, thesun enters the sign of Gibra, to 2midnight before4 :ov. 2from +et.1inclusive to :ov. e$clusive4. In this eriod the sun sheds a dim light on theearth, li"e the twilight we "now after sunset in the summer. !or on :ov. thesun&s declination below the hori*on has reached 18K &, and twilight lasts 18Kand no more. !rom :ov. u to the end of Aan.=1 there is dee night for tenwee"s and five days. @n Aan.=1 the sun is 18K & below the hori*on, so the dawncannot 2really4 begin on that day the sun must still traverse those si$minutes. -ut from that day, midnight on Aan.=1, the dawn begins 2to showM, and

lasts until the sun enters the sign of ries, which occurs on /ar. 17, as thingsare now. his dawn lasts for seven wee"s and one day. hereafter, while thesun is advancing from the first degree of ries to the first degree of Gibra,the sun (=8) is always above their hori*on, that is, for half the year, since


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their hori*on is the e3uator. nd so the si$ northern signs are always above thehori*on, as you can clearly see by loo"ing at a 2celestial4 globe# as long asthe sun is in those signs, it is clear that 2the eole beneath have fulldaylight. +till, if you add u the two times of half9daylight when the sun stillsheds its light above the hori*on, it comes to three months, a fortnight, andtwo days# conse3uently if we comare the amount of half9dar" and night 2withthose of our own latitudes4, the eole who live in that region near the olehave less night than we do.

In writing all this, I have chiefly followed Ptolemy and lfraganus, and the2lhonsine4 tables of the latitudes and longitudes of cities. !or the latitudesof the climataand the regions beyond them north and south, I have followed theteaching of Ptolemy in the lmagest, but have chiefly followed lfraganus indescribing the breadth in miles of the climata,the regions beyond them, and thecities and rovinces they contain. -ut some of his calculations of laces I havemar"ed for closer study are too ine$act# there I follow other authors, nowadding, now changing a bit, as greater recision demands. +o, for e$amle, Ihave dealt with the city of +yene. It may be objected that in the standard wor"son astronomy different latitudes and longitudes are found from those in othertables so, for e$amle, in the case of oledo, on whose meridian the lhonsine

tables are based. I must oint out that their authors vacillate in theirunderstanding of the terms (=) east and west. s I am using these wordshere, they mean the limits 2in those directions4 of the habitable world. @neway of understanding the terms is as oints on 2sub4 the e3uator, the mid9line2between the oles4 of the earth. In this way of thin"ing, the furthest art ofIndia in latitude 0K is the easternmost boundary of the habitable art of theearth# in li"e manner the end of !urther +ain (if 2a line4 were e$tended2south4 to the e3uator), would be the furthest west. -ut, of course, it is notso e$tended indeed, there is a considerable sace of land to the south of!urther +ain, all the way to the e3uator. he limit of this sace to the west,then, is the western limit of habitation. -ut since the land 2terra4 runs northand south for a long way9from the e3uator all the way to /t. tlas and 'adi*,and then beyond, so that the whole of +ain and even Ireland are on the eastside9different eole are able to define the word west in different ways. hussome writers say it means what lies beyond 'adi*# some what lies beyond /t.tlas and some what lies beyond the limit of habitable land at the latitude ofthe e3uator. -ut surely the best of these three is the last, in which west isdefined as a measure from a oint on the e3uator for one thing, it is betterdefined, being at the middle of the world between the two oles, and istherefore the true west# for another, the same sort of definition can be usedfor east. rue, the table of latitude and longitude 2that we "now4 clearlydoes not give longitude from the west on the e3uator, for if it did thelongitude of oledo would be =K 2east4 from the western limit, but according tothe table it is only 11K. he author of this table used the west "nown to him,which he assumed to be definite and fitting the geograhy of his own area. ndhere we must reflect, as we divide u the 2whole4 earth, that the terms eastand west can and should only be used in reference to the very ends of theearth, where the sea called the @cean reaches its bounds at the land 2mass4which stretches from India to !urther +ain, with whatever other regions2islands;4 there may be east and west of these two regions. hus we should notsea" about east and west as if they were limited by some local hori*on, aswe sometimes sea" of east and west as directions of the rising or settingsun. !or (700) the number of 2ossible4 hori*ons is infinite, some inclined2to the e3uator4, some straight 2arallel to it4. he terms east and west,then, are not used 2sumuntur4 in maing the world with reference to 2any local4hori*on# if they were, the east of one hori*on would be the west of another2I cannot construe et medium eius# erhas or somewhere between# :ew @rleansis west of :ew or" and east of +eattle, or rather southwest of the one,southeast of the other.4


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If, now, we want to find the distance of a city 2with which we are concerned4from the west as I have defined it, let us draw 2on our ma4 a line whose lengthreresents the distance of our city from the western limit# this segment betweenthe city and the western limit will indicate the city&s longitude, measured fromthe west. :ow let us draw a line from rym, a city half way from e$treme east toe$treme west 2in medio mundi# this line is a sort of rime meridian4, e$tendingto the :orth Pole. !rom this draw a straight 2hori*ontal4 line to your city#this will show your city&s distance 2latitude4 from the middle of the world.


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have 2tried to4 traverse regions too hot for them in the summer, or too cold inthe winter. hey have subjected themselves to numberless erils by not "nowingwhen they had entered 'hristian lands, when those of schismatics, +aracens, orartars# lands of tyrants or of men of eace# of savages or of reasonable men.Indeed, the man who does not "now geograhy in general is not only ignorant ofhis own destination, but even (70=) of how to reach it. e may set out for the :estorians, but find himself instead among the:icolaitansJ @r, through mere ignorance when faced with such countless tribes,he may choose one of their innumerable sects rather than anotherJ. /en withoutnumber have failed to succeed in the most imortant business of 'hristendom,simly because they did not understand the differences between the regions ofthe world.

nother considerable reason for us to understand the geograhy of the worldarises from the 'hurch&s need to "now the location and condition of the tentribes of Aews, who are destined to erut in days to come. !or @rosius, in thethird boo" of @n the @rigin of the


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these gates were already bro"en down, even before the days of Isidore# 2this we"now4 because he writes about them. /oreover, !riar


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we must journey farther afield, and suort their authority with our owne$erience.


