De locis theologicis

I had scarcely finished the previous passage when, behold, word came that my most distinguished father had died at Vienna. On hearing the news, whether it would be right for me to deny that I was moved is for wise men to judge; but I would certainly be lying. I was moved, for I had been deprived of a father such as, in my opinion, no other mortal remains. Since I was dedicating these studies of mine to him, and had undertaken my labors chiefly for his sake, I stopped for a time. Until then, the composition of this book had been so pleasant to me that it not only wiped away every weariness of labor but also made the labors themselves gentle and pleasant. But afterward there was absolutely nothing to relieve my weariness and care. While my father lived, whenever I wished to write something about loci theologici, he came to mind as not only worthy of this task, but also as someone in whose name our vigils would appear more pleasing. Now, however, whom shall I find like him to take his place as my father? ¹

I used to set before myself the beloved face of my father. Whenever I had to write, either I was with him or he was with me. He added goads; he roused me when I grew sluggish; he would not even let me yawn. Such was my reverence even for my absent father. But now, when I want to continue the work I began, I am stuck, as the saying goes, and whatever I attempt, my spirit quickly falters and is overcome. For, separated from me by a long distance, he left me in his death no less sorrow than he had brought me joy while living. Yet since, after receiving this wound, I have unexpectedly gained great leisure, while my spirit neither ought nor can remain idle, I had to press on to the final place, lest this work, begun well and usefully, be cut short by the death of the man who still, from heaven, demands the gift of my vigils. Nor would I hesitate, if asked for whom I write, to answer: I write for my father, who wished me not only to give these things to him but also to publish them for others. We are now about to explain how useful and authoritative human history is for theologians. My father will undoubtedly pray that, just as at his urging we began this journey on earth, with his favor from heaven we may now complete it.

ON THE USE OF HUMAN HISTORY IN THEOLOGY

I have now emerged from the shallows, and my discourse has passed beyond the rocks. For I have moved from the most difficult matters to easy ones, and neither my intellect nor my theology can be endangered by explaining the authority of human history. Much less so when I explain how useful and necessary human history is for a theologian. Here we have no opponents and no arguments against the truth. For all learned men agree that those theologians whose writings are silent about history are altogether untutored. In my view, not only theologians but no one is sufficiently learned if he is ignorant of things done in the past. History supplies many things from its treasures; if we lack them, we will often be poor and ignorant in theology and almost every other discipline. Since the hinge of a theological disputation sometimes turns on something once done, who would deny that even in scholastic disputation it is sometimes necessary to summon the clearest witnesses from annals? I have observed more than once, and especially in this work, that history is necessary for a theologian in discussion. Those who have read the earlier books will readily judge how much I have used human history. I dare not now say how much greater its use will be later, lest I seem to promise mountains of gold. Those who have fallen into various errors through ignorance of history are ample proof of how much a theologian needs historical knowledge. Some offer as an example the commonly held belief that Trajan was released from hell by Gregory’s prayers, which was once believed not only by the common people but also by St. Thomas when he was young. He believed it on the authority of John Damascene, to whom St. Thomas certainly deferred greatly. But, they say, no one would be persuaded by that fable if he understood from the chronology that John Damascene could not have been its author, since, according to their account, he lived more than a century before Gregory. For Raphael Volaterranus, Vincent of Beauvais, and St. Antoninus report that he flourished under Theodosius.

But this example is inept, since that John Damascene who wrote four books De orthodoxa fide flourished under Constantine and Leo, that is, after St. Gregory had died. In an obvious matter there is no need to summon John, patriarch of Jerusalem, or the author of Roman affairs in libri 21 and 22, or other historians, when John Damascene himself plainly indicates when he lived. First, he often cites Cyril, who lived after Theodosius. He also sometimes mentions the Council of Chalcedon. Indeed, in libro 3 capite 10, he mentions a certain Peter the Fuller, who was condemned under Justinian at the Fifth Synod. In lib. 4, cap. 17, he writes against the Iconoclasts, whom in his book De haeresibus he also calls Iconoclasts and Thymoleontes, named for Leo, who was that sect’s chief founder and supporter. In the same book De haeresibus he mentions the Monothelites Cyrus, Sergius, and Eustathius, who were condemned at the Sixth Synod under Pope Agatho; he also wrote at length against them in libro 3 de orthodoxia fide capitibus 14 et 15. Anyone who weighs all these points will readily understand that John Damascene lived after Gregory. As for Trithemius’s claim that there were two men of this name, one under Theodosius who composed those books of theology, and another under Leo who fought for images, it is entirely fabricated, as the passages just cited show. I do not, however, approve that history. It is astonishing that a Greek man should have reported to his Greeks an event belonging to us and, as he himself says, widely known throughout the world, which all Latin history nevertheless ignores. Let the stories about Trajan and Gregory be fables, then; I do not object to that. But not for the reason that Damascene lived before Gregory. In this matter our Spaniard Gennesius Sepulveda recently erred—a man who, in my judgment, was not ignorant, and in his own judgment was very learned, certainly distinguished in eloquence and not averse to the study of theology. Wishing to persuade us that there was a just cause for waging war against the barbarians of the New World, he relied on this argument: Gregory, in epistola libri primi septuagesima tertia, cited in 23 quaest. 4, Si non, commends Gennadius for waging wars only to expand the Christian commonwealth, so that the name of Christ might spread everywhere among subject peoples through the preaching of the faith. Gennesius himself would easily have judged how inept Gregory’s testimony is for proving the point, if he had learned from histories that those against whom Gennadius waged war were enemies not only of the Roman Empire but also of the Church and Christ. This is clearer than daylight from another epistle to the same Gennadius, which is number 72 in the same book. There can be no doubt that the Vandals, whose remnants still remained in the province of Africa, were infected with the Arian plague; nor is it unknown that the Donatists, with whom Africa was then still full, fought against Catholics not only in debate but also with rewards and violence. But this is not the place to discuss these examples. Here we briefly and in passing remind the theologian not to neglect ecclesiastical history, whose knowledge yields great fruit, while ignorance produces errors. Augustine, in libro de doctrina Christiana 2 capite 28, also teaches that even the histories of the pagans contribute greatly to understanding Sacred Scripture, and shows that some have erred about Scripture because they were ignorant of them. Irenaeus and Tertullian, for example, were both mistaken in different ways about the age at which Christ suffered, but for the same reason: they neglected human histories at this point, and knowledge of them would have resolved the matter very easily. Yet each could also have been warned of his error by the Gospel.

Erasmus clearly writes that the darkness occurred over the whole earth, yet understands it to have fallen only on Judea. He gives as the reason for this false interpretation something that is not true and, even if it were true, would not be sufficient: if the darkness had covered so wide an area, some Latin or Greek writer would certainly have mentioned it. He offers for ridicule as a fabrication under Dionysius’s name the epistle in which Dionysius asserts that he carefully observed the eclipse with his eyes and considered it in his mind. I neither undertake in this work to restore to Dionysius the Areopagite the praise for philosophy and learning that Erasmus tries to take from him, nor do I criticize his making St. Jerome the author of this interpretation, although no other interpreter of Scripture contradicts it more plainly. My point is that, if Erasmus were not ignorant of human histories here, he would certainly interpret those darknesses differently and truly. For Phegon, an outstanding reckoner of the Olympiads, writes in lib. 14: “In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad there was an eclipse of the sun, great and surpassing all those that had occurred before it. At the sixth hour the day turned into a dark night, so that stars appeared in the sky; and an earthquake in Bithynia overturned many houses in the city of Nicaea.” Eusebius shows in Chronicis that this year coincided with the Lord’s Passion. Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch, distinguished in character and learning, also said in a dispute with the pagans about the Christian faith: “Search your annals, and you will find that in the time of Pilate, while Christ suffered, the day was interrupted by darkness when the sun withdrew.” Eusebius is the source in libro nono ecclesiasticae historiae capite 6. Finally, Tertullian says: “At that same moment the day was withdrawn, with the sun marking the middle of its course. Those who did not know that this had been foretold concerning Christ thought it an eclipse; and yet you have that event, the world’s upheaval, recorded in your archives.” Thus far he in Apologetico, cap. 21. From these points it is easy to understand that even pagan histories are necessary for interpreting Sacred Scripture. Although this is so obvious that it requires no discussion, we must explain it more fully in Book XIII. Since we will illustrate it there with the clearest examples, there is no need for us to anticipate here the specific teaching of that book. Geometers do not prove everything by arguments; they ask that certain things be granted so that they may more easily explain what they wish. In the same way, for now I ask the reader to grant that there are many passages in the Sacred Books that cannot be explained without knowledge of human history. The practice of the most distinguished men plainly confirms that records of historical events are very useful to a theologian disputing against the enemies of the Christian faith. Tertullian argues from Roman histories themselves that the worst and most savage men were cruel to Christians, and that what evil men persecute is therefore good. In lib. Ad Scapulam, how many examples of historical events does he use to persuade us that many pagan governors met sad ends because they persecuted Christians? Therefore those who fought against our people undoubtedly fought against God as well. How does Cyprian use historical knowledge and recollection to refute the vanity of all idols? How many and varied histories does Jerome recall against Jovinian in praise of virginity and chastity? As we said above, Lucian the presbyter cites the very annals of the pagans so that he may also establish our faith

support their doctrines by the testimonies of those authors. Eusebius often refutes Jews and pagans from secular histories. Therefore not only ecclesiastical history but also history written by pagan authors is most useful to a theologian against the adversaries of the faith. Accordingly, complete ignorance of pagan history is either the height of laziness or the most fastidious disdain. Indeed, Tertullian, Jerome, and other most weighty men have shown well that it is fitting and prudent for a theologian to use examples not only in sermons but also in disputes, when he urges that something is just or unjust because it was practiced by good or wicked men; they often take pleasure in this kind of argument. But how can probable examples be offered without knowledge of history? It is clear, then, how widely the usefulness of history extends: wherever we theologians go, whether preaching, disputing, or expounding Sacred Scripture, we set foot in some history. Since books of history are so useful to a theologian in so many matters, he should certainly read them diligently, lest he disgracefully err in matters that concern him most and be ignorant of things that cannot be unknown without not only imprudence but even incompetence. For history, as Cicero said most truly, is both “the teacher of life” and “the light of truth.” So much has been said about the usefulness of history; now let us consider its authority.

CONTAINS ARGUMENTS BY WHICH THE AUTHORITY OF HUMAN HISTORY IS CHALLENGED

Although, as we said a little earlier, our discourse has sailed out of rocky waters, and the matters that must be discussed in explaining this topic do not require great force or keenness of intellect, some of them nevertheless need grave and mature judgment. As a result—and this is scarcely credible—very difficult and slippery questions arise in a topic that is easy and clear. First, we must determine what authority human history has, and how much credibility it carries in theology; this is not so straightforward. Next, we must decide who should be considered a credible and trustworthy author, which is the most difficult matter of all. For the explanation of the truth at issue in a theological disputation must often be drawn not from the recent speech of men but from the memory of our ancestors and the antiquity of the annals. We shall certainly have to judge especially about ancient history, distinguish among all historians, and separate liars from truthful writers. Since I neither claim nor ought to claim this ability, I confess that I undertook this task not without some fear and shame, to perform it as a duty imposed by necessity rather than as work of my own choice. This is not because I lacked care in so great a duty and so weighty a matter, but because I see how dangerous it is to wish to act as judge precisely where that remarkable man is required: one who has an immeasurable store of ancient lore and is endowed with the greatest prudence and the gravest judgment. But so that we may complete as quickly as possible the not insignificant task we have undertaken, setting aside any plea for my ignorance, rashness, or both, let us proceed to discuss and explain the matters we have proposed. First, then, let us take up the authority of human history

which we shall attack with opposing arguments. Soon we shall show what kinds of arguments drawn from such history are used in theology. In the third place, we would show which authors theologians ought to approve in history. Finally, by refuting the opposing arguments, we shall bring this book to an end. The first argument by which the credibility of human history can be undermined is of this kind. Joseph was the son of Jacob by nature but the son of Heli according to the law: so wrote Africanus in his letter to Aristides; Justin Martyr in quaestione ad orthodoxos 66; Eusebius in book 1 of ecclesiasticae historiae, chapter 7; Nicephorus likewise in book 1, chapter 11; Ambrose, libro in Lucam 3; Jerome, in primum Matthaei capite; Augustine in book 2 of de consensu evangelistarum, chapter 3, and book 2 of retractationum, chapters 5 and 16; Damascenus in book 4, chapter 15; Bede in libro 1 in Lucae caput 10; Theophylact, in Lucae tertium caput; and nearly all the Fathers. They did not suddenly discover this or invent it without sources, but it was handed down by the Savior's own relatives and kinsmen, as Africanus states. Osiander proves by many arguments in book 1 of harmoniae evangelicae that this is fabricated; he thinks he proves it so thoroughly that he not only mocks St. Thomas and the other theologians as if they dreamed up monstrosities, but also calls insane those who first published this account. The second argument is that Joseph, the husband of Mary, had previously had another wife, by whom he had sons who are called in the Gospel the brothers of the Lord. Eusebius in book 2 of ecclesiasticae historiae, chapter 1; Nicephorus in book 2, chapter 3 (where he also reports Hippolytus as an author of the same opinion); Ambrose in de institutione virginis, chapter 6; Epiphanius in book 2 of contra haereses, chapters 51 and 78; and Hilary, canon 1 on Matthew, plainly agree. Jerome, however, dismisses this story in Matthaei duodecimum caput as the ravings of apocryphal writings; indeed, in adversus Elvidium he claims it was invented with brazen recklessness. The third argument: Jerome writes that an old story reports Herodias, whom Matthew mentions, to have been the daughter of King Aretas. Bede makes the same claim in libro commentationum in Marcum secundo, as does Eusebius in the translation of Rufinus, book 1 of ecclesiasticae historiae, chapter 13. But Josephus in book 18 of antiquitatum, chapter 5, and Hegesippus in book 2 of de excidio Hierosolymorum, chapter 12, are most trustworthy witnesses that this is false. Nicephorus in book 1, chapter 20, agrees with them. Therefore we cannot establish anything from the public record of ancient events—not with certainty, I will say, but not even with probability. For if we may reject and dismiss as worthless the histories reported in these three arguments, no human history will be found that has any force for establishing credibility. The fourth argument: Cyprian in sermone de baptismo Christi et manifesta Trinitate; Athanasius in quaestione 2 ad regem Antiochum; Jerome in Psalmum 71; Augustine in sermone 43 ad fratres in eremo, and in de mirabilibus sacrae scripturae (if these works are Augustine's); Chrysostom in homilia 6 on Matthew; Tertullian in contra Iudaeos; an ancient doctor named Christianus in caput Matthaei 2; Isidore in the preface to the mass commonly called Moçaraue; and St. Thomas in Matthaei caput 2 and in Ioannis II caput, and in part 3, question 36, article 3, say that the Magi who came from the East to worship Christ were kings and not merely philosophers. He says they were not only ^{1 2}

wise but powerful. Albert the Great, St. Vincent, Nicholas of Lyra, Dionysius the Carthusian, Simon of Cassia, the unknown Doctor on Psalm 71, Titelmans, John Eck, St. Antoninus, and other more recent writers whose names would take too long to list held the same view. And this story does seem to have been handed down to us from our forebears. Yet this common tradition is not at all conclusive in the Church. Indeed, Baptist Mantuan and other recent writers argue with considerable probability that the Magi were not kings. The Evangelist would not have passed over in silence something so important, nor would Herod have received them so imperiously and discourteously if they had been kings. Fifth, nearly all ancient and modern authorities have recorded that the Magi came to Jerusalem thirteen days after Christ’s birth. But Epiphanius, in haeresi. 51, firmly maintains that the Magi came from the East two years after Christ was born. There are two reasons for this view, neither of them entirely poor. First, on the day of the Purification Christ’s mother offered not a lamb but a turtledove or young pigeon. She therefore could not afford a lamb, and so had not yet received the treasure from the Magi. The second reason is that Herod killed all the boys who were two years old or younger, according to the period he had carefully learned from the Magi. It is not plausible that Herod would kill two-year-old boys in accordance with the time of the star’s appearance, which he had carefully ascertained from the Magi, if only thirteen days had passed between the star’s rising and their arrival. Add that they themselves testified that they had seen the star in the East. Those words surely mean more than merely that the region from which they had set out lay to the east of Jerusalem. If, then, they came from the East, as the Evangelist plainly writes, and Jerusalem is a very long way from the East, it is wholly contrary to human reason that in so few days they could have seen the star, discussed their departure, prepared for the journey, and crossed so many regions and peoples from the East to Palestine. Sixth, Maximus says that the miracle at the wedding took place on the anniversary of the Epiphany, and faithful antiquity handed this down to posterity. Epiphanius, by contrast, teaches that Christ, having completed his thirtieth year on the very day he was born, attended the wedding feast with his mother. We can therefore obtain nothing certain from the public record of dates. Seventh, as Jerome often says, a true rule of history is to write what people commonly believe, even when it is in fact false. Thus Mary herself called Joseph the father of Jesus, and the Evangelist says that Herod was troubled—not because Joseph truly was Christ’s father or Herod was inwardly troubled, but because people at the time commonly thought the former and those at table supposed the latter. Rather, we should believe that the cunning murderer concealed the malice of his mind, showing sorrow on his face while rejoicing inwardly. For this reason the Lord called him a fox. Josephus likewise says in 18 antiquitatum libro, capite 17, that Herod killed John because he feared that, under John’s leadership, the people might revolt. Every argument drawn from history is therefore uncertain, since the common opinion of the people is usually false. Any such argument can be refuted by saying that the historian reported popular belief, not the truth of events. ³

Eighth. In his sermon 71, de immolatione Isaac, Augustine says: “According to the report of the ancients, Adam, the first man, was buried at the very place where the cross was set up.” Cyprian likewise says in his sermon de resurrectione Christi: “The ancients hand down that Adam was buried beneath the place where the Lord’s cross was set up.” Paula and Eustochium tell the same story in their letter to Marcella, as one widely repeated by the local inhabitants. Epiphanius recounts it in libro 2 contra haereses capite ultimo, as if it were hardly in doubt. But Jerome, in Matthaei 27 caput and in 5 caput, epistolae ad Ephesios, mocks it as a fable, since Joshua 14 says Adam was buried at Kiriath-arba. Isidore followed Jerome’s opinion. Ninth. Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodoret, Jerome, and Augustine infer from chronological records that the seventy years of desolation ended in the second year of Darius Hystaspes. But this is not only false and invented; it also contradicts Scripture, which states plainly and openly that those seventy years ended right at the beginning of Cyrus’s reign. No sound argument, then, can be drawn from chronology. Tenth. Jerome, a most authoritative historian, reports that construction of the Temple began in the second year of Darius. Yet it has been clearly established that Zerubbabel laid the Temple’s foundations under Cyrus. Any argument drawn from human history is therefore weak, no matter how authoritative its historian. Eleventh. Most historians, including distinguished ones, reported that Artaxerxes obstructed the Temple’s construction. Scripture, however, says that the Temple was built at the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes. Twelfth. Josephus, in libro 5 antiquitatum capite 1; Sabellicus, in Aenea 1 libro 4; and Nauclerus, in Chronographiae suae generatione 28, maintain that Joshua ruled for twenty-six years after Moses’s death. Eusebius in chronicis, followed by Isidore, Sulpicius Severus, and John Carion, assigns Joshua twenty-seven years. If these accounts were true, the total of 480 years from the Israelites’ departure from Egypt to the building of the Temple, calculated in 3 Regum libro capite 6, would not be true. Thirteenth. If any history ought to be approved by a theologian, it is surely one celebrated by the voice of all the churches. Yet many such stories provide no evidence in theology. To pass over the ridiculous and false tales told about Quiricus and Julitta, Gregory, Catherine the martyr, and the eleven thousand virgins, the story of the Apostle Thomas is apocryphal and fabricated—not only according to Gelasius (distinction 15, chapter Sancta Romana), but also according to Augustine in libro 22 contra Faustum capite 79; in libro unico contra Adimantum capite 17; and in libro 1 de Sermone Domini in monte capite 38. Add the fable about Martha and Mary Magdalene, which says that Mary Magdalene inherited Magdala and Martha inherited Bethany by lot, whereas John writes that Bethany was the town of Mary and Martha. Fourteenth. The history that seems to surpass the rest is one approved by the supreme pontiffs. Yet the Donation of Constantine, his leprosy, baptism, and recovery are not only celebrated in Church histories but approved by the supreme pontiffs as well. Many highly learned men have argued that all these things are fabricated. No Church history, then, supplies a theologian with sound arguments. ⁴

Fifteenth. Among churchmen there is no one who can be regarded as a credible authority on history. Not Philo, in temporum breviario: even in that tiny book there are so many lies that they are almost impossible to count. Not Josephus: first, because he reports many things that strongly contradict Scripture; second, because in his history he follows tertium Esdrae librum, which Jerome rejects as nothing but dreams; and finally, because he is repeatedly mistaken in dating events. Who, then, in the Church can be considered a reliable historical authority? Africanus? Gelasius calls his history apocryphal. Eusebius? Gelasius likewise condemns his history as apocryphal. But Sozomen is considered foremost in historia tripartita. Gregory condemns him, saying that Sozomen’s history tells certain things about Eudoxius; the Apostolic See, moreover, refuses to receive that history because it contains many lies, praises Theodorus too highly, and claims that he remained a great teacher of the Church until the very end of his life. If the chief authorities in Church history are uncertain and mendacious, a theologian will surely find no sound argument to confirm his conclusions in their works—or in those of lesser authority. Sixteenth. Innocent, in distinction 20, chapter De quibus, approved only Church histories for settling Church cases. Pagan accounts of events, then, can have little force in theology. The Council of Florence confirms this in its seventh session with these words: “We should by no means use Roman or Greek history in a synod.” Seventeenth. Berosus is commonly praised above all others for the history of the Assyrian monarchy. Yet no history by this author survives. Learned men have discovered that the work published by Annius under Berosus’s name is fabricated. For the history of Persian events, Metasthenes is preferred; he is said to have followed the authentic public annals of Persia. Yet Annius published writings under his name with an even more fraudulent title. For this Metasthenes of Annius claims there were only eight Persian kings, though there were fourteen, listed in order by Jerome in septimum Danielis caput and by Eusebius in chronicis. And what does Greek history contain but fables that they commonly publish as true histories? Cicero, a weighty authority, says that the Greek nation did not respect the sanctity of testimony. Scipio, too, in Livy, treats Greek histories as fables. Fabius rightly said that Greek history usually has the same license as poetry, so that even ordinary speech may rightly repeat the line from satire: “Whatever lying Greece dares in history.” Josephus also testifies in proemio libro de Bello Iudaico that the Greeks neglect truth in history, and confirms this in 1 contra Appionem libro. Jerome, one of our own writers, likewise says of the Greek histories he had cited: “We should not accept the authority of those whose lies we detest.” To say nothing of the rest, Herodotus and Xenophon, whom the Greeks call the fathers of history, make frequent use of invented narratives. And what of the Roman empire? Are there any public annals that we ought to believe? Certainly not. Each writer recorded Roman events according to his own bias. As Cicero says, praise has made Roman history more full of errors. Flavius Vopiscus rightly said that certain things in Livy, others in Sallust, Cornelius Tacitus, and Trogus, can be undermined by clear evidence.

No credit, then, should be given to pagan histories, since they possess no authority that is certain—or even probable. The final argument attacks all histories generally, both Church and secular. It runs as follows. Aristotle excluded human belief from the intellectual virtues because it inclines equally toward falsehood and truth. Theology, which is grounded entirely in truth, will therefore take no help from human belief, nor join the truthful with the fallible in an argument, since any argument that rests on human belief rests equally on falsehood and truth. This is confirmed above all by the fact that people are liars, and every person can deceive and be deceived. Therefore, whether few or many historians assert something, every argument that leans on human testimony is weak. Consequently, any argument drawn from human history is too weak to establish anything at all in theology. These are the arguments used to challenge the authority of this field. Any others that may exist—and there may be more—are similar and will be refuted in the same way.

HOW THE AUTHORITY OF HUMAN HISTORY IS SOMETIMES PROBABLE AND SOMETIMES EVEN CERTAIN

We must now explain the nature and extent of human history’s authority for theologians, as we promised to do in the second place. To make this clearer, we should begin with the claim that people must trust other people, unless they are to live like beasts. Theodoret, in libro 1 de cura Graecarum affectionum, and Augustine, in de utilitate credendi ad Honoratum capite 12, et de fide rerum inuisibilium capitibus 1 et 2, have examined this matter so carefully that we need not labor over it here. Augustine plainly asserts that not only friendship but every kind of human society would perish unless friend trusted friend, husband wife, children their parents, brothers one another, citizens their fellow citizens, and partners their associates. He offers many reasons to show that the bonds of kinship and affection, the two holiest ties of humankind, would be violated and dissolved, and nothing at all would remain intact in human society if we resolved to believe nothing we could not perceive as if we touched and held it in our hands. It is therefore necessary for human life that people trust what others say without any doubt. Theodoret also clearly proves that belief is the primary foundation of the arts and the threshold of every discipline. To say nothing of other matters, young children could acquire no elementary learning unless they trusted their teachers about the names of letters and the combinations of syllables. Thus Isaiah’s words prove true in every art and at every age: “Unless you believe, you will not understand.”

