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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book One — the works of the six days

DISPUTATION: Whether the world was created in springtime

LatineEnglish

DISPUTATION: Whether the world was created in springtime.1

DISPUTATIO: An mundus verno tempore fuerit conditus.

Multi existimant, mundum verno tempore esse factum: coniecturam cum ex aliis, tum ex eo facientes, quod Moses narrat hoc loco terram die tertio iussu Dei germinasse herbam virentem: est autem verni temporis herbarum virentium et florentium germinatio. Hanc quaestionem, quod sit ad cognitionem pulcherrima, valdeque controversa et in contrarias distracta sententias, nec aliena proposito nostro, in praesens pertractandam censuimus.
Many think that the world was made in springtime, forming their conjecture both from other considerations and especially from this, that Moses here relates that on the third day the earth, at God's command, sprouted the green herb: and the sprouting of green and flowering herbs belongs to the spring season. This question, since it is most beautiful for knowledge, and highly controverted and pulled apart into opposing opinions, and not foreign to our purpose, we have judged should be treated here for the present.2
Quidam memoria nostra, non indiligens Annalium conditor tradit, sibi probabilissimum videri, mundum mense Iulio esse factum. Hoc autem ex sacra Scriptura ad hunc modum argumentatur: Initium anni fuit tempore Noe circa mensem Iulium, Sole Leonis signum peragrante, eo igitur tempore fuit etiam initium mundi. Est enim admodum credibile, priscos illos homines usque ad Noe, solitos inchoare annum ab eo tempore, quo per traditionem maiorum suorum, ab Adamo usque ductam, noverant mundum fuisse conditum, valde enim congruebat, ut idem tempus, anni esset principium, quod mundi fuerat exordium.
A certain industrious compiler of Annals within our own memory hands down that it seems to him most probable that the world was made in the month of July. And he argues this from sacred Scripture in the following way: The beginning of the year in the time of Noah was about the month of July, while the Sun was passing through the sign of Leo; therefore at that time was also the beginning of the world. For it is quite credible that those ancient men down to Noah were accustomed to begin the year from that time at which, by the tradition of their forefathers traced down from Adam, they knew the world had been founded; for it was very fitting that the same time should be the beginning of the year which had been the origin of the world.3
Tempore autem Noe initium anni fuisse mense Iulio, coniectat hic auctor ex eo quod infra capite octavo Geneseos traditur, columbam vigesimoquarto die mensis undecimi, reversam ad Noe tulisse ramusculum oliuae virentibus foliis: hinc enim intelligitur fuisse tunc tempus vernum, quo nimirum solent arbores germinare ac virere: quo etiam cessare diluvium conveniebat, scilicet ut nova aestas, novas fruges fructusque hominibus, ceterisque animantibus sustentandis suppeditaret.
That in Noah's time the beginning of the year was the month of July, this author conjectures from what is related below in the eighth chapter of Genesis, that the dove, on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, returning to Noah, brought a little olive branch with green leaves: for from this it is understood that the time was then spring, in which trees are wont to bud and grow green; at which time it was also fitting that the flood should cease, namely so that a new summer might furnish new produce and fruits for the sustaining of men and the other living creatures.4
Atqui Sole Geminorum signum perambulante, eam oleae germinationem in diluvio esse factam, naturali ratione ostenditur. Etenim Plinius libro vigesimosexto, capite vigesimoquinto, oleam pariter cum vite ait, germinare et concipere Virgiliarum exortu, hoc est, sex diebus ante Idus Maias vigesimam quintam, vel uti vere legendum est, decimamquintam Tauri partem occupante Sole, florere autem Solstitio. Atque haec Plinius inquit respectu sui climatis Romani, quod habet etiam Gordieus Armeniae mons, in quo arca considentibus aquis insedisse dicitur. Idem igitur tempus conveniebat germinationi oleae in monte Gordieo, nisi aquarum inundatio tam diu omnem terram altissime obrutam tenens obstitisset: quae ut non suo tempore, sed aliquando tardius eveniret arborum germinatio effecit. Nec tamen ea germinatio differri potuit usque ad Solstitium propter fructus et alimenta vitae animalium necessaria, quae nulla eo anno fuerant condita et servata. Quare signo Geminorum, quod...
But that this sprouting of the olive in the flood took place while the Sun was traversing the sign of Gemini is shown by natural reasoning. For Pliny, in book twenty-six, chapter twenty-five, says that the olive, together with the vine, buds and conceives at the rising of the Pleiades, that is, six days before the Ides of May—the Sun occupying the twenty-fifth, or, as it should truly be read, the fifteenth degree of Taurus—but flowers at the solstice. And Pliny says this with respect to his own Roman climate, which is shared also by Mount Gordyaeus in Armenia, on which the ark is said to have settled as the waters subsided. The same time, therefore, suited the sprouting of the olive on Mount Gordyaeus, had not the inundation of the waters, keeping the whole earth deeply buried for so long, stood in the way: which caused the budding of the trees to occur not at its proper time, but somewhat later. Yet that budding could not be deferred until the solstice, on account of the fruits and food necessary for the life of the animals, none of which had been stored up and preserved in that year. Wherefore by the sign of Gemini, which...5
...rum, quod inter Taurum interest et Cancrum, mensem illum undecimum respondisse necesse est, duodecimum autem Cancro, ideoque primum sequentis anni mensem fuisse, signum Leonis Sole permeante, hoc est, circa mensem Iulium. Sic ille argumentatur. Astruit etiam fidem suae opinioni argumento Aegyptiorum, qui ut capite 35. refert Solinus, censuerunt natale mundi tempus esse, cum Sol principium Leonis ingreditur: quod unde acceperint Aegyptii non docet Solinus: verisimile autem est didicisse ab Hebraeis, qui saepe diuque sunt apud Aegyptios commorati.
...[the sign of Gemini], which lies between Taurus and Cancer, that eleventh month must have corresponded, but the twelfth to Cancer, and therefore the first month of the following year was that in which the Sun was passing through the sign of Leo, that is, about the month of July. Thus he argues. He also lends support to his opinion by the argument of the Egyptians, who, as Solinus reports in chapter 35, judged the birthday of the world to be when the Sun enters the beginning of Leo: whence the Egyptians took this Solinus does not tell us; but it is likely they learned it from the Hebrews, who often and for long dwelt among the Egyptians.6
Verumtamen hanc sententiam credo equidem paucis probatum iri: neminem enim memini fuisse adhuc, qui primordia mundi non ad Aequinoctium vel Vernum vel Autumnale retulerit. Quid autem de natali die mundi, tempore Solini existimaverint Aegyptii, non est valde curandum: certe vetustissimos Aegyptios, tempore Mosis initium anni a mense Septembri ducere solitos, gravis auctor in 1. libro Iudaicarum antiquitatum dixit Iosephus: quin etiam Cicero libro secundo, de Natura deorum, et Lactantius libro primo, divinarum Institutionum capit. 6. prodidere, Mercurium, qui Aegypto leges ac litteras tradit, appellatum ab Aegyptiis lingua sua Thoth, a quo apud eos primus anni mensis nostro respondens Septembri, nomen accepit. Porro lib. decimosexto, cap. 20. tradit Plinius, Oleae folia nunquam decidere, et colorem suum nunquam amittere: quid igitur prohibet, quin olea, cuius ramusculum tulit columba, sub aquis tempore diluvii et frondium virorem retinuerit? nam cum septem dies ante columba nihil, reperisset ubi conquiesceret, qui fit credibile spatio non amplius septem dierum, oleam frondescere ac virescere potuisse? non enim sub profundissimis aquis demersa, vim germinandi et frondescendi exerere poterat.
Nevertheless I believe that this opinion will be approved by few: for I do not recall that anyone has yet referred the origins of the world to anything but an equinox, either the vernal or the autumnal. But what the Egyptians in Solinus's time thought about the birthday of the world need not greatly concern us: certainly Josephus, a weighty author, said in book 1 of the Jewish Antiquities that the most ancient Egyptians, in the time of Moses, were accustomed to begin the year from the month of September; nay more, Cicero in book two of On the Nature of the Gods, and Lactantius in book one of the Divine Institutes, chapter 6, have recorded that Mercury, who delivered laws and letters to Egypt, was called by the Egyptians in their own tongue Thoth, from whom the first month of the year among them, corresponding to our September, took its name. Further, Pliny in book sixteen, chapter 20, hands down that the leaves of the olive never fall, and never lose their color: what then prevents the olive, whose little branch the dove brought, from having retained the greenness of its leaves under the waters at the time of the flood? For since for seven days before, the dove had found nowhere to rest, how is it credible that within a space of not more than seven days the olive could put forth leaves and grow green? for, submerged beneath the deepest waters, it could not exercise the power of budding and putting forth leaves.7
Ad extremum, auctor istius sententiae sumit ut certum, quod est valde dubium, vel etiam falsum: ponit enim, ut omnium consensu indubitatum, menses quos capite octavo Geneseos recenset Moses, primum, secundum, septimum, decimum, undecimum, fuisse anni menses, cum eos non pauci, non ab exordio anni, sed ab initio diluvii numerandos putent: alii vero, quorum nos in sententiam ituri sumus, eos non ab initio anni vel diluvii, sed ab exordio sexcentesimi anni vitae Noe computandos censeant. Verum reiecta hac opinione ceteras magis probabiles perpendamus.
Finally, the author of that opinion takes for certain what is highly doubtful, or even false: for he posits, as undoubted by the consent of all, that the months which Moses lists in the eighth chapter of Genesis—the first, second, seventh, tenth, eleventh—were months of the year, whereas not a few think they are to be counted not from the beginning of the year, but from the beginning of the flood; while others, into whose opinion we are about to go, hold that they are to be reckoned not from the beginning of the year or of the flood, but from the beginning of the six-hundredth year of Noah's life. But, having rejected this opinion, let us weigh the others, which are more probable.8
Altera est opinio, non Astrologis modo et poetis accepta, sed omnium etiam scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum atque Theologorum firmata consensu, mundum verno tempore esse conditum. Hoc libro 2. Georgicorum cecinit Virgilius:
There is another opinion, accepted not only by the astrologers and poets, but confirmed also by the consensus of all the ecclesiastical writers and theologians, that the world was founded in springtime. This Virgil sang in book 2 of the Georgics:9