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learned the fact of the matter from his own e$erience, or at least byconversation with eole who had come from 'eylon to the city of Eome and witheole who had visited the island. In any case, the regions beyond the roic of'aricorn must be well9suited for habitation (for, as ristotle and verroDs inde 'aelo et /undo assure us) that region is the loftier and better art of theearth. +till, that art of the world is not, as far as we "now, described by anyauthor 2of our own time4# the eole of the region are nowhere given a name# andnowhere are we told that they have visited us or we them. !or these reasons someauthorities feel that Paradise must be situated there, since that is the noblestart of this world, according to ristotle 2and verroDs4 in ?e 'aelo =.1C.

hese authorities include not just hilosohers. but saints as well, for e$amlembrose,(708) in his >e$aemeron and -asil, agree about the different sorts ofshadow. !or in -oo" C2..=.74 mbrose tells us that in the regions to the souththere are eole who for two days in the course of a year see no shadows, thereason being that, since the sun is directly over their heads, they areilluminated e3ually on all sides. hey are therefore called the scii,shadowless ones, 2when the sun is directly overhead4 or the mhiscii,shadowed all around 2when the sun is directly oosite4. hese are the eolewho live south of the e3uator and anywhere to east or west 2et circiter ab

utro3ue latere4. e continues that even in the art of the world where welive, some men to the south of us are seen to cast their shadows in a southerlydirection. ow far north men can live is e$lained by Pliny in -oo" C2.84, who sea"s fromhis own e$erience and that of other authors. !or eole do live right u to thevery oles 2cardines, hinges4, where it is daylight si$ months and night for

an e3ual time. /artianus 2.64 agrees with him in his descrition of theworld, both authors believing that those who live there are among the haiestof man"ind, who die only when they feel that they have lived long enough# whenthat time comes,they dive into the sea from a high cliff. hese eole theuroeans call >yerboreans, but in sia they bear the name of rumhei. I havee$lained all this with an eye to the latitude north or south 2citra vel ultra4of the e3uator# we see that, as far as latitude is concerned, the habitable art2of the earth4 is more than a 3uarter 2of the whole4.

his can also be shown to be true of longitude, distance measured from east towest. India alone, with its 118 tribes, as Pliny writes in :atural >istory .2159184, comrises a third of the inhabitable world. Aerome li"ewise, in hisletter to the mon" Eusticus 2. 1=6.74, tells us, Peole who sail across the

Eed +ea finally, after many hardshis and erils, reach a very large city. (70M2hey consider4 the voyage a success if they get to the ort of this city withinsi$ months. hen the @cean begins to oen u, and only after a full year&scrossing9if they are luc"y9do they finally reach India. hus the voyage fromthe nearer end of the Eed +ea, all the way to India, demands a year and a half.Aerome also tells us, in his -oo" of Places, that +olomon&s fleet too" threeyears to bring its cargo from India, a year and a half to get there and a li"etime to return. :ow it is an enormous distance from the Eed +ea to the furthestcoast of +ain, near the tlas /ountains# clearly, then, the distance from thewesternmost bounds 2of uroe4 overland to the 2easternmost4 limits of Indiamust be far more than half the earth&s circumference. 'onse3uently we mustaccet the oinion of *ra, ristotle, and verroDs on the si*e of the habitableearth, that it is more than a 3uarter of the total longitude. +o when Pliny

27.64 tells us that uroe is bigger than sia, its very si*e means that he doesnot include India in the latter, for India, as he himself remar"s 2.64, is athird of the habitable earth.


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:ow that we have aid attention to the si*e of the habitable world, it is roerto turn our eyes ne$t to certain laces in foreign arts imortant in scritureor in hilosohy. Individual 'hristians need to "now about them for theconversion of the heathen, and for the conduct of various business in variouslands# the niversal 'hurch too must have such "nowledge, if it is to chec" therage of the ntichrist and those we are told will go before him, hoing to laywaste the world before the %reat ribulation he will bring. t this oint, then,I must insert, not merely a descritive account of such laces, but a narrativeto illustrate those I describe, for neither will be enough by itself. I shallfollow my authorities and investigators to the best of my ability, at least asfar as the occasion demands9that is, until comlete and recise understanding ofthe laces is demanded.

I shall begin with regions to the southeast of us, chiefly because it is withthem that +criture is most concerned. !irst I must oint out, in accordancewith the remises I have set u, that the southern border of India reaches2ellitur ad4 the roic of 'aricorn in the region of Patala and the lands(710) near it, lands washed by a great arm of the sea which flows from the@cean, between India and !urther +ain, i.e. frica# of this I have alreadyso"en, following ristotle&s account. Pliny 2=.1591504 secifically tells us

that this sea touches the southern border of India# the same thing is clear fromAerome, and lfraganus also bears witness to it. his sea drains the southernarts of India, then e$tends 2west4 a distance of a year&s voyage# at last itmerges with the Eed +ea, as is clear from Aerome, Pliny, and others. In thatsea, seven day&s sail to the east of India in the +ea of :adosius, is the islandof arobane 2'eylon4, where the %reat -ear and the Pleiades are not visible.Its eole have vast wealth of gold, silver, and recious stones, greater eventhan the wealth of Eome, though Pliny 2.84 tells us that the Eomans ma"egreater dislay (usus) of their riches. s their ruler these eole choose awise old man, one with no children# if he later begets children, the crown doesnot descend to them. o him are assigned thirty counselors, whose advice heemloys in his government of the eole. If the "ing falls into criminal ways,he is condemned to death, of a sort in which no one lays a hand on him he isdenied all food, derived of every other need, and nobody sea"s to him. nd soat last he dies. n age of 100 at death is not unusual.

he southern coast of India, starting at the roic of 'ancer, crosses thee3uator near /t. /alcus and the regions thereabouts, and asses through +yene,nowadays called rym. In the -oo" of the Paths of the Planets we are told thatthere are two laces called +yene one 2in gyt4 is south, at the solstice2i.e. the roic of 'ancer4, of which I have written above. he other one, withwhich we are here concerned, is on the e3uator, 0 degrees from the furthestwest# it is rather further from the east, because the midoint of the habitableworld is more than half the total breadth of earth and heaven, and the greaterlength is to the east. rym, then, is not just 0 degrees from the east. +till,scholars locate it e$actly in the middle of the habitable earth, and e$actly

situate it on the (711) e3uator, e3uidistant from west and east, from north andsouth. -ut there is no contradiction 2between theory and observation4 thescholars are tal"ing about the habitable world as "nown to them throughtheoretically correct understanding of the longitudes and latitudes of theseregions. -ut this is not 3uite as much as the correct distances, "nown fromactual travel on land or sea, which we find in Pliny and other writers onnatural science. ccording to them, and esecially to Pliny, the Indian @ceanruns down the 2east4 coast of India from the roic of 'ancer until it cuts thee3uator and asses along the south coast. It surrounds a vast e$anse of land,then turns southwest until it joins 2reciiat4 the narrows and the mouth of theEed +ea. !rom there it runs south toward the e3uator, and along the southerncoast of thioia until it merges with the @cean to the west.