Aristotle’s famous statement is therefore right: in every field and discipline, learners ought to believe. Daily experience teaches us, without anyone’s prompting, that belief precedes knowledge and understanding, and that knowledge of truth follows belief. From this it follows that the Author of nature implanted in human minds a natural inclination to believe, since belief is as necessary to human life and learning as the uppermost place is necessary to fire or the lowest place to earth if each is to be in its proper condition. Nature has instilled in these things certain tendencies and, as it were, appetites directed toward their necessary ends and perfections. Therefore those who try to uproot human belief from people’s minds are not only foolish; like the giants, they wage war on the gods—that is, they fight against nature. Can anything be more childish and foolish than denying that things seen by others exist simply because we have not seen them ourselves? We must therefore believe, unless we wish to be more foolish still. From these premises follows the first conclusion. First conclusion: Apart from sacred authors, no historian can be certain—that is, none is capable of establishing certain proof in theology. This is so obvious and evident that it needs no argument from us. Flavius Vopiscus, with both truth and wit, said that no historian has failed to tell some lies; he therefore undertook his own history confident that he would have falsehoods for companions. Second conclusion: Serious and trustworthy historians—of whom there have certainly been some, both in the Church and in secular life—supply theologians with probable arguments, both to support their own claims and to refute their opponents’ false views. This conclusion is also clear enough in itself. A well-formed person, properly suited to human life, ought not to disbelieve a serious man who asserts something credible. I said “credible,” because Pliny and other historians, even the most distinguished, report some things that are scarcely credible. If we deny those events occurred, we do not thereby undermine the authority of history. Both the person who believes too readily and the one who is too slow to believe are rightly criticized. The latter is all the more blameworthy when disagreeing with many approved and serious historians. If every word is established on the testimony of two or three, why should a theologian reject the testimony of many witnesses who attest that the same event once occurred, in defiance of this rule? Especially since testimonies drawn from antiquity have greater power to prove a point because, as Fabius says, they alone are free from accusations of hatred and favor. Indeed, Innocent, a weighty authority, acknowledges some degree of probability in human histories: he ordered ecclesiastical judges to use their authority in settling Church cases even when other arguments were lacking. Yet many people in our day perversely, not to say shamelessly, call into question events attested by the most serious authors. If they gave sound and probable reasons, perhaps they should be heard. But since they give none, they deserve contempt: they have cast off common sense, rejected the chief instruments of human judgment—testimony—and neglected history, the teacher of life, support of prudence, and light of truth. Third conclusion: If all approved and serious historians agree on the same event, a certain argument can then be drawn from their authority, so that theological doctrines may be established on firm grounds as well.

There are many examples, but I shall give a few. All serious historians report that Peter established his see at Rome and was crowned with the glory of martyrdom for Christ. On this basis, in book 5 we established by a certain argument that the Roman bishop succeeds Peter in the pontificate. Likewise, all the most serious historians report that the Council of Nicaea was convened under Constantine by Sylvester, the true pontiff of the Church. From this we infer that the Council of Nicaea’s definitions are certain. For it is certain that a general synod of the Church, confirmed by the Roman Pontiff, cannot err; it is also certain that Nicaea was such a council, lacking neither the agreement of the whole body of the Church’s pastors nor the approval of the Roman bishop. Many other things of this kind are handed down by the common consent of historians. It is foolish not only to deny them but even to doubt them. What could be more foolish, to press the same point, than to say there are no such kinds of beasts as are born in the Red Sea or India simply because we have never seen them? Let us then abolish everything reported to us by history or by serious and approved witnesses. People living inland would then not believe that there is a sea; those born on an island where they had seen only rabbits and foxes would not believe that lions and panthers exist; and if anyone spoke of an elephant, they would think they were being mocked. We should therefore uphold the authority of history as certain when all historians agree on the same point. Among people, those things are certain that cannot be denied without obstinacy and folly. Josephus rightly said in 1 contra Appionem libro that a sure sign of historical truth is when everyone records the same things about the same events. We have said enough about this, though briefly. These few points, unless I am mistaken, make clear the nature and extent of human history’s authority. Although history, as Quintilian says, is written not to prove but to narrate, it nonetheless proves something: usually with probability, though sometimes necessarily. Let us now refute the arguments raised against the credibility of history.

RESPONSES TO THE ARGUMENTS IN CHAPTER THREE

It is not easy to examine opposing objections, but they must nevertheless be examined. On the first argument, not only Osiander but also certain Catholics contend with every effort and argument that what is reported about Joseph having two fathers, a natural one and a legal one, is an invention, monstrosity, portent, or dream. They think Africanus’s opinion deserves these labels. Certainly, the author of quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti, whether he was Augustine or someone else, asserts that this opinion is neither probable nor useful for anything, lest anyone suppose that the ancient story displeased only more recent writers. To undermine Africanus’s tradition, they use arguments of this sort. First, they say that no testimony or example can be drawn either from sacred or from secular Hebrew writings by which such a firstborn son is called the son of a deceased man; therefore that dead man cannot be called the father of the firstborn. Second, even if, they say, we grant that under such an unfair arrangement a firstborn could have two fathers, this still would do nothing to remove the difficulty of the Gospel discrepancy. For no one could beget a legal son from

the wife of a deceased man unless he were the deceased’s full brother and had lived with him, as Deuteronomio 25 most clearly teaches. But this could occur only among men born of the same father, for those who have different fathers also receive different inheritances and therefore do not live together. Yet Jacob and Heli had neither the same fathers, grandfathers, nor great-grandfathers, and could not have lived together, since one is reckoned among the descendants of Nathan, the other among those of Solomon. As for their further argument that Joseph was not called by the name of his legal father, although this was required by that law of Deuteronomy, it is a very slight and feeble argument, which Augustine answers without difficulty both in 5 libro quaestionum in Deutenomium quaestione 46 and in libro 2 retractationum capite 12. I prefer the common opinion, although I do not reject the opinion of those who assert that Heli was Joseph’s father-in-law, the same as Joakim, the father of the Virgin Mary, so that Luke constructed Christ’s genealogy through his mother, while Matthew traced it through the man who was thought to be his father. The Evangelist therefore did not construct a woman’s genealogy contrary to scriptural usage. For when he says “who was of Heli,” the relative pronoun is to be referred to Christ, so that the sense is this: Jesus was indeed thought to be Joseph’s son, but in truth he was not Joseph’s, but Heli’s. Since he was born of his virgin mother without a man’s agency, he had no father on earth whose son he could be said to be except Heli, who was his maternal grandfather. So that no one might wonder why, in tracing Christ’s genealogy, the Evangelist went directly from grandson to grandfather, he inserted the reason: Joseph, whom he ought to have called Christ’s father, was not truly his father but was thought to be. The relative pronoun can also be referred to Joseph, so that you understand him to have been Heli’s son not by nature, but in the way a son-in-law is called the son of his father-in-law. Thus the Evangelists traced Joseph to his ancestors: one to those from whom he descended, the other to those into whose family he came by marriage. Augustine mentions this opinion in libro quaestionum evangelicarum 2 quaestione 5. The author of a certain little book, de ortu virginis, falsely attributed to Jerome, held it. John Annius, John Lucidus, George Witzel, and several other more recent writers embraced it. The meaning of the names also agrees with it. For Joakim, Eliachim, and Heli signify nearly the same thing, and are used almost interchangeably in 4 Regum 23 and 2 Paralipomenon 36. Let this opinion be probable—who denies it? Yet it too is not certain. For Osiander’s arguments, which he considers strong, are in fact exceedingly weak. First he objects that nowhere in Sacred Scripture is it found that the firstborn son is called the son of the deceased man. He makes this objection with his customary shamelessness. For if Obed is called the son of Naomi, to whom he was born, why should he not also be called the son of Mahlon, to whom he was born and whose son he was? Likewise, Scripture says: “His brother shall take her and raise up offspring for his brother, and the firstborn son born of her shall be called by his name.” What, I ask, is it to raise up a brother’s offspring, unless it is to beget a son for him? What of this: is it not clear when Scripture says, “Knowing that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his seed on the ground, lest children be born in his brother’s name”? Genesis 38. Osiander himself cited these very passages. He did cite them, but could not answer their clear testimony except, in the manner of heretics, by accusing the Vulgate edition or eluding both the words and the meaning of Scripture. It is his familiar habit, shared with the other Lutherans, to regard the common understanding of all the saints as nothing. Now, as for the second premise he adopts—that the brothers of whom the law speaks had to live together, that is, share the same paternal inheritance and therefore be full brothers born of the same father—it perhaps has the appearance of truth, but it has no truth at all. For in that law of Deuteronomy, “brothers” is to be understood not only of full brothers but also of blood relatives, who ^{1 2 3 4}

In the usage of Scripture they are called brothers. This can be proved not only by the common judgment of all the saints, but also by the clear testimony of Scripture. For Booz was not the full brother of Maalon, but a kinsman. Nor do we confuse the business of redemption with the business of levirate marriage, as Osiander slanders us; rather, we contend, and contend with the greatest justice, that the example in the book of Ruth pertains to that law of Deuteronomy. Otherwise, if we interpret those who dwell together as those who live on the same paternal inheritance, why not rather—and this is simpler—those who live in the same house? Thus, even if they are full brothers, unless they share the same house they will by no means be bound by that law. Osiander himself, however brazen his forehead, would not concede this. Let us therefore explain, as both the custom of the Hebrews and the reason of the law require, that brothers also dwell together when they live in the same town or city. This could occur not only with two uterine brothers, such as Jacob and Heli are said to have been, but also with other, even more distant, relatives. Osiander's arguments therefore do not move us from believing Africanus. Perhaps this may move us: in the third conclusion of the preceding chapter we asserted that the common tradition of all writers ought to be held as true history, certainly, or at least probably. But all the ecclesiastical historians bear witness to this tradition of Africanus. Therefore the doctrine that infers two fathers of Joseph, legal and natural, will be not merely probable but certain. By no means. For it makes a great difference how historians affirm that events occurred. If the very person who first authored the history wrote of the matter not as seen and certain, but as heard and uncertain, then those who report it in the same qualified manner as probable—even if they all agree—do not thereby establish the firmness of history. Africanus, moreover, from whom the others received this history, had nothing beyond hearsay, nor did he place certain trust in those who related it. For after he had reported the matter to Aristides as he had received it from certain Jews, he added these words, in Musculus's translation: “Whether, then, the matter stands in this way or otherwise, in my judgment no one can find a clearer explanation of that discrepancy among the Evangelists which had been proposed. Whoever is endowed with an even temper will care for the same thing as we do, even if certain testimony is lacking: namely, because he will not be able to offer a better and truer explanation. The Gospel indeed hands down all things that are true.” Thus far Africanus. By these words he sufficiently indicates that, if any other more probable explanation for reconciling the Evangelists should appear, he would gladly embrace it. This consideration seems to have compelled both Augustine and Thomas to investigate other explanations as well, besides this one, for removing the discrepancy. We have said enough about the first argument. To the second, however, it must be said that such matters also depend not so much on the faith of history as on the probable conjecture of those who interpret the Sacred Scriptures. For there is no approved author who claims that he either saw another wife of Joseph besides Mary or learned of one from reliable witnesses. But when the brothers of the Lord were read in the Gospel, and religion forbade supposing them to be Mary's sons, the interpreters of Scripture had to conjecture how this could have happened, so that the truth of the Gospel might agree with Mary's perpetual virginity. Thus some inferred that Joseph had sons from another wife and interpreted Christ's brothers accordingly as not true brothers but reputed ones, for Joseph too was not the true father but was so reputed. Nor was their conjecture vain and fictitious, or devised for no reason merely to answer heretics; it had probable causes that also rested on testimonies of Scripture. First, because James, bishop of Jerusalem, was not peculiarly surnamed the brother of the Lord: if only those related by kinship were called the Lord's brothers. ^{5 6}

since James son of Zebedee, from whom he is distinguished by that surname, would in that same way also be a brother of the Lord. Next, no one would have said so simply in the Gospel, “Behold, your mother and your brothers stand outside, seeking to speak with you,” if he defined brotherhood by general blood relationship. For James and John were then inside the house with Christ, and they were brothers in that sense. It is also added that in Mark some said, “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses and Jude and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?” “The son of Mary,” they say, “the brother of James and Joses, etc.,” so that they might be understood as brothers not from Mary but from Joseph. Hence in Luke too they ask, “Is this not the son of Joseph?” And Hippolytus and Nicephorus, especially weighty authorities, assert that the sisters are to be understood as Joseph's daughters Esther and Thamar. The brothers likewise are to be understood as James, Joses, Simeon, and Jude: these same authorities reported that Joseph had begotten these four sons by his former wife, whose name was Salome. It is also added that Epiphanius repeatedly asserts Joseph was an old man of eighty when he took Mary as wife. At so advanced an age, it is certainly not plausible that he had lived without a wife. Those authors could reason and even assert these things without danger to the faith. Jerome, however, examining the matter more carefully, as one thoroughly versed in the Sacred Scriptures, found a far more probable explanation by which the Lord's brothers could be understood in Scripture without either Mary's violation or Joseph's bigamy. For it seems plainly to be gathered from the Gospels that James, who was commonly surnamed the Lord's brother, was not Joseph's son. For Mark, after writing in chapter six of those called the Lord's brothers, writes in chapter fifteen that they are sons of a certain Mary, who plainly could not have been Joseph's wife—unless you concede that he had two wives at once, the virgin Mary and another Mary, which no reason proves and no history reports. Indeed, for a poor man, scarcely able to feed and support one wife, to have taken on the burden of two wives is evidence of both imprudence and intemperance. It needs no long speech to show how foolish, not to say impious, it is to attribute these vices to a just man. Add that this same woman is called Mary of Cleophas by John. But Cleophas was Joseph's brother, as Eusebius reported from Hegesippus in libro 3 ecclesiasticae historiae capite II; for this reason, unless I am misled by conjecture, she is called the sister of the Virgin Mary. For brothers related by levirate are commonly called brothers, and their wives sisters. Therefore, in my judgment, that Mary received the name not as a mother but as Cleophas's wife. She was not Joseph's wife, and therefore her sons were not Joseph's sons, but Cleophas's. Yet just as Joseph was reckoned the father of Christ, so the sons of Cleophas—James, Joses, Jude, and Simeon—were reckoned Christ's cousins, and Cleophas Christ's uncle. For this reason this Mary can be called Christ's maternal aunt, not because she truly was the Virgin Mary's full sister, but because she was both regarded and called a sister. Indeed, all Scripture shows that cousins are also called brothers. Nor is it necessary to refute the arguments for the former opinion. For it assumes certain things that, for definite reasons, most people have judged otherwise: for example, that the sons of Zebedee were Christ's blood relatives and hence brothers in scriptural usage, and that Joseph was eighty years old when he took Mary as wife. Such things can be said, but cannot be proved. For in Actorum capite I, after Luke had named James of Alphaeus, Simon, and Jude, he adds: “They all persevered in prayer with Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers.” It is established that James of Alphaeus, Simon, and Jude were called the Lord's brothers.

Others have discussed these matters more carefully. We are not doing that here. We say only that the faith of history is by no means endangered by the different opinions that the orthodox follow in interpreting Scripture. This alone was needed to refute the second argument. The third is answered as follows. Herodias was not the daughter of King Arethas, but of Aristobulus, as Josephus has testified in many places. The very name also indicates this. For it is, as it were, a patronymic derived from Herod, and therefore signifies nothing other than a daughter, granddaughter, or other descendant of Herod. Accordingly, she seems to have nothing in common with Arethas, king of the Arabs, but shares a lineage with Herod the Great, whose granddaughter she was. As for what Jerome relates from an old history, with respect for so great a man I would say that he is undoubtedly mistaken in this matter. It appears that he either encountered some history by an uncertain author—for some say that it was for this reason called an old history—or else encountered the Latin version of Eusebius, which Rufinus made faulty through his own version. To make the matter clearer, we shall quote the words of that passage: “Josephus also writes of this, in agreement with the testimony, mentioning Herodias by name: as one violently taken from the marriage of his living brother Philip and joined to Herod in incestuous unions, after his proper and lawful wife had been put away; he says that this woman, whom he calls Herodias, was the daughter of Arethas, king of Arabia.” Thus far Eusebius, through Rufinus as translator. From these words, if you remove the name “Herodias” placed later in the passage—a name found neither in Eusebius nor in Josephus—the reading will be true and hence a genuine Latin rendering of the Greek Eusebius. For the relative pronoun “whom” is to be referred not to Herodias, as Rufinus falsely understood, but to the proper and lawful wife who had been put away; Musculus correctly did this in his new translation. Let this suffice for the third argument. To the fourth argument I answer thus: whatever the case may be about the Magi, whether or not they were kings, which is disputed, this is certain: the faith of history is not shaken because very many authors have reported that the Magi were kings. This is plainly the kind of matter that no historian would affirm he had either seen himself or heard from reliable men who had seen it. Therefore those authors rely not on the authority of history, of which they had no approved account, but on probable conjectures, of which they had several. One is that what was said seems to have been fulfilled in the Magi: “The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer gifts; the kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring presents.” And also: “Kings shall walk in the splendor of your rising,” etc. These words have always been sung at the Epiphany of the Lord, not by today's common people but by the ancient choir of the Church. It is added that, as Tertullian says, the East generally had kings among its Magi. It is further added that this saying especially fits kings: “When they had opened their treasures,” etc. There is also an epigram of Claudian in which he calls the Magi Chaldean kings. If it is not by Claudian, it is certainly by a most elegant poet. The Christian faithful adopted this opinion long ago with pleasure, since it is plausible and popular. Nor do I judge it worthwhile for anyone to try to dissuade people from it in a public sermon. For there is no point in dissuading them; to strive in vain and gain nothing but hatred through one's labor is the height of madness. Even if you might persuade a few people with your argument, you would nevertheless bring many complaints, divisions, and quarrels upon the people. So let the people retain with their ancestors an exceedingly probable opinion, especially one that has taken deep root and grown old.

But if, moved by other conjectures, you hold the contrary opinion, you have my leave; I for my part do not object. My point is that, whether this opinion or that is true, the authority of history is neither raised nor diminished on that account, since neither opinion rests on historical authority but on probable conjecture. The fact that the Evangelist suppressed the title of kings is wholly irrelevant. For he did not consider the Gospel testimony to need embellishment with royal pomp, since he had adorned the wisdom and gravity of the Magi most fully. In establishing the hidden truth, the royal title was obscure and beside the point, whereas the designation “Magi” was conspicuous and apt. As for Herod's receiving the Magi with little honor, this is either evidence of Herod's arrogance or of Roman glory and majesty. It is unworthy to turn the pride of a great king into hatred and envy of lesser men. So much for the fourth argument. Let us now answer the fifth. Not Jerome alone, but Augustine, Thomas, and nearly all the other authors, as well as the ancient tradition of the Church, maintain that the Magi worshipped Christ on the thirteenth day after he was born. When I asked what reason there was for this matter, and why it had been received by the Church with such general agreement, although much credence is owed to ancient tradition in such matters, I nonetheless found two reasons, if no other rationale is available, and found both in the Gospel itself. The first is that Matthew says, “When Jesus had been born, behold, Magi came from the East.” Surely, if the Magi had come when Christ was a year or two old, as Epiphanius, Zacharias, Faber, and Osiander suppose, the Evangelist would not have said, “When he had been born, behold, the Magi.” This is not usually said of something so late, but of what is sudden and unexpected, or at least near and virtually present. “While he was still speaking within himself,” it says, “and behold, Rebecca came out.” And the Poet: “Let someone hear these things—or, behold, one who has come, Palaemon.” Hence, when the angel had said to Mary, “Behold, you will conceive,” etc., she understood that she would conceive at once and said, “How shall this be, since I do not know a man?” The child, then, had only recently been born when the Magi arrived. The second reason is this: the Magi found the child in Bethlehem, and therefore they came before the day of purification. For Christ was no longer in Bethlehem after that time. For Luke, after describing the matters pertaining to the purification, adds: “When they had accomplished everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.” He does not say “to Bethlehem” but “to Nazareth.” But why would they return to Bethlehem, where they had so little furniture that the only place for the Virgin to lay the child in the lodging was a manger? Nor does the Evangelist teach that they came in order to stay, but to be enrolled in their own city. They therefore remained there only as long as was needed to fulfill the law, which commands that after the infant has been circumcised, the woman remain thirty-three days in the blood of her purification. We rightly believe that within those days the Magi came to Bethlehem and, guided by the star, found and worshipped the child. In the account first objected to, some notice the Virgin's generosity and beneficence, since she promptly distributed the gold she had received among the poor. Others notice her prudence, in that she prepared provisions for the journey to Egypt. For whether Joseph was warned by the angel about the flight before the purification, according to the words, “When the Magi had departed, behold, an angel appeared in a dream,” etc., or the Magi communicated to the Virgin through another way the oracle about their return, it is certainly credible that this most prudent woman had already begun to provide what was needed for the flight and journey. ⁷

Some observe that this reflects modesty. This reasoning seems to me most holy and prudent: it was not fitting for her, who was poor, suddenly to offer the gifts of the rich. The Virgin was free of all pride and display, and did not intend to change the condition she knew had pleased the Son of God. What if she thought the gold offered to God by the Magi should perhaps be dedicated to sacred uses? The adversaries’ first argument is easily dissolved in these ways. Their second seems more pressing. If Herodes carefully learned from the Magi the time of the star, yet killed all boys two years old and younger, according to the time he had learned from the Magi, then the star appeared to the Magi two years before. They did not come soon after Christ was born, for Herodes killed the children as soon as the Magi left. The Evangelist says, “Then Herodes, seeing that he had been deceived by the Magi, sent and killed…” The particle “then” signifies a present or nearby event no less than “behold,” whose force we considered just above. But this difficulty can be resolved in two ways. First, as Euthymius observed, “according to the time…” does not refer to the preceding phrase “two years old,” but only to the nearby word “younger than,” to which it is closely joined. The sentence should therefore be read continuously: he killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem and all its borders, from two years old and younger. Then, after a pause, add: according to the time that he had carefully learned from the Magi. He should not be understood to have killed two-year-olds according to the time he had learned, but only other young children, for whom alone he adjusted the time of the star. “But why did he kill two-year-olds if not according to the time of the star?” I answer: why did he kill children throughout all the borders of Bethlehem if Christ was born in Bethlehem, according to the Prophet? Just as he enlarged the place from his own malice, so he enlarged the time. Further, it is probable—and seems more plausible to me—that Herodes delayed that massacre until after he had been summoned to Rome to answer the accusation against his sons, and carried it out after returning to Hierusalem. Even if it were necessary to allow the Magi two years to make their journey, which is absurd, it would not necessarily follow that they arrived two years after Christ’s birth. It is much easier and more expedient to say, as I see Chrysostomus and Augustinus held, that the star appeared to the Magi as long before Christ’s birth as was needed for them to travel through so many regions and provinces and worship the child, who had been born not long before. As for how the Magi could have arrived from the East in so few days, the answer is easy. We need not, as Remigius does, attribute this to the newborn child’s power, by which he brought the Magi to himself in so short a time. In sacred Scripture, “East” often means lands eastward from the place where the speaker is. For example: “Loth chose for himself the region around the Jordan and departed from the East”; and, “From Aram Balach, king of the Moabites, brought me, from the mountains of the East.” Whether the Magi were descendants of Balaam and so came from Mesopotamia in Syria, as Chrysostomus, Hieronymus, and Ambrosius thought; whether they came from Arabia, the constant view of Iustinus Martyr; or were other wise men, Persians or Chaldeans, as the name Magi suggests, there can be no doubt they could have completed the whole journey in ten days. Hierusalem is 172 Persian and Spanish parasangs from Aram, and 212 from Ur of the Chaldeans. When Laban pursued Iacob fleeing from Mesopotamia into Iudaea, he caught up with him on the seventh day at Mount Galaad, the beginning of Libanus; yet Iacob was driving flocks, wives, and ⁸

little children. Laban, moreover, had not discovered the flight until the third day. What is more, dromedaries are abundant in that region; Philostratus writes in the Life of Apollonius that they travel a thousand stadia in one day. Aristoteles too testifies in book 9 of the History of Animals, final chapter, that they run faster than Nisaean horses. Do not be troubled by Hieronymus in Hieremiae 25, or by Hieremias himself, who says Chaldaea lies to the north of Hierusalem. Since it is between north and east, it is called at one time northern, at another eastern. I know these points will annoy a fastidious reader, but I had to show how rashly some have departed from the true history and the common opinion of the saints. Enough about the fifth argument. Let us refute what follows. The sixth argument sets Epiphanius’s opinion against historical truth; it should not move us at all. First, he does not usually follow serious authorities in dates of events, and sometimes he errs in remembering them. Second, here he contradicts ancient Church custom without any probable argument or ancient evidence. If it is true—as it certainly is—that Christ suffered when he had begun his thirty-third year and had lived it for perhaps three months and ten days (we do not wish to dispute this point now), and Ignatius in his first letter to the Trallians and Eusebius in his Chronicle report that Christ taught for three years, Epiphanius’s view cannot be true. From the end of the thirtieth year to the Passion only two years remain. Epiphanius could resolve the difficulty if Christ’s teaching began at his baptism, not at the wedding; we too, who defend Maximus’s view and the ancient Church custom, must say this. For we believe the wedding occurred after a full year had passed from the baptism. Some disagree with us, and not without reason. “Nothing,” they say, “is written about Christ’s teaching during that entire year; indeed, he would have taught nothing.” This is in no way credible. At the baptism the Father’s testimony declared him Son and Wisdom of God, leader and teacher of the people. After receiving the office of the Gospel with the clearest commendation and testimony of the Trinity, Christ would not spend so many days idle and silent. He would immediately carry out what he was meant to do. This is shown not only by our conjecture but also by Ioannes’s Gospel. Ioannes marks the events after the baptism so explicitly that, before the wedding, not even a year—but not even a few months—seems to have elapsed. “On the next day,” he says, “Ioannes saw Iesus coming toward him.” A little later: “On the next day Ioannes was standing again with two of his disciples…” Then: “On the following day he wished to go to Galilaea and found Philippus…” Finally, at the start of chapter 2: “On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilaea.” After Ioannes answered the Jewish envoys, the next day he saw Iesus coming toward him. At that time Iesus was neither known nor had he gathered disciples, as this first chapter of Ioannes makes entirely clear. But the next day—that is, three days after the delegation—two of Ioannes’s disciples followed Iesus; on the following day, as Iesus set out for Galilaea, he himself found Philippus. When the Evangelist adds, “On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilaea,” he shows clearly how little time elapsed between the baptism, the calling of the disciples, and the wedding. A full year did not intervene. Further, Iesus began to preach after his second arrival in Galilaea, as Matthaeus says in chapter 4,