I could not believe that other days shone at the first origin of the nascent world, or that it kept another course: it was spring then, spring the great Orb was keeping, and the East winds spared their wintry blasts.10

Non alios prima nascentis origine mundi Illuxisse dies, aliumve habuisse tenorem Crediderim: ver illud erat, ver magnus agebat Orbis, et hybernis parcebant flatibus Euri.

Haec etiam una est, nec postrema de multis causis, propter quas Astrologi, signum Arietis esse initium et caput ceterorum Zodiaci signorum, principatumque obtinere arbitrantur.
This too is one, and not the least, of the many reasons on account of which the astrologers judge the sign of Aries to be the beginning and head of the rest of the signs of the Zodiac, and to hold the chief place.11
Sed venio ad nostros, hoc est, Ecclesiasticos scriptores et Theologos. Eusebius in Omnimoda historia, quod opus inter cetera eius recenset Hieronymus in lib. de Ecclesiasticis scriptoribus, cuius hodieque nonnulla extant fragmenta, affirmat die vigesimoquinto Martii, quo Christus dominus noster resurrexit, mundum esse conditum. Athanasius respondens ad quaestionem decimamseptimam Antiochi, idem quod Eusebius tradit, idemque confirmant complures alii, velut Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus Catechesi 14. Leo Papa sermone nono, de passione Domini, Gregorius Nazianzenus in oratione in novam Dominicam, Isidorus libro 5. Etymologiarum, capite de Temporibus, Damascenus libro secundo, de fide Orthodoxa, cap. septimo, Strabus et Rabanus super 12. caput Exodi, aiunt mundum esse creatum decimoquinto Kalendas Aprilis, hoc est, decimo octavo die Martii: hoc etiam habet Glossa interlinearis super caput 35. Geneseos: denique multis locis idem Beda prodidit, veluti in lib. de Ratione temporum, cap. 28. et in commentariolo in Hexameron ait, solem quarto die creatum, aequinoctium vernale, suo exortu consecrasse, et in Synodo Palaestina, ex mandato Victoris Papae congregata a Theophilo Episcopo Caesariensi, consensu omnium declaratum est, mundum factum esse verno tempore, quin etiam 10. Kalendas Aprilis, quo die Dominus noster fuit crucifixus, Adamum fuisse a Deo creatum. atque huius synodi et decreti meminit Beda initio libri, de sex aetatibus mundi, fusius autem eius Synodi decreta commemorat, in Epistola quam scripsit de Paschatis celebratione, seu de verno aequinoctio. Idem Beda lib. de Ratione temporum, capite 40. docet Solem creatum esse 12. Kalend. Aprilis, hoc est, 21. Martii, primumque diem quo facta est lux, fuisse 15. Kalendas Aprilis, hoc est, decimum octavum Martii diem.
But I come to our own writers, that is, the ecclesiastical writers and theologians. Eusebius, in his Universal History (a work which Jerome lists among his others in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, of which some fragments survive even today), affirms that the world was founded on the twenty-fifth day of March, the day on which Christ our Lord rose again. Athanasius, answering the seventeenth question of Antiochus, hands down the same as Eusebius, and very many others confirm the same: such as Cyril of Jerusalem in Catechesis 14, Pope Leo in his ninth sermon on the Passion of the Lord, Gregory Nazianzen in his oration on the New Lord's Day, Isidore in book 5 of the Etymologies, in the chapter On Seasons, Damascene in book two of On the Orthodox Faith, chapter seven, Strabus and Rabanus on the 12th chapter of Exodus—they say that the world was created on the fifteenth of the Kalends of April, that is, on the eighteenth day of March: this the Interlinear Gloss too has, on the 35th chapter of Genesis: and finally Bede records the same in many places, as in the book On the Reckoning of Time, chapter 28, and in his little commentary on the Hexameron he says that the sun, created on the fourth day, consecrated the vernal equinox by its rising; and in the Synod of Palestine, gathered by the command of Pope Victor under Theophilus, Bishop of Caesarea, it was declared by the consent of all that the world was made in springtime, and moreover that on the 10th of the Kalends of April, the day on which our Lord was crucified, Adam was created by God. And Bede mentions this synod and decree at the beginning of his book On the Six Ages of the World, but recounts the decrees of that Synod more fully in the Epistle he wrote on the celebration of Easter, or on the vernal equinox. The same Bede, in the book On the Reckoning of Time, chapter 40, teaches that the Sun was created on the 12th of the Kalends of April, that is, the 21st of March, and that the first day on which light was made was the 15th of the Kalends of April, that is, the eighteenth day of March.12
Beatus Ambrosius, capi. 4. lib. 1. in Hexameron, ea ratione persuadere nititur, Mundi exordium fuisse verno tempore, quod terra iussu Dei germinavit herbam virentem, quod non alio quam veris tempore solet evenire. Sed quia hoc argumentum disertissime tractat Ambrosius, pauca de verbis eius, haud dubie lectori non iniucunda futura, hic apponam:
Blessed Ambrose, in chapter 4 of book 1 on the Hexameron, strives to persuade by this reasoning that the beginning of the world was in springtime, namely that the earth at God's command brought forth the green herb, which is wont to happen at no other time than spring. But since Ambrose treats this argument most eloquently, I shall here set down a few of his words, which will doubtless not be unpleasing to the reader:13

“In this beginning,” he says, “of the months, in which by God's command the Jews celebrated the Passover, God made heaven and earth, because the origin of the world had fittingly to be taken from there: when there was a vernal mildness suited to all things. Whence the year too expressed the image of the nascent world, so that after the wintry frosts and the gloom of winter a brighter-than-usual splendor of the spring season might shine forth. The first rising of the world therefore gave the form of its fruitfulness to the courses of the years; so that by that law the successions of the years might arise, and at the beginning of each year the earth might produce new sproutings of seeds, as the Lord God had first said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb of grass, sowing its seed after its kind and after its likeness, and the fruit-bearing tree...”14

In hoc principio, inquit, mensium, quo pascha iussu Dei celebrabant Iudei, coelum et terram fecit Deus, quod inde mundi capi oportebat exordium: ubi erat opportuna omnibus verna temperies. Unde et annus, mundi imaginem nascentis expressit, ut post hybernas glacies, atque hyemales caligines, serenior solito verni temporis splendor eluceat. Dedit ergo formam fructus, annorum curriculis mundi primus exortus; ut ea lege annorum vices surgerent, atque initio cuiusque anni produceret terra nova seminum germina, quo primum Dominus Deus dixerat: Germinet terra herbam foeni, seminans semen secundum genus, et secundum similitudinem, et lignum fructiferum...