-etween the narrows of the Eed +ea and the thioian +ea roer is the region ofthioia. In latitude about 1K, where the day lasts about 17 hours (accordingto Ptolemy in the lmagest, with whom Pliny, boo"s 2.186(;) and =.184, agreesretty well), is +aba, the royal caital of thioia, on an island surrounded by


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the :ile. It is mentioned in Isaiah 2C6.1C4, the labor of gyt, themerchandise of gyt and the +abaeans, and Aerome, in boo" 17 2of his'ommentary on Isaiah4, tells us that there is a tribe called +abaeans on theother side of 2trans4 thioia. his is /eroD, the furthest art of thioia,at the 2south4 end of the inhabitable art of the world, as I have justremar"ed, which is also mentioned in *e"iel =5 2.=7 Q +heba4. Aosehus tellsus in boo" 1 of the nti3uities that the city was named by Bing 'ambyses for hissister# Aerome confirms this in his -oo" of Places. he city is about 500 milesinland from the thioian +ea, according to Pliny, boo" .2.1 says =6 miles4.It is on the first clima, that which is accordingly named ?iameroDs. womannamed 'anda$ once ruled there, from whom the name 'andace has for many yearsbeen alied to its 3ueen, as Pliny 2.184 tells us# furthermore, he adds thatwhen the thioians were in ower that island was a lace of great slendor,which regularly rovided =60,000 soldiers and suorted C00,000 wor"men 2Pliny.18 gives 7,000 wor"men, emended by ?etlefsen to elehants4. he boo" ofcts 28.=54 mentions the eunuch of 'andace, Hueen of the thioians, (71=) whomPhili batised. 'anda$, then, is the title of an office, li"e 'aesar, Ptolemy,Pharaoh, ntiochus, and bimelech. he bimelechs 2ruled4 in Philistia, thentiochi in +yria, the Ptolemies in gyt after the death of le$ander, thePharaohs in the same lace but earlier9just as the 'aesars and ugusti ruled inthe Eoman mire, as Aerome tells us in boo" @n *e"iel. In about the samelatitude but eastward, on the shore of the Eed +ea, is the city of PtolemaRs,founded by Ptolemy Philadelhus for elehant hunting early in the year. !orabout forty9five days before the 2summer4 solstice and the same time after itthere are no shadows at all at noonday, as Pliny 2=.87, .15C4 tells us. ?uringthose ninety or so days shadows fall to the south, because the sun is to thenorth# afterwards it falls to the north for the rest of the year. Peole dwellhere between the 2latter4 half of aurus and the 2former4 half of Geo# thus thesun asses overhead twice a year, during those half9signs.

:e$t after these laces, in the same latitude but to the west of them, C8=0stades on the way between PtolemaRs and /eroD (as Pliny 2.1514 tells us and-ede in his 'hronologies agrees), is -erenice, a city of the thioian 'ave?wellers 2roglodytes4, over which the sun asses twice a year and the shadowsbehave li"e those in PtolemaRs. he region of these 'ave ?wellers must lie tothe west, as I shall e$lain below, so that it is in central rather than easternthioia. +criture mentions these 'ave ?wellers in II 'hronicles 1=2.74, whocame with +hisha", Bing of gyt, as au$iliaries. s Pliny reorts in boo"62.C64, these eole dig out caverns for themselves# there they ma"e theirhomes, living on the flesh of serents. hey utter a scratchy sound rather thana voice, and cannot converse by seech. In boo" 2.154 he also remar"s thathe tribe of 'ave ?wellers 2Qroglodytes4 get their name from their seed offoot, which they have develoed by hunting, for they are swifter than horses.!rom this 2assage in Pliny4 Isidore 2.=.1=4 ta"es his e$lanation theroglodytes, a tribe of the thioians, are so called because they are suchswift runners that they can outrun wild animals on foot 2as if from trechS andhodeuS;4. :e$t to them on the east are the thioians from :ubia and last of allthose called Indi, since they live so close to India. Pliny begins hisdescrition of the race of thioians with them. nd according to Isidore2.=.1=91=84, there are three imortant races of thioians the >eseri in thewest, the %aramantes (717) in the middle, and the Indi to the east. he 'ave?wellers he includes with the %aramantes, with whom they are neighbors 2orclosely connected4. /eroD, the chief town of these tribes, is located, sayslfraganus, in the middle between the :ubians, Indi, and %aramantes. he last ofthese eole get their name from the town of %arama, the caital of their"ingdom# they have no bonds of marriage, but live with whatever women theylease. he >eseri live in the region nearest +ain, for >isania e3uals2dicitur4 >eseria, and the eole who live beyond !urther +ain 2i.e. in/orocco4 are called the >eseri. here are many other thioians, united invarious laces with these three tribes, who have degenerated a long way from thedue endowment of humanity. I am not here concerned with a discussion of theirnames, locations, and behavior# that is all clear in the boo"s of Pliny and


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others, and should be noted esecially 2read rincialiter for rinciali4 in+criture.

Gower 2i.e.northern4 thioia ends at the Eed +ea to the east and 2the Eomanrovince of4 frica on the west, and at gyt between these two. In the middlelies the city of +yene, of which *e"iel sea"s by name in chaters = 2.104 and70 2.4, where he says that from the land of +yene to the borders of thioia

the foot of man shall not tread. +yene, then, is the northern 2inferior4boundary of thioia and the southernmost 2suremus4 art of gyt, as Aeromee$lains in the ninth boo" @n *e"iel. -ut /eroD, according to Pliny in thesecond boo" 2=.1874, is the southern limit of "nown habitation. Pliny adds, inthe si$th boo" 2181918=4 that to the east and west of +yene9i.e. from rabia tofrica9no town, no army ost 2castrum4, no village has survived until you get to/eroD they have all erished in the unending wars, as >oly +criture testifies.!rom +yene to /eroD, as Pliny tells us in boo" =2.1874 is 6000 stades, althoughin boo" 2.18C4 he gives the figure of C6 miles 2Qabout 560 stades4. Itslatitude is called the climaof +yene, 2the city which4 is situated on theroic of 'ancer, and the climabeginning there is named the ?iasyene 2assingthrough +yene4.