He had therefore not preached before the wedding, which took place on his first arrival in Galilaea after the baptism. If a full year had elapsed from the baptism to the wedding, the three years of Christ’s preaching could not be found at all. Add that this opinion would entail Christ suffering in the beginning of his thirty-fourth year. This is plainly inferred because, if it were true, five Passovers would have occurred between the baptism and death: the first, of which the Gospel says nothing, between baptism and wedding; the second, which Ioannes mentions immediately after the wedding in chapter 2, when Christ first drove the buyers and sellers from the Temple; the third, mentioned in Ioannes 5, when he healed the paralytic; the fourth, which the same Evangelist mentions in chapter 6, saying, “Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near”; and the fifth, at which Christ suffered, mentioned in Ioannes 12 and 13. That the third feast, about which there might be doubt, was Passover is attested not only by Rupertus but also by Irenaeus. In fact, the Gospels usually use “the feast” by itself to mean Passover, as in “not on the feast day,” Matthaeus 26; “according to the custom of the feast day,” Lucas 2; and “buy what we need for the feast,” Ioannes 13. Since Christ was baptized in the beginning of his thirtieth year, for he was “beginning to be about thirty years old,” as Lucas says, if five Passovers intervened, he plainly died in his thirty-fourth year. Although Beda and some other younger writers asserted this, it cannot be defended by any reasoning, as Paulus, bishop of Forosempronius, showed in book 9 of part 2 and book 4 of the same part, as did Ioannes Lucidus in De vero die passionis Christi. No such reasoning, however, can move me from the ancient tradition of the Fathers, which the Church’s common custom confirms in the divine office, hymns, and antiphons. This is not because these matters greatly concern faith or religion, but because, among matters that are probable on both sides or even ambiguous, I value the common testimony of ancient Church history. Let us consider the first argument for the other view. “Christ taught nothing during the year between his baptism and the wedding, and so was utterly idle, remaining inactive for so long after receiving his commission.” Certainly, Christ did not preach publicly to crowds or proclaim the Gospel to the people that year. But he was not idle: he often went to Ioannes, so that Ioannes repeatedly bore witness about him, and he also taught certain people privately, lest he appear suddenly as a preacher to the Church. For Ioannes’s disciples would not call him Rabbi, that is, teacher, unless he had already begun to teach, as our Caietanus carefully observes. To the second argument: what they say, that Ioannes’s Gospel shows only a few days passed between baptism and wedding, is entirely false. Ioannes never narrated Iesus’s coming to be baptized, as the same Caietanus established by clear reasoning. He is mistaken, however, in confidently asserting that of the Baptist’s four testimonies reported by the Evangelist in the first chapter, the third was given the day after the second. The second, in my view, speaks of the future; although it follows in the order of Scripture, it preceded even the first testimony in time, as Caietanus himself admits. For the testimony the Baptist gave to the Jewish envoys was exactly the one he recalled having given earlier. It is much more plausible that Christ had not yet received baptism from Ioannes at that time. “There stands among you,” he said, “one whom you do not know. He is the one who will come after me.” Since the Evangelist says, “On the next day Ioannes saw Iesus coming toward him,” he neither means that Iesus came for baptism nor records what happened the day after the Jewish delegation. “One stands among you,” he said, “whom you

do not know. He is the one who will come after me.” Rather, he teaches that the third testimony was given the day after the one I placed first. The second was inserted by the Evangelist in passing between both—that is, the first and third—to explain that the Baptist was always consistent in his testimony and had foretold nothing other than what he would testify in the present. Thus, in chronological order, as we said, the testimony the Evangelist mentions second came first. Next came the one placed at the beginning. Then, on the following day, the Baptist gave his third testimony when he saw Iesus coming toward him; as said above, Iesus often came to Ioannes after his baptism. On the next day he added the fourth testimony while two of his disciples were present, one of whom was Andreas. Since it is not known how much time passed between the baptism and those three testimonies about the present, although all were given after the baptism, it cannot be inferred from Ioannes’s Gospel that only a few days elapsed between the baptism and wedding. What if, when he says, “On the following day he wished to go to Galilaea and found Philippus,” the Evangelist meant not Christ but Andreas, whom he had first said found Simon and now says found Philippus the next day, after leaving Christ’s lodging for Galilaea? For this reason the Latin translator says, “And Iesus says to him,” although the name Iesus is not found in the Greek. It is uncertain how many days passed between Ioannes’s last testimony before the two disciples and the day Andreas found Simon. To the third argument: Matthaeus’s passage concerns public preaching to the people. It is clear that on Christ’s first arrival in Galilaea, which Ioannes alone narrates in chapter 2, Christ already had disciples. Matthaeus speaks of the second arrival, when Ioannes was already in prison. The passage can therefore refer not to private teaching but to public preaching to the people. To the fourth argument: the length of Christ’s preaching has not been sufficiently settled by the ancients. Eusebius himself seems inconsistent on this matter. In the Chronicle, after the fifteenth year of Tiberius, he writes that the Lord preached for three years and asserts that Ioannes’s Gospel also records this. Yet in book 8, demonstration 2, of the Demonstration of the Gospel, he likewise confirms from Ioannes that Christ preached for three years and six months. If, as Eusebius says in the Chronicle, Christ suffered in Tiberius’s eighteenth year, how could he have preached for three years and six months after the fifteenth year? That the teaching of the Gospel began after Tiberius’s fifteenth year is clear from Lucas 3. If we wish to account for three years of teaching, we shall assign one year to private teaching and two to public teaching. No reason or authority requires assigning the full three years to public teaching alone. To the fifth argument: we deny—and plausibly deny—that the feast mentioned by Ioannes in chapter 5 was Passover. Chrysostomus and Cyrillus say it was Pentecost, which, I admit frankly, does not seem plausible to me. First, after Passover Iesus remained in Iudaea with his disciples, as Ioannes writes in chapter 3; according to Scripture’s usage, “remained” cannot mean only the few days between Passover and Pentecost. Especially since, after Christ had remained in Iudaea, he left it and went again to Galilaea, as Ioannes says in chapter 4. Then he came from Galilaea to Hierusalem, as chapter 5 records. All these events in so short a time

time, unless we make Christ a runner, these events can scarcely be explained. Caietanus, in his commentary on Ioannes 4, reasonably calculates that after the Passover at which Christ drove the sellers from the Temple, he remained in Iudaea for many months. The feast in chapter 5 was therefore not Pentecost. Further, it seems unlikely that in chapter 5 the Evangelist would narrate one miracle at Passover and then immediately in chapter 6 pass to another Passover, omitting all the events and sayings of an entire year. The feast at which the paralytic was healed was therefore in winter, as Caietanus rightly thinks. It makes no difference whether you say it was the feast of the dedication of the second Temple under Zorobabel, celebrated on the third day of Adar, that is, February, or rather the feast of lots, which the Jews celebrate on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of that final month. Then chapter 6 follows in excellent order: “Now the Passover was near,” and so on. We have said too much in refuting this argument. We seem to have answered the seventh argument in book 2, chapter 18, but there we did so briefly; now that this is the proper place, it must be refuted at greater length. Hieronymus’s words should not be understood to mean that historical truth requires only that the things an author asserts be believed true by the people, even when they are false. Otherwise, if we could interpret scriptural histories by this rule, we would say that when the Apostle says Saul reigned forty years, he meant to report what common rumor more widely held. Beda asserted this in Acts 13; whether rightly or not, let others judge. I do not wish to judge so great a man here. We would likewise say Matthaeus called Ioseph the husband of Maria, not because he truly was so but because the people thought he was. Herodes and all Hierusalem with him would have been troubled not in fact but only in public opinion; and, if you please, Christ would have died not truly but only apparently, in the people’s estimation. Certainly, if Scripture’s custom were for a historian to report popular opinion as people then believed it, one could deny that everything Scripture says about Nabuchodonosor, Darius, Cyrus, Alexander, Samson, and the Machabaei happened as sacred authors believed; they might have reported only popular persuasion. Every faithful person sees how dreadful and alarming this is. Hieronymus therefore has another, much sounder and truer meaning, which readers can readily grasp from the distinction that follows. False popular opinions are of two kinds. Some can be expressed only by false words, such as the view that Christ is Ioannes the Baptist, Hieremias, or one of the earlier Prophets. Sacred authors always report such views as those of the people, not as their own. Other popular views are false, but are expressed in words that are true in some ordinary sense. For example, that Ioseph was Christ’s father was entirely false in the popular sense, but he could truly be called father without falsehood because he was Christ’s foster father and his mother’s husband. In ordinary speech, a stepson is truly called a son, a stepmother a mother, and a stepfather a father. In these cases, I admit, the true rule of history is to express popular opinion. For if the first kind of statement occurs in profane history it is absurd, and in sacred history impious. Wise men often speak with the people but do not think as they do. Yet they are not guilty of a lie, because what they say they understand to be true according to some meaning of the word.

to be true. Thus the Virgin Maria said, “Your father and I were looking for you in sorrow,” using popular speech, yet speaking truly. Likewise, even if Christ had felt no inward wonder, he could truly be said to have wondered because he showed the appearance of wonder, as Beda explains in book 2 on Lucas, chapter 24. Matthaeus and Marcus also say Herodes was saddened because sadness appeared on his face. The Lord called hypocrites who feigned sadness “sad” in this sense too. In common speech, names of things are used for their appearances. Although in the examples just given Christ, if we believe Divus Thomas, was inwardly amazed in some way, and Herodes was saddened, since sinners can grieve and rejoice at the same time in their vices, laughing and lamenting. Enough about this argument. Let us proceed. Hieronymus certainly should not have so readily laughed at the burial of Adam at the place of Calvary; nor should we, following the example of a most holy man, laugh at such histories. I see that the people are too ready to believe these things. Credulity readily creeps into even the best minds. But certain excellent men, when avoiding the people’s ease and credulity, sometimes fall into the opposite fault: they are incredulous even where faith has no defect, though there is some fault in incredulity. The testimony opposed to the ancient history from Iosue 14 has no force, since the name Adam there is not a proper name but a common one. Scripture explains why what was later called Hebron had earlier been called Cariath Arbah, “the city of Arbe”: Arbah, whom the Seventy called Arbea, was a great man among the giants there. This interpretation fits the context very well (which is why the Chaldean translator, Pagninus, and other distinguished men adopted it) and is easily proved from the same book, chapter 15, where Arbah is called the father of Enach. Anyone can readily see that Arbah was the proper name of a giant, after whom Cariath was named, and that Arbah was the father and first of the giants in that land. I omit the version of the Seventy, who, although they referred the greatness not to Arbah but to the city, so that it might be understood as a metropolis, still clearly indicated that Arbah was the proper name of a giant, from whom that city once took its surname. Thus neither that passage nor any other establishes that the tomb of the first parent was in the city of Arbe. Much more probable is the public record of ancient events, which says that the first Adam was buried where the second was also buried. Enough, then, about the eighth argument. The ninth raises a very difficult question not only in chronology but also in interpreting Scripture, and has drawn distinguished authors into differing opinions. Iosephus indeed counted those seventy years of Jewish captivity up to Cyrus’s first year. He was followed by Africanus in book 5 of his Chronology, our Abulensis on Matthaeus 2, question 91, Annius with his Philo in book 14, Ioannes Lucidus in book 2, chapter 2, and other serious ancient and modern writers. They rely on very clear testimonies of sacred Scripture. The first is Hieremias 25: “These nations shall serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. When seventy years are completed, I will visit the king of Babylon,” and so on. Thus the seventy years of Jewish captivity were already complete when Babylon was captured and sacked by the Persians. Everyone knows this happened in Cyrus’s first year. Again, Hieremias 29 says: “When the seventy years in Babylon begin to be fulfilled, I will visit you and raise up for you my good word, to bring you back to this place.” That this prophecy

was fulfilled in Cyrus’s first year is plainly reported in 2 Paralipomenon 36 and Esdrae 1. Although Hieronymus thought otherwise elsewhere, in this passage of Hieremias he could not oppose the evident truth. “Unless,” he says, “the seventy years have been completed, when Cyrus, king of the Persians, releases the captives, you will not return to your homeland.” The contrary view first cites the angel speaking in Zacharias: “How long will you not have mercy on Hierusalem and the cities of Iuda, with which you have been angry? This is already the seventieth year.” Zacharias 1 testifies that this was Darius’s second year. The seventy years were therefore completed not in Cyrus’s first year but in Darius’s second. Clemens, Theodoretus, Eusebius, Hieronymus, and Augustinus rely on this argument. The explanation some give—that “this is already the seventieth year” means it has been completed for a long time—is scarcely tolerable. The pronoun “this” plainly excludes that meaning, though it might be probable if the pronoun were absent. Second, the seventy years foretold by Hieremias are understood not as the Jews’ exile but as the desolation of the Temple and city. But the seventy years of desolation should be counted to Darius’s second year, not Cyrus’s first. The seventieth year in Hieremias’s prophecy was thus completed not in Cyrus’s first year but in Darius’s second. The first point of this argument is easily proved from 2 Paralipomenon 36: “Throughout all the days of desolation it kept sabbath until the seventy years were completed,” and so on. Daniel 9 says: “In the first year of Darius son of Assuerus, of Median descent, I, Daniel, understood from the books the number of years concerning which the Lord’s word came to Hieremias the Prophet, that the seventy years of the desolation of Hierusalem would be completed.” Hieremias 25 likewise says: “The land will be desolate and a horror, and they will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.” The seventy years must therefore be understood as years of desolation, not exile, as Iosephus also testifies in Antiquities, book 10, chapters 10 and 11, and book 1 against Appion. Hieronymus confirms from Esdrae that the years of desolation ended not in Cyrus’s first year but in Darius’s second, as we argued above. Esdras plainly testifies that the Temple remained overturned until Darius’s time. We must therefore count the seventy years of its destruction not to Cyrus’s first year but to Darius’s second. These points show how much darkness this question casts even over sacred Scripture. In chronology too it is so tangled and complicated that it can scarcely, perhaps not at all, be untangled. Clemens Alexandrinus, counting from the beginning of the desolation—which 4 Regum 25 says occurred in Nabuchodonosor’s nineteenth year and Sedechias’s eleventh—to Cyrus’s first year, when the Jewish captivity was released, counted only thirty years. As I said, Eusebius, Theodoretus, Hieronymus, Augustinus, and Clemens agree on this number. Another argument is that if seventy years passed before Cyrus’s reign, Mardochaeus must have performed such great deeds at an age when, in extreme old age, he could not have governed the state, or even been counted among the living. He was among the captives whom Nabuchodonosor transferred with Iechonias, king of Iuda. Thus, even according to those who count the seventy years from the exile rather than the desolation, at the end of the captivity—that is, Cyrus’s first year—Mardochaeus was nearly eighty. Unless we believe he was transferred to Chaldaea as a two- or three-year-old. But suppose he was one. At minimum, then, he was

seventy-one when Cyrus released the captives. Cyrus, as the most distinguished historians report, reigned about thirty years; Cambyses and the Magi ruled for nine. By the beginning of Darius Hystaspes’s reign, Mardochaeus would thus have been 110 years old. Let us suppose—though it seems to conflict with reason—that Darius was the king under whom Scripture relates Mardochaeus’s deeds. It is much less credible that they occurred under Artaxerxes Longimanus or even Menon, who came many years after Darius. It is not at all probable to assign them to Cambyses, son of Cyrus, who ruled for only eight years. Yet after Assuerus’s twelfth year, the history records certain deeds of Mardochaeus. Assuerus was therefore not Cambyses, especially since Cambyses’s acts do not in any way fit those of Assuerus. It remains, then, that at the time he had reached 122 years, Mardochaeus was active in great and distinguished deeds, not frail, failing, or worn down by old age. This is scarcely credible in those centuries, since long before then the Prophet had said, “If one is strong, his years are eighty, and beyond them their labor and sorrow.” For these reasons, the thirty years counted to Cyrus’s first year by Augustinus, Hieronymus, Eusebius, Theodoretus, and Clemens Alexandrinus seem to fit the history in the book of Esther better than the seventy years derived from others’ opinion—unless we delight in the fables of Philo Anianus, who says that Mardochaeus was eighteen years older than Isaac. Yet Iosephus counts not merely seventy but many more years from Nabuchodonosor’s nineteenth year, when Scripture says the Temple was destroyed, to the end of Baltasar’s reign, when Babylon was captured by Darius and Cyrus. He writes that Abilamarodach, son of Nabuchodonosor, reigned eighteen years; Niglisar forty; Labosordach nine months; and Baltasar seventeen years. Thus, besides the years Nabuchodonosor lived after the Temple was devastated, which were many, seventy-six more elapsed before Cyrus’s first year, if Iosephus is right. Berosus, however, in book 3 of the Chaldeans, calculates only forty-eight years from the desolation to Cyrus: he says Nabuchodonosor reigned forty-three years, his son Euilmarodach two, Niglisar—whom he reports as Euilmarodach’s sister’s husband—four, Labosordach, son of Niglisar, nine months, and Nabonidus, of the same line, seventeen years, in whose final year Babylon was captured by Cyrus. Nearly the same calculation is found in the Phoenician histories that Iosephus cited in book 1 against Appion. Metasthenes counted seventy years from the destruction of Hierusalem to Cyrus’s first year in this way: Nabuchodonosor, who destroyed the Temple and city, reigned forty-six years; his son Euilmerodach thirty; Regassar, his son, three; Labassar Dach, his brother, six; Baltassar, their brother, five. For if you take the twenty-six years that Nabuchodonosor lived after the Temple’s destruction and add the forty-four years during which one son and three grandsons of Nabuchodonosor ruled, you will arrive at the stated number, seventy. The chronology of this question is therefore highly tangled, so much so that even men learned in history seem unable to explain it. For the Jews, since they are experts in chronology,

Lyranus is among them; on his own authority he counted the seventy years from the eighth year of Iechonias’s father Ioakim to Cyrus’s fourth year, merely to state his opinion, without support from any serious authority, chronological calculation, or arguments, and contrary even to sacred Scripture. That may be tolerated in an ambiguous matter. But what can be tolerated in those who, according to Eusebius, assert that the seventy years in dispute should be counted from Iosias’s thirteenth year to Cyrus’s first? Further, this question is tangled by another matter that especially needed clarification: whether Balthasar was the son, grandson, or great-grandson of Nabuchodonosor. If Eusebius is right that Balthasar was Nabuchodonosor’s son and Euilmerodach’s brother, there seems nothing absurd in denying that more than thirty years passed from the Temple’s destruction to Cyrus’s first year. But if Balthasar was not his son or grandson but his great-grandson, it is wholly incredible that only thirty years passed between the city’s destruction and Cyrus’s first year. Hieronymus, on the authority of Berosus and Iosephus, says in Daniel 5 that Balthasar was a great-grandson. This is also reported in De verborum significatione, cap. Nam et Rem. Yet Iosephus writes in Antiquities, book 10, chapter 13, that Balthasar was Nabuchodonosor’s grandson; Methastenes Anianus said the same. I have set this out at length so that the Reader may understand, first, how many difficulties surround this question, and second, not to expect from me a clear, certain, and settled opinion about a difficult and obscure matter that no one has yet explained, but only a probable, plausible, and not absurd one. I begin with this point, which, unless I am mistaken, has been sufficiently proved: the seventy years must be counted from the desolation, not from the exile—that is, not from Nabuchodonosor’s eighth regnal year, when Ioakim, called Iechonias, voluntarily surrendered (4 Regum 24), but from Nabuchodonosor’s nineteenth year, when Nabuzardan destroyed the Temple, houses, and city walls (4 Regum 25). Since, as I said, this was shown from 2 Paralipomenon 36, Esdrae 1, and Hieremias 25, I consider it superfluous to repeat the same points. But Caietanus says, in 2 Paralipomenon 36, that the seventy years should be counted from Iechonias’s exile, because Hieremias 29 says to those transferred with Iechonias: “When the seventy years in Babylon begin to be fulfilled, I will visit you and raise up…” It is clear enough, however, that chapter 29 must be understood in light of chapter 25. It does not say, “When seventy years are fulfilled among you,” but “when the seventy years begin to be fulfilled”—those, namely, that he had foretold. Also, he speaks to all the people of Iudaea, as the chapter’s opening shows; the whole land was not made a desolation and a horror by Iechonias’s exile; and immediately afterward it says, “All these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.” If only those who departed with Iechonias served for seventy years, why does it say of all, “All these nations will serve,” and so on? Surely the peoples neighboring Hierusalem did too. Moreover, even if those were years of emptiness, they were not seventy years of desolation if counted from Iechonias’s exile; emptiness and desolation are different. The seventy years are therefore not to be counted from Iechonias’s exile. I consider those who begin counting them from Iosias’s thirteenth year, Ioakim’s eighth, or even his third year to be much further from the point of this discussion. The first foundation has now been laid clearly.

Further, it does not seem at all likely to me that only thirty years passed from the desolation to Cyrus’s first year, as Eusebius and his followers Theodoretus, Hieronymus, and Augustinus must count if they place the completion of the seventieth year in Darius Hystaspes’s second year. For it is established that Nabuchodonosor, father of Euilmerodach, reigned forty-five years, which Methastenes Anianus rightly assigns him. From Iechonias’s exile to Euilmerodach’s first year, thirty-seven years elapsed (4 Regum 25; Hieremias 25). Nabuchodonosor had therefore already reigned thirty-seven years. Add the eight years he had reigned earlier (4 Regum 24), and you reach forty-five. Hieronymus does not oppose this view when he says in Daniel 5 that Nabuchodonosor reigned forty-three years. He took this from Iosephus, book 1 against Appion; Iosephus in turn from Berosus, book 3 of the Chaldeans. They count complete years and exclude incomplete ones, a custom common to profane and sacred authors. Thus Hieremias 23 says Nabuchodonosor’s first year was Ioakim’s fourth, though Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came to Hierusalem and besieged it in Ioakim’s third year (Daniel 1). Eusebius also says in his Chronicle that Iudaea was captured by the king of Babylon in Ioakim’s third year. Ioakim’s third year was therefore Nabuchodonosor’s first, but not a full year; Ioakim’s ninth was Nabuchodonosor’s first full year. We count forty-five years for Nabuchodonosor even though not all were complete, and speak throughout this discussion of incomplete years too. Eusebius’s error is thus refuted: he assigned Nabuchodonosor only thirty-eight years of rule. He places his death in the nineteenth year after the desolation, though it should be placed in the twenty-sixth if, as is certainly true, Nabuchodonosor ruled twenty-six years after the desolation. From his nineteenth year, when the Temple was destroyed, to his forty-fifth year, when his life and reign ended, there are twenty-six years. Likewise, subtract the eleven years of Sedechias’s reign from the thirty-seven years Nabuchodonosor lived after Iechonias’s exile and you again get twenty-six. This also refutes Eusebius’s other error: he left Nabuchodonosor’s descendants only four years of rule, or at most six, and not even complete years. Certainly, if only thirty years are counted from the desolation to Cyrus’s first year, and twenty-six of them belong to Nabuchodonosor, only four or five remain for Euilmerodach, Neglisar, Labosardach, and Balthasar. Iosephus not only says these succeeded Nabuchodonosor in order; Hieronymus agrees that Berosus reported the same. This greatly astonishes me. I do not understand why Hieronymus, agreeing with Berosus and Iosephus that Balthasar was Nabuchodonosor’s great-grandson, nevertheless counted so few years from the end of Nabuchodonosor’s reign to Cyrus’s first year, as Eusebius did. Eusebius might perhaps be excused because he thought Balthasar was Euilmerodach’s brother and Nabuchodonosor’s son. But why excuse Eusebius, when Matthaeus says that after the Babylonian exile Iechonias fathered Salathiel, and Salathiel Zorobabel? Zorobabel was already grown in Cyrus’s first year, since he was leader and prince of the Jews. It is not even conceivable that, in Eusebius’s few years, Iechonias could have had such an adult grandson. Therefore only thirty years did not pass from the desolation to the return.