“...the fruit-bearing tree making fruit, etc. In which both the perpetual divine providence of [God's] moderation and the swiftness of the sprouting earth vote, as it were, for the springtime estimate. For although at any time it was within God's power to command, and within nature's to obey, so that amid wintry frosts and the hoarfrosts of winter the earth, sprouting at the fostering of the heavenly command, might bring forth its offspring, yet it was not in keeping with the eternal disposition that the fields, bound stiff by rigid frost, should suddenly relax into green fruits, and that flowering things should be mingled with bristling hoarfrosts. Therefore, that Scripture might show the times of spring at the constitution of the world, it says: This month shall be to you the beginning of months: it is the first to you among the months of the year—calling the first month the spring season. For it was fitting that the beginning of the year should be the beginning of generation, and that generation itself should be fostered by gentler breezes; for the tender beginnings of things can neither endure the hardship of harsher cold, nor sustain the injury of scorching heat.” Thus Ambrose.15

...fructiferum faciens fructum, etc. In quo nobis et moderationis perpetua divina providentia, et celeritas terrae germinantis, ad aestimationem verna suffragatur aetatis. Nam etsi quocunque tempore et Deo iubere promptum fuit, et terrae obedire natura, ut inter hybernas glacies et hyemales pruinas, coelestis imperii fotu germinans terra foetum produceret, non erat tamen dispositionis aeternae, rigido stricta gelu, in virides subito fructus laxari arva, atque horrentibus pruinis florulenta misceri. Ergo ut ostenderet Scriptura veris tempora in constitutione mundi, ait: Mensis hic vobis initium mensium: primus est vobis in mensibus anni, primum mensem, vernum tempus appellans. Decebat enim principium anni, principium esse generationis, et ipsam generationem mollioribus auris foveri, neque enim possunt tenera rerum exordia, aut asperioris laborem tolerare frigoris, aut torrentis aestus iniuriam sustinere. Haec Ambrosius.

Similia, nec tamen premenda silentio in quaestione septuagesima secunda, super Exodum scribit Theodoretus: cum enim proposuisset hanc dubitationem: Cur prima die mensis Deus iussit erigi tabernaculum, eam soluit his verbis:
Theodoret writes things similar, yet not to be passed over in silence, in his seventy-second question on Exodus: for when he had proposed this difficulty—Why did God order the tabernacle to be set up on the first day of the month?—he resolved it with these words:16

“Because at about the same season God founded his creatures, a fact to which the budding of the trees bears witness: Let the earth, he says, bring forth the green herb, etc. For at the beginning of spring the meadows are wont to flower, the crops conceive their seed, the trees put forth their fruit. For the same reason God also, at about the same time, freed the people of Israel from the bondage of the Egyptians, and the Archangel Gabriel brought to the holy Virgin Mary the glad tidings of the wondrous birth. At the same time, too, Christ the Lord underwent his saving Passion. Not without reason, therefore, did the Lord of all order the tabernacle to be set up on the first day of the first month, both because it represented the figure of the whole world, and that the people might prepare themselves for the feast of the Passover, which the Law commanded the Jews to celebrate first.” Thus he.17

Propterea quod eodem fere tempore Deus creaturas condidit, cuius rei fidem facit arborum germinatio: Germinet, inquit, terra herbam virentem, etc. Incipiente enim vere, prata florere solent, segetes semina concipiunt, arbores fructum emittunt. Eadem de causa Deus etiam sub idem tempus liberavit populum Israel a servitute Aegyptiorum, et Gabriel Archangelus sanctae Virgini Mariae laetum nuncium admirandi partus attulit. Eodem quoque tempore Christus Dominus salutarem pertulit passionem. Non immerito ergo Dominus omnium, prima die, primi mensis, tabernaculum erigere iussit, tum quod totius mundi figuram referebat, tum ut populus se praepararet ad festum Pascha, quod primum celebrare lex praecipiebat Iudaeis: Sic ille.