he matter which should come ne$t cannot be made clear unless I first give adescrition of gyt, frica, and the course of the :ile. he southern boundaryof gyt, as I have remar"ed, is +yene# but gyt is really a air of lands,er and Gower. he art called Gower gyt is bounded by 2the mouths of4 the:ile to ma"e a triangular island shaed li"e (71C) the %ree" letter delta, and,indeed, in the remote ast gyt was called ?elta. o its east it has the landof the Philistines, to the north the /editerranean +ea, to the west frica, andto the south er gyt. In the direction of Palestine is the mouth of the :ilecalled Pelusium, where one side of the triangle (i.e. one mouth of the :ile)enters the sea. @f Pelusium, *e"iel 70 2.164) has this to say I will our myfury uon +hin 2Pelusium4, the strength of gyt# and in the ninth boo" Aeromewrites the term &the strength of gyt& is used because it has the safestort, and is the chief lace for the transaction of maritime trade. nother

mouth is called the 'anoic, where another side of the triangle enters the seaon the side toward frica. -etween these mouths of the :ile is the base of thetriangle, which runs along the seashore for 150 miles, as Pliny tells us in hisfifth boo" 26.C84. !rom the branching of the arms of the :ile at the verte$ ofthe triangle to the 'anoic mouth is 1C miles, and to the Pelusiac mouth =6.er gyt shares a boundary with thioia, as Pliny tells us# this region isalso called the hebaid. It begins at +yene, a city in the hebaid, as Aeromereorts in his -oo" of Places. o the south is thioia# on its eastern side israbia, as will be clear a little further on# to its west is the southern2uer4 art of frica. 2Pliny 6.C84 +o much for the hebaid, in which lies thecity of hebes. gytian hebes, as Isidore tells us in boo" 1621.764, was builtby 'admus, and is regarded as notable among the cities of gyt for the numberof its gates, to which the rabs bring their wares from all directions. 'admus

later travelled to %reece and founded %recian hebes in chaea, a land now namedfor its ruler, moreus.

@n the /editerranean coast to the west or frican side of gyt is le$andria, afamous city, founded by le$ander, which from his time on has been consideredthe caital of gyt. le$andria is on the third clima, which is accordinglynamed for it, the ?iala$andreus# according to Pliny :atural >istories 2=.1874 itis 6000 stades from +yene. o the east of le$andria, about 100 leucae 2700miles4 along the seacoast, as those who have traveled it say, is the city of/emhis, once the great bulwar" and caital of gyt# it is now called ?amiata.!rom there a day&s journey is amnis, where Pharaoh lived and /oses (716)wor"ed his miracles, as Aerome says in the ninth boo" on Isaiah. nd at thefurthest bounds of gyt, as Aerome says in his Getter on Eesting Places 2de

/ansionibus4, toward the east is the city of Eameses, built by the children ofIsrael. @nce uon a time, to 3uote Aerome again in his boo" @n Places, the wholerovince, where Aacob lived with his sons, bore this name. his is the Gand of%oshen, as witness the boo" of %enesis, and Aerome as well, in the boo" just


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mentioned# it is near /emhis. :ot far from amnis is >elioolis, the city ofthe +un, which shares a boundary with rabia, as Pliny tells us. 26.14. It isa town of great magnificence. as Aerome reorts in the boo" I have justmentioned. here Potihar was the riest, whose daughter 2senath4 Aosehmarried, as we read in %enesis C1 2.C64. hen there is a city of gyt calledana, the city, according to Aerome in the -oo" of Places, to which the Aewsfled with Aeremiah for fear of the -abylonians# they settled, not only there,but in /emhis, in the land of Phatures, and in /agdalon, as Aeremiah reorts inchater CC2.14. -ut +ocoth end than, Phiaroth, and /agdalon, mentioned in$odus 17 2.=04 and 1C 2.=4, are barely within gyt, but close to its borderson the east, near the Eed +ea, as is clear from Aerome&s letter on EestingPlaces. o these laces the 'hildren of Israel made their way on their journeyout of gyt before they crossed the Eed +ea, as $odus tells us.

+o much, for the resent, for the descrition of gyt# let us now roceed tothat of frica. It is true that Pliny and many others have written a great dealon the subject, but +allust&s account in the Augurthine e shall be my chief source, for Aerome in the -oo" ofPlaces 2de situ et nominibus and >egesius in his >istory of Aerusalem assureus that +allust is a most reliable author. I shall ay closer attention to this

rovince, because, close to us though it is, we "now less about it than we doabout uroe or sia. 2he reading of4 +acred +criture, the sayings of thesaints, and the study of history, moreover, all demand wide "nowledge of theregion.

frica gets its name from one ffer, a descendent of braham, as Aerome tells usin @n %enesis. his man is said to have led an army against Gibya, and to havesettled there after overcoming his enemies. >e called his descendants fricansafter himself, and the country he called frica. -efore this (71) it had beencalled Gibya, and even earlier the region of Phut 2Phuticensis4, after a sonof >am. his I shall e$lain later.

@riginally the %aetulians and Gibyans, according to +allust 2-A =14 settled

frica. :ow Isidore somewhere 2.=.1C9164 informs us, and >ugucio as well, thatthe %aetulians came by sea from the north, from the land of the %etae or %oths.-ut Aerome, @n %enesis, is our authority for 2the story that4 they weredescended from >avilah, son of 'hu*, son of >am, son of :oah# and it is scarcelyli"ely that strangers 2advenae4 should be the first to inhabit a land destined2debitam4 for a single nation. hus frica, li"e gyt and thioia, wasdestined for the sons of >am. he Gibyans were descendants of Gabaim, son of/esraim, son of 'hu*, son of >am# so Aerome, @n %enesis. Gibya gets its namefrom this Gabaim# yet Aerome tells us (@n %enesis and also in the last chaterof @n Isaiah), Gibya was first named Phuth or Phutensia, for a son of >am withthat name. Indeed, to this day there is a river in Gibya called the Phuth, andthe whole region is called Phutensis. he %etuli used to live rather more in thedirection of gyt and the Gibyans to the west, and both wandered more widely

than now, since the region is so wide. @nce uon a time the whole of frica was"nown as Gibya after the one tribe which dominated its own territory, and theeole of that territory were called the Gibyans, as we learn from II 'hronicles1= 2.7# the Gubims4 and 1 2.84, and :ahum 7 2.# Put and Gubim4, and severalother laces. -ut, as N+allustO 2Isidore, 2.=.1=091=14 oints out, after>ercules died in +ain, the army he had enlisted from many eoles bro"e u. @fthat host the /edes, Persians, and rmenians voyaged by sea into frica andoccuied the laces nearest the /editerranean coast# the Persians, though, movedfurther along the sea 2i.e. eastward4 and closer to gyt and Italy than theothers, being subject to the %etuli. hese %etuli lived to the south, asneighbors of thioia. Gittle by little the thioians intermarried with the%etulians. +allust further conjectures that in their raids on other lands insearch of new territory, they later adoted the name of :umidians, wanderers

with no fi$ed home 2Q nomads4. +o Isidore tells us in boo" .2=.1=091=14. he/edes and rmenians settled on the further coast of the /editerranean (west ofthe :umidians), all the way to 'adi*, as subjects of the Gibyans, who 2in turn;4were closed in to the south, in the direction of the thioians. In time the


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Gibyans corruted the name of the /edes and in their barbarian language calledthem /oors instead of /edes.

(715) ll these eoles lived from the ocean and 'adi* as far 2east4 as therovince of the 'arthaginians. !or, as +allust tells us, later on thePhoenicians, driven by desire for imerial e$ansion, came from yre and +idonand invaded these arts of frica. hey crushed the :umidians, %aetulians, and

other fricans together, and fortified 'arthage9or rather the region2rovinciam4 around it9where slendid Punic9i.e. Phoenician9cities were built>io, the home of the -lessed ugustine# tica, famed for the 2death of# seePliny 6.=74 the great 'ato# 'arthage, virtually a second Eome. he emire of'arthage e$tended in the direction of gyt as far as the ltars of thePhilhellenes. his town 2'arthage4 is described by the +eventy9two ranslators2of the >ebrew -ible4 in *e"iel 2=54, where the >ebrew reads harsis, 2as iffrom yre4, as Aerome e$lains in @n Places. he name is found elsewhere, inIsaiah =72.1, the burden of yre4 and many other laces. *e"iel =5 is also tobe understood as a reference to the 'arthaginians.

:e$t 2to the east4 is the region of riolitania, which now belongs to theeole of -y*acium 2te$t has -y*antium# but see Pliny (6.=7 or =C)4, but which

the yrians and +idonians once occuied# it is therefore called not only frica,but Phoenician Gibya, for the Phoenicians9i.e. yrians and +idonians9who oncelived there. he land is remar"ably fertile, bringing forth its cros a hundredfold, as Pliny 26.=C4 tells us. he famous city of Getis lies here, between thetwo +yrtes the Gesser is on the 'arthaginian side, the %reater on that ofgyt. +allust 2-A 804 informs us that the +yrtes are big sandy shoals, which,when churned u by wind and the waves of the sea, emit masses of dust and3uantities of sand. !or this reason they are called +yrtes, from 2the wordmeaning drag or tract4. !or syrma in %ree" is the e3uivalent of tractus inGatin, and syro that of the verb traho# for 2these shoals4 disturb and distractthe inhabitants of the nearby regions.

fter the +yrtes there follows the rovince of Pentaolis, called 'yrene in the

+critures, with five large cities. heir caital is named 'yrene, mentioned inGu"e, /ar", and /atthew.


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calls Gibya /areotis. his, then, finishes the whole north coast of frica, from'adi* to gyt, and lists the eculiar features of each rovince.

-eyond gyt and frica to the south, thioia stretches from east to west asfar as the thioic +ea# their 2eorum4 chief regions are, as I have remar"ed,those of the Indians, +abaeans (the inhabitants of /eroD), :ubians, 'ave?wellers, %aramantes, >eserides. :ow art of the 2land of4 the 'ave ?wellers

turns west somewhere south of the %reater +yrtes and the regions near them, fromwhich they seem (according to Pliny in -oo" 6 2.=. -ut Pliny uts them 1= daysfrom ugilae, which he does not locate.4) about 18 days journey away. hus,although the main art of the 'avedwellers& land runs east to the Eed +ea, someart runs westward to the south of the regions of 2the Province of4 frica.-eyond them to the west is the land of the %aramantes, right between the Gesser+yrtis and 'arthage# the eastern art of the %aramantes, according to Pliny in-oo" 2.=4, runs toward the region of 'yrenaica. It must, then, be the western%aramantes that border on the >eserides and the region of /t. tlas.

he :ile, which waters gyt and thioia, in many ways mar"s the boundarybetween these rovinces. +criture mentions it in innumerable laces, and it isdiscussed 2vulgatus4 again and again in hilosohy and wor"s of scholarshi

2historiae4 (71). It is therefore fitting that I should mention some remar"ablefacts about it. s +criture tells us 2%en. =.17, (if %ihon, which comasseththe whole land of thioia is in fact the :ile)4, its headwaters are inParadise# but where it emerges 2erumat, no reosition4 into our habitableworld is a matter of various men, various oinions# the most robable is thatit arises on the thioian coast, near the mouth of the Eed +ea9the oinion of@rosius 21.=.=84 in his boo" @n the 'reation of the


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this reason, as +eneca tells is in -oo" N8O 2Ca.=.64 of the :atural Huestions,they have moved their 2homes4 to 3uieter laces. I ma"e this remar" because/acrobius the Pythagorean 2+om. +c. =.C.1C4 when he wants to show how we canendure the limitless noise of (7=1) the motion of the heavens without damagingour ears, gives the silly e$amle of the eole who, through being entirely usedto it, can cheerfully endure the thunder of the :ile. -ut his comarison isfalse, and no arallel at all can be drawn, as ristotle e$lains in de 'aelo2=.4. he lace in 3uestion 2the region of the cataracts of the :ile4 is closeto +yene, according to Aerome, @n *e"iel , where he e$lains that the :ile isnavigable all the way from the Italian 2i.e. /editerranean4 +ea as far u as to+yene.

!urther north 2the channel4 thus formed contains the :ile, whose mouths finallyoen into the sea between gyt and Italy. here are two of these mouths, namelythe Pelusiac and the 'anoic. -ut Aerome tells us in -oo" C, on the nineteenthchater of Isaiah, that u to the time of 'aesar ugustus the :ile had only asingle channel. t that time it was divided into seven art of these flows downto Pelusium and ast /emhis, i.e. ?amiata. nother grou aroaches the seafrom as far south as 'airo and -abylon. 2 I Peter 6.l7, the 'hurch that is at-abylon, may be a reference to this lace.4 It is therefore called the +oldanus

of -abylonia, which is about three days journey from ?amiata. !rom ?amiata abranch of the river runs roughly southeast for about a day&s journey, to avillage called Gancassor, where the army of 'hristians was defeated when Bing2?ominus4 Gouis, the son of Gouis, the son of Phili the famous Bing 2Eegis4 of!rance, first carried the 'ross to regions across beyond the sea. @ther branchesof the :ile also descend near amne, le$andria, and other laces in gyt.

ccording to Pliny 26.619684 and other writers, the :ile is uni3ue in itsflooding at definite times, and its soa"ing the flat lands of gyt# thefertility of gyt is granted or denied according to the river&s overflowing itsban"s. If the water rises only 1= cubits 218 feet4 above its normal level, gyte$eriences a famine# at 17 the country is hungry no longer. 1C cubits bringcontentment 2hilaritatem4, 16 bring feelings of security, 1 bring oulence.

nything more than this, however modest the rise, rouses the natives toe$cessive indulgence. nd if it rises beyond its roer limits, +eneca tells us2:H Ca.104, it can cause disaster. he river, they say, begins to risegradually9i.e. slowly and gently9as long as the moon is new after the 2summer4solstice 2luna e$istente 3uacun3ue ost solstitium4, as long as the sun is stillassing through 'ancer. he rise is at its ea" while the sun is in Geo andsin"s bac" while it is in Firgo. (7==) hen, while the sun is in Gibra, theriver settles bac" between its ban"s at the same rate that it had flooded, andcontinues to do so until the hundredth day after the start of its inundation. Itis hard to assign causes to this rise and flooding it is remar"able in its ownright, esecially since it occurs in the hottest art of the summer, when morewater is evaorated 2a3uae lus consumitur4 than at other seasons. /oreover, noother river floods li"e this, says ristotle in his essay de :ilo# Pliny 26.04

e$cets the uhrates.


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their contradictions. +ome of these contradictions I feel are worth discussing,and I shall therefore set them forth briefly, as a sort of reliminary essay.

+ome scholarly Gatin writers ignore the value of ersonal e$erience of thismatter 2negligentes e$erientiam in hac arte4, and cling to the notion ofhales, the first of the famous +even +ages. >is oinion was this the yearlyseasonal winds, blowing 2from the north4 against the mouths of the :ile, roll

before them the waves and sands of the sea, thus bloc"ing u the mouths, andforcing the waters of the river bac" on themselves and ma"ing them overflowtheir ban"s. -ut this theory is roved wrong both by other authority and byobservation. !or the testimony of ristotle and +eneca, not to mention theobservation of eole who have themselves travelled in gyt, tell us that thewaters of the :ile come from thioia and later 2in the year4 begin to flooder gyt. Indeed, the gytians, dancing for joy, run out to greet theflooding :ile 2obviam :ilo defluenti occurrunt4, singing and laying all sortsof music. 2his they could not do4 if the flooding started at the mouths# itfollows that (7=7) the flooding does not start at the mouths I have mentionedabove, but comes down from the headwaters to them.

he hilosoher na$agoras introduced an e$lanation more accetable in

everyone&s eyes that in the summer time the snow melts in the mountains ofthioia, and that in this way the :ile swells just as the Ehone, Po, ?anube,and all the rivers li"e them near the ls, which flood from the meltwater. ofthe mountains. his notion, however, is rejected by ristotle and +eneca.ristotle disroves it by ointing out that only a little water is roduced froma vast amount of snow, whereas the :ile swells enormously,. to flood a vaste$anse of land, sometimes to a deth of thirty cubits 2C6 feet4. lsewhere headduces another argument waters which flow from a long way off gain in theirforce, just as wind does which blows over a great distance, while rivers thatflow from nearby are more violent near their origin. he reason rivers act thusis that over a long distance many tributaries flow together# much rain results,and much vaor collects on 2resultat# cannot be absorbed by or condenseson;4 the earth. ll rivers, therefore, grow in si*e near their mouths and are

greater than at their sources. +o it is with wind the vaors that flow togetherfrom many directions unite into a single storm, whose violence is roortionateto the distance through which it asses, until, near the end, it becomes lessviolent. :ow the flooding of the :ile starts right at its source, and increasesmore and more as time asses, as 2its waters4 grow warm towards its mouth. +oristotle claims, and so Pliny states from his own e$erience. 'onse3uently, itswaters do not come from a great distance. -ut the mountains of thioia, wherewe might reasonably suose there to be lenty of snow, are about five monthsjourney beyond the :ile 2i.e. the !irst 'ataract4, because of the river&smeandering. he flooding of the :ile, then, is not caused by 2the melting of4snow. he major roosition of this argument is resectable and is based onsound learning, whatever we may thin" of the minor. !or one thing, he2ristotle4 says that at the full moon everything fro*en thaws out and

li3uefies. -ut the :ile swells at the end of the month, so it does not arisefrom melting snow. gain, more water flows in the :ile when the north wind isblowing than in the time of the south# but certainly it is the warm south windthat melts more snow just because it is warmer. !inally, ristotle oints outthat there cannot ossibly be any snow in thioia, because the heat is sointense that it shrivels everything u9as is easy to believe. +eneca agrees withthis, and adds that snow thaws and drains away in the sringtime, once it feelsthe moderate warmth, and this is what causes the flooding of rivers. -ut inthioia there is no such thing as moderate warmth until the arrival of (7=C)winter, yet the :ile floods only after the summer solstice. I hardly thin" Ineed add the oinions of Pythagoras, ?iogenes 2of ollonia4, ?emocritus, andall the other thin"ers, in a short reface li"e this.

+till, I must mention ristotle&s views, as reresentative of them all, thatduring our summer there is a lot of rain in thioia, but none in our winter thewinter. he :ile, he continues, rises in those regions, where the onds andswams are filled by these rains. hese, he continues, are seasonal, blowing in


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the summer time from the east, driving the rain clouds to the laces where the:ile rises, where they brea" over the 2already full4 la"es which are the river&ssource. he reason for the rise of the :ile at the end of the month ristotlegives in the second boo" of the Posterior nalytics 2=.16.=4. he rest of theargument ascribed to ristotle comes from other wor"s4 namely, that the end ofa lunar month is colder# that this cold increases the amount of moisture, whichis further augmented by the north wind -oreas. his by its violence drives theclouds before it# since its natural lace 2habitatio4 is with us in the2northern4 3uarter of the world (the 3uarter where, as ristotle e$lains, thiswind has the greatest force), it drives the clouds before it. hey thereforecollect in the swams 2of the uer :ile49 swams of unbelievable si*e, as Ihave mentioned above. +uch swams are caable of containing immense amounts ofwater from the clouds of heaven, and so the flow 2of the river4 is augmented asthe clouds give way to rain.

-ut the same objection can be raised against this osition as against theothers if the land 2of thioia4 is uninhabitable because of its heat, and isthe worst of all ossible laces to live in, being so utterly scorched, how canit have such abundant rain, esecially in the summer, but no snow whatever, asristotle maintains in refuting the second of the theory I have mentioned above;

In arguing against the first theory, moreover, he asserts that the same thing2yearly flooding4 would haen with other rivers, but their annual winds do notalways blow in their due season. >eavy rains do aear in many regions withgreat rivers and seasonal winds, but in them we do not find the yearly floods.-oreas chases the clouds more violently in the lands near us, since he is soclose to his own source# should not the rivers of these nearby lands also rise,esecially at the end of the month; -ut no such overflow is found 2anywhereelse4, so ristotle&s theory is no less sha"y than those of the other2naturalists4. :o# it is e$ceedingly hard to give a 2satisfactory4 e$lanationfor this e$traordinary rising of the waters, which, ristotle tells us, is foundonly along the :ile (though Pliny adds (7=6) the uhrates. 218.1=# uhrates(and igris) flood, but do not carry the load of mud the :ile does4. s far as I"now 2st tamen adhuc...4, it is reorted of one other river, which I havementioned above the Aordan, in the days before the destruction of +odom and thenearby cities, as witnessed in %enesis 217.10 ...the Plain of Aordan, that itwas well9watered everywhere, before the Gord destroyed +odom and %omorah, evenas the %arden of the Gord, li"e the Gand of gyt, as thou comest unto Toar.4nd so let this suffice for a reface, because of the difficulty of the roblem.In a more detailed discussion we will be able to e$amine the oinions of thehilosohers. +timulated by their studies, we can search out the truth withgreater confidence.

Get us now return to our descrition of the regions of the world. elioolis, ofwhich I have so"en above, was regarded as art of rabia# conse3uentlyeverything from /eroU and +yenU to >elioolis on the east 2ban" of the :ile4between the Eed +ea and the thioian is included in rabia 2sub arabiacontinetur4. lfraganus therefore uts the Island of the rabs in both the firstand second climas, since it is in the thioian +ea but near the mouth of theEed. >ence too the lines of Gucan 27.=C59C84

rabs, new come to a land unli"e any other you "now of, startled that at noseason do shadows fall to the northward.

Gucan here is tal"ing about the rabs who, coming to Eome as au$iliaries ofPomey, were surrised that shadows that fall to the north do not migrate9i.e.

do not change and fall to the south# in their own land, between the roic of'ancer and the 3uator, they see shadows to their south for art of the yearwhen the sun has assed north of them toward the troic. -ut when the sun assesbeyond them toward the 3uator, they see shadows to the north, since the sun


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2has assed to their south. hus this whole section of thioia east of theriver, from /eroD and +yenU all the way to >elioolis, is included in rabia.nd not only this region, but that called the ongue, from the 2southern4 end ofthe Eed +ea and along the coast to the east of the ongue, all the way to thePersian %ulf. 2rabia4, then, reaches westward from the Eed +ea to Pelusiam ingyt# to the north it broadens out into the (7=) desert where the 'hildren ofIsrael once wandered, and as far as the land of he Philistines, which lies onthe /editerranean, down to the gytian border. ast of the land of thePhilistines, 2rabia4 runs as far as the territory of the male"ites, all theway to the land of dom or Idumea, which is east of male" and e$tends as far as/oab. he rabian border then turns more to the north through the land of +ihon,Bing of >eshbon and that of @g, Bing of -ashan, and so north to /ts. %ilead andGebanon# it then bends more to the northeast, toward 'ilicia and 'ommagenian+yria, and thence on to the uhrates.

rabia, then, as understood in the larger sense, includes a truly far9flungterritory. In the first lace, it includes the desert of +hur or tham (whichmeans desert), on both sides of the Eed +ea, and is bounded 2on the north4 bygyt and Palestine. $odus 217.=04 tells us that the 'hildren of Israelitched their cam in tham, but that they later crossed the Eed +ea9and

arrived once more in tham 2$. 16.==4. ctually, scriture records that afterthe crossing of the Eed +ea, they came to the ?esert of +hur and encamed in/arah, having travelled for three days before encaming9first in /arah, then inlim. -ut Aerome tells us, in his Getter on the 'ams, that the deserts of +hurand tham are the same. /oreover, in the art of rabia near +hur, east of theshore where the 'hildren of Israel crossed the Eed +ea, is the land of thelamites9as Pliny 2.1664 tells us, as does Aerome in his -oo" of $lanations.In this region is the city of lam, the last town 2in the south4 of thePalestinians. !or hereabouts, near the ?esert of +hur, 2the boundary of4Palestine bends at an angle toward the Eed +ea# so says Aerome. Pliny 2.1664tells us that there is an island in the Eed +ea nearby called +ygarus 2so Pliny#te$t of -, +tagnus4# dogs will not willingly go there, and if they are broughtand left, they wander about its shore until they die.

o the east of the ?esert of +hur is the ?esert of +hin, where. according toAerome in his Getter on the 'ams, there were five encamments of the 'hildrenof Israel. he first of these is not mentioned in $odus, but in :umbers772.104 nd they removed from lim to the Eed +ea, which is called amsuh.Aerome wonders how they could have gotten bac" to the Eed +ea, and offers twoossible e$lanations. !irst, there may have been (7=5) an arm of the Eed +eae$tending inland from its main body, for yam means sea and suh means red.2It doesn&t, and A. is not li"ely to have thought it did.4 -ut Aerome offers amore li"ely 2convenientius4 solution since +uh may mean either red orreed. >ere we should not choose the first of these meanings but the second,and may assume that they 2the >ebrews4 came to some sort of a swam or ond fullof reeds. here is no 3uestion that the >oly +criture calls every body of water

a sea 2yam4, so here the true meaning of the >ebrew hrase is a swam ofreeds. -ut since the name Eed +ea in the old translation 2the +etuagint,from >ebrew into %ree"4 was too well established to change, Aerome let it standas it had been in the +etuagint9as he had done with many other hrases allthrough the whole te$t of +criture.

he last of these five encamments, the eleventh after the e$odus of the'hildren of Israel from gyt,is Eehidim 2$. 15.1, :um. 77.164, a rovince ofthe male"ites straight north 2of lam4. his tribe attac"ed the 'hildren ofIsrael in the ?esert of Eehidim, and was defeated by them. !urther east is the?esert of +inai, and in it is /t. +inai. his Aerome, in the -oo" of Places,claims as >oreb, the /ountain of %od. -ut in Eehidim there is no Eoc" 2etra4of %od 2$. 15.4, from which /oses drew water >oreb 2?esert4 with an > has

been written for @reb 2also ?esert# scribal error for tsur roc";4 withoutone. :e$t on the route are the ombs of ?esire and >a*eroth 2%raves of %reed4,two caming laces beyond /t. +inai in the ?esert of +inai. 2+ee :um.11. 77976.4.


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:e$t to the east is the ?esert of Paran, where the Gand of the Israelitesbegins, stretching down toward the Eed +ea but east of it. :orth of Paran is>ebron, the city of ?avid 2II +am. =.114, where great dam, braham, Isaac, andAacob are buried. long the desert road between Paran and >ebron /oses sentAoshua, 'aleb, and the other sies 2:um. 174. In this ?esert of Paran, as Aerometells us in the -oo" of 'ams, the 'hildren of Israel made eighteen marches,from the fifth to the NthirtyO twenty9second inclusive. 2+ee :um. 77.16976.hese are the marches through the ?esert of +inai4, so that the last was at*ion %eber. hus we see that Paran is indeed a very broad 2stretch of4 desert.