To these two conclusions I add a third: seventy years elapsed from the desolation to Cyrus’s first year. I cannot deny it when I carefully consider Hieremias 25 and 2 Paralipomenon 36. If someone answers these scriptural testimonies aptly and plausibly, I will not strongly dispute with him. For my part, as I said, I see no way to explain them except by agreeing that seventy years of desolation elapsed before Cyrus’s first year. I understand that some distinguish the matter this way: the seventy years of captivity are counted from the exile to Cyrus’s first year, while the seventy years of desolation end in Darius’s second year. If true, this would be a plausible reconciliation of differing opinions. But on examination I find it entirely false. The exile occurred in Nabuchodonosor’s eighth year (4 Regum 24), while the desolation occurred in his nineteenth (4 Regum 25). The desolation thus followed the exile by eleven years. More than thirty years unquestionably passed from Cyrus’s first year to Darius’s second. It is therefore impossible to count seventy years from Iechonias’s exile to Cyrus’s first year and another seventy from the desolation to Darius’s second. Setting aside the various conflicting opinions, let us answer the arguments against this third conclusion. First, it is objected that the angel in Zacharias, speaking in Darius’s second year, said, “This is already the seventieth year.” We answer first that the Chaldean translator and Pagninus rendered the passage quite differently, perhaps more fittingly to Scripture’s meaning: “How long, O Lord, will you not have mercy on Hierusalem and the cities of Iuda, with which you have been angry these seventy years?” In Hebrew, a question need not be broken off in the middle of the sentence, but can continue to its end. Thus, although our edition divides the speech, the angel’s single complaint contains two questions. The first is: “How long, O Lord, will you not have mercy on Hierusalem and the cities of Iuda, with which you have been angry?” The second: “Is this the seventieth year?” As if the angel complained: “Lord, have you forgotten your promise? Is this the seventieth year—the year you so kindly promised us and we awaited with such ardent longing? What benefit do we gain from the released captivity and permission to rebuild the altar and Temple, if the Temple remains overturned and the city desolate?” It is not unusual for something to be said without an interrogative mark though it should better be expressed as a question. To omit other examples, consider part of Romans 8, which we customarily pronounce: “Who will accuse God’s elect? God, who justifies. Who is it that condemns? Christ Iesus, who died, who rose again, who is at God’s right hand and intercedes for us.” But Augustinus rightly indicates that it should be read and uttered this way: “Who will accuse God’s elect? God, who justifies?” The tacit answer is “No one.” And: “Who is it that condemns? Christ Iesus, who died, who rose again, who is at God’s right hand and intercedes for us?” as if to say, “Far from it.” You see how much force and sharpness the two questions add to the passage. I think the same of the angel’s complaint here. It will be much stronger if it contains two questions. But suppose there is no question here. Does that mean nothing was expressed in pain?

I think, and not without reason, that these are words of grief and dejection, conveying no less than a subdued complaint and no less than if a question had been removed. To make this clearer, Scripture’s examples will illustrate the whole matter. Hieremias first makes two parts of the same complaint, one a question and the other not: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why is it well with all who transgress and act unjustly? You planted them, and they have taken root; they prosper and bear fruit.” I will also give a very similar example from Habacuc: “Why do you look upon those who act unjustly and remain silent while the wicked devour one more righteous than themselves? You make people like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler.” Did these Prophets signify anything other than complaint through their questions? Did they assert anything by asking? Certainly no more than they did by questioning. In the same way, I understand the angel in Zacharias to have divided his complaint into two parts: the first expressed as a question, the second as a complaint. He does not assert that the year in which he speaks is the seventieth from the desolation; rather, he complains that the long-promised and long-desired year has already passed. For, as we just said, a complaint expresses no more than a question would. By asking, “How long will you not have mercy?” he complained that God’s anger continued beyond the appointed time; then he added, “This is the seventieth year,” complaining that mercy was delayed too long. These words should be spoken not with the voice of one asserting but of one weeping, in a plaintive tone. Enough, then, about Zacharias’s testimony. It is next objected that the seventy years are to be counted not as captivity but as destruction. We gladly grant this, but we firmly deny that the seventy years of destruction were completed in Darius’s second year rather than Cyrus’s first. We rely not on our own opinion but on Scripture. “But,” you say, “the Temple remained overturned and destroyed until Darius’s second year.” If you mean nothing was done to the Temple, this is false. The altar was built and the Temple foundations laid in Cyrus’s early years, as 1 Esdrae, chapters 3 and 5, report. If you mean the Temple was not completed during Cyrus’s reign, that is true. Yet it was not completed until Darius’s sixth year, as we read in 1 Esdrae 6; indeed, Iosephus records that it was not completed in every respect until Darius’s ninth year. The Jews agree with him, saying the Temple was built over forty-six years. The same Iosephus reports in that book, chapter 5, that the Temple had still not been entirely completed by Xerxes’s twenty-fifth year. If the Temple’s demolition is understood to have continued as long as it remained unformed and incomplete, the seventy years would be counted not to Darius’s second year but to his sixth or ninth year, or even Xerxes’s twenty-fifth. What is more, are the seventy years of destruction to be understood of the Temple alone and not also of the city? “I, Daniel,” he says, “understood the number of years concerning which the word was spoken to Hieremias the Prophet, that the seventy years of Hierusalem’s desolation would be completed.” If we take years of desolation in this way, since Hierusalem remained desolate even in Artaxerxes’s twentieth year, its walls broken and gates burned (2 Esdrae 2), we would have to extend those seventy years to Nehemias’s time, when the city was restored under Artaxerxes. Therefore, although we believe the Temple’s construction began in Cyrus’s second or at least third year, we think the seventy years of destruction were completed then, not when the Temple was begun or completed, but when the Jews were released from captivity

and so the opportunity was given for them to return to their homeland, raise an altar, build the Temple, restore the city, and fill its ruins. This, as we said, seems to us to be the very sense received from the sacred writings: they record that the word of Hieremias was fulfilled in Cyrus’s first year. But the age of Mardochaeus—or rather, his remarkable deeds—conflicts with our view. For if he was as old as our opponents infer, he was not merely elderly but decrepit and frail, and unfit to undertake such great deeds. The answer to this argument, accepted by very learned men, should not be dismissed altogether. What is absurd in supposing that even in those ages one or two people surpassed the other old men of their time by far in age, constitution, and vigor of body and mind, when even now there are people whose intellect, memory, and other powers of mind in extreme old age seem not merely unimpaired but not even diminished? This answer also dissolves the argument that may be drawn from Aggaeus 2: “Who among you is left who saw this house in its former glory?” and so on. Thus, in the second year of Darius, some people survived who were 116 years old or more. For if to the seventy years of desolation you add thirty years of Cyrus, nine of Cambyses and the Magi, two, five, or even seven of Darius, and the years they had lived before the devastation, if they had been able to see the Temple and remember its glory after so many years, you will certainly arrive at a total of 116 years. This answer will be judged less implausible if Cyrus’s thirty years are counted not from the capture of Babylon but from his defeat of Astyages. For then he first received the kingdom of the Persians and Medes. Finally, I think this too must be answered: Mardochaeus is said to have belonged to the group of captives whom Nabuchodonosor deported with Iechonias, king of Iuda; this should not be understood as though he himself was then counted among the captives, but as meaning that he descended from them and had his origins among them. Scripture included this in Mardochaeus’s praise: that he did not come from parents who opposed the prophets, but from those who obeyed Hieremias. This interpretation of the passage is inferred from I Esdrae 2, where those who came up from the captivity imposed by Nabuchodonosor and returned to Iudaea are enumerated, although some of them had not come to Babylon; their fathers had. For it is established from Matthaeus that Zorobabel was born in Babylon. And in III Esdrae 5 you read: “These are those who came up from Iudaea,” and so on. We therefore do no violence to Scripture if we interpret this to mean that Mardochaeus was deported from Hierusalem because his father had been deported. If anyone still insists that this interpretation is forced, we can answer in this way as well: perhaps that Assuerus repeatedly mentioned in the book of Esther was Astyages, father of Darius the Mede. Daniel calls him Assuerus in chapter 9. Or perhaps he was Cyaxares, his father, whom Herodotus says first divided the peoples of Asia into provinces. Herodotus also says that, when seized by immense anger, he was exceedingly harsh. All this fits Assuerus extremely well: he is portrayed in the same colors in the book of Esther. It makes no difference whether these or other kings of the Medes ruled Asia before Cyrus. We know that Ctesias of Cnidus, in Diodorus’s third book, set out a different account from Herodotus. But Eusebius follows Herodotus. Moreover, this Assuerus is nowhere called king of Babylon, but king of the Persians and Medes. Before Cyrus and Darius his uncle, the Medes and Persians formed a single monarchy, while Babylon had its own king, as Herodotus writes in book I.

Everything also agrees with this interpretation, and nothing absurd follows from it. For there is no contradiction in Mardochaeus having first been deported to Babylon and then appearing at Susa. It is clear that Babylonians could have sold some of their Persian and Median captives; I pass over the many other possible reasons for this. Daniel, certainly, was first deported to Babylon, but we read in chapter 8 of the same Prophet that he later appeared at Susa. Much more pressing is the argument our opponents make: if the events related in Esther’s history had occurred in the time of either Darius son of Hystaspes or Artaxerxes Longimanus, Esdras and Nehemias would certainly not have passed them over in silence. To refer them to the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, if Mardochaeus went into exile with Iechonias, is as close to a dream as can be. I am not unaware that Plinius writes in book 6, chapter 27, that Susa, once the royal city of the Medes and Persians where Assuerus held that banquet, was founded by Darius son of Hystaspes. If true, this would rule out the view about Astyages or Cyaxares. But Plinius’s authority cannot compel us. On the contrary, Strabo writes much more plausibly in book 15 that Susa was built by Thiton, father of Memnon. Herodotus in book 5 says that it used to be called the city of Memnon—not Artaxerxes Mnemon, but that distinguished young man who came from Syria to aid Priamus and built at Susa the palace called Memnonian after him, as Diodorus wrote in book 3. Daniel, a most reliable authority, confirms that Susa was founded before Cyrus: “In the third year of the reign of Balthasar, when I was in Susa,” and so on. Hieronymus rightly interprets this city as the capital of the region of the Elamites, but wrongly thinks that Daniel built a tower there. Iosephus, in the final chapter of book 10, says that Daniel built that tower at Ecbatana in Media; at Susa, the principal city of Persia, he saw what is recounted in Daniel 8. Though Susa is properly a city neither of Persia nor of Media, but of Susiana, bordering on Persia and Media, it was also adjacent to Babylon and situated midway among these three regions. That is why the kings of the Persians and Medes established their seat of power there. Strabo says Cyrus did so; we think others did so even earlier. Now, if Susa was the beginning of Assuerus’s reign, as it is said in chapter 1 of the book of Esther, and Susa was not the beginning of the reign of Darius son of Hystaspes, Longimanus, or another Artaxerxes surnamed Mnemon, but of Thiton or another king who first made Susa renowned and began his rule there, then it is certainly not absurd to understand Esther’s husband Assuerus as Astyages or his father Cyaxares. Herodotus writes in book I that both ruled over the Medes and Persians. It remains to explain how Iosephus could say that the seventy years foretold by Hieremias were completed in Cyrus’s first year, when he himself counted many more years under Nabuchodonosor and his successors. But Iosephus’s books contain countless errors in their numbers. I neither wish nor ought to attribute these errors to a man of such diligence and seriousness. We must therefore believe they arose through scribal error: that in the reign of Neglisar, 40 was written instead of 20, and in Balthasar’s reign 17 instead of 7. If you correct these two numbers, the seventy years will add up, which Iosephus wrote had elapsed from the desolation to Cyrus’s first year. Yet the total of seventy years holds only if you assign Nabuchodonosor just 25 years after the desolation—for his twenty-sixth year had begun but was not completed—and also exclude Balthasar’s final year, at the beginning of which Babylon came under Cyrus’s authority. And if he assigned Balthasar five years, but through the scribes’ error...

seventeen was substituted for seven; then the seventy years are made up, and there will be no need to exclude years that were incomplete. But I too find myself displeasing to myself as I explain these little details. Still, those curious about such matters had to be satisfied once. This Gordian knot, though it required much effort and many words, had to be untangled clearly and distinctly. The tenth argument is easy enough, but must be explained for understanding Scripture. For not Hieronymus alone but Aggaeus too writes that the foundations of the Temple were laid in Darius’s second year. What we objected from the commentaries on Daniel raises no question at all. For Hieronymus himself, in his commentary on Isaiae 44, explained his own words: “The foundations of the Temple were laid while Cyrus was alive.” But the Temple began to be built in Darius’s second year. This, then, is quite easy. The harder point is that Hieronymus—or rather Aggaeus himself—says: “Set your hearts from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day on which the foundations of the Lord’s Temple were laid,” and so on. Hieronymus says: “From the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, on which the foundations of the Temple were laid,” and so on. The prophet is undoubtedly speaking of the ninth month of Darius’s second year. Many have answered this argument in various ways. Lyranus thinks that in this passage “foundations” means the lower part of the building, which supports and carries the rest, even if it is not the very bottom, but foundations placed on top of lower foundations. Beda believes—and this view is more widely accepted—that the foundations of the inner Temple were laid while Cyrus was alive, while those of the outer court, its porticoes, and the treasury were laid in Darius’s second year. You can also say that the foundations were begun and shaped under Cyrus, then completed and finished under Darius. Add that, with forty years passing from Cyrus to Darius, the foundations were nearly overturned and weakened by the passage of time and the work of enemies, but were repaired and restored under Darius. Thus Iosephus, in Ruffinus’s translation, wrote that under Darius the building was raised upon restored foundations. To state my own view, I do not think Aggaeus establishes that the foundations of the Temple were laid in Darius’s second year. Rather, this is the prophet’s meaning: “Consider not only from this day”—that is, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month—“but from the day when the foundations of the Temple were laid, and you will find that since my Temple was begun your fields have borne no better crops.” For while they neglected the worship and service of God, nothing prosperous had yet happened to them. “But from this day I will bless you,” and so on. This meaning had already been explained shortly before in these words: “And now set your hearts from this day onward, before a stone was laid upon a stone in the Lord’s Temple,” and so on. It is as though from the time they first came from Babylon at Cyrus’s command, God cursed their crops, and the earth produced nothing successfully for them because they had stopped work on God’s house and the Temple’s construction. That is enough about the tenth argument. In the eleventh, it is not easy to determine who that Artaxerxes was, who ordered the Temple to be built along with Cyrus and Darius. Rabbi Samuel believed Darius and Artaxerxes to be the same person. For this was not a proper name but a title common to all kings of Persia, as Caesar was among the Romans and Pharaoh among the Egyptians. Thus the Temple was not built at the command of three kings, but of two: Cyrus and Darius, who was Artaxerxes. The conjunction strongly opposes this view, since it joins the name Darius with Artaxerxes not only in the Latin text but also in the Greek and Hebrew. “Julius and Caesar,” “Marcus and Tullius,” “Chencres and Pharaoh”—these are surely awkward ways to speak. This view too

is opposed by the fact that, by the same reasoning, the title Artaxerxes should have been added to Cyrus, who was certainly a most renowned king of the Persians. And Rabbi himself rightly understood Cyrus, not Cambyses, as the Artaxerxes discussed in chapter 4, as I see it. Why, then, would Scripture add a title common to both kings to one and take it away from the other? Finally, this makes the view less plausible: if Artaxerxes were a title for all Persian kings, it would be absurd what is written in I Esdrae 7: “In the reign of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians, Esdras...” No particular king would be understood, no more than if it had simply said “king of the Persians” without the word Artaxerxes. Enough about this view. Let us proceed to the others. Iosephus, as Lyranus reports him, interprets this as Xerxes, son of Darius. For in book 11, chapter 5 of Antiquitates Iudaicae, he writes that Xerxes, son of Darius, inherited his father’s piety just as he inherited the kingdom. He changed nothing in his father’s arrangements concerning divine worship, but treated the Jews with great kindness. He adds that in his time Esdras adorned the Temple and increased the worship of God with the silver, gold, and precious vessels he had brought from the whole province of Babylon. Nehemias, with the same king’s permission, not only restored the city and its walls, but also supplied what was lacking for the construction of the Temple. This view, however, has two difficulties. The first is that it assigns this king thirty-eight years of rule, which conflicts with the reckoning of all chronographers, who assign no more than twenty years of reign to Xerxes, son of Darius. The second difficulty is this: I Esdrae 6 says that the Jews “built, constructed, and completed the house of God at the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes,” yet they completed it in Darius’s sixth year. Therefore, that Artaxerxes—whoever he was—must have lived before Darius’s sixth year. Otherwise, how could the Jews have constructed and completed the Temple up to Darius’s sixth year, while Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes were alive? Therefore, Artaxerxes does not mean Xerxes, son of Darius. The same reason also presses those who understand Artaxerxes here as Longimanus, son of Xerxes, during whose days, according to Eusebius, Esdras and Nehemias completed what was lacking for the Temple, city, and walls. Nor is it true, as some say, that Darius the Mede should be understood here, while they take Darius son of Hystaspes to be Artaxerxes. First, nowhere in sacred letters or any approved historical authority is it written that Darius the Mede helped or ordered the Temple’s construction. Daniel alone mentions this Darius, and attributes nothing of the sort to him. Second, since this Darius was Cyrus’s uncle, as most have thought, and much older in years, as everyone has thought, sacred Scripture would hardly name Cyrus before Darius contrary to the custom of all others: “At the command of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes,” it says. The same reason prevents us from understanding Darius the Mede by the name Artaxerxes. Although the Seventy translated Artaxerxes for Darius in Daniel 7, as our Hieronymus observes. Besides, no history, human or divine, has called Darius son of Hystaspes “Artaxerxes.” There is therefore no reason to understand Darius son of Hystaspes by the name Artaxerxes here, especially since throughout that whole book no one but Darius son of Hystaspes is ever meant by the name Darius. Why would Scripture mislead us through an ambiguous name, if in the same clause it also split the name Darius among different meanings? “They built,” it says, “at the command of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, and completed this house of God by the third day of the month Adar, which is the sixth year of King Darius.”

Two ways of explaining this question occur to me. One is to defend what is now being challenged: that Artaxerxes Longimanus should be understood here, the first of that name found in secular histories. This was also Beda’s view. Scripture speaks by anticipation, as sacred authors often do elsewhere. We should not understand that all three kings both built and completed the Temple through Darius’s sixth year. Rather, the three completed the work, since we know that they favored the Jews in carrying it out and bringing it to completion; but the Temple was built and partly completed through Darius’s sixth year, at the command of Cyrus and Darius. Even so, the Temple was not entirely finished in that year. For, as Iosephus says, Esdras and Neemias later completed the Temple’s construction, adornment, and worship under Artaxerxes. Our view differs from Iosephus only in this: what Scripture reports Esdras and Neemias doing, he says was done under Xerxes, son of Darius, while we say it was done at the command of Longimanus. This much is beyond dispute: Cyrus, Darius, and the Artaxerxes who favored Neemias and Esdras built, completed, and adorned the Temple. There is another way to remove this difficulty: we can say that the two words “and Artaxerxes” were first added in the margin by some Hebrew scribe, then inserted into the text, as often happens. We need not seek an example of this error elsewhere than in the same book. For in chapter 4 the Latin edition reads: “In the reign of Assuerus, that is, Artaxerxes,” and so on. The three words “that is, Artaxerxes” are not part of Scripture, but were perhaps placed in the margin by some commentator and inserted into our text through a scribal error, since they occur neither in the Hebrew copies nor in the Greek of the Seventy, as Lyranus observed before us. The same error occurred in the Latin manuscripts of II Regum 8, where those words, “From which Solomon made all the bronze vessels in the Temple, and the bronze sea, and the pillars, and the altar,” are found neither in the Hebrew copies nor in the Greek of the Seventy, and so on. The corruption that crept into the Latin edition could likewise have crept into the Hebrew copies. We discussed this matter usefully at length in book 2, and we will shortly say some relevant things while explaining the next argument. For now, I say that I formed my view of the error in this passage on no slight conjecture. For in book 11, chapter 4 of Antiquitates Iudaicae, Iosephus quotes this very passage from Esdras in these words: “The Temple’s construction advanced with the great zeal of all, in accordance with the commands of Cyrus and Darius, while Aggaeus and Zacharias prophesied; it was completed within seven years.” And in book 15, its final chapter, he names no other founders of the Temple than Cyrus and Darius. Thus no third person was present in the genuine Hebrew copies. But enough of this. Let us clear up the rest. The twelfth argument is so difficult and obscure that it can either not be answered at all or can be answered only with great difficulty. For in both sacred and secular histories, numbers have so often been corrupted through scribal error that whoever tries to restore them to their true reckoning must enter, not merely rough and difficult terrain, but an inextricable labyrinth of questions from which no one can escape, even with Theseus’s thread. It would be pointless to expose such errors in human histories, since there are many everywhere. I will mention a few in sacred histories, enough to show everyone how easily and readily scribes substitute one number for another even in divine Scripture. ^{9 10}

Let us first give an example of this from II Paralipomenon 15, where we read: “There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.” Immediately at the beginning of chapter 16: “In the thirty-sixth year of his reign Baasha came up,” and so on. In both places we should read “twentieth” instead of “thirty-fifth” or “thirty-sixth.” For Baasha began to reign in Asa’s third year and reigned only twenty-four years, as III Regum 15 relates. He therefore did not live or reign until Asa’s thirty-sixth year. This is also clear from III Regum 16: “In the twenty-sixth year of Asa, king of Iuda, Ela son of Baasha reigned over Israel,” and later: “In the twenty-seventh year of King Asa, Zamri reigned”—the man who had killed Ela. Ioannes Lucidus noticed this error in book 2 of De temporibus. So that no ignorant person may turn the fault of this passage into an attack on the Latin edition, let him know that the Greek and Hebrew copies are likewise corrupt. The same happened in II Paralipomenon 36, where all the copies I have been able to see agree on these words: “Ioachim was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Hierusalem three months and ten days, and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Here a scribe, either unlearned or careless, put “eight” instead of “eighteen.” For in IV Regum 24 you correctly read: “Ioachim was eighteen years old when he began to reign,” and so on. Otherwise, how did he do evil in the sight of the Lord? How did he go out to the king of Babylon and, though naturally good, surrender himself voluntarily so that the city might not be endangered? IV Regum 24; Iosephus, book 10 of Antiquitates, chapter 9. Caietanus was the first to detect this error too. I do not wish to detract from anyone else’s diligence or ingenuity. Indeed, I myself am sometimes led by conjecture to suspect that in some passages sacred authors wrote numbers different from those now found. Let us propose an example where the basis for this conjecture can be seen. I Regum 13 says that Saul was one year old when he began to reign. If he is understood to have been one year old, an innocent child who could not distinguish right from left, how are we to understand this: “Sedechias was twenty-one years old when he began to reign”? What if here too the number “twenty” was omitted through a scribal error? Do you not think that, had scribes done this through carelessness and negligence, they would have given interpreters room for false explanations? Again, what sort of statement is this: “David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years,” if we interpret Saul as an innocent one-year-old child? In a similar form of expression, the interpretation should be similar. Yet it cannot be similar if Saul is said to have been one year old. It is therefore plausible that the author of the book of Regum wrote that he was twenty-one years old, but that through the scribes’ error the larger number was omitted from the Hebrew copies. Then some others, or even the translators, passed the same error into the Greek and Latin copies. The same happened in II Paralipomenon 15, 16, and 36, as we showed just above. Since I do not intend to examine every passage, I will add just one more from Rabanus’s view, so we can finally deal with what is specific to this argument. The Vulgate reading of Hieremias 52 is as follows: “This is the people whom Nabuchodonosor deported: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Iudaeans; in the eighteenth year of Nabuchodonosor, he deported from Hierusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons; in the twenty-third year of Nabuchodonosor, Nabuzardan, the commander of the army, deported seven hundred and forty-five Iudaean persons. All the persons numbered four thousand six hundred.” From this ¹¹

reading arise rather difficult and obscure questions, some of which Lyranus raised; let others judge how well he answered them. Rabanus writes that Iudaeans were captured by Nabuchodonosor three times, and that the Prophet here counts the number in these three captivities. The first was when Nabuchodonosor led Ioakim, son of Iosias, bound in chains to Babylon (II Paralipomenon 36). It is not at all plausible that he did not take many others to Babylon with Ioakim. Daniel, in chapter 1, also indicates in fairly clear words that in Ioakim’s third year some people were deported from Iudaea to Babylon. Caietanus, however, denies that Ioakim came to Chaldaea. That is true, but he denies it on a weak argument. “Ioakim,” he says, “was killed in Iudaea and buried with the burial of a donkey, according to Hieremias’s prophecy, and cast outside the gates of Hierusalem.” So what? As if it were entirely impossible for him to be taken first to Babylon, then sent back to Hierusalem, where, after violating the faith he had pledged to the king of Babylon, he could die an inglorious death. Let us not deny, then, that Ioakim was taken to Babylon with many others. This is reported not only by Rabanus but also by divine Scripture. Rabanus places the second captivity at Iechonias’s deportation, which is explicitly recorded in IV Regum 24. The third is likewise set out in that same book, chapter 25, when Nabuzardan laid waste to the Temple and city as well. Thus, as Rabanus judges, Hieremias here gives the separate numbers for these three captivities. If this view is correct, three numbers must be changed: for “the seventh year” in the first captivity, read “the first.” For that happened in Nabuchodonosor’s first year, which was also Ioakim’s third, as we said just above. In the second captivity “eighteenth” should be written as “eighth.” It is clear that Iechonias was deported to Babylon in Nabuchodonosor’s eighth year (IV Regum 24). Instead of “twenty-third,” in the final captivity one should read “nineteenth.” For, as IV Regum 25 and also Hieremias 52 say, Sedechias was taken to Chaldaea in Nabuchodonosor’s nineteenth year. Nor does this view conflict with IV Regum 24, where it says that ten thousand Iudaeans were deported with Iechonias. Hieremias does not count the common people or just any soldiers, but the leaders of Iuda and those who held some office, as Iosephus observed in book 10, chapter 8 of Antiquitates Iudaicae. Or Hieremias may be counting here those not numbered in the books of Regum. For the author of Regum entirely omitted the number in the first and final captivities. In the second he gave a larger number, ten thousand, but omitted the smaller number supplied here by Hieremias: eight hundred and two persons. Understanding this, Iosephus in book 10, chapter 9 of Antiquitates Iudaicae includes both numbers and says that those deported with Iechonias numbered ten thousand and a further eight hundred and thirty-two. However, he refers the first captivity to the year when the king of Babylon killed Ioakim and ordered him to be thrown unburied outside the walls. He then writes that three thousand Iudaeans were taken captive to Babylon. That year was undoubtedly the seventh of Nabuchodonosor. For in the eighth year Iechonias was appointed in his father’s place (IV Regum 24). If we accept this, the number for the first captivity in Hieremias is entirely correct, without any correction. I understand, however, that the whole passage in Hieremias can be cleared of any charge of error if we say that the second captivity occurred in Nabuchodonosor’s eighteenth year, counting complete years, just as the first should be assigned to his seventh year in this sense. Otherwise, if about

incomplete years, the first occurred in Nabuchodonosor’s eighth year and the second in his nineteenth. The third, however, occurred in his twenty-third year, in the fifth year after the destruction of Hierusalem. In that year, which was Nabuchodonosor’s twenty-third year, he invaded Coele-Syria, subdued the Ammonites and Moabites, conquered the Egyptians, and carried off to Babylon the Iudaean captives he found there, as Iosephus reports in book 10, chapter 11 of Antiquitates Iudaicae. But since Hieremias seems to count those deported from Iudaea, not from Egypt; since he seems again to list the captivities inferred from the sacred histories; and since he appears to put last the captivity under Nabuzardan, the most famous of all and especially notable for the burning of the Temple and city, thus returning to the point from which he had digressed, I would not strongly oppose anyone who insisted that the years of the second and third captivity be restored to the pattern of IV Regum. For if you prefer to follow Iosephus rather than Rabanus concerning the first captivity, I will not disapprove. To speak frankly, I have never pleased myself less than in this digression. It happened because of my eagerness to explain a very difficult argument, rather than any other fault of mine. While trying to show that questions about numbers are slippery and difficult because numerical errors are easy and treacherous, I almost forgot myself. In a kind of sudden impulse I did what I would not have done even after careful thought in a work devoted to this: I debated such weighty matters while refuting the arguments. Still, this fell out quite conveniently for me: the entire difficulty of the twelfth argument lies in the number of years specified in III Regum 6, from the exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt to the beginning of the Temple by Solomon. The same number of four hundred and eighty years appears in all the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew copies. You can argue from the following points that this number was changed from the truth through a copying error. First, Iosephus writes in book 8, chapter 3 of Antiquitates Iudaicae that Solomon began the construction of the Temple 592 years after the Israelites left Egypt, and 1,020 years after Abraham migrated from Mesopotamia to the land of Chanaan. For if you add the 592 years from the exodus to the beginning of the Temple to the 430 years that elapsed, according to Exodus, from Abraham’s migration to the Israelites’ departure from Egypt, the total of 1,020 years reported by Iosephus remains; thus both numbers agree with each other and with the sum. Second, Iosephus himself says in book 2, chapter 4 of Antiquitates Iudaicae: “Before Saul and David, Iudges administered the commonwealth. This form of government lasted more than five hundred years after the rule of Moyses and Iosue.” Therefore, only 480 years did not pass from Israel’s exodus from Egypt to the beginning of the Temple. Moreover, Moyses ruled for forty years. For he was eighty years old when he led Israel out (Exodi 7) and died in the one hundred twentieth year of his life (Deuteronomii last chapter). Moyses: 40. Add the eight years of interregnum during which the Israelites served the king of Mesopotamia after Iosue’s death (Iudicum 3). Iosephus writes in book 6, chapter 5 of Antiquitates that these were eighteen years; in book 5, chapter 7 he had reported that eight of them were years of servitude. Interregnum: 8. Othoniel judged the people for forty years (Iudicum 3). Othoniel: 40.

Add the eighteen years of interregnum during which they served the king of the Moabites (Iudicum 3). Interregnum: 18. Aioth judged the people for eighty years (Iudicum 3). Aioth: 80. Add the twenty years of interregnum during which they served the king of Chanaan (Iudicum 4). Interregnum: 20. Barac and Debora judged the people for forty years (Iudicum 5). Barac and Debora: 40. Add the seven-year interregnum under the Madianites (Iudicum 6). Interregnum: 7. Gedeon judged the people for forty years (Iudicum 8). Gedeon: 40. Abimelech: three years (Iudicum 9). Abimelech: 3. Thola: twenty-three years (Iudicum 10). Thola: 23. Iair: twenty-two years (Iudicum 10). Iair: 22. An eighteen-year interregnum under the Philistines and Ammonites (Iudicum 10). Interregnum: 18. Iepte judged for six years (Iudicum 12). Iepte: 6. Abesan: seven years (Iudicum 12). Abesan: 7. Helon: ten years (Iudicum 12). Helon: 10. Abdon: eight years (Iudicum 12). Abdon: 8. A forty-year interregnum under the Philistines (Iudicum 13). Interregnum: 40. Sanson: twenty years (Iudicum 16). Sanson: 20. Heli: forty years (I Regum 4). Heli: 40. Saul reigned forty years (Actuum 13), for Iosephus says in the final chapter of Antiquitates Iudaicae that he reigned eighteen years while Samuel was alive and twenty years after Samuel’s death. Saul: 40. David reigned forty years (II Regum 5 and I Paralipomenon 3). David: 40. Solomon began the construction of the Temple in the fourth year of his reign (III Regum 6). Solomon: 4. Added together, these make 574 years. If you add to them the years of Iosue, Sangar, and Samuel, and also the interregnum which Scripture says occurred between Sanson and Heli, the total will certainly be greater than that given by Iosephus. More than 480 years, then, passed from Israel’s exodus from Egypt to the construction of the Temple. There is therefore an error in this passage of Scripture, and the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin copies must accordingly be corrected to restore the true reckoning. Furthermore, if all the Greek copies are given any credence, as is fair in such ambiguous matters and disputes about the reckoning of numbers, Paulus certainly set the period of the Iudges, from the time the land of Chanaan was distributed to the children of Israel until Samuel, at approximately 450 years. The Greek text reads: “Και καθελων εθνη επτα εν γη Χανααν κατεκληρονοµησεν αυτοις την γην αυτϖν και µετα ταυτα ως ετεσι τετρακοσιοις και πεντηκοντα. εδωκεν κριτας εως Σαµουηλ του πρωφητου.” Erasmus translated it as follows: “And after he had destroyed the seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he distributed their land to them by lot, and after these things, for about

four hundred and fifty years, he gave them Iudges until the prophet Samuel.” Erasmus translated it in this same sense: “And after he had destroyed the seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he distributed their land to them by lot; and after these things, for about four hundred and fifty years, he gave them Iudges until Samuel the prophet.” Pagninus and all the more recent translators rendered it in the same way. For those Greek words cannot be translated otherwise. If we add to the four hundred and fifty years that Paulus assigns to the Iudges from the distribution of the land until Samuel the forty years of Moyses, another forty for Saul, another forty for David, and finally Solomon’s four, we will certainly reach the same total of 574 years established just above from certain scriptural testimony, so that the New Testament agrees in every respect with the Old. 450 + 40 + 40 + 40 + 4 = 574. Caietanus says, however, that all the Greek and Latin copies are corrupt, and that one should read Greek τριακοσιοις (three hundred), not τετρακοσιοις (four hundred), and Latin “three hundred,” not “four hundred.” Why? “It is proved,” he says, “because otherwise the number of years specified in III Regum 6 would not add up.” As though the dispute were not precisely whether that number or this one was introduced through scribal error. All the other Scriptures disagree with the number in III Regum; all the Scriptures agree with the number in Actuum Apostolorum. Therefore, it is not this number but that one which has been corrupted through scribes’ error. This view is finally confirmed by the fact that those who adopt the contrary position and retain the number of 480 years make so many absurdities in their reckoning that they can scarcely be heard without offence to the ears. Nicolaus and Abulensis, who are considered outstanding in interpreting Scripture, say that to make their total of 480 years correct, the years of Iosue must first not be counted but included within Othoniel’s forty. They judge Samuel in the same way, likewise including his years within Saul’s forty. Next they add that the years in which the Iudaeans served the king of Mesopotamia and the other kings who followed later should be included within the years in which the land is said to have been at rest, or in which this or that Iudex presided over the Israelites. They count only one eighteen-year interregnum, so that together with Solomon’s three years they can make up the total of 480 years as they please. But, as I said, this method of reckoning is altogether very absurd. To pass over the rest, lest I be long-winded and unusual about what is familiar and clear, I would above all like this to be explained: how can the years of interregnums be reduced and compressed into those during which the land is said to have rested from war under the Iudges? During interregnums the Iudaeans either fought their enemies continually, or suffered in miserable servitude without a Iudex, their affairs in disorder and everything unsettled, with no peace. Besides, what will they say about the forty-year interregnum Scripture records between Abdon and Sanson? Will they include those forty years within Sanson’s twenty? Or rather within Abdon’s eight? Moreover, why do they accept a single eighteen-year interregnum and reject the others? If they cannot give even one

sufficient reason, then either let them discard this interregnum with the others, and the total will be smaller, or admit the remaining ones along with it, as is right, and the total will be greater. Furthermore, the book of Iudices teaches explicitly that the land did not rest under Iuda, who succeeded Iosue, but was troubled by many wars in which the Chanaanaeans and Pherezaeans were defeated and subdued. The book of Iosue itself shows that Iosue’s leadership was turbulent, with frequent battles. But after the king of Mesopotamia defeated the children of Israel when Iosue and Iuda had died and forced them to serve for eight years, to describe that time as peaceful and the land as quiet is wholly contrary to common sense. If you assign the years of Iosue and Iuda, as well as those in which the king of Mesopotamia attacked and oppressed the Israelites, to the period in which the land is said to have been at rest, will you not confuse turbulent and unsettled years with peaceful and quiet ones? Will you not also do clear violence to the sacred Scripture’s explicit account? It plainly reports that after Iosue’s death, after the Chanaanaeans and Pherezaeans were defeated, and after Othoniel freed the children of Israel from servitude, the land rested for forty years. What of Paulus? Does he not assign forty years to Saul’s reign after Samuel? By what reasoning, then, can we include Samuel’s years within Saul’s? Iosephus reports that Saul’s reign lasted thirty-eight years, while Paulus says it lasted forty. It seems impossible, then, to defend that number, four hundred and eighty. For Iepte himself is a most trustworthy witness that three hundred years elapsed from the time the children of Israel began to inhabit and possess the promised land until his first year. If you add to these the forty years the people spent in the desert and the twenty years of Samuel, which some infer from I Regum 1, and then add the years we counted just above from Iepte to Solomon’s fourth year, the very same total of 574 years will result, as it did twice above. Whichever way you turn, whether you try to establish the true and certain number of years from the times of the interregnums and individual Iudges, from Paulus’s calculation, or from Iepte’s testimony and an unimpeachable defense, from Israel’s departure from Egypt to the Temple’s construction, you will always find the same number: 574. Those who wish to calculate the sum of any number with the greatest possible care and precision judge that number most true and exact which, after many calculations, proves consistent, coherent, and in agreement with itself and the other figures; when these are often added together, they produce precisely the same total. These arguments can undermine the number in III Regum, which is nonetheless confirmed by the agreement of all the copies and all Latin, Greek, and Hebrew authorities. In truth, however, you will scarcely find any support wholly secure on every side for defending and preserving this total. Eusebius, who is unquestionably most diligent in chronological reckoning, does defend the total of 480, but in such a way that his method of defense seems careless. First, he removed Helon’s ten years from the total of 480 because, he says, the Seventy omitted that Iudex. This forced him to assign twenty-seven years to Iosue’s administration so the total of 480 would be reached. For if he included Helon’s ten years in the 480, then with twenty-seven assigned to Iosue the sum would be 490. But he encountered more defective copies: for the Complutensian copies include that Iudex in the version of the Seventy. His copy was likewise corrupted regarding the time in which, according to the Seventy, Heli judged the people. For he writes that the Seventy reading has twenty years. Yet in the Hispaniensis copy one finds τεσσαρακοντα, that is

“forty.” I have often been astonished by this error of Eusebius. If he chose to follow the version of the Seventy, why did he not remove Heli’s twenty years as well, just as he removed Helon’s ten? If he decided to retain Heli’s forty years, why did he remove Helon’s ten from the total? Eusebius also faces this difficulty: while including all the interregnums within the periods of the later Iudges, he saw that some earlier ones were most improperly joined to those that followed, and attributed this to the traditions of the Hebrews, so that he would not seem to be the first author of something so absurd. As for the years of Samuel and Saul, he is stuck in the same mire as the others. For he assigns no more than forty years to the two of them. But Paulus assigns that many years to Saul alone; Iosephus assigns Samuel alone twelve years, with Saul reigning eighteen years while Samuel lived, and Saul twenty years after Samuel’s death. Here Beda greatly astonishes me, first because he allows Paulus to make a statement that is both common and false. Second, he says that their book indicates that the Iudges presided for 396 years before Samuel, although the book of Iudices contains only 339. Therefore, to complete that total, one must add Moyses’s forty years and Iosue’s seventeen. But Iosue’s seventeen years come not from historical truth, divine or human, but only from the opinion of those who keep trying to reconcile any numbers they please to that total of 480 years, and do not hesitate to contradict all histories to do so. And what of Beda’s claim that Iosephus assigns Samuel twenty years and Saul the same? He unquestionably assigns fifty years to them both, as is perfectly clear from the passages cited above. Caietanus, for his part, took a very different route. He assigns forty years to Saul alone, but to make his total of 480 years work, he divides them so that Iosue gets ten years and Samuel seventeen. He does this solely on his own authority, against the historical record. What, then? Am I always merely a reporter of other people’s views? Shall I never offer an answer? Certainly I should, and I owe the reader some payment from my own purse, if I have any sound coin to offer. First, I do not think it is a matter of faith or religion whether this number of 480 years found in the commonly circulated copies was written there through scribal error, or whether the sacred author himself put the same number in his copy. For we have shown that numerical errors arise readily and easily. We have shown that some numbers in sacred books were corrupted through copying errors. Finally, we have shown many reasons why this 480-year number under discussion seems to have been inserted incorrectly. Moreover, Iosephus and Sabellicus, one Hebrew and the other Latin, when quoting that passage from III Regum 6, gave not 480 years but many more. It seems incredible that Iosephus would have departed from a definite, prescribed number if all the Hebrew copies had contained 480. Nor did Hugo Cardinalis, when he reported Iosephus’s view, think it should be rejected. Therefore, if someone says that five hundred or more years elapsed from the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt to the beginning of the Temple, he should not at once be refuted as though the matter concerned faith or religion. Finally, I hold that the years of the interregnums truly elapsed between the years of the Iudges. Thus, there is no reason to count them, as the Hebrews falsely report, among the periods of either the earlier or later Iudges. Accordingly, Iosephus, because he wanted to count not only the periods when the Iudges presided but also those that passed during interregnums without a Iudex, rightly arrived at a total of 590 years. But the author of the book of Regum, omitting the years of interregnums, counted only those that he understood

while the Iudges were administering their offices. Therefore, more years elapsed from Israel’s departure from Egypt to the beginning of the Temple, but only 480 passed under leaders, Iudges, and kings. It should also be observed that among those who governed the people from Moyses to Solomon, there are four whose periods Scripture never specifies: Iosue, Sangar, Samuel, and Saul. The number of years for all the others is designated in the books of the Old Testament. Their total is 419 years. If you add three years of Solomon, for he began building the Temple in his fourth year, 58 years remain to be divided among Iosue, Sangar, Samuel, and Saul. Sangar, since he died in office before a year had run its course, should rightly be excluded from this total. Since Paulus assigns Saul forty years, there is no doubt that eighteen must be divided between Iosue and Samuel. But whether ten of these should go to Iosue and the rest to Samuel, or fewer to Iosue and more to Samuel, is open to question. This view pleased Caietanus, and I have thought the same, since according to Iosephus and other reliable historians, Iosue’s leadership lasted longer than Samuel’s judgeship. Nor does it conflict with our view that the Ark remained at Cariathiarim for twenty years in Samuel’s time. For during those twenty years, contrary to what some have wrongly thought, Samuel was not judge of the people of Israel but a prophet. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, Scripture itself indicates clearly enough that Samuel began judging the people after those twenty years. There is such great variety and disagreement among authorities in reckoning Iosue’s time that the authority of history is not undermined in any way, provided that where historians’ views differ, we do not allow ourselves to be constrained and pressed by any of them. Iosephus, in Gelenius’s translation, assigns Iosue twenty years. Eusebius assigns twenty-seven. Beda, Ioannes Lucidus, and several others assign seventeen. Caietanus assigns ten. Therefore, when we say that eighteen years should be divided between Iosue and Samuel, we say nothing absurd. Although reason requires us, without compromising Scripture’s truth, to add another eight or nine years to the time of these two Iudges. Why? Would not adding those eight or nine years make the total greater than 480? It certainly would. “Then,” you will say, “it will be false that the Temple began to be built in the 480th year from Israel’s departure from Egypt.” Not at all. There is no reason why both statements cannot be true. Scripture sometimes omits smaller numbers. We gave an example just above from IV Regum 24, where it says that ten thousand Iudaeans were deported, to which Iosephus added 832, and Hieremias did too, as we explained above. Scripture also says in Ionas that Ninive would be overthrown after forty days; yet the Seventy recorded forty-three in Greek letters. In truth, they counted from the beginning of Ionas’s preaching; the sacred author omits the three days during which the Prophet continually proclaimed those words, “Yet forty days,” and so on. Yet if counted from the beginning, forty-three days would have elapsed before Ninive was overthrown. Iustinus is authority for the fact that the Seventy wrote forty-three days in his Dialogus cum Tryphone. Because Augustinus read not forty-three days but only three, he struggled to extricate himself from this question in book 18 of De civitate, chapter 44. The same error misled Hieronymus. For if he himself had read forty-three days, rather than three, in the Seventy, every cause for wonder would have disappeared. Thus, although there were more than 480 years, since they did not reach 490, Scripture correctly said in its customary manner that 480 years had elapsed. If that is plausible, as it certainly is, then...

we can assign twenty-seven years between Joshua and Samuel: ten to Samuel, seventeen to Joshua, as Bede and other serious writers assign to him. But enough of these harsh and tangled puzzles over numbers. I could simply admit my ignorance and disregard every curiosity of inquisitive people. Yet I thought it the lesser fault to say too much at length while explaining an extremely difficult argument than to say nothing at all. The thirteenth argument entangles us only slightly. I do not intend to defend every story that is commonly read in the Church. I see that common people, not only laypeople but churchmen too, are so disposed that they readily accept even fables long since rejected by the Church. In these matters, certainly, the popes have lacked not only care but also prudence. Some people, while treating a hangnail, injure the head. They do indeed brand serious histories as apocryphal, but they alter the Church’s divine office so much more than usual that scarcely any trace of the ancient religion seems to remain in the daily prayers. This is not the place or time to discuss the many grave evils this causes the Church of God. But suppose that some things in the Church’s public prayers are uncertain, and some even false. Will you therefore go on denying credit to all Church histories because some have been widely circulated and believed, and especially because in stories of miracles you may find many inventions that deserve to be rejected? I certainly approve Gelasius’s advice: when Catholics read histories of this sort, let the saying of blessed Paul come first: “Test everything; hold fast to what is good.” I do not think it is the mark of a decent person, naturally disposed to goodness, to mock bishops, make sport of school theologians, or sneer at monks’ ignorance—as though they imposed and thrust fables of this sort upon an uneducated crowd for their own belly’s sake—still less of someone whom Christ formed in the Gospel law, simple as a dove. If we judge the histories of nations by a few invented and false accounts, there will be none we cannot mock in the same way. If that is the conduct of imprudent and even foolish people, let the accounts of the saints that are commonly read in the Church remain; they should not be despised. Some of them are uncertain, apocryphal, slight, or false, but many are credible and true, and some are even certain. So much for the thirteenth argument. To answer the fourteenth, we must briefly note several points. First, those are gravely mistaken who treat records of events as oracles of the Church whenever popes have used them in their letters and decrees. Believe me, approving a history and making use of it are not the same. A pope may sometimes use accepted opinions, sayings, and widely known accounts to make a point; it does not follow that everything he adduces for this purpose has been approved by the judgment of the Apostolic See. The role of one who persuades is different from that of one who defines. A person who pronounces a judgment brings forward true things; one who persuades sometimes brings forward only plausible ones. As a boy I heard from my teacher that no argument should be neglected if it shows any sign of truth, and that each should be embraced in proportion as it is best suited to establish a point. Not only dialecticians and orators, but also the ancient theologians fashioned their disputations on this principle. For people have sometimes used any arguments they could in support of their cause, even the credulity of the common crowd. It is therefore imprudent to embrace histories that a pope has incidentally cited for the present case in the same way as those definitively approved by the Church.

As for the Donation of Constantine, I do not wish to debate it here. Let others do so, if they care to diminish the majesty and extent of the Roman Church. We know that Lorenzo Valla devoted an entire book to declaiming against the opinion commonly accepted about it. Jurists sufficiently indicate that the formula of the donation commonly circulated is fabricated by marking it with the superscription “Palea.” Eusebius, Rufinus, Theodoret, Socrates, Sozomen, Eutropius, Victor, and the other trustworthy authors who carefully recorded all Constantine’s actions do not mention the donation at all. They even describe the Roman world as divided among his three sons so that Italy fell entirely to one of them. Ammianus Marcellinus, in book 15, says that Constantius held dominion over the city and appointed Leontius as prefect there. All historians record that several later emperors ruled Italy and indeed Rome. Who does not know these and similar facts? But what does it matter whether this donation was made by Constantine or by later rulers? They call it a fabricated and fictitious story put forward by Nicholas and Clement, as though a pope either defined by decree that the donation had been made or defended the city on that title alone. They deny that Constantine donated the city, though they cannot prove it. But I ask them: what are they denying was donated? If the city was not donated, would they hand it over to Caesar? They press the matter crudely. They insist it was not donated and stand by that claim. We, however, put them as it were to the rack: if they answer that it was not donated by Constantine, they must admit their folly in concluding that it therefore now belongs by right to Caesar. Someone else could have donated it; the Roman Pontiff could possess the city under some other just title. Certainly, he could possess it through prescription over a long period. If, on the other hand, they deny that Caesar has any right to the city, let them admit that all their arguments about Constantine’s donation are pointless. But lest we too be pointless, let us pursue the remaining matters. I have never read in a suitable authority that Constantine suffered from leprosy; I have read it of another emperor with the same name, surnamed Copronymus. Perhaps the confusion of the name gave rise to this error. Or the rumor about leprosy may have arisen from the report that he went from Byzantium to the hot springs for the sake of his health. St. Thomas, in part 3, question 69, objection 4, uses the commonly reported story and seems to approve it; Cajetan does not. This view has its own authorities: Platina in the life of Mark, Ludovicus Vives in book 2 of On the Corruption of the Arts, and Alciatus in book 7, chapter 19, of Parerga, who plainly deny it. It is also contradicted by all the ancient writers of that age, who would not have omitted it if they had known of it, and would certainly have known of it if it had happened. For the edict circulated under Constantine’s name, although attached to the Council of Nicaea, does not have the authority of the council. That is what they say. I would not dare affirm these things as certain, nor refute them as false. Gelasius does not reject the Acts of Sylvester, in which this event is recorded. It is also reported in the Roman synod under Sylvester, canon 1, and again in the seventh synod. Finally, Nicephorus, in book 7, chapter 33, recounts it as true history. Accordingly, we cannot rightly mock or accuse the two popes Clement and Nicholas, or even St. Thomas, for having used this history. Nevertheless, as I said, no serious and approved ancient witness attests to Constantine’s leprosy. If we deny it, then, we do not undermine the authority of popes or historians.

Even the most distinguished historians speak variously about Constantine’s baptism. Jerome in his Chronicle; Eusebius in book 4 of The Life of Constantine; Socrates in book 1 of his History, chapter 39; Theodoret in book 1, chapter 31; Sozomen in book 2, chapter 34; Cassiodorus, who compiled the Church history from these three; Pomponius Laetus; and other writers of this kind report that Constantine received holy baptism not at Rome from Sylvester but at Nicomedia from the bishop Eusebius, who was an Arian. By contrast, Damasus in the Liber Pontificalis reports that he was washed in the sacred font at Rome by Sylvester. Marianus Scotus, Sabellicus, Platina in the life of Mark, Nicephorus in book 7, chapter 35, and book 8, chapter 54, entirely agree with Damasus—not to mention St. Thomas, Nicholas, Clement, and, finally, two synods that testify to this event. In affirming this and refuting the contrary view, Nicephorus used exceptionally forceful language. He attributes his account of Constantine’s baptism to the consent of the Church and assigns the contrary opinion to the fabrications of Arians. “Those who formerly belonged to the Arian sect in the East,” he says, “reported that Constantine, when near death, received baptism at Nicomedia from Eusebius, bishop of that city. They said that he had delayed the sacred washing because he wished to receive it in the Jordan. This is easily refuted by the fact that the Church declares with certainty that he was baptized at Rome by Sylvester. I therefore wish all to know that they may safely hold and believe this. The Arians, who thought wickedly and acted with the devil’s counsel, invented this, claiming that he was not baptized at Rome, or perhaps asserting that he held the same views as they and therefore received baptism from them. This is absurd and full of lies. If he had not yet received sacred baptism, it would follow that he had neither met with the bishops at the Council of Nicaea nor shared the mysteries with them, as history relates.” So he says. A little earlier, he adds: “That he was consecrated at Rome by Sylvester is amply shown by the baptistery preserved there to this day as the clearest witness to that event.” These two reasons certainly prevent me from lightly joining those who say that Constantine was washed in the sacred font at Rome. But if a baptistery built with such splendid workmanship, and a public record of ancient events inscribed not only in people’s memories but also in stone, count for nothing as evidence, then we shall be able to deny not only the monuments of antiquity in the city but also traditions received throughout the world from our ancestors, even when clear indications of events, places, and times remain. And if Constantine had not first been raised from the baptismal font, how can we believe that bishops submitted lists of charges and complaints to him, or that he allowed them to attend the council and its debates? Constantine, then, had been baptized before the Council of Nicaea. I cannot sufficiently admire the skill and diligence of heretics in spreading their doctrine. They turn everything upside down so that men distinguished for piety, especially if they are kings or emperors, seem to have favored their party. They do this so artfully that they deceive even learned men, let alone the uneducated. Eusebius Pamphili, either because he credulously trusted Eusebius of Nicomedia and his other friends, or because he wished to adorn his sect—which he openly championed—with this praise and glory, was the first among Christians to originate this fable. Jerome and the other writers believed him. But we shall speak more about Eusebius’s reliability later. As for the claim that Constantia introduced an Arian priest to her brother Constantine and that this most devout man was misled by him: although Constantia’s fickleness and instability incline me to believe it, Constantine’s piety and gravity restrain me.

But even if that Arian priest deceived an otherwise devout emperor after he had become more insolent through power, wealth, honors, triumphs, merits, and every kind of good fortune, persuading him to recall Arius and expel Athanasius—for good men are easily taken in on such matters—it cannot be believed that Constantine went so far into error as to undergo a second baptism at Nicomedia according to the Arian rite. Some think that those who falsely accuse Constantine of heresy through his sister have, because of the similarity of the names, attributed to the father the crime committed by his son. However the matter stands, we must hold that the sinew and strength of wisdom lie in not believing too readily—especially historians who, by violating divine faith, have forfeited the authority of human faith. We shall discuss this more carefully in the next chapter.

WHICH AUTHORS ARE OF APPROVED CREDIBILITY AND WHICH ARE NOT

We have individually refuted the fourteenth argument in the preceding chapter. Now the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth must be refuted, since these three all seek the same thing. We promised above, in our four-part division, to address this subject, but being distracted by many and varied thoughts, we deliberately forgot the third part of that division. I wrote that I would say, in the third place, which historians are approved; I have not fulfilled my promise. I have nearly forgotten the purpose of the work I undertook. People generally either consign to oblivion or put off for a long time a task they do not willingly and voluntarily undertake, but approach reluctantly and against their will. Still, though not at the appointed time and place, I shall now repay what I owe—and perhaps repay it with interest, as I do not deny the debt. Before I give my view about both kinds of historians, ecclesiastical and secular, it is worth asking whether there are any rules, and certain judges of history, by which the reliability and truthfulness of each historian can be examined. John Annius lays down three such rules and confirms them with the testimony of Metasthenes. We ought, he says, to weigh and examine all the books of chronicles against them as if against a touchstone. The first rule is this: all who have written with public and approved authority should be accepted without objection. The second: the deeds and annals of the four monarchies cannot be denied or rejected by anyone, because they were recorded under public authority alone and kept in libraries and archives. Thus we read in Esdras that disputes about rebuilding the Temple were settled from Persian annals preserved in libraries. The third rule: those who write from hearsay alone or according to opinion should not be accepted as private authorities unless they agree with the public record. From these rules Annius concludes that no one should be accepted in the chronicles unless he agrees with the annals of the four monarchies. For the Assyrian monarchy, since the Chaldean Berosus wrote with public authority, he should accordingly be given first place in dating that monarchy; among the Persians, Metasthenes should be followed, and among the Greeks, Xenophon, in matters where their accounts are uncertain.

Annius rejects from the period of this monarchy the Greeks Herodotus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus, and the Latins Justinus, Gellius, and Orosius, because they wrote against the public and approved record. In the second monarchy, that of the Persians and Medes, the authorities with public standing were the Persian Metasthenes and Ctesias of Cnidus, as Diodorus notes in book 3. Annius rejects Josephus among the Hebrews, and Clement, Tatian, Africanus, and Eusebius among the Greeks, because they followed private opinions and recorded kings and dates contrary to the public record, which were not found in the libraries and annals. They write, against every public record, that Cyrus gave the Jewish captives in Babylon permission to return before Darius, his uncle, took Babylon and died. For the third monarchy, that of the Greeks, and the fourth, that of the Romans, the same Eusebius is accepted because he follows the public authority of the annals in both. Philo the Jew is also accepted, since he alone had a Chronography of the four monarchies and is therefore the only Hebrew writer accepted for chronology. He wrote the most certain things not from opinion, as Josephus did, but also on the testimony of the seventy elders. This is what Annius confidently asserts in books 11 and 14—that is, in his own Metasthenes and Philo—like such writers, fearing nothing so much as seeming to doubt anything. We must consider whether his criticism contains as much truth as it claims certainty. We do not readily expose the faults of writers, especially those from our own circle, but we must not betray the public cause of scholarship. Since I have seen certain learned men deceived by Annius’s rules and examples, I thought it necessary to show that both his rules are empty and his examples false. Annius seems first to assert that only the four monarchies customarily had reliable scribes, appointed by the state to record events and dates, and that their annals were kept in secure places. We see the same practice in a well-ordered community, which entrusts public legal documents, sealed by notaries, to safe custody. Josephus, in book 1 of Contra Appionem Alexandrinum, testifies that this practice was customary not only among the four monarchies but also in the states of the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Nor did all four monarchies have such recorders of events and public annals by which disputes, if any arose, about events and dates could be settled. It is much more probable that the Greeks had neither such recorders nor annals. Eusebius writes that before the Olympiads Greek chronology was considered false because historians gave differing accounts, each as he saw fit. But after the Olympiads he does not claim that annals of this kind were written by state-appointed officials; he says instead that reliable Greek chronology is accepted from the time when the Olympiads began to be used. Marcus Varro, in Censorinus’s De natali die, chapter 17, reports no more than what Eusebius accepted: before the Olympiads there was a µυθικον period, that is, a fabulous one, because it included many fables. With the Olympiads began the historical period, in which events are set down in true histories. Thus after the Olympiads the Greeks began to write about events that truly happened, and thereafter they had some method of history, agreement in dates, and a certain degree of consensus among historians. Annius may say that from that time the Greek state appointed specific officers for history, but he cannot prove it. On the contrary, Josephus, a particularly good authority, writes that the Greeks handed down nothing with certainty, but each, he says, tried to explain what he himself thought. Hence their books contradict one another, and in many matters—

Hellanicus disagrees with Acusilaus, Acusilaus corrects Hesiod, Ephorus shows Hellanicus to be wrong in many matters, Timaeus does the same to Ephorus, later writers do so to Timaeus, and everyone contradicts Herodotus. Nor do those who wrote about Sicilian affairs agree with one another, nor the writers of Attic history among themselves, nor those who recorded Argolic matters. Thucydides too is accused of error in many matters, although he wrote the most painstaking history of his own time. The chief cause of this disagreement is that the Greeks made no effort to publish public records of events as they occurred. It was not only the other Greeks who neglected public records: nothing of this kind is found even among the Athenians, who cultivated learning. So far Josephus. It is clear from this that Annius falsely uses Josephus’s testimony to prove that public Greek annals were kept in temple libraries. Josephus argued nothing of the sort that Annius attributes to him. Rather, he argues that the Greeks cannot prove their boast that they received letters from Cadmus, since no inscription from that time remains on temple walls or on vessels, statues, or other offerings dedicated in temples. Yet after letters were invented, it was customary to inscribe upon such objects the names either of the gods to whom they were offered or of those making the offerings. Plutarch, himself a most weighty authority, also says that no public Greek annals survived in his day apart from the so-called chronological canons. He thought little of their authority, since even though many people had devoted much effort and study to them, their contradictions on many matters could not be resolved. It is therefore an empty fabrication that in the Greek kingdom and monarchy, after the Olympiads, historians were appointed and commissioned by public authority. Still more empty is Annius’s claim that only Philo and Eusebius should be accepted for that monarchy because they followed approved public annals. If Eusebius could have added such authority to his Chronicles, he would certainly not have kept silent about his reliance on those annals. Philo the Jew neither had annals of the four monarchies—as Annius falsely claims without reason or evidence—nor, if he had had them, would he have brought us any benefit. Philo left no records of events or chronology. The little book called De temporibus, being full of fables, is the work of no serious author, much less Philo. Its author not only pursues falsehoods but is so ignorant of history that he seems to have read only the Hebrews and no secular writers at all. We shall demonstrate this clearly enough before long. Now let us say a few things about the Roman annals. Cicero, in book 2 of De oratore, testifies that the Romans once had public annals: “From the beginning of Roman affairs up to the pontificate of Publius Mucius, the Pontifex Maximus recorded all the events of each year in writing, displayed them on a whitewashed board at his house, and made them available for the people to consult. These are still called the Great Annals.” In book 1 of De legibus he likewise has Atticus say: “After the annals of the chief pontiffs, which could not be more bare, if you turn to Fabius, Cato, or Piso, what could be more meager than all of them?” These annals of the chief pontiffs therefore ceased after the time of Publius Mucius. Cato, Fabius Pictor, Piso, and other serious authors succeeded them in writing history, but without public authority.

Nor should we listen to those who claim that the annals of the chief pontiffs continued after Publius Mucius, because at this point in Cicero Atticus says that he saw them. He could not have seen them unless they had continued, they argue, since Livy says the pontifical annals from earlier times perished when the city was burned by the Gauls. Livy does not say that all of them perished, only most. It does not follow that because these annals did not come into Livy’s hands—since few survived the fire—they did not come into Atticus’s hands either, as he may have taken greater pains to seek them out than Livy did. Yet such manuscripts do not always come to people through diligence, but sometimes by chance. The annals of the chief pontiffs therefore ceased after Publius Mucius. For if the pontiffs had continued their careful practice, those public annals would still exist in libraries and temples of the gods; Livy would not have been left in doubt in so many places or complained of uncertainty in the annals, nor would he so often have made mistakes in recording consuls and even the years of their consulships. Henricus Glareanus has shown very carefully that he made such errors; Quintilian says that he frequently doubted the persons involved. In book 6 of decade 1, Livy himself complains that the first five books, which covered Roman history from the city’s foundation until its capture by the Gauls—that is, up to the ninety-seventh Olympiad—were obscure and uncertain, both because writing was extremely rare in those times and because most records in the pontiffs’ registers and other public and private documents perished when the city was burned. Again, in book 8, after setting out the various and conflicting accounts of Roman historians, he says: “It is not easy to prefer one account to another or one author to another. I think the record was corrupted by funeral praises and false labels on ancestral portraits, as each family draws to itself, through lying, the reputation for deeds and honors. Thus both the individual achievements and the public records of events have become confused, and no contemporary writer of those times survives whose authority we can trust with sufficient certainty.” In books 9 and 10 as well, to omit other passages, he makes it clear enough how few certain and approved annals he had to follow in writing. Dionysius of Halicarnassus likewise makes it quite plain that he did not find such public annals. He wished to establish the credibility of his history and testified that he had consulted the histories of the ancient Roman writers, especially those considered most serious and distinguished. Yet he makes no mention at all of these public annals; he certainly would have done so if he could thereby add such great and certain authority to his work. In short, according to Suetonius, when Julius Caesar entered on the consulship he was the first to decree that the daily proceedings of both Senate and people should be drawn up and published. This is what the satirist means by “They will want it entered in the minutes”; Pliny likewise says, “When Milo was pleading his case, it rained baked bricks, as recorded in the minutes for that year.” Julius Caesar, then, was the first to restore the ancient custom of the chief pontiff, which had long been interrupted. I am not unaware that the Romans once had linen books as well, containing little besides the names of consuls and magistrates. But Livy did not see these either, since they too may have perished in the city’s burning. Nor was he so moved by their authority that he did not sometimes disregard them when others cited them. Indeed, he sometimes refutes Licinius Macer by means of his linen books. He even reports that Tubero and Licinius each produced linen books with conflicting accounts. You can see how little and slight a trust Livy placed in those linen books.

From this it is easy to refute Annius, who near the end of his commentaries on his Philo asserts that Titus Livy followed the public annals of the Roman monarchy and that his Philo followed Livy’s tracks. This greatly lowers the standing of his Philo: if he had the public annals of all the monarchies, as Annius said just above, he followed Livy carelessly and rashly. It is established, first, that Livy had no public annals; second, that he doubted many things; and finally, that he was wrong about many matters—so wrong that others expose some of his errors and he himself admits others. Let no one counter me with Flavius Vopiscus of Syracuse, who in vitam Probi admits using books from the Ulpian Library, the records of the scribes in the Portico of Porphyry, and finally the proceedings of Senate and people. In the Life of Aurelian he writes that Aurelian ordered his daily proceedings to be recorded in the linen books kept in the Ulpian Library. I will be even less willing to accept Diodorus as an objection: in book 1 he says he learned about Roman affairs and leaders from ancient annals. Vopiscus adduces nothing but restored linen books and the diligence of the chief pontiffs—not an ancient diligence, but one first restored by Julius Caesar. Diodorus does not claim that he found public Roman annals, only ancient ones, which could have been among private records. Those who say that the Greek and Roman monarchies had public annals to which all other histories must be referred—approved if they agree, rejected if they disagree—therefore prove nothing. I have shown that no public annals of either the Greeks or Romans survive, and consequently that no authors wrote the events or chronology of the Greeks or Romans according to such annals. Unless, perhaps, some author in one or two places says that he took the matter he is writing about from linen books, ivory records, or public proceedings. But it would be foolish to judge an entire history on the basis of one passage. Besides, if a writer says that his history agrees with the public annals of this or that monarchy, that does not immediately give it the authority of that monarchy’s public record. Otherwise anyone could easily and readily win the readers’ trust for every fable by telling a single lie. This is what the historian Philo achieved among many people: he persuaded most of them, with neither reason nor evidence, that all the dates in his histories agreed with the true annals of the four monarchies. I called him a historian because the real Philo, a most serious philosopher and highly learned theologian, was as far from writing history as he was from shamelessness and lying. Eusebius, Jerome, and Suidas, who carefully list Philo’s works, include no work in which he recorded the events and dates of any kingdom. This book called De temporibus therefore seems to learned men to be falsely attributed to him, as its title itself is plainly fraudulent. This can also be proved by clear arguments. First, its author writes that Solomon’s line ended with Ahaziah, and that Joash, who succeeded him as king, descended not from Solomon but from Nathan. How false this is, Scripture easily shows. In 4 Regum 2 it says: “When Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, saw that her son was dead, she destroyed all the royal offspring. But Jehosheba, daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons who were being killed, and hid him from Athaliah so that he would not be killed.” In chapter 12 it says, “King Joash of Judah took all the things that Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah his fathers had consecrated,” and so on. In chapter 13: “In the twenty-third year of Joash, son of Ahaziah, king of Judah,” and so on.

Likewise, 2 Paralipomenon 22 says: “There was no one left of the royal line who could reign.” Finally, there is a striking testimony on this point in 1 Paralipomenon 3, against which no evasion is possible: among Solomon’s descendants, in entirely unambiguous words, it lists Joash, son of Ahaziah. Matthew confirms the same explicitly, saying: “Jehoshaphat fathered Joram, Joram fathered Uzziah, Uzziah fathered Jotham, Jotham fathered Ahaz, and Ahaz fathered Hezekiah.” Hezekiah was therefore by generation and birth a son of Jehoshaphat and thus of Solomon, as Matthew says; he was not assigned as a son of David by an edict, as Philo claims. Who could tolerate those who maintain that Solomon’s line ended with Ahaziah in the face of Scripture’s clearest testimony? This ψευδοφιλο Philo does not even stop lying here. He also claims that those whom Scripture calls the sons of Jehoshaphat and brothers of Joram were not truly Jehoshaphat’s sons or Joram’s full brothers, but descendants of Nathan. To make you marvel—or even loathe it—we must quote the words in 2 Paralipomenon 21: “Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. Joram his son reigned in his place. He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah. All these were sons of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. Their father gave them many gifts of silver, gold, and revenues, together with fortified cities in Judah; but he gave the kingdom to Joram, because he was the firstborn. Joram then rose to power over his father’s kingdom. When he had strengthened himself, he killed all his brothers with the sword.” What evasion is possible here? What license of interpretation, what urge to invent, indeed what blatant shamelessness could make us deny that those men were truly Jehoshaphat’s sons and Joram’s full brothers, when Scripture not only calls them so but gives the reason why they must be understood as full brothers? “Joram had brothers who were the sons of Jehoshaphat,” it says, so you would not think them brothers from some other source. And lest you doubt it, it repeats: “All these were sons of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. Their father gave them many gifts, but gave the kingdom to Joram because he was the firstborn.” Why mention all the other claims this false Philo invents without any sacred or secular testimony or rational basis? He makes up a quarrel between the sons of David and Bathsheba; an edict of David about the order in which his descendants would succeed to the throne; that all those after King Joash had two or even three names; that twenty years passed from the desolation to the imprisonment of Jehoiachin; that Mordecai lived eighteen years beyond Isaac’s age; and that the Maccabees seized both the high priesthood and the rule from the house of David, causing enmity to arise. And many other such claims, some fabricated, some even contrary to Scripture. What is more, this Philo often raves even in human history, so that one might readily believe him if he said that he wrote this little book in the final year of his decrepit old age. For he writes that Haggai and Zechariah prophesied in the second year of Cyrus; that work was obstructed by the death of Darius Hystaspes and Cyrus could not be approached because he was engaged in war against Tamyris; that Ahasuerus Priscus Artaxerxes succeeded Cyrus, reigned for more than twelve years, and sent Holofernes to Judea; and that this man had two sons who fought for the empire, but when one of them—that is, Darius Longimanus—won, he began building the Temple in his first year at the urging of those same prophets.

Who does not see that all these claims are false and strongly at odds with every approved historian? I therefore wonder what came into Annius’s mind when he attributed to Philo, a most learned and prudent man, the book called De temporibus, which says many false things, most of them absurd, and some even contrary to Scripture. Who could believe that Philo did not know Xerxes, the most famous of all the Persian kings among the Greeks? That he confused Darius Hystaspes with Darius the Mede, Cyrus’s uncle? That he thought Ahasuerus, who obstructed the Temple’s construction, was the father of Longimanus? Only someone entirely ignorant and unskilled in both sacred and secular literature could fall into such errors. The author of that book was not Philo the Jew, whose talent, learning, and eloquence antiquity celebrated, but some man without any good discipline, eloquence, talent, or learning. This false Philo nowhere writes like Plato; everywhere he speaks not only without learning or elegance but also in a crude and unadorned style. But let us return to where we digressed. Since no public annals of the Greek and Roman monarchies now survive, and no authors whose histories agree with such annals exist at all, Annius’s rules will be of no use whatever for these two monarchies. They also seem to me useless and altogether unfit for any purpose in the two earlier monarchies. Although Scripture records that the Medes and Persians kept public annals, and not only Josephus but other distinguished authors testify that the Babylonians had histories of public authority, we have no such annals today. We also lack any historian who can certainly and clearly be shown to have followed those annals. I admit it is highly probable that Berosus published his history under the public authority of the Chaldeans. But I see no reason to admit that Metasthenes was a public historian of the Persians: I read in Pliny and Josephus that he wrote about India, not about Persia. Since this is not the central point of our dispute, however, let us freely concede it to Annius, as well as the claim that Ctesias of Cnidus should be accepted for the events and chronology of Persia. In book 3, Ctesias himself testifies through Diodorus that he brought the Greeks true and certain annals of the Persians and Medes. Since Ctesias says this about himself, let us believe him. For Lucian says that Ctesias of Cnidus wrote about Indian affairs things he neither saw himself nor heard from anyone else, and that they are therefore fables. Let us grant these points for now; we need not dispute every issue. Let us address this: the books Annius published under the names of Berosus and Metasthenes belong to neither Berosus nor Metasthenes. Raphael Volaterranus noted in book 14 of Anthropologiae that the Berosus of Annius was not the real author but a fabrication. Ludovicus Vives and many other very learned men agree. I think the case can be established by sound arguments. First, this Berosus of Annius writes that Noah fathered several other children after his three eldest sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This seems contrary to Scripture: “These three were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole human race was dispersed over all the earth.” Noah therefore had no other sons who, at Noah’s command, established the principal colonies of the world. He then reports that when Noah lay drunk, Ham seized his genitals and, while muttering a magic incantation, mocked his father and made him sterile as if castrated. He further writes that Noah came to Italy and left the Italians books on natural and divine matters; that Noah was also Janus, the first ruler of Italy; and that Nimrod cared more for peace and the worship of the gods than for wealth, and was therefore suddenly taken away by the gods and disappeared.

and religion than wealth, and that he was therefore suddenly taken away by the gods and disappeared. I could easily show that all of these things are invented, were the volume not already more than long enough. He also says that this same Assyrian Nimrod sent Medes and Magog to Asia, where they founded the kingdoms of Assyria, Media, and Magog. But since they were sons of Japheth, it is more credible that they founded colonies at the command of their father or grandfather; or, as Genesis 11 says, that God himself, who divided the languages at Babel, dispersed them over the face of all the lands. He further says that Semiramis turned Babylon from a town into a great city, and built it up rather than merely enlarging it. The real Berosus, by contrast, in Josephus’s book 1 of Contra Appionem Alexandrinum, criticizes Greek writers who falsely claimed that Semiramis built Babylon and constructed its marvelous works. Moreover, this Berosus of Annius reports that Cenchres, king of Egypt, perished at sea through the magic of the Hebrews. Josephus would certainly not have omitted this, since, while seeking to demonstrate the antiquity of the Hebrew people against the Greeks, he could have produced no earlier or more ancient testimony than Berosus’s third book of Chaldean history, where he wrote that Nebuchadnezzar devastated the Temple and city of the Jews. This Berosus of Annius makes no mention of Abraham, either openly or obscurely. But the real Berosus, as Josephus testifies, mentions Abraham implicitly in these words: “After the flood, in the tenth generation, there was among the Chaldeans a certain great man who cultivated justice and was skilled in the science of the stars.” Moreover, Berosus recounted the deeds of Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, as Josephus and Jerome attest. Yet there is no mention of Sennacherib in the Berosus of Annius. Further, this fabricated Berosus ends his history with Ascatades, the eighteenth Assyrian king, though twenty more kings ruled the Babylonians after him up to Sardanapalus. This Berosus did not omit them: he also counted those who succeeded Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, in the Babylonian empire, down to Cyrus, as Josephus says in book 1 of Contra Appionem and St. Jerome in his commentary on Danielis 5. And Annius’s Metasthenes, after counting thirty-eight Assyrian kings from Saturn to Sardanapalus and listing the length of each reign, testifies that he follows this Berosus and even copies his words. Nor can anyone claim this little book On Antiquities is merely a fragment of Berosus rather than his complete work, since Annius himself presented it to us as a complete little book. Annius’s Manetho openly says that he begins his history where Berosus ended his. Thus, in his supplement, Manetho added fourteen kings to Berosus’s eighteen. Had he taken them from Berosus, he would not have denied it. This Berosus of Annius is therefore fabricated, not merely incomplete. What is more, ancient authors say that Berosus wrote history not of the Egyptians, Libyans, Celtiberians, Italians, or Germans, but of the Chaldeans. This Annius presents himself as a historian of all these kingdoms alike. You will find no approved author who cites Berosus as a witness to truth except in Chaldean affairs. If so serious an author had written about other matters, surely some Hebrew, Greek, or Latin author would have cited him there. Perhaps it would have been better not to try to establish the case against this Berosus by argument at all. He reports events so ancient that although you may infer they are false by your own judgment, you cannot prove them so because of their great antiquity.