Magister historiae scholasticae in Historia libri Geneseos, affirmat dogma esse Ecclesiae, Mundum esse creatum in Martio. Addunt praeterea, quibus haec sententia placuit, haec argumenta, vernum tempus esse totius anni pulcherrimum, amoenissimum, rerumque omnium, praesertim autem viventium generationi, accretioni, et conservationi aptissimum. Est enim temperate calidum et humidum, quae sunt duae qualitates generationi, ac vitae tam stirpium, quam animantium valde congruentes, tum viget signum Arietis quod appellant Astrologi masculinum, foecundum, propitium, atque beneficum, maximeque rerum primordiis opportunum, tunc germinante terra, virescentibus herbis, florescentibus arboribus, et quasi reviviscentibus animantibus, mundus quodammodo renascens, eodem se tempore primum a Deo esse conditum non obscure declarat. Contra vero autumnus cum sit frigidus et siccus, magis corruptioni, quam generationi rerum est conveniens, ideoque tum decidunt folia, cunctaque virore, vigoreque suo privata, paulatim flaccescunt, et ad interitum feruntur. Illud quoque fidem huic opinioni addit, quod sit admodum credibile, primum Adam, et secundum, qui est Christus Dominus, eodem tempore esse...
The Master of the Scholastic History, in his History of the book of Genesis, affirms that it is a doctrine of the Church that the world was created in March. Moreover those whom this opinion pleased add these arguments: that the spring season is the most beautiful and pleasant of the whole year, and the most apt of all for the generation, growth, and preservation of all things, but especially of living things. For it is temperately warm and moist, which are the two qualities most agreeable to the generation and life both of plants and of animals; then too the sign of Aries flourishes, which the astrologers call masculine, fertile, favorable, and beneficent, and most opportune for the beginnings of things; then, while the earth buds, the herbs grow green, the trees blossom, and the living creatures as it were revive, the world, in a manner being reborn, declares not obscurely that at this same season it was first founded by God. On the contrary, autumn, since it is cold and dry, is more suited to the corruption than to the generation of things, and therefore then the leaves fall, and all things, stripped of their greenness and vigor, gradually wither and are borne toward destruction. This too adds credence to this opinion, that it is quite credible that the first Adam, and the second, who is Christ the Lord, were at the same season...18
...esse formatos, eodemque et conditum mundum et a Christo reparatum. Constat autem secundum Adam, hoc est, Christum, verno tempore conceptum esse, eodemque per mortem suam mundum restaurasse.
...formed, and at the same season both the world was founded and was repaired by Christ. For it is established that the second Adam, that is, Christ, was conceived in springtime, and at the same season, through his death, restored the world.19
Tertia sententia est, mundi exordium fuisse in Autumno, ut primus mensis ab orbe condito fuerit prima luna Aequinoctio Autumnali proprior, qui mensis ab Hebraeis Chaldaico vocabulo dictus est Thisri, quae vox Chaldaice significat initium, ut vel ipso nomine, mensis hic se initium anni existimari debere, satis probare videatur. Hanc sententiam, Hebraeorum plurimi et doctissimi veram, certamque habent, eamque maxime approbat Nicolaus de Lyra super caput 7. libri Geneseos, et Tostatus super eiusdem libri caput primum, quaestione vicesimaprima, in qua fuisse Iosephum, ex iis quae scribit primo libro Antiquitatum satis apparet. Facit etiam pro ea, quod ait Hieronymus in commentario super primum caput Ezechielis, apud omnes Orientales primum anni mensem fuisse Octobrem: nam Thisri, licet incipiat in Septembre, saepenumero tamen excurrit in Octobrem. Ioannes Picus Mirandulanus, etsi capite sexto libri septimi adversus Astrologos, scribit incompertum esse adhuc, nec satis explicari posse, quo anni tempore factus sit mundus: ipse tamen ad eos, qui Autumno factum credunt, suam inclinat sententiam. Tostatus in priori parte sui Defensorii capite decimoquarto, scriptum reliquit, peritos Hebraeorum censuisse mundum esse creatum 25. die Septembris: et Adam ultimo die Septembris esse formatum: primo autem die Octobris, qui fuit dies sabbati, fuisse primi anni primique mensis exordium. Nam priores sex dies ad praecedentem annum, quem ex illis sex diebus conficiunt, referendos arbitrantur.
The third opinion is that the beginning of the world was in autumn, so that the first month from the founding of the world was the lunar month nearest the autumnal equinox—the month which the Hebrews, by a Chaldean word, call Tishri, which word in Chaldean means 'beginning,' so that even by its very name this month seems sufficiently to prove that it ought to be reckoned the beginning of the year. This opinion very many and most learned of the Hebrews hold to be true and certain, and Nicholas of Lyra strongly approves it on the 7th chapter of the book of Genesis, and Tostatus on the first chapter of the same book, in the twenty-first question, in which it is plain enough from what he writes in the first book of the Antiquities that Josephus held it. It also makes for it that Jerome, in his commentary on the first chapter of Ezekiel, says that among all the Orientals the first month of the year was October: for Tishri, though it begins in September, very often runs over into October. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, although in chapter six of the seventh book Against the Astrologers he writes that it is still undiscovered, and cannot be sufficiently explained, at what time of year the world was made, nevertheless inclines his own opinion toward those who believe it was made in autumn. Tostatus, in the first part of his Defensorium, chapter fourteen, has left in writing that the experts among the Hebrews judged the world to have been created on the 25th day of September, and Adam to have been formed on the last day of September; but that the first day of October, which was a Sabbath day, was the beginning of the first year and the first month. For they hold that the prior six days are to be referred to the preceding year, which they make up out of those six days.20
Porro: sicut haec tertia opinio tam multitudine, quam gravitate dignitateque auctorum, inferior est quam secunda, ita numero et pondere argumentorum videtur firmior, atque praestantior. Principio, satis hoc indicavit Deus, cum nova lege sanxit, ut propter memoriam singularis eius beneficii, quo servitute Aegyptiorum Hebraeos liberaverat, Nisan qui cadit in vernum tempus, primus deinceps anni mensis apud Hebraeos haberetur, ut traditur Exodi duodecimo, quo licet intelligere ante illud tempus, Nisan non fuisse Hebraeis primum anni mensem: quid enim attinebat, novo praecepto, tam sancte Iudaeis imperare, quod illi suapte sponte perpetuo antea servaverant? Certe quemadmodum sabbatum servari iussit, propterea quod die septimo requieverat a molitione et fabricatione mundi, ita si mense Nisan mundus fuisset conditus, eum in memoriam orbis conditi servari iussisset. Ponam hic verba Iosephi, quae ad hoc illustrandum probandumque multum valent, ex primo Iudaicarum antiquitatum, libro transcripta:
Furthermore: just as this third opinion is inferior to the second both in the number and in the gravity and dignity of its authorities, so in the number and weight of its arguments it seems firmer and more excellent. In the first place, God sufficiently indicated this when by a new law he ordained that, on account of the memory of his singular benefit by which he had freed the Hebrews from the bondage of the Egyptians, Nisan—which falls in the spring season—should thenceforth be reckoned the first month of the year among the Hebrews, as is related in the twelfth chapter of Exodus; from which one may understand that before that time Nisan was not the first month of the year for the Hebrews: for what need was there, by a new precept, so solemnly to command the Jews what they had of their own accord always observed before? Surely, just as he ordered the Sabbath to be kept because on the seventh day he had rested from the contriving and fabricating of the world, so, had the world been founded in the month of Nisan, he would have ordered that month to be kept in memory of the founding of the world. I shall here set down the words of Josephus, which avail much to illustrate and prove this, transcribed from the first book of the Jewish Antiquities:21

“The devastation of the flood occurred,” he says, ...22

Contigit, inquit, vastitas diluvii...

“...in the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, which is called Dius by the Macedonians, and by the Hebrews Marsonane (Marheshvan), which corresponds partly to October and partly to November—for thus the Egyptians divided the year. But Moses appointed Nisan, which is Xanthicus to the Macedonians, as the first month in his calendar, because through it he had led the Hebrews out of Egypt: and the same he made the beginning of all things pertaining to divine worship; otherwise, as regards the marketing of goods for sale, and the rest of the year's arrangement, he changed nothing of the ancient usage.” Thus Josephus.23

...anno aetatis Noe sexcentesimo, mense secundo, qui Dius a Macedonibus vocatur, ab Hebraeis Marsonane, qui partim Octobri respondet et partim Novembri, sic enim Aegyptii distinxerunt annum. Moses autem Nisam, qui est Xanthichus Macedonibus, mensem primum in suis Fastis ordinavit, quod per hunc Hebraeos ex Aegypto eduxisset: eundem et omnium quae ad rem divinam pertinerent exordium fecit: alioqui quod ad nundinationes rerum venalium, reliquamque dispensationem anni attinet, nihil de pristino ritu innovavit. Haec Iosephus.

Ex cuius verbis duo nobis quae ad praesentem quaestionem faciunt, notatu digna pernotescunt, alterum est, Hebraeos priusquam Aegypto excederent, annum ab Autumno inchoare consuevisse, cuius consuetudinis ab Adamo usque ad Mosem perpetuo conservatae non aliam fuisse originem et caussam existimandum est, quam quod tempore Autumni mundum incepisse, priscis illis hominibus persuasum esset: alterum vero, diluvium incepisse mense secundo anni, hoc est, medio Autumno: quis autem non inducat in animum credere, ab Adamo usque ad Noe principium anni, idem fuisse tempus, quod mundi fuerat exordium?
From his words two things worth noting, which bear on the present question, become plain to us. The first is that the Hebrews, before they left Egypt, were accustomed to begin the year from autumn; and of this custom, kept unbroken from Adam down to Moses, no other origin and cause is to be supposed than that those ancient men were persuaded that the world had begun in the autumn season. The second is that the flood began in the second month of the year, that is, in mid-autumn: and who would not be led in his mind to believe that, from Adam down to Noah, the beginning of the year was the same time which had been the origin of the world?24
Quanquam non desint, qui ad id, quod priori loco diximus ex Iosepho respondeant, Hebraeos ante descensum Iacob in Aegyptum, annum a verno tempore, quo nimirum mundus fuerat conditus, inchoare solitos: postea tamen mixtos, et per quindecim atque ducentos annos conversatos cum Aegyptiis, ut alia eorum instituta, sic etiam hoc de principio anni et dispositione mensium esse amplexatos: quapropter egressi ex Aegypto, Dei praecepto iussi sunt primam consuetudinem circa initium anni et dispositionem mensium repetere, et deinceps perpetuo retinere.
Although there are not lacking those who would reply to what we said in the first place from Josephus, that the Hebrews, before Jacob's descent into Egypt, were accustomed to begin the year from springtime—at which, namely, the world had been founded; but afterward, being mingled with the Egyptians and consorting with them for two hundred and fifteen years, they embraced, along with their other institutions, this one too concerning the beginning of the year and the arrangement of the months: wherefore, having gone out from Egypt, they were commanded by God's precept to resume their first custom regarding the beginning of the year and the arrangement of the months, and thenceforth to keep it perpetually.25
Verum mundi primordia fuisse in Autumno, et inde anni principium rite sumi, videtur ex Scriptura evidenter ostendi posse. Etenim Exodi vicesimo tertio capite iubentur Hebraei solemnitatem tabernaculorum, quae agebatur mense septimo, hoc est, in Autumno, celebrari in exitu anni. Sic enim ibi legimus: Solemnitatem quoque ages, in exitu anni, quando congregaveris omnes fruges tuas de agro. Et capite tricesimoquarto, eiusdem libri, iubet Deus eandem solemnitatem agi, quando redeunte anni tempore, cuncta conduntur. Ex quibus duobus Scripturae locis, satis liquet, in Autumno fuisse anni exitum ac reditum: quare eo potissimum tempore factus est mundus. Ad hoc, Autumnum esse finem anni praecedentis, si spectemus ordinem naturae et generationis rerum naturalium patet vel iudicio sensuum, tunc enim decerpuntur fructus ex arboribus, decidunt folia, demessae segetes, frugesque conduntur: colliguntur uvae, vinumque ex iis expressum conficitur. Esse autem Autumnum etiam sequentis anni principium, manifestum est, cum eo tempore sementis fiat, et terra mandata sibi semina concipiens, hisque gravidata procreet radices, quod sane ratione quadam, respondet conceptioni et generationi animalium in utero: quocirca Autumni tempus...
But that the origins of the world were in autumn, and that from there the beginning of the year is rightly taken, seems able to be shown evidently from Scripture. For in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus the Hebrews are commanded to celebrate the solemnity of Tabernacles—which was held in the seventh month, that is, in autumn—'at the going out of the year.' For thus we read there: Thou shalt also keep the solemnity, at the going out of the year, when thou hast gathered all thy fruits out of the field. And in the thirty-fourth chapter of the same book, God commands the same solemnity to be held 'when the season of the year returns, [and] all things are stored up.' From which two passages of Scripture it is sufficiently clear that the going-out and the return of the year were in autumn: wherefore at that season especially was the world made. Besides, that autumn is the end of the preceding year, if we consider the order of nature and of the generation of natural things, is plain even by the judgment of the senses; for then the fruits are plucked from the trees, the leaves fall, the crops are reaped, and the produce is stored: the grapes are gathered, and the wine is made by pressing them. And that autumn is also the beginning of the following year is manifest, since at that time the sowing takes place, and the earth, conceiving the seeds entrusted to it and made pregnant with them, brings forth roots—which in a certain manner corresponds to the conception and generation of animals in the womb: wherefore the season of autumn...26
...tempus conceptioni et generationi rerum convenit, ob idque primordiis mundi magis est idoneum. Tempus autem veris magis respondet adolescentiae et iuventuti ipsius mundi. Praeterea, licet in tractatione rerum sacrarum et celebratione festivitatum, Moses initium anni veris tempore statuisset, non in omnibus tamen id observabatur: nam in celebratione septimi anni, quo dabatur terrae requies, et quinquagesimi anni, qui erat Iubilaei, exordium anni necessario sumendum et computandum erat ab Autumno, alioquin si a verno tempore sumptum esset, necessarium utique fuisset, ut fruges, et proventus terrae sexti anni, quae mense Nisan in Palaestina maturae non erant ad messem, prorsus perirent, quod est contra divinam Scripturam, in qua Deus pollicetur, propter requiem septimi anni daturum se triplicatum proventum frugum, videlicet pro sexto, septimo, et octavo anno.
...the season of autumn suits the conception and generation of things, and on that account is more fitting for the beginnings of the world. But the season of spring corresponds rather to the adolescence and youth of the world itself. Moreover, although in the handling of sacred matters and the celebration of festivals Moses had set the beginning of the year at springtime, yet it was not observed in all respects: for in the celebration of the seventh year, in which rest was given to the land, and of the fiftieth year, which was the Jubilee, the beginning of the year had necessarily to be taken and reckoned from autumn; otherwise, if it had been taken from springtime, it would certainly have been necessary that the crops and produce of the sixth year, which in the month of Nisan were not ripe for harvest in Palestine, should utterly perish—which is contrary to divine Scripture, in which God promises that, on account of the rest of the seventh year, he will give a threefold yield of crops, namely for the sixth, seventh, and eighth year.27
His accedit, quod certum sit ante diluvium tempora numerata esse ab exordio mundi, et quod initium anni coeptum fuerit ab eo tempore, quo fuerat mundi primordium. Est quoque simillimum vero, diluvium coepisse vel medio vel extremo Autumno: quoniam autem duravit centum quinquaginta diebus, hoc est, quinque mensibus, totam hyemem occupasse. Nam etsi diluvium Noeticum solius naturae viribus non potuerit effici, Deum tamen ad id efficiendum, convenienti tempestate et opportunitate anni usum esse, credendum est. Legimus autem capite 7. libri Geneseos coepisse fieri diluvium die decima septima mensis secundi, hoc est, circa Novembrem: ergo ante diluvium, primus mensis et initium anni fuerat in Autumno, scilicet, eo tempore quo mundus a Deo fuerat creatus: nam si tunc annus verno tempore habuisset initium, coepisset diluvium circa mensem Maium, et tota aestate durasset: tempore videlicet pluviis et inundationibus aquarum, maxime alieno et contrario.
To these things is added that it is certain that before the flood the times were numbered from the beginning of the world, and that the beginning of the year began from that time at which the origin of the world had been. It is also most like the truth that the flood began either in the middle or at the end of autumn; and since it lasted one hundred and fifty days, that is, five months, it occupied the whole winter. For although the Noachic flood could not have been brought about by the forces of nature alone, yet it must be believed that God, in bringing it about, made use of a fitting weather and an opportune time of year. Now we read in the 7th chapter of the book of Genesis that the flood began to come on the seventeenth day of the second month, that is, about November: therefore before the flood, the first month and the beginning of the year had been in autumn, namely at that time at which the world had been created by God: for if the year had then had its beginning in springtime, the flood would have begun about the month of May, and would have lasted the whole summer—at a season, that is, most alien and contrary to rains and inundations of waters.28
Ad extremum, quorum animis haec insedit opinio, vel uno eo argumento concludi posse existimant, mundum in Autumno esse factum, quod in exordio mundi, ut alia, sic etiam arbores in statu perfecto productae sunt, hoc est, cum fructibus iam maturis perfectisque et ad comedendum idoneis: talibus enim in cibum animantium et hominum protinus opus erat, non enim hominibus ante diluvium ex esu carnium, sed herbarum dumtaxat et fructuum victus fuit. Hoc etiam aperte docet sacra Scriptura, non solum quia tradit tertio die iubente Deo terram produxisse lignum pomiferum faciens fructum iuxta genus suum, sed etiam quia docet Deum primis hominibus recens creatis dixisse, Ecce dedi vobis omnem herbam afferentem semen super terram et universa ligna, quae habent in semetipsis sementem generis sui, ut sint vobis in escam; et cunctis animantibus terrae: Et rursus praecepit homini, dicens. Ex omni ligno paradisi comede, de ligno au...
Finally, those in whose minds this opinion has settled think that it can be concluded even by this one argument that the world was made in autumn: that at the beginning of the world, as other things, so also the trees were produced in a perfect state, that is, with their fruits already ripe and perfect and fit for eating; for there was straightway need of such for the food of the living creatures and of men, since before the flood men's sustenance was not from the eating of flesh, but only of herbs and fruits. This too sacred Scripture plainly teaches, not only because it relates that on the third day, at God's command, the earth brought forth the fruit tree making fruit after its kind, but also because it teaches that God said to the first men, newly created: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all the trees that have in themselves the seed of their own kind, that they may be unto you for food; and to all the living creatures of the earth: And again he commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat, but of the tree...29
...gno autem scientiae boni et mali ne comedas. Eva quoque serpenti insidiose ac maligne interroganti: Cur praecepit vobis Deus, ut non comederetis ex omni ligno Paradisi? respondit: De fructu lignorum, quae sunt in Paradiso vescimur, de fructu vero ligni quod est in medio Paradisi, praecepit nobis Deus ne comederemus. Et paulo infra subdit Moses: Vidit igitur mulier, quod bonum esset lignum ad vescendum, et pulchrum oculis, aspectuque delectabile, et tulit de fructu illius, et comedit. De paradiso quoque cum loqueretur Moses, dixit, Produxit Dominus Deus de humo omne lignum pulchrum visu, et ad vescendum suave. Quid plura? Dei perfecta sunt opera, praesertim autem, quae ab eo immediate et miraculose fiunt, arbores autem tum demum perfectae censentur, cum fructus maturos et ad esum idoneos habent. Quod si in exordio mundi arbores maturos habebant fructus, profecto non veris, sed Autumni tempore mundum factum esse credendum est, maturatio enim fructuum non vere fit, sed in Autumno, nam etsi quibusdam in regionibus nempe calidioribus, ocyus maturescunt fructus, attamen in paradiso terrestri, cuius erat temperatissimum coelum, tam propere, hoc est, verno tempore, maturescere non poterant.
...but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. Eve too, to the serpent insidiously and malignantly asking, Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of Paradise? answered: Of the fruit of the trees that are in Paradise we do eat: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of Paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat. And a little further Moses adds: The woman therefore saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold, and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat. Of paradise too, when Moses spoke, he said: The Lord God brought forth from the ground every tree fair to behold, and sweet to eat. What more? The works of God are perfect, but especially those which are done by him immediately and miraculously; and trees are then at last reckoned perfect when they have ripe fruits, fit for eating. But if at the beginning of the world the trees had ripe fruits, then surely it must be believed that the world was made not in spring but in autumn, for the ripening of fruits happens not in spring, but in autumn; for although in certain regions, namely the warmer ones, fruits ripen more quickly, yet in the earthly paradise, whose climate was most temperate, they could not ripen so early, that is, in springtime.30
Sed hoc telum, etsi videtur perquam validum, qui tamen pugnacissime secundam opinionem tutantur, variis modis repellere conantur: quidam enim respondent. In Paradiso terrestri binas quoque anno fuisse arborum fructificationes, binosque frugum proventus, nimirum vere et autumno: quemadmodum de India Plinius, et de Taprobane insula Solinus, et de terris subiectis aequatori, atque inter duos Tropicos interiacentibus, alii prodiderunt. Verum hoc facile refellitur, Paradisum enim terrestrem, non fuisse inter duos Tropicos, sed citra Tropicum Cancri, hoc est, in Mesopotamia, vel non procul ab ea regione: infra libro tertio, qui est de Paradiso, multis nec dubiis argumentis probaturi sumus. Quanquam ad confutandum istud responsum, satis argumenti est, non solas Paradisi arbores productas esse cum fructibus maturis, sed etiam quae erant extra Paradisum: de omni enim terra intelligendum est, quod dixit Deus: Germinet terra herbam virentem, et facientem semen, et lignum pomiferum. Extra Paradisum etiam erant animalia, quorum permulta fructibus arborum vescuntur et aluntur: homo quoque brevissimo tempore commoraturus in Paradiso, nisi arbores extra Paradisum fructus maturos tulissent, vitam sustinere non potuisset.
But this dart, although it seems exceedingly powerful, those who most pugnaciously defend the second opinion try to repel in various ways: for some reply that in the earthly Paradise there were also two fruitings of the trees each year, and two yields of produce, namely in spring and in autumn—just as others have recorded concerning India (Pliny), concerning the island of Taprobane (Solinus), and concerning the lands lying under the equator and between the two Tropics. But this is easily refuted: for that the earthly Paradise was not between the two Tropics, but on the near side of the Tropic of Cancer, that is, in Mesopotamia, or not far from that region, we shall prove below in the third book, which is about Paradise, with many and unquestionable arguments. Although, to refute that answer, there is argument enough in this: that not only the trees of Paradise were produced with ripe fruits, but also those that were outside Paradise; for it is to be understood of the whole earth, what God said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may make seed, and the fruit tree. Outside Paradise too there were animals, very many of which feed and are nourished on the fruits of trees; man also, who was to stay in Paradise but a very short time, unless the trees outside Paradise had borne ripe fruits, could not have sustained his life.31
Alii respondent, fuisse verno tempore creatas arbores in exordio mundi cum fructibus maturis, non facultate naturae, sed supernaturali potentia Dei: decerptis autem sublatisque illis fructibus, alios proximo Autumno secundum ordinem naturalem, et per naturalem vim et potestatem arborum fuisse productos. Sed hoc nequaquam est probabile, non enim fructus decidunt, aut decerpuntur nisi post maturitatem: cadunt enim ob frigus exsiccans et adurens humorem glutinosum...
Others reply that the trees were created in springtime at the beginning of the world with ripe fruits, not by the faculty of nature, but by the supernatural power of God; and that, those fruits being plucked and removed, others were produced the following autumn according to the natural order, and by the natural force and power of the trees. But this is by no means probable, for fruits do not fall, or are not plucked, except after ripening: for they fall on account of cold that dries up and parches the glutinous humor...32
...glutinosum et tenacem, quo frondes et fructus cohaerescunt arbori, et ab ea dependent: hoc autem verno tempore non contingit. Adiice praeterea, fructus maturandos in autumno, per totum ferme annum praeparari in arboribus: nam per hyemem arbores implentur humore genitali et fructifero, vere praemittunt frondes et flores, quasi praenuncios et sponsores proventuri fructus, aestivo autem tempore fructus pullulant, virescunt, et augescunt, quod in Autumno maturitatem, atque perfectionem adipiscantur. Quocirca si tempore veris simul cum mundo productae essent arbores maturis fructibus onustae, necessarium sane fuisset statim ex arboribus fructus decidere, ut locum darent fructibus in Autumno maturandis: quod rationi alienum, atque dissentaneum est.
...the glutinous and tenacious humor by which the leaves and fruits cling to the tree and hang from it: but this does not happen in springtime. Add, moreover, that the fruits to be ripened in autumn are prepared in the trees throughout almost the whole year: for through the winter the trees are filled with the generative and fruit-bearing moisture; in spring they send forth first leaves and flowers, as it were heralds and sureties of the coming fruit; in the summer season the fruits sprout, grow green, and increase, so that in autumn they attain ripeness and perfection. Wherefore, if in the spring season, together with the world, the trees had been produced laden with ripe fruits, it would surely have been necessary that the fruits should at once fall from the trees, to make room for the fruits to be ripened in autumn—which is foreign and repugnant to reason.33
Respondent alii, fuisse productas arbores cum fructibus maturis verno tempore, videlicet miraculose, et per supernaturalem Dei potentiam; proximo autem Autumno nullos fuisse fructus in arboribus, nec inde usque ad sequentem autumnum. At hoc maxime inordinatum est, et primordiis mundi, ac potestati naturae tunc ad agendum potissimae et foecundissimae minime congruit: Ut omittam, toto illo uno anno et dimidio, nec animalia, nec homines sine fructibus commode vitam ducere et tueri potuisse. Non tacebo aliud quorundam responsum. Nonnulli aiunt in Paradiso diversa fuisse fructuum genera, et quaedam in vere, alia in Autumno proventura fuisse: quinetiam quovis anni tempore fructus in Paradiso futuros. Verum supra docuimus, non solas Paradisi arbores, sed etiam quae extra Paradisum erant, scilicet ad esum cunctorum animantium, et victum hominis, mox e Paradiso exterminandi, cum maturis fructibus produci debuisse.
Others reply that the trees were produced with ripe fruits in springtime, namely miraculously and by the supernatural power of God; but that the following autumn there were no fruits on the trees, nor from then until the next autumn. But this is most disorderly, and least agrees with the beginnings of the world and with the power of nature, then most potent and most fertile for acting: to say nothing of the fact that throughout that whole year and a half neither the animals nor men could conveniently lead and preserve their life without fruits. Nor shall I be silent about another reply of certain men. Some say that in Paradise there were diverse kinds of fruits, and that some were to come forth in spring, others in autumn; nay, that there would be fruits in Paradise at any time of the year whatsoever. But we have taught above that not only the trees of Paradise, but also those that were outside Paradise—namely for the eating of all the living creatures and the sustenance of man, who was soon to be banished from Paradise—had to be produced with ripe fruits.34
Extremum responsum est, prioribus fortasse probabilius: in prima rerum omnium molitione, quia voluit Deus, itaque fieri par erat, factas esse arbores verno tempore cum fructibus maturis, eosque conservasse Deum in arboribus usque ad proximum Autumnum: exinde autem factam esse, eorum generationem, atque propagationem potestate, ordine, modoque naturali, similiter nempe ut nunc fit, vel non conservasse tanto tempore fructus in arboribus, sed proximo Autumno miraculose, similiter ut primum fecerat, eos produxisse. Videtur igitur, qui mundum faciunt veris tempore conditum, praeter miraculum primae conditionis arborum cum fructibus maturis, his etiam alterum miraculum necessario esse admittendum, hoc est, vel in producendo alios fructus proximo Autumno, vel in conservando primos illos fructus in arboribus usque ad proximum Autumnum. Nisi dicamus, extra Paradisum arbores, quae non ferunt naturaliter fructus maturos ante Autumnum, non fuisse tunc creatas cum fructibus maturis, ne sit necesse multiplicare miracula. Unde igitur extra Paradisum, tunc usque ad Autumnum per quinque...
The last reply is, perhaps, more probable than the earlier ones: that in the first contriving of all things, because God so willed—and so it was fitting to be done—the trees were made in springtime with ripe fruits, and that God preserved them on the trees until the following autumn; but that thenceforth their generation and propagation took place by natural power, order, and manner, just as it now happens; or else that he did not preserve the fruits on the trees for so long a time, but the following autumn produced them miraculously, as he had done at first. It seems, therefore, that those who hold the world to have been founded in springtime must necessarily admit, besides the miracle of the first creation of the trees with ripe fruits, this further miracle also: either in producing other fruits the following autumn, or in preserving those first fruits on the trees until the following autumn. Unless we say that, outside Paradise, the trees which do not naturally bear ripe fruits before autumn were not then created with ripe fruits, lest it be necessary to multiply miracles. Whence, then, outside Paradise, was there at that time food for man and the living creatures until autumn, for five...35
...quinque menses homini et animantibus victus? partim ex herbis, quarum ante diluvium mira fuit vis ad alendum, miraque salubritas et suavitas: partim ex fructibus arborum, qui vere fructificant, praesertim locis calidis et humidis, ut in Mesopotamia, ubi primum homo creditur habitasse.
...for five months, food for man and the living creatures? Partly from herbs, whose power to nourish before the flood was wondrous, and wondrous their wholesomeness and sweetness; partly from the fruits of trees which do fruit in spring, especially in warm and moist places, as in Mesopotamia, where man is believed first to have dwelt.36
Illud autem hoc loco lectorem admonere lubet, etsi in eo tractu terrae, in cuius una quadam parte conditus est Paradisus, et futura erat prima hominis habitatio, sint productae arbores cum fructibus maturis, quia tempus ibi erat idoneum, et conveniens maturitati fructuum, non tamen in omnibus terrarum locis, esse factas arbores cum fructibus maturis: quia illud ipsum tempus respectu habito ad quasdam terrae partes fuit media hyems, vel initium aestatis, quo tempore fructus nec produci naturaliter, nec conservari possunt. Deus autem sic produxit res, ut ipsae deinceps per causas naturales, et seipsas conservare, et alias sui similes suo tempore, modoque generare possent. Nam si ubi fructus maturi sunt in autumno, ibi, in vere, vel media hyeme producti essent maturi, haud dubie creati fuissent extra tempus naturaliter conveniens maturitati fructuum: ideoque nec potuissent conservari naturaliter, nec proximo autumno, quo secundum ordinem naturalem generari debebant, potuissent naturaliter generari. Nam, ut supra indicavimus, maturitas fructuum futura in autumno, per totum annum praeparari debet: siquidem in hyeme praeparatur in radicibus, et intra ipsam arborem, trahendo et colligendo succum, et materiam futurae prolis, quasi in utero comparando, in vere praeparatur in frondibus et floribus: in aestate generatur fructus et paulatim maturatur, quoad in autumno perfecte maturus, et ad esum animantium idoneus existat.
But I wish here to advise the reader that, although in that tract of land in one part of which Paradise was founded, and where the first habitation of man was to be, the trees were produced with ripe fruits—because the time there was suitable and agreeable to the ripening of fruits—yet it was not in all places of the earth that the trees were made with ripe fruits: because that very time, with respect to certain parts of the earth, was midwinter, or the beginning of summer, at which time fruits can neither be produced nor preserved naturally. But God so produced things that they might thenceforth, through natural causes, both preserve themselves and generate others like themselves in their own time and manner. For if, where the fruits are ripe in autumn, there in spring, or midwinter, they had been produced ripe, they would doubtless have been created outside the time naturally agreeable to the ripening of fruits; and therefore they could neither have been preserved naturally, nor, in the following autumn, when according to the natural order they ought to be generated, could they have been naturally generated. For, as we indicated above, the ripeness of fruits that is to come in autumn must be prepared throughout the whole year: since in winter it is prepared in the roots and within the tree itself, by drawing up and gathering the sap and the matter of the future offspring, as it were forming it in the womb; in spring it is prepared in the leaves and flowers; in summer the fruit is generated and gradually ripens, until in autumn it becomes perfectly ripe and fit for the eating of living creatures.37
Existimandum igitur est, Deum hoc tertio die fecisse arbores, ubique terrarum perfectas secundum substantiam et magnitudinem, quae naturalis est terminus accretionis, et item secundum suas facultates; ubi vero tunc erat tempus conveniens fructibus, ibi fecisse eas cum fructibus, alibi cum frondibus tantum vel floribus: nonnullis locis, quibus tunc hyems erat, nudas fructibus, floribus et frondibus: nimirum productae sunt a Deo tunc arbores, prout cuiusque regionis tempus exigebat.
It must therefore be thought that God made the trees on this third day perfect everywhere on earth as to substance and magnitude—which is the natural limit of growth—and likewise as to their faculties; but where there was then a time suitable for fruits, there he made them with fruits, elsewhere with leaves only or with flowers; in some places, where it was then winter, bare of fruits, flowers, and leaves: that is, the trees were then produced by God just as the season of each region required.38

Translator’s notes

  1. Section heading. The disputation surveys the competing opinions on the season of the world's creation—July (Gerard Mercator), versus the common view of spring/March. ↩
  2. The opening 'M' is a large decorated initial (Multi). ↩
  3. Marginal gloss: 'Gerardus Mercator, in the opening of his Chronology, is of the opinion that the world was created in the month of July.' Refers to Gerard Mercator's Chronologia (1569). ↩
  4. Refers to Genesis 8:11, the dove returning to the ark with an olive leaf. ↩
  5. Pliny, Natural History 26.25 (on the olive budding at the rising of the Pleiades). 'Virgiliae' is the Latin name for the Pleiades. Mount Gordyaeus = the mountains of Ararat/Gordyene in Armenia. Pererius notes a textual variant in Pliny ('fifteenth' vs. 'twenty-fifth' degree of Taurus). The sentence continues onto p. 128. ↩
  6. Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, ch. 35. Conclusion of Mercator's argument that the world began in July (Sun in Leo). The opening word completes 'Geminorum' from p. 127. ↩
  7. Marginal gloss: 'Mercator is refuted.' Pererius's rebuttal of Mercator. Cites Josephus, Antiquities 1; Cicero, De natura deorum 2; Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.6 (on Mercury = Thoth, eponym of September); and Pliny, Natural History 16.20 (the olive is evergreen, so the green leaf is no proof of spring). ↩
  8. Final objection to Mercator: the months of Genesis 8 are disputed as to their reckoning (from the year's start, the flood's start, or Noah's 600th year). ↩
  9. Marginal gloss: 'The common opinion, that the world was created in springtime.' ↩
  10. Virgil, Georgics 2.336–339. ↩
  11. The continuation of the Virgil quotation ('Haec...') flows into Pererius's own remark on why Aries heads the Zodiac—because the world began in spring. ↩
  12. Marginal gloss: 'At what time the Christians judge the world to have been created.' A catalogue of patristic and medieval authorities for a March creation: Eusebius (March 25, = the Resurrection date), Athanasius (Quaestiones ad Antiochum), Cyril of Jerusalem, Pope Leo I, Gregory Nazianzen, Isidore (Etymologies 5), John Damascene (De fide orthodoxa 2.7), Walafrid Strabo and Rabanus Maurus, the Interlinear Gloss, and Bede (De temporum ratione 28 and 40; In Hexameron). 15 Kal. April = March 18 (creation of light); 12 Kal. April = March 21 (creation of the sun, vernal equinox); 10 Kal. April = March 23 (Adam's creation / the Crucifixion); March 25 = the Resurrection. The Synod of Palestine under Theophilus of Caesarea and Pope Victor concerned the dating of Easter. ↩
  13. Marginal gloss: 'Ambrose's opinion on the time of the world's founding. Exodus 12.' Ambrose, Hexameron 1.4. ↩
  14. Quotation from Ambrose, Hexameron 1.4. The marginal gloss 'Genes. 1' marks the embedded citation of Genesis 1:11 ('Germinet terra herbam...'). The quotation continues onto p. 130 (the catchword is 'fructife[rum]'). 'In hoc principio mensium...' alludes to Exodus 12:2 (the month of Passover as the beginning of months). ↩
  15. Continuation (from p. 129) and close of the Ambrose, Hexameron 1.4 quotation; it completes the embedded Genesis 1:11 citation ('...lignum fructiferum...'). The marginal references key the embedded scriptural allusions: 'Exod. 12' (Exodus 12:2, 'This month shall be to you the beginning of months'), 'Exod. 40', 'Exod. 13', and 'Luc. 1' (Luke 1, the Annunciation). ↩
  16. Theodoret of Cyrus, Quaestiones in Exodum, q. 72 (on Exodus 40:2, the tabernacle erected on the first day of the first month). ↩
  17. Quotation from Theodoret, Quaestiones in Exodum q. 72. Marginal gloss: 'And so [these things] were done at the beginning of spring.' The embedded 'Germinet terra herbam virentem' is Genesis 1:11. ↩
  18. Marginal gloss: 'The advantages of spring.' The 'Master of the Scholastic History' is Peter Comestor (Historia Scholastica). The argument from the astrological character of Aries and from the contrast with autumn. Sentence continues onto p. 131. ↩
  19. Completes the argument from p. 130: the parallel between the creation of Adam, the conception of Christ, and the Redemption, all assigned to spring. ↩
  20. Marginal glosses: 'The opinion of others, that the world was founded in autumn'; and 'Nearly all the Hebrews think the world was founded in autumn.' Cites Nicholas of Lyra (on Gen 7), Tostatus (Abulensis, on Gen 1, q.21, and Defensorium pt.1 ch.14), Josephus (Antiquities 1), Jerome (on Ezekiel 1), and Pico della Mirandola (Disputationes adversus astrologos 7.6). Tishri = the Hebrew month of the autumnal new year (Rosh Hashanah). ↩
  21. Marginal gloss: 'The arguments that confirm this opinion.' Pererius's lead-in: that the divine command (Exodus 12:2) making Nisan the first month was a novelty implies it had not been first before—pointing to an autumn new year originally. The Josephus quotation follows. ↩
  22. Opening of the Josephus quotation (Antiquities 1); the catchword at the foot of p. 131 is 'anno', and the sentence continues onto p. 132. ↩
  23. Quotation from Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1 (the flood began in the second month, an autumn month = Marheshvan/Bul). 'Dius', 'Marsonane', 'Xanthicus' are Macedonian/Hebrew month-names. Josephus's point: Moses made Nisan first only for sacred reckoning, leaving the civil (autumn) year unchanged. ↩
  24. Two inferences from Josephus: (1) the pre-Mosaic Hebrew year began in autumn, traced to a tradition of an autumn creation; (2) the flood began in mid-autumn. ↩
  25. Marginal gloss: 'The argument from Scripture taken for this opinion is resolved.' The counter-reply: the original Hebrew (spring) year was lost during the 215 years in Egypt and restored at the Exodus—so Exodus 12 is a restoration, not a novelty. ↩
  26. Marginal gloss: 'How autumn should be called both the going-out and the beginning of the year.' Cites Exodus 23:16 ('in exitu anni') and Exodus 34:22 on the Feast of Tabernacles/Ingathering at year's end. Sentence continues onto p. 133. ↩
  27. Marginal gloss: 'Levit. 25.' Argument that the sabbatical and Jubilee years (Leviticus 25) presuppose an autumn-reckoned year, since God's promise of a triple harvest (Lev 25:21) requires the agricultural year to begin in autumn. ↩
  28. Marginal gloss: 'That before the flood the beginning of the year was in autumn, and that the world was then created.' Cites Genesis 7:11 (the flood began on the 17th day of the second month). The argument from the season of the flood (autumn–winter, fit for rains) back to an autumn creation. ↩
  29. Marginal glosses: 'Before the flood men were not accustomed to eat flesh'; 'Genes. 1'; 'Genes. 2'. The final argument: the trees were created with ripe fruit (autumn), since men's pre-flood diet was vegetarian. Embedded citations: Genesis 1:29 ('Ecce dedi vobis omnem herbam...') and Genesis 2:16 ('Ex omni ligno paradisi comede...'). The quotation breaks at 'de ligno au[tem]...' and continues onto p. 134 (catchword 'gno au'). ↩
  30. Completion (from p. 133) of the chain of scriptural quotations: Genesis 2:17 ('...the tree of knowledge'), Genesis 3:1–3 (the serpent and Eve), Genesis 3:6 ('Vidit igitur mulier'), and Genesis 2:9 ('Produxit Dominus Deus de humo'). Marginal glosses: 'Ibid.' (Gen 3) and 'Genes. 2'. The autumn-party's argument: trees were created with ripe fruit, and fruit ripens in autumn, not spring. ↩
  31. Marginal glosses: 'A reply to the preceding argument, and the refutation of that reply'; and 'Genes. 1'. First reply (twice-yearly fruiting in Paradise, citing Pliny on India, Solinus on Taprobane/Ceylon, and the equatorial/tropical lands) and Pererius's refutation (Paradise lay in Mesopotamia, not the tropics; and the fruit-bearing applied to the whole earth, Gen 1:11). ↩
  32. Marginal gloss: 'Another reply, and the refutation of the same.' Second reply (miraculous spring fruit, then natural autumn fruit) begins; the refutation continues onto p. 135. ↩
  33. Completes the refutation of the second reply: the year-long natural cycle of fruit-formation argues against ripe fruit appearing in spring. ↩
  34. Marginal gloss: 'Yet another reply, with its refutation.' Third and fourth replies (miraculous spring fruit then a barren year; and diverse/year-round fruit in Paradise) and their refutations. ↩
  35. Marginal gloss: 'Another reply, most approved by the author.' The fifth and (to Pererius) most probable reply, with the dilemma it forces on the spring-party (a second miracle either way). Sentence continues onto p. 136. ↩
  36. Completes the question from p. 135: the pre-flood diet of herbs and early-fruiting trees supplied food during the months before autumn. ↩
  37. Marginal gