De locis theologicis

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.