For in matters of this kind, the more unscrupulous a person is, the greater license he has to invent. As Fabius says, one can safely lie about entire books and their authors, since no one can find what never existed; one can lie even more safely about events themselves, since no witnesses can be produced who would not be mere children when compared with such ancient times. When a certain bishop was caught repeatedly doing this—citing authors who had never existed in any age and writing about events that no one had recorded—he replied that it did not matter whether one thought this or that about history, since everything was uncertain except what was contained in Scripture. This is a judgment unworthy of a bishop and theologian. It is no surprise if a crude and empty man says such things. But let us return to where we left off: I say it is easier to scorn this Berosus of Annius than refute him. For learned people, reading the book itself is persuasive enough; there is no point trying to persuade the unlearned. Let them enjoy their Berosus, then—the one whom Annius says Pliny mentioned for having dated certain inscriptions to 480 years before Ninus and Phoroneus. Pliny, however, says nothing more than that Berosus excelled in astrology to such an extent that the Athenians set up a statue of him in their public gymnasium, with a gilded tongue, because of his divine predictions. So, as I said, let them enjoy their Berosus, but not Pliny’s authority. Indeed, they have no probable testimony or reasonable argument to support it. The claim that Jerome sometimes uses the words of this Berosus is ridiculous. What room could there be for invention unless this fictitious Berosus had compiled some words of the real Berosus? But let us now refute Annius’s Metasthenes as briefly as possible. I will not pursue the minor errors, of which there are many in his little book; let us consider only the larger ones. He records the kings and dates of the Persian monarchy as follows. After Belshazzar was killed, Cyrus and Darius ruled together for two years; Cyrus then ruled alone for twenty-two. Darius’s son, Priscus Artaxerxes Ahasuerus, ruled for twenty years, taking revenge in the meantime on the Tamyrid faction, which had betrayed his uncle Tamyris by treachery. His two sons, Cyrus Artabanes and Darius Longimanus, fought for the empire for seven months, and in the seventh month victory fell to Longimanus, who reigned for thirty-seven years. His son Darius Nothus reigned for nineteen years; Artaxerxes the Great, Darius Memnon, for fifty-five; Artaxerxes Ochus for twenty-six; in our own time, Arses for four years and Darius, the last, for six. Philo of Annius records these kings and dates in the same order and almost the same words, so that you would suspect—or rather recognize—that one and the same person fabricated both fables. Philo adds only this, evidently from the Hebrew workshop: that this Ahasuerus was Nebuchadnezzar, whose deeds are described in the book of Judith. I ask first of all: who is this Priscus Artaxerxes Ahasuerus, whose father was Darius and uncle was Cyrus, who reigned for twenty years and was also Nebuchadnezzar, whose army and general Holofernes were routed by a single woman, and who in the end had two sons, Cyrus Artabanes and Darius Longimanus? They answer that he was Cambyses. For just above, Metasthenes had written that Cyrus and Darius, six years before the capture of Babylon, would wage war against Queen Tamyris and hand over the Persian kingdom to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. All historians agree that Cambyses immediately held the Persian empire after Cyrus. This Ahasuerus, then—

The same man was Cambyses. But what is said to have been either joined to or placed before and after that ancient Assuerus is so unlike Cambyses that it even seems contrary to him. First, Darius was not Cambyses’ father; Cyrus was. Not only Herodotus, Iosephus, and Hieronymus but all Greek and Latin writers attest this. A clear argument for it is that Cyrus’s father was named Cambyses, as all historians unanimously report. Darius, on the other hand, had no ancestor named Cambyses. It is therefore reasonable that Cambyses was the son of Cyrus, not Darius. Further, if Cambyses had been Darius’s son, he would surely have succeeded to his father’s kingdom when Darius died. But after Darius’s death Cyrus alone ruled the Persians and Medes for twenty-two years, as Methastenes and Philo also agree. Cambyses was therefore not Darius’s son but Cyrus’s, and succeeded him in the empire. Moreover, since Cyrus transferred the monarchy from the Medes to the Persians, how is it plausible that the son of Darius the Mede succeeded to the monarchy while the son of Cyrus the Persian did not? But why do I foolishly try to prove by arguments a matter that depends on the reliability of history and has been handed down in the records with all historians in agreement? There is certainly no need to argue against someone whom the authority of all ecclesiastical and secular writers overcomes. What he adds next is similar: that Cyrus was the uncle of this Assuerus. Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede would then have been brothers, which also conflicts with reason. All the authorities write that Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian had different parents. What he adds in the third place—that this Assuerus ruled for twenty years—is likewise opposed to all historians. This appears to have been invented so that the history in the book of Iudith might seem to have taken place under him; Eusebius reports this more than he follows it in his Chronicles. It is a tradition of the Hebrews, which is supported neither by reliable testimony nor by probable reasoning. Iosephus plainly opposes it: in libro Iudaeorum antiquitatum II, cap. 2, he says Cambyses died in the seventh year of his reign. Eusebius assigns Cambyses only eight years of rule, and Herodotus seven years and five months. But Nabuchodonosorus, who is mentioned in the book of Iudith, ruled for more than thirteen years, as you find in chapter 2. Cambyses was therefore not that Nabuchodonosorus. Further, all histories report that both Cambyses and Cyrus, whom he succeeded in the kingdom, were kings of the Medes and Persians. But Nabuchodonosorus in the book of Iudith is nowhere said to have been king of the Medes or Persians; he is said to have been king of the Assyrians alone and to have ruled in the great city of Niniue. Moreover, if Cambyses was king of Media, as he truly was, how could he have been the Nabuchodonosorus who defeated Arphaxat, king of the Medes? Even if we may invent whatever we please, as Philo Annius does, and say that Arphaxat, a supporter of the faction of Tamyris, drove the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians to revolt, Scripture would not therefore call him king of the Medes. By the same reasoning, he would also be called king of the Persians and Assyrians. Further, Nabuchodonosor is said to have been king of the Assyrians even when he defeated Arphaxat, king of the Medes. What sort of invention, then, is Philonis’ claim that Arphaxat drove the Assyrians into revolt along with the Persians and Medes? Furthermore, Arphaxat, against whom Nabuchodonosorus fought, founded the flourishing city of Media called Ecbatanis, as we read in cap. 1 Iudith. But this city had been built many years before Cambyses by Diocles, the fifth king of the Medes, as Eusebius attests in Chronicis, and Herodotus also in lib. 1. I remember that I wrote in the third book that Ecbatana was founded before Semiramis, and that

Semiramis also built a royal palace there; Plinius, however, says in cap. 14 of book 6 that it was built by Seleucus. Since I came upon this matter by chance, not deliberately, I will briefly satisfy both accounts in passing. Diodorus often and at length writes nonsense in his history. Like the other Greeks, he certainly had the same desire to lie. What could be more frivolous in lying than the Greek people, vain and moved by every impulse? Perhaps Diodorus is defended by the title of the only book of his that survives, which is called On the Fabled Deeds of the Ancients; since it matches its title, it deceives no one. He fulfilled the promise he made. For when Plinius says in the preface to his whole work that Diodorus was the first among the Greeks to stop writing nonsense, the context of Plinius’ speech readily shows that he meant not the falsehood of histories but the vanity of their titles. Greek authors commonly gave their books empty and inflated titles. But Diodorus, as Plinius reports there, did not make his book conspicuous with some trivial and vain title, like those before him, but called it The Library of History. The authority of Diodorus will not press us, then, if he either reported or followed the Greek fables about Semiramis’ magnificence and the palace she built at Ecbatana; Plinius too is often mistaken when praising those who founded famous cities. But back to the matter. Since it is certain and established that the man who built Ecbatana, Arphaxat, lived before Cambyses, it is impossible to identify Cambyses with the Nabuchodonosorus who was defeated by Arphaxat, founder of Ecbatana. Moreover, Niniue had been destroyed by the Babylonians during the Persian kingdom, as the prophecy of Naum indicates. Nor did this city have its own king while the Persians held the monarchy. But Nabuchodonosorus, mentioned in the book of Iudith, ruled in the great city Niniue. Therefore, the events reported in Iudith’s history took place not under Cambyses but, as Carion rightly thinks, before the Persian empire. Nor do the words of Achior, reported in chapter 5, move me to abandon this view: “Before that great captivity in Babylon, the Lord afflicted the whole seed of Israel several times and handed them over to the plunderers—now the Egyptians, now the Syrians, now the Assyrians, now the Moabites and Ammonites—until at last he cast them away from his presence.” Since they were carried captive into various regions, the Lord brought them back to their land after a short time. For this reason the books of Reges pass over in silence these less famous captivities. In cap. 18 of Iudices there is also a mention of a certain captivity which, as I think rightly, Caietanus says is omitted in the books of Reges. “For not everything,” he says, “has been written.” Achior therefore does not speak of that famous Babylonian captivity but of some other one. In Iudith’s time the temple of Hierusalem had not been destroyed, nor had the city itself been laid waste. Again, it says: “They possess Hierusalem, where the holy of holies is.” But under Cambyses the temple had been destroyed and the city had not yet been rebuilt. It remains, then, that the history narrated in Iudith cannot be referred to Cambyses. Some rightly deny that this ancient Assuerus, Arthaxerxes, ever existed, because in truth no one of that name existed as described by Methastenes and Philo. Even if he had existed, if he ruled immediately after Cyrus, he could certainly not have been the father of Longimanus. For who could doubt that after Cyrus and Cambyses, Darius Histaspis gained rule over the Persians, and that his son Xerxes succeeded him in the empire? Herodotus, Iustinus, Orosius, and the other secular writers certainly report this, as do all the ancient ecclesiastical writers: Iosephus, Clemens, Aphricanus, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Hieronymus.

Hieronymus certainly reported this matter not as doubtful and uncertain but as clear and established, in caput septimum Danielis, saying: “Some claim that the three ranks in the beast’s mouth were three kings of Persia after Cyrus, but they do not give their names. We know that after Cyrus, who reigned thirty years, Cambyses his son and the Magian brothers ruled among the Persians; then Darius, in whose second year the temple in Hierusalem began to be built; fifth, Xerxes, the son of Darius; sixth, Arthabanus; seventh, Arthaxerxes Longimanus; eighth, Xerxes; ninth, Sogdianus; tenth, Darius the Bastard; eleventh, Arthaxerxes Memnon; twelfth, Arthaxerxes Ochus; thirteenth, Arses, the son of Ochus; fourteenth, Darius, the son of Arsames, who was defeated by Alexander. How, then, can we say that there were three kings of Persia?” Thus far Hieronymus. If Herodotus, Thucydides, or some other historian omitted from the list of Persian kings the Magian brothers, or Arthabanus, or a second Xerxes, there is no reason to be surprised: they either ruled for a very short time or at least contended with others for the empire during that short time. But to pass over Darius Histaspis and his son Xerxes, that most powerful and wealthy king who led an innumerable army against Greece and did the things that the histories of Greeks and Latins, pagans and Christians, recount, would be the height of ignorance, if not impudence. For if anyone denies that these two ruled in Persia, he could also deny that Constantinus and Theodosius ruled in Rome. No more and more authoritative historians affirm the one than the other. Herodotus and Thucydides speak of these kings of their own age as though they were describing things seen, not things merely heard. Even if Herodotus mixes fables into his history, this is no reason to deny him credibility concerning public and manifest affairs of his own time, where there was no room for invention. Otherwise Plutarchus, who pursued and criticized even Herodotus’ smallest errors, would have attacked this greatest one above all. Let us therefore believe Herodotus, Thucydides, Iustinus, Orosius, Africanus, Eusebius, Hieronymus, Iosephus, and the other most reliable authorities rather than this Methastenes, not an ancient and learned man but a recent, crude, tasteless, ignorant, and even impudent one. He promises to write the times of the Persian kings as they are clearly and truthfully set down in public records, and to give their names and the period during which each reigned most gloriously; yet he omits the kings who ruled most magnificently and powerfully in Persia. I am aware that Ioannes Carion also argued at length so that there might seem to be no disagreement between Eusebius, Hieronymus, and the other serious authorities on one side and this Persian Methastenes on the other. In short, amid complete discord and disagreement, he tries to make peace and bring the most conflicting accounts into agreement. First, then, Carion says that this ancient Assuerus must be understood to be Darius Histaspis. From this single point, learn all there is to know about Carion. What could be said more foolish than that Darius Histaspis had Darius the Mede as his father, Cyrus as his uncle, and Longimanus as his son? Methastenes attributed all of these to that ancient Assuerus. What could be more unlike Darius Histaspis than forbidding by public edict the rebuilding of the temple in Hierusalem, as Philo Annius attributes to that ancient Assuerus? The reasons Carion gives for Methastenes’ omission of Xerxes are so ridiculous and inept that I need not report them here. Ioannes Vergara, a canon of Toledo, most skilled in Greek and Latin

language, refuted them all individually and more carefully in a little book of eight questions. We have been greatly helped on this point by his work and diligence. For, as Plinius advised us, we prefer to repay a debt fully rather than be caught in theft. We have always approved of this precept of Basilius: if something is learned from another, it must not be concealed like a wicked woman secretly substituting an illegitimate child for her own. Therefore, the father of a speech or teaching should be openly acknowledged. With these points demonstrated, it is clearer than daylight—just as this discussion set out to show—that Annius’ rules cannot be useful in judging history. For no public records have been left even for these later monarchies of the Chaldaeans and Persians, nor any writings by an author who composed his history according to the true and certain form of those records. It is therefore a great sign of ignorance, indeed of rashness, to reject Iosephus, Eusebius, Hieronymus, and the other trustworthy authors in matters of Persian history or chronology because they do not agree with this Methastenes and the so-called Susian records. Ioannes Driedonis was gravely mistaken on this point: in theological learning he was plainly educated, but in the knowledge of human history he was very crude. When he came upon these volumes of Annius and the names of Berosus the Chaldaean, Methastenes the Persian, Ctesias of Cnidus, Philo the Jew, Diodorus of Sicily, the Susian library, and the revelation of the seventy elders, the empty sound of their words filled his ears; he became quite deaf to the very grave voice of Eusebius, Iosephus, and Hieronymus. The Church acted much more prudently when it refused to accept certain little books produced under the names of Adam, Enoch, and Noe. As Augustinus says, their excessive antiquity meant that they were not authoritative and seemed suspect, lest falsehoods be put forward as truth. For some writings said to be theirs are produced by people who readily believe whatever they want for their own purposes. Thus far Augustinus in lib. 18 De Civitate, cap. 38. A prudent person, then, should be all the more suspicious of any book presented under the name of antiquity. Following this prudence, we would consider these books of Berosus and Methastenes suspect because of their excessive age, even if they contained nothing contrary to the most serious authorities. It follows that Annius’ first reason for rejecting Iosephus and Eusebius in the Persian monarchy is frivolous and empty. His second reason is entirely false. Neither Eusebius nor any other approved authority says that Cyrus first gave permission to the Jewish captives in Babylon and then died before that Babylon was taken by Darius the Mede. Eusebius nowhere mentions Darius the Mede in his Chronicles, either by that name or as Ciaxares, the name Xenophon gives him. Therefore Eusebius did not write that Cyrus died before Darius the Mede took Babylon, since he entirely omits Darius the Mede from his Chronicles. Nor did Herodotus write anything of the kind that Annius falsely attributes to him. Eusebius and Herodotus mention Darius the son of Histaspis: the former briefly, as usual, noting the dates of his reign, and the latter giving a fuller account of his deeds. Among other things, Herodotus reports that Darius Histaspis again besieged and captured Babylon, which had defected from the Persian empire. This is the source of Annius’ disgraceful error. He had heard Herodotus write that Babylon was captured by Darius after the death of Cyrus, and supposed Herodotus meant Darius the Mede, when Herodotus undoubtedly meant Darius Histaspis. For in lib. 1 he had said that Babylon was captured once by Cyrus. Then in book 3 he says it was captured again by Darius Histaspis

who, he says, took possession of it, cut down its walls, and removed all its gates—neither of which Cyrus had done when he first captured that same city. Let Annius now go and say that Herodotus and Eusebius were dreaming. Annius himself is truly the one dreaming, making one man out of two, Darius the Mede and Darius the Persian, and one capture out of two captures of Babylon. That is properly what sleepers and dreamers do. But, you say, Daniel prophesied in cap. 11 that only four Persian kings would come after Darius the Mede up to Alexander. There were not fourteen, then, as we said in following Eusebius and Hieronymus. This argument seems to have moved Tertullianus, in the book he wrote against the Jews, to place only four Persian kings between Darius the Mede and Alexander: Arthaxerxes, Ochus, who was also called Cyrus, then Argus, and finally the last Darius, who was also called Melas. Nicolaus Lyranus fell into this error too, knowingly and with his eyes open, although Hieronymus had warned him. He followed the fantasies of the Hebrews, who are entirely ignorant of human history, since they have no records of foreign kingdoms in their own language and recognize no kings of the Persians or Greeks except those mentioned in Scripture. Those who fail to see this follow the Jews in explaining those Scriptures whose meaning can scarcely, or certainly cannot, be understood if the histories of the gentiles are unknown. Thus the Hebrews often distort historical accounts and try to invent what they cannot prove. Their error must be removed, and every opinion brought back to this principle: in interpreting Sacred Scripture, especially in passages that touch on the external affairs of gentile nations, we must follow the records of those nations. Hieronymus therefore more correctly and truthfully understands that the fourth king mentioned by the Prophet was Xerxes, the son of Darius Histaspis; the histories of the pagans describe him as the Prophet does. Daniel’s omission of the nine Persian kings who ruled after Xerxes, once he had listed four, works not only against our position but also against Methastenes, Annius, and Philo. As Hieronymus says, the prophetic spirit did not care to follow the order of history but to touch on the most notable events. If anyone carefully considers the traditions of the prophets, he will find that many intervening events are very often passed over. Anyone who judges from the prophets’ silence that these events never occurred must be deeply mistaken and ignorant of many things. There was a particular reason here why the prophet’s spirit stopped at Xerxes, king of Persia. The Persian monarchy was then at the height of its power against the Greeks, so that Greece seemed likely to be laid waste and emptied in an instant by the innumerable multitude of the army. Daniel therefore suddenly saw Alexander the Greek, who could not only rescue the Greeks from the Persians but also triumph over the Persians. I think we have discussed sufficiently and carefully Annius’ rules, their examples, and Annius’ entire judgment. What, then, someone may ask, is there no way to distinguish and recognize truthful historians from deceptive ones? There certainly is, and there are several ways. The first rule is drawn from the honesty and integrity of people. It applies when historians either testify that they themselves saw the events they report or learned of them from eyewitnesses. Many such accounts are found in the letters of Ambrosius, Cyprianus, Hieronymus, and Augustinus; in this latter author’s books De civitate Dei; in the dialogues of Gregorius; and, in short, in nearly all the writings of the most trustworthy Doctors of the Church. To suspect a lie in what they wrote to transmit to lasting memory would be sacrilege. ¹

For their great and distinguished virtues earned these most holy and excellent men complete trust in such matters, which they either saw themselves or say they heard from others worthy of trust who saw them. Erasmus Roterodamus and some other recent writers have often and freely erred on this point. What could have been said more freely, licentiously, or immoderately than to claim that Hieronymus, a most serious and holy man, was lying when he asserted that he had been allowed to copy the Hebrew Gospel of Matthaeus? This excessive and unrestrained license of certain recent writers has rightly displeased devout people and rightly been called into question. This first rule also applies to secular authors. Iulius Caesar, Suetonius, Cornelius Tacitus, Plutarchus, and Plinius each report some things that they saw with their own eyes and others that they received from those who witnessed them in person. Although we cannot look to these writers for piety or complete virtue, we can find in them a certain honesty and goodness of nature. Some of them, moved either by love of truth or by a sense of honorable shame, so strongly abhorred lying that we may now be ashamed that some pagan historians were more truthful than our own. I say this in sorrow rather than as an insult: Laertius wrote the lives of philosophers much more rigorously than Christians have written the lives of saints; Suetonius presented the affairs of the Caesars far more honestly and completely than Catholics have presented—not the deeds of emperors but those of martyrs, virgins, and confessors. They conceal neither vices nor suspicions of vice in decent people, whether philosophers or rulers, but even reveal the appearance of virtue in the wicked. Most of our writers, however, either serve their own affections or deliberately invent so many things that I feel not only shame but disgust. I think these writers have contributed nothing useful to the Church of Christ, but have done it great harm. I spare names, because judgment in this passage concerns moral character as well as learning; in matters of learning criticism can be more open. Moral criticism should be more cautious toward the living and more reverent toward the dead. But it is certain that those who write ecclesiastical history falsely and deceptively cannot be good and sincere men, and that their entire account is invented either for profit or to promote error; the first is disgraceful, the second harmful. Ludovicus’ complaint about certain histories fabricated in the Church is entirely just. He prudently and seriously reproves those who think it pious to invent lies in the name of religion. This is both most dangerous and entirely unnecessary. We do not usually believe a liar even when he tells the truth. Therefore, those who wanted to stir the minds of mortals to the worship of saints through false and deceptive writings seem to me to have done nothing except undermine belief in true accounts because of false ones and call into doubt accounts published strictly and truthfully by their authors. Herodotus included many fictional and shadowy matters in his work, but he warned his readers through the title itself that his book’s history was not to be examined to the letter. He entitled it “Muses,” to whom fables are sometimes allowed, so that they may attract their hearers more pleasantly and charmingly than a severe narrative could. Xenophon, who, as Fabius says, should be counted more among philosophers than historians, tries to portray in Cyrus the ideal form of the perfect ruler. We should not expect him to show what Cyrus really was,

but rather what an emperor in a commonwealth would be if he were formed according to the most perfect model—though Cyrus was certainly an outstanding and exceptional king. But in Christian history, which, as we have said, is judged wholly by truth and not by pleasure, what is the point of pretending to write history while including invented fables? It is as if God’s holy men needed our lies, when they performed so many true deeds for Christ that false stories, however skillfully and learnedly fabricated, are harmful not because they are false but because they are useless, like cowardly soldiers who are more of a burden than a help. I think the true deeds of our heroes were not only great and magnificent but even greater than their reputation now suggests. Their virtue should not be measured by how well our writers could praise it in words, but rather as so great that even the finest minds lacked words for their deeds, and the most brilliant words for such brilliant minds. Yet some writers indulge their own feelings too much and write what the writer’s mind, not the truth, dictates; at times they present saints as people whom the saints themselves, if they could, would not have wanted to be. Who could believe, for example, that D. Franciscus used to shake lice off his body and put them back on himself? The writer thought this belonged to the man’s sanctity; I do not, since I know that the most holy man always loved poverty, never filth. How ridiculous is this too: that once, when the devil disturbed our father D. Dominicus, the saint forced him to hold a lamp in his hands until it was consumed, causing him not only annoyance but incredible pain. Such examples cannot be counted, but from these few we can understand many others that have obscured the histories of the most illustrious saints. It was not fitting to stain the true deeds of saints with false and invented fables. This was why Gelasius rejected many histories of this sort at a council of seventy bishops. The words of that Pontiff are most worthy to be read and known, and should therefore be quoted: “Who among Catholics would doubt that the deeds of the holy martyrs, who shine through many torments of torture and the remarkable triumphs of their confessions, are true, or that they endured even greater sufferings in their contests, bearing all things not by their own strength but by God’s grace and help? Nevertheless, following ancient authority or custom, they are not read in the holy Roman Church except with exceptional caution, because the names of those who wrote them are entirely unknown, and it was thought that they were either told excessively by unbelievers or written less suitably than the order of events required. Such are the stories of Quiricus and his mother Iulita, of Georgius, and other passions of this kind, which heretics are known to have composed. For this reason, as was said, they are not read in the holy Roman Church, lest even a slight occasion for ridicule arise. Nevertheless, with the said Church, we venerate with all devotion all martyrs and their glorious contests, which are known to God more than to men. We also receive with all honor the lives of the fathers Antonius, Paulus, Hilarion, and all the hermits, which the most blessed Hieronymus wrote. We have also learned that many Catholics in the city of Rome read the acts of blessed Sylvester, prelate of the Apostolic See, although we do not know the name of the writer; many churches follow this ancient usage. The writings about the discovery of the holy Cross of the Lord and the discovery of the head of blessed Ioannes Baptista are new revelations, and some Catholics read them. But when this comes into the hands of Catholics, let the judgment of the blessed Apostle Paulus come first: ‘Test all things; hold fast what is good.’” Thus far Gelasius. ²

If Paulus teaches that prophecies, which are usually given through divine inspiration, should not be despised but examined, who will now dare accuse us if we examine histories produced by human judgment? Gelasius, a most weighty authority together with the council, shows that what the Apostle said about prophecy also applies suitably to history. The Pontiff therefore first orders us not to accept in any way histories published without a known author’s name. They reek either of the fraud of profit-seeking people or, as Gelasius himself says, of heretical offspring. The same reason makes histories very suspect even when they bear the name of an author but it is obscure and uncertain who he is or what kind of person he was. A few days ago certain fables of this kind appeared, whose authors and settings are so far apart that it is impossible to discover whether they are lying; one may even doubt whether they are true. Fortunately, the whole body of the narrative appears invented, so the Spanish saying easily applies here too: De luengas vias, luengas mentiras. But let us return to Gelasius. He next warns us of another error in which not only common people but Gratianus too once fell: deceived by book titles, they believed that everything inscribed with the names of Hieronymus and Augustinus truly belonged to Hieronymus and Augustinus. Thus the public circulated a book entitled De vitis patrum under the name of Hieronymus, although he wrote only a very few lives of the fathers, which the Pontiff mostly lists in this passage. We will therefore use Gelasius’ testimony to curb the impudence of those who spread the claim that Hieronymus authored these matters, which no one but an unlearned and inarticulate person would publish. The foolish and barbarous story about the Nativity of Saint Mary addressed to the bishops Cromatius and Heliodorus is also of this kind. There are many others, which Erasmus refuted most carefully and rightly. I also observe in these words of Gelasius that we should not admire or revere what he calls “new revelations.” Nowadays they are put forward everywhere, not for the needs of the Church but to serve people’s feelings, so that in the matter of the Conception, if heaven allows it, revelations are presented on both sides, even though they contradict each other. This gives the impious ample cause for mockery and the devout cause for tears. God’s gifts and miracles must surely be scorned if they serve our opinions or feelings. Those who think that the admirable deeds of saints cannot be well presented unless they adorn them with fabricated revelations and miracles are therefore doing great harm to the Church of Christ. In this matter, human impudence spared neither the holy Virgin nor Christ the Lord: the same things it had done in the stories of other saints it also did in writing the history of Christ and his mother, inventing many vain and ridiculous things in keeping with the fickleness of the human mind. In recent years, when I attended the Council of Trent, I heard from some people that Aloisius Lippomanus, bishop of Verona, had tried to remedy this evil by publishing a history of the lives of the saints, composed with a steadfast and serious method. I have not yet been able to see it, nor any other work on these matters that has come into my hands and that I could approve. It would surely be a dense and laborious work, but very useful to all Christians, if someone produced one worthy of the saints, the Church, and Christ. No one will undoubtedly accomplish this unless he is an upright, honest, and incorruptible man, who dares neither to say anything false nor to conceal anything true, and who writes without suspicion of favoritism or hostility. Since these are known duties of honesty and integrity, I am amazed that one Suetonius observed them all, while most of our own writers abandoned them all.

Those who think human affairs are foreign to the saints whose histories they write seem not even to believe that the saints were human beings. The Evangelists act much more wisely: even in the apostles, whose whole lives were to be examples for us, they do not conceal either the weaker natural affections or the more serious mishaps. This was the divine wisdom of the Evangelists, but it also showed their goodness and integrity of nature: they omitted nothing from their histories that even a pagan might require under the rules of history. Someone may ask how we can recognize a writer’s honesty and integrity in people who lived long ago. It may sometimes shine through their writings, but it is known from their reputation and the grave and frequent testimony of people in the past. As I said, among pagan authors there are many whose candor and modesty have been so celebrated in human speech that no one has ever thought them liars or shameless fabricators. Such are Caesar, Valerius Maximus, Terentius Varro, Livius, Cornelius Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Eutropius, Flavius Vopiscus, Paulus Diaconus, Lucius Florus, Polybius, Dionysius Halicarnasseus, Iulius Capitolinus, Cornelius Nepos, Strabo, and many others, especially Latin authors. For the credibility of the Greeks has mostly been broken and weakened. Thucydides is scrupulous and, as Iosephus says, the most scrupulous of all Greek historians. Although Appianus Alexandrinus was Greek, he did not lie about foreign matters, since he recorded the recent civil wars of Rome; had he followed Greek custom and character, he would have lied about his own affairs. The Greeks’ boastfulness and vanity grew more shameless after they began competing with the Latins in empire, history, and the truth of learning. Latin brilliance and glory obscured the fame of Greece and so dazzled Greek eyes that even Plutarchus, otherwise a truthful writer, sometimes seems blind and even to invent things when illuminating Greek affairs. Ludovicus Vives observed this both in his work on the lives of illustrious Greeks and Romans and in the Parallels. Among our own writers, that is, ecclesiastical writers, it is easier to recognize virtue and good faith. We honor our best men not only by human speech and esteem but also by the Church’s decree, which places them in the company of the saints. As we said above, to accuse these just and holy men of shameless lying is a sign not only of rashness but of impiety. I think Aegesippus, Paulus Orosius, and some other ecclesiastical historians, whom I pass over for brevity, should be counted among these holy and just men. We are not searching libraries here but sampling kinds of evidence, lest anyone accuse us of negligence for passing over some writers in praise or blame. But, you say, Crispus Sallustius was regarded as a truthful historian despite his utterly corrupt morals. That is true. But when you cite Sallustius, you cite a man who, if he lacked the modesty of honesty, at least feared the disgrace that the Romans especially avoided: being regarded as liars in history like the Greeks. Further, I do not think Sallustius was free of partiality and hostility. Certainly, when he writes about Cicero, he omits much that he would gladly have reported to please others. These two faults are common to nearly all historians and virtually peculiar to some. Among them Paulus Iovius is excessive in either direction, in hatred and love, favoritism and hostility. And because he loved money, he was a servant of money in writing history too. Finally, it is one thing to say that all good men are truthful, and another to say that all bad men are liars. We said the first, not the second. Still, somehow the mind never feels secure unless it rests on the testimony of a good man. Yet truth is so closely

joined to duty that it may perhaps exist in a vicious person, but can scarcely be believed to do so. This is why the Chaldaeans and Egyptians approved no other writers of history except those who held priestly office: they thought holy and religious men could not possibly lie. “A certain man from the Jews has come, a priest; he will not deceive us.” Thus far what we have said about the first rule for judging history. Let a second rule be established for judging history: we should prefer to others those historians who have joined some prudent severity of judgment to their intelligence, both in selecting and assessing material. This rule applies to matters the writers themselves did not see and did not hear from trustworthy eyewitnesses. Here it is worth recalling the frivolity of those who, like foolish women, readily believe what they very much want to be true. Our own age saw a priest who was entirely convinced that nothing printed could ever be false. He used to say that the public officials would not commit such a great crime as allowing lies not only to be published but also to circulate more safely under their privilege. Moved by this argument, he decided to believe that the events reported in the fictional books of Amadis and Clariano had really happened. It is not for this place and time to discuss how much force this argument about public officials has. I speak for myself, from my own feeling and grief: it is a great calamity and danger for the Church that, when books are published, care is taken only that they not contain errors opposed to the faith, but not that they be harmful to morals. I am not examining only the fables I just mentioned, although they are unlearned and contribute nothing—not to living well and happily, nor even to thinking rightly about human affairs. For what good comes from empty, vain nonsense invented by idle people and circulated by corrupt minds? The pain is most bitter and scarcely consolable: while some people, I wish as prudently as zealously, try to reject and avoid this harm, they do not publish true and weighty histories in place of fables, which would be most useful to the people; instead, they publish books full of the Church’s mysteries, from which the uninitiated should be kept away. In my judgment, this is most harmful, all the more because ordinary people read these little books with confidence when they see they have been approved not only by the civil authorities but also by the appointed examiners of teaching in the commonwealth of Christ. But that is for another time. Let us now address what is at hand. The ignorance of the man who believed every account as soon as it was written down is pitiable rather than laughable. Yet you will find others who are not equally ignorant but almost as imprudent: they do not seek truth where it usually resides but in things where it is rarely found, namely, scattered rumors spread everywhere. This usually happens to people of an unstable and fickle nature, since serious and sober people do not usually chase empty popular gossip. Still, we cannot deny that sometimes very serious men have collected rumors about wonders attributed especially to saints and passed them down in writing to posterity. In this matter, it seems to me, they were either too indulgent toward themselves or, at least, toward the common people among the faithful. They understood that the people not only readily believed such miracles but eagerly demanded them. So some saints recorded certain signs and wonders, not because they readily believed them but lest they seem to fail the faithful’s expectations. They thought themselves all the more entitled to do so because they understood that the most distinguished authorities approved this as a true rule of history: to write what people generally believed to be true.

I do not excuse the author of the book entitled Speculum exemplorum, or of the history called Legenda aurea. In the former you will read monsters of miracles more often than true miracles. The latter was written by a man of iron mouth and leaden heart, certainly not very sober or prudent in mind. I excuse the ancient writers, holy and learned men, whose books and names I would be ashamed and religiously reluctant to mention, were I not afraid that my silence would lead many either to condemn what they do not understand or to wander in various errors through the histories of all the saints. A theologian should also be warned not to assume immediately that everything written by great authorities is perfect in every respect. For they too sometimes err, as that writer says, give way under a burden, and indulge the pleasure of their own minds; they sometimes indulge the common people too, as I said, and do not always pay close attention. They also sometimes grow so tired that Demosthenes seems to Cicero to fall asleep, and Homer sometimes to Horatius. They are great men, but still human. Perhaps I can rightly and truthfully say the same of Beda and Gregorius. In his history of the Angles and in his Dialogues, respectively, they report certain miracles that were commonly circulated and believed, but which the critics of this age will judge uncertain. I would approve those histories more if their authors, in keeping with the standard of severe judgment laid down, had used greater care in selecting what to include. But we must speak modestly and cautiously about such great men; even in these two works, many things must not be rejected. There are few matters one could criticize, even if one insists that ecclesiastical history be subjected to stricter judgments. If we must err in one direction, I would rather readers approve all their writings than reject many. I judge more freely the works of Vincentius of Beauvais and D. Antoninus. Neither seems to have taken as much care to describe true and certain events as to omit nothing that could be found written on any scrap of paper. To judge each history and weigh it according to its proper importance, they used not the scales of experts but not even the ordinary balance. Although good men and not at all deceitful, because they did not carefully examine the authors from whom they copied their books or report events after weighing them properly, they lack authority among serious and exacting critics. A historian approved by a decree of theology should neither examine every scrap of writing unworthy even to be read, nor devote effort to old wives’ tales, nor write down whatever he has read or heard before weighing and selecting it with prudence and careful judgment. We have said enough to explain the second rule. Let the third rule be this: if the Church has granted authority to a historian, we too should undoubtedly grant him authority; and if the Church has withdrawn its confidence from someone, we too will rightly withdraw ours. Gelasius received with all honor the history of the lives of Antonius, Paulus, Hilarion, and the other hermits, although Hieronymus wrote them. He also received the acts of blessed Sylvester, though with less veneration. He praised Orosius and did not reject the Chronicle of Eusebius, that is, his work on chronology, as far as I can infer. He rejected the eight books of Clement’s Itinerary; the acts falsely published under the names of Andreas, Philippus, Petrus, and Thomas; the book on the Savior’s infancy and another on his birth; the book of the Shepherd; the acts of Thecla and Paulus, which Epiphanius sometimes uses; the Revelation of Paulus; the book entitled The Passing of Mary; little books on the penance of Adam, Origenes, and Cyprianus; the letter of Iesu to Abagarus; the passions of Georgius, Quiricus, and Iulita; and finally the history of Eusebius Pamphili.

In this matter Gelasius used great prudence, in my judgment. Rhenanus’ claim that these final words of Gelasius are not his but were added by some ass is insolent, crude, and ignorant. First, the Pontiff had judged as follows: “We have not said that the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea and his books on ecclesiastical history must be rejected altogether because he grew tepid in the first book of his account and wrote one book in praise and defense of Origenes the schismatic; rather, because of his exceptional knowledge of events, we have said that they should not be rejected everywhere.” Later he judges as follows: “The History of Eusebius Pamphili is apocryphal.” These two judgments are not contrary; they are both entirely true and issued with more than enough gravity and severity. There are many strong reasons why Gelasius declared the history of Eusebius apocryphal. First, in the first book Eusebius reports the letter of Iesu to Abagarus, which Gelasius rejects in the same distinction. A second reason for Gelasius was that many passages there are supported by testimonies of Clemens Alexandrinus, whose little works are judged apocryphal in the same distinction. Further, Eusebius devoted book six to praising and defending Origenes. Since Origenes’ disciples had caused great tragedies in the Church, and Origenes himself had been condemned by the Church’s judgment as a schismatic who often strayed from the path of the Catholic faith, his history is rightly rejected: he not only praises Origenes immoderately but exalts him to heaven as if he were a father of the Church. Further, in act. 5 of the seventh Synod, when the Iconoclasts called Eusebius as a witness for themselves and his letter, in which he agreed with Arius, was read, Tharasius asked, “Do we accept this?” The holy Synod replied, “By no means.” He must be treated with even greater hostility than the others. The legates of Pope Adrian said, “The reading itself shows that he shares the Arian opinion. For the book of Eusebius has already been read, along with other blasphemies which the Synod refused to hear.” The most holy patriarch said, “Let us reject his books.” The holy Synod said, “We reject and anathematize them.” In act. 6, when Epiphanius replied to a testimony of Eusebius, he said: “Eusebius is called as a witness by those who do not know that the whole Catholic Church recognizes him as a defender of the Arian heresy, as is clear in his commentaries and all the books he published.” Later he says: “Who among the faithful in the Church doubts that Eusebius Pamphili was handed over to a debased mind and agreed with the opinions of Arius? In all his historical booklets he calls the Son a creature, a servant, and worthy of worship in second place.” After proving this from many books of Eusebius, he finally asserts that Eusebius was double-minded and signed the Synod’s decree inconsistently. For he never removed the errors in his books or offered an apology for himself, even though Arius plainly said that Eusebius supported and favored his opinion. Hieronymus also says to Pammachius and Oceanus: “Eusebius composed a fine ecclesiastical history, but he is an open defender of the impiety of Arius.” And in Adversus Ttesiphontem he says that no one is unaware that Eusebius of Caesarea was an Arian. Certainly, in the first book of his Ecclesiastical History he says that the Son executes the Father’s will and, after the Father, is the cause and origin of all things. Again, after citing the verse of the psalm, “He spoke and they were made; he commanded and they were created,” he adds: “By these words the prophet presents the Father as the maker, as universal ruler, giving commands by his royal will; then he places the Word in second place, not different from the one proclaimed among us, obeying the Father’s commands.” In chapter two he first asserts that the Son assisted the Father in making all things, and then says that he was the Father’s servant in all good things.

Gelasius the Pontiff therefore rightly deprived the history of Eusebius of Caesarea of authority. What? Is it not also absurd for the Church to trust, in ecclesiastical matters, someone who was unfaithful to the Church? We indeed find that heretics adapt not only the doctrines and precepts of their sect but also historical events to suit it. Indeed, they twist them and even fabricate them, so that they may seem to have supported and adorned their sect in every way. Thus, as we said above, Eusebius invented that Constantine had been baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, so as to lend greater credibility and authority to the Arian faction. Hence, too, when he mentions the Council of Nicaea, he cunningly concealed the doctrine of faith by which Arius was condemned, suddenly digressing to the question of Easter. He never even mentions Arius in his history, cleverly passing over the memory of a man whom, overwhelmed by the authority of the council, he did not dare to praise, yet whom, bound by the law of friendship, he did not wish to criticize. The same reasons altogether underlie the rejection of Carion’s history by all the faithful of Christ. For its discourse tears and wounds certain supreme pontiffs, though they were excellent men, while it praises and embellishes certain German emperors who were rebels and enemies of the Roman Church. Thus you may recognize the lion by its claws—that is, a Lutheran by his praise and blame. It is hardly necessary to prove by conjecture that Carion adhered to Luther’s errors; in many places he openly betrays himself. It is therefore strange that his history has not been rejected by the judges of the Church along with the other books of heretics, when many read it freely, warned by no censure or admonition whatsoever. But let us return to Eusebius. In his ecclesiastical history Gelasius sufficiently showed that the remaining parts pleased him and the council, since he pointed out that certain things displeased them. Accordingly, if you removed from Eusebius the fable of Abgar and his praises of Origen, his history would deserve complete trust, especially if in the Church’s struggle against Arius he had stood not with Arius but with the Church. So much, then, for the books of ecclesiastical history. In the chronicles, however, the man’s diligence is admirable: his labor was immense, his reading various and almost incredible, and his judgment throughout that variety of reading altogether grave. I do not know whether anyone else among the Church’s Latin or Greek authors, even striving with the greatest force, effort, and labor, could have left us more outstanding records of chronology. Yet the carelessness of copyists has corrupted them in so many places that one cannot say so without pain. But not everything Eusebius reports there is true. Indeed, you will find some things that you may rightly and truly criticize. Such is his claim that Sennacherib, who in the time of Hezekiah besieged Jerusalem, was the same as Shalmaneser, who captured Samaria. Jerome teaches in Isaiae 6 caput that this is contrary to the divine writings. And in Tobiae capite I Shalmaneser is said to have been Sennacherib’s father. But, as he says, nothing is blessed in every respect. In a work, so to speak, of immense scale, it was very easy to err only rarely. Enough of Eusebius. Sozomen follows, about whose faith and authority St. Gregory compels us to speak. He rejected Sozomen’s history chiefly for two reasons: first, because Sozomen often lied in it; second, because he unduly exalted Theodorus, who is known both to have been a heretic and to have been condemned by the Church at the fifth synod. I certainly do not excuse Sozomen’s falsehoods. For he was Greek, and this nation, as we have said, is and always has been rather prone to lying. Yet in the nine books of ecclesiastical history which, a few days ago, we received in Musculus’s translation, Sozomen writes nothing of the kind that Gregory objects to for the second reason. He says only that Theodorus was a pupil of Libanius, to whom

Chrysostom sent a letter after he had fallen into error, and that Theodorus was later appointed bishop of Mopsuestia. At the Council of Florence, where Andreas spoke on behalf of the Latin Church, he certainly not only used this historian’s testimony but also approved it. For when the Emperor Palaeologus asked whether it was appropriate for a synod to rely on historical authority, Andreas answered him that a synod ought to use history to learn about past events. Then the emperor said: “We ought to accept in our religion the history approved by our forebears, and no other.” Andreas replied: “We ought not to use in a synod the history of wars of the Romans, Greeks, or kings. But since this history, namely that of Hermias Sozomen, is ecclesiastical, and the acts of all the synods and the definitions of the holy Fathers are explained in it, why should it not be believed?” Thus far the Council of Florence, session 7. This council therefore does not seem to have withdrawn credibility from Sozomen, but rather to have acknowledged it. The answer to this argument, however, is easy and straightforward. I do not see how one can answer the other argument unless we say either that Gregory read other books of Sozomen that have not come into our hands, or that, having suffered a lapse of memory, he wrote Sozomen where he meant Theodoret. For those words reported by Gregory are Theodoret’s. In book 5 of his history, chapter 27, he writes that this Theodorus was a distinguished teacher. And in chapter 40 he says: “Theodorus, bishop of Mopsuestia, died, a teacher of all the churches and a destroyer of the heretical party.” It was Theodoret, then, who was condemned by that name. And in fact he was condemned for that reason at the fifth general synod, act 5, canons 13 and 14. But Theodorus was condemned in canon 12. Theodoret also deserved condemnation for this reason: he wrote impiously against Cyril and the first Council of Ephesus, and criticized Cyril’s twelve chapters, which contained the right faith. Yet no one should despair of Theodoret. For, as Bessarion says in the speech he delivered before the Fathers at Florence on behalf of union, he later recognized his error and recanted at the Council of Chalcedon. But, whatever the facts may be, such defenses of those who err diminish both the authority and credibility of history. For this reason, to leave the rest aside, I like the history of Socrates Scholasticus less. For he too is a patron of Origen, excuses Nestorius, attacks Cyril, finds fault with Alexander, and, in the rejection of the presbyter-penitentiary of the Homoousians, defames the innocent. So much for the third rule to be observed in judging history. These matters are indeed clear and grounded in ordinary prudence. For those who have greater strength of mind and sharper judgment choose the truths and reject the contrary without these rules, by honing the edge of their intellect. I have sometimes found that truth itself shines through the writer’s sincerity and candor, while falsehood is exposed by a certain anguish and craftiness in the author. Believe me, truth is sincere, and if it finds a purified mind, it flows rightly of itself. Falsehood seeks convolutions and winding paths, and anxiously surrounds and protects itself with an abundance of words. Further, when I consider what is fitting for each person in the composition of history, I easily understand that historians have sometimes recorded certain things not only falsely but imprudently. For who, possessing even moderate prudence, does not see that the things related about the deeds of the Apostle Thomas and John the Evangelist are inconsistent with their character: that one sought vengeance for an injury, or that the other, with his garment torn and beating his own head, took a horse, hurried as fast as he could from the church, and, though an old man, pursued a young man with youthful vigor?

We have therefore not carefully worked out rules of judgment for the prudent and intelligent, but, as they say, for those who are rough and dull-witted. Nor am I so foolish as to think that every judgment about history has been enclosed and comprehended in these formulas. But if certain formulas had to be prescribed, these seem above all to have been appropriate and suitable.

IN WHICH ARGUMENTS 15, 16, 17, AND 18 ARE REFUTED

Although, from what we said in the preceding chapter, the refutation is apparent of those arguments placed fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth, they must nevertheless be refuted one by one in order, so that we may accommodate even the lesser theologians in the schools. In the fifteenth argument, the authority of Philo is first called into question. It was certainly great, but the breuiarium illud temporum Philonis was not his, nor was the other little book de antiquitatibus, which is known to be of the same quality. The Romans’ leading men, and also men of the Church, have celebrated Josephus’s credibility as a historian. Hegesippus, a good authority above all, a man of proven reliability and a serious historian in every respect, praises Josephus greatly in what pertains to his authority as a historian; for as to religion, he makes him a companion in the Jews’ faithlessness. Jerome does not hesitate to give Josephus a place among the Church’s writers and even to count his records of events among ecclesiastical histories. Eusebius of Caesarea, Sozomen, and Nicephorus, to omit others, commend Josephus’s history in remarkable ways. Indeed, Josephus himself commended his history with weighty and probable arguments, which lend it no less credibility than if Jerome or some other author had advanced the same arguments. Yet he interprets the serpent’s punishment altogether crudely; he calls the power of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil false and fictitious; he writes that Herodias was the wife not of Philip but of Herod, who was also the brother of Herod the tetrarch; he says that the Temple was completed in the second year of Darius’s reign; and he refers the elders’ lamentations, when they recalled the former Temple’s magnificence, not to the laying of the new foundations but to its completion, and finally says other things contrary in part to Sacred Scripture and in part to other true and approved histories. I plainly say so; I do not deny it. But these were errors of an ignorant man, not lies of a deceiver. Nor is it fair to spread a stain over the whole body of a narrative because of a few spots. Josephus was therefore an outstanding historian, as Hegesippus affirms, attentive to the investigation of events and to sober expression. As for those who criticize him in dating events, I could not easily say whether they do so rightly or wrongly. For my part, I readily and willingly attribute such errors to unlearned and careless copyists. The five books on chronology by Julius Africanus have not come into our hands. For this reason we cannot always judge for ourselves the credibility of his history. But there is the ruling of Gelasius, which was raised in the argument, and theologians who are to judge matters of this kind ought to follow it. “The little works of Tertullian or Africanus are apocryphal.” It is not entirely clear in this passage whether Gelasius meant to condemn Julius Africanus. First, none of the ancients held a bad opinion of Julius Africanus. Eusebius and Jerome, moreover, honor his testimonies about events. Nor was Julius censured for his doctrine of the faith. For in believing the history of Susanna to be fictitious, he followed the error of very learned men. Yet it does not at all seem plausible to me that Gelasius condemned all the little works of Julius because of one sin, for which there is even a probable excuse.

For if it was a sin, Julius shared it with the teachers of the Church. For you will scarcely find anyone who has not erred in some matter. Next, why does Gelasius formulate the judgment in that way, as though it made no difference whether this or that man were condemned: “The little works of Tertullian or Africanus are apocryphal”? If those two authors differed both in name and in fact, Gelasius, following his usual practice, would have condemned the works of each individually. But since he marks Tertullian or Africanus with a single pronouncement, we should not suppose that he meant different authors, but the same man. Such conjectures make me suspect that the passage is corrupt, as are many others in this chapter, and that the particle “or” was added through the copyists’ error. It should therefore be read: “The little works of Tertullian Africanus are apocryphal.” Unless perhaps some called Tertullian by the surname Africanus, and therefore Gelasius delivered his judgment in that form so that we would understand him to have been condemned whether called by his proper name or by a surname. Eusebius and Sozomen remain, whose authority was finally pressed in the fifteenth argument. But what I thought and judged about these authors you have in the preceding chapter. In the fifteenth argument no difficulty was raised that was not resolved. In the sixteenth, the decree of Innocent is first brought forward. But if he approves the records of the Church, he does not thereby immediately disapprove pagan histories. I admit that these are of little use for the ecclesiastical court and ordinary lawsuits, although they can sometimes be useful for this purpose as well; since it is beside our present subject, it is not worthwhile to say in which places and questions. But, as we said at length in the second chapter of this book, secular history is altogether useful in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Therefore, if a question arises concerning the divine writings, neither councils nor other ecclesiastical judges ought or are able to neglect such histories. Nor are the histories of the nations suited only to these uses of Scripture. They are also necessary to theologians in other ways, as we explained earlier and will explain in the books that follow. Moreover, Andreas teaches nothing else at the Council of Florence than that knowledge of the wars of Greeks or Romans does not pertain to a synod. He could have said the wars of the Trojans or even the Florentines. For some knowledge of Greek and Roman wars is most useful for explaining the prophecies of the prophets. But these matters are very easy; let us pursue the rest. They too, after what we discussed earlier, present no difficulty. Indeed, I think not one word need be added in response to the seventeenth argument, since, unless I am mistaken, it was accurately and carefully resolved in chapter 6. I shall therefore resolve the eighteenth and final argument as briefly as I can, and thus at last bring this topic to an end. Theologians use two kinds of arguments: one is certain, the other probable. Both are to be discussed more fully in the next book. Now I shall state the matter briefly. It is not necessary that a theologian always take certain principles. From uncertain ones, provided they are probable, he sometimes constructs arguments that are suitable not for proving but for persuading. The theologian who would insist that in every syllogism he must match necessary matters only with necessary matters would be foolish. For some matters are so involved and obscure that it belongs to theological prudence not to try to demonstrate them, but to persuade; not to illuminate them fully, but to explain them as best one can.

If, then, someone uses the probability of human testimony in this kind of argument, he may of course sometimes be mistaken, but he cannot be criticized without injustice. Further, as we said above, human testimony conveys certain things so certainly that to call them into doubt is a most certain sign of folly. If a theologian claims these things for his use, he will construct nothing deceptive, nothing weak or inept, but something true, firm, and consistent with both human and divine reason. It seems sufficiently explained how an argument is drawn from the parts of history that have been set out. We said in the first book that all theological arguments flow from ten sources. In the ten following books it was shown what kinds of arguments can be drawn from each of the individual loci. Perhaps what has been said was longer than the subject required, but certainly shorter than I had thought I could make such weighty matters. I confess that my discussion was lengthy in explaining the authority of human history. But there was no locus of theology where the subject of discussion was broader, or where I had to work with greater care, diligence, and effort. Even if I did less than the importance of the matter demanded, I did not labor in vain. For I was able to admonish others to write more carefully, either to add better things, remove superfluities, or compress more tightly matters stated diffusely and at length; in short, if they know something better than these things, to impart it generously.

ON THE USE OF THE THEOLOGICAL LOCI IN SCHOLASTIC DISPUTATION