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more of them. In :um. =6 we learn that the Aews stoed in +hittim (notreviously mentioned), and sinned with the /idianite women and their gods# theywere unished by a lague. @ne of the Aews brought a woman home# the air weretransfi$ed by Phineas9but only =C,000 Aews had died of the lague.4

@n the other side of the Eiver rnon begins the land of the sons of mmon. whichstretches to the northeast in the direction of the uhrates# to the west a

corner 2of the mmonitesM runs close to the Eiver Aordan, near the shallows9orrather the stream9of Aabbo". here Aacob crossed when he came from the/esootamian art of +yria. fter his crossing an angel wrestled with him, as%enesis 7=2.=C9704 tells us. It is, moreover, clear from ?euteronomy 72.14 thatthe frontiers of the 'hildren of mmon are at this river Aabbo". >ere too is theboundary between mmon and +ihon, Bing of the morites, and +ihon, Bing of themorites, and @g, Bing of -ashan# this is clear from Audges 11 2.184. !or, asthat verse states, the land of +ihon begins at the Aabbo"# where his land ends,that of @g, Bing of -ashan, begins. his in turn e$tends along the rnon all theway to the frontier of >eshbon, the caital of +ihon, Bing of the morites. husthe land belonging to +ihon is bounded on the south by that of the /oabites andon the east by that of the mmonites# on the west it has the Eiver Aordan and onthe north that of @g, Bing of -ashan. -ut +ihon became more owerful and anne$ed

the lands of /oab and mmon. hat he sei*ed the land of the mmonites is shownby Audges 210 and4 11# that the 'hildren of mmon lost half their land is statedin Aoshua 17L.=64# and finally that even /oab lost a great deal is clear from:umbers =12.=4.

(770) :ow that we have identified these regions 2northeast4 of the ongue of theEed +ea by reference to 2inventae sunt... er4 the encamments of the 'hildrenof Israel, we must reflect that in the deserts between the Eed +ea and thelaces we have just labeled lie other vast areas. hey stretch from theuhrates in a crescent through the lands we have mentioned9 those of the'hildren of mmon and /oab, and the ?esert of Paran9and so down to the land ofthe lamites. his last, as I have remar"ed, runs east from the oint on theshore of the Eed +ea where the 'hildren of Israel crossed. In this enormous

region eole lived in the same way as those whom braham fathered on Beturahand >agar, who are mentioned in %enesis =6. 2Beturah&s children# %en. =6.19C.>agar&s %en. =6.18. nd they dwelt from >avilah unto +hur, which is east of2before4 gyt as thou goest toward 2on the way to4 ssyria. 2+hur isusually a town near gyt# how, then, did on the way to ssyria get in theact9unless as a general term for to the northeast;4 agar was firstdriven out, she and Ishmael dwelt in the agar4. gain, in boo" 5, on Isaiah 02.54, he says of the regionsof Bedar and :abatea that Bedar is the region of the +aracens, called&Ishmaelites& in +criture# &:abaoth& is one of the sons of Ishmael. he 2artsof4 the desert are "nown by their names. heir cros are scanty. but the desertis full of wild animals. >avilah is a art of the ?esert of Paran, as we readin the -oo" of Places. here is, of course, a different >avilah in India, nearthe Eiver %anges, mentioned in %enesis N1O 2=.114.

-etween Bedar and the land of the lamites, of which I have already so"en,stretches the land of +aba 2Q+heba# see below4, which Pliny, in -oo" N6O2.1614, locates along the coast of the Eed +ea. his region is the source offran"incense, and indeed abounds in sices. It is divided into three arts. @ne


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of these. rabia !eli$, lies between the Eed +ea and the Persian %ulf, accordingto @rosius, ?e @rmesta /undi 2l.=.=14 and (771) Isidore 21C.7.179164. he secondart is /idian, named for a son of braham and Betura, and the third is hah,named for a son of /idian, as %enesis =62.C4 ma"es clear. Aerome regarded thelast two of these regions as art of the realm of +heba, for he secificallyobserves in his 'ommentary on Isaiah N15O 20.84 that /idian and hah areregions abounding in camels, and oints out that this was the region from whichcame the Hueen of +heba. hat rabia !eli$ was art of +heba is aarent toofrom its bordering on 'haldea, as @rosius tells us. /oreover, they joined theirneighbors the +abaeans in a raid on the floc"s of the -lessed Aob, as we read inhis boo" 2Aob 1.16, 154. he second art of the name of this land is clear fromIsidore 1C2.164# he tells us that the that the region is called 2rabia4 +acra2dedicated to the gods4 because it bears incense and roduces erfumes. he%ree"s accordingly call it udaimSn 2-lessed, Gatin !eli$4, and Gatin9sea"ersuse the term -eata 2-lessed4. In its valleys myrrh and cinnamon are grown2rovenit4, and there the Phoeni$ comes to birth. he land is called +heba aftera son of 'ush, the son of >am, the son of :oah# this son of 'ush was given thename +heba. +o Aerome reorts in Huestions about the >ebrews. hus when Isaiah20.4 names /idian and hah, +heba is joined with them where 2in the sameverse4 we read they shall all come from +heba. he name +heba, then, isroerly limited to rabia !eli$. and is commonly used in this way. +till,though, the whole region, including /idian and hah, is 2loosely4 called +heba,so that all the territory 2of rabia4 beyond the Eed +ea, from 'haldea to lam,is called +abaea.

>ere we must remar" that. because of the differing terminologies emloyed byPliny, lfraganus, and certain ancient hilosohers, rabia, is looselythought of as including all the regions I have mentioned, on both sides of theEed +ea. If, however, we use the name in a more closely limited sense, it isalied only to the region from the ongue of the Eed +ea to the uhrates andthe Persian %ulf on the east# on the northwest it is bounded by Palestine andIdumea and, a little further to the northeast, it e$tends to /t. Gibanus. hereit covers the whole domain of +ihon, that of @g, Bing of -ashan, and certainother districts adjoining these. his usage is general in +criture9 as, fore$amle, Isaiah =12.174 reads, the burden uon rabia, where the term includesBedar. gain, /t. +inai is situated in rabia, according to the words of theostle 2Paul4 in %alatians C2.=64. he name is also used in an even stricterfashion, which e$cludes Paran, Bedar, /idian, hah, and +heba 2Qrabia4 !eli$.(77=) he word was understood in this sense in the time of Aerome, and has beenever since, for in his boo" @n Places he tells us that Paran is on the otherside of rabia, and in the fourth and seventeenth boo"s @n Isaiah he describes/idian, hah, Bedar, and :abatea in the same terms. ebrewHuestions, he tells us that the incense9bearing +heba the

Оperis Мajoris (Roger Bacon)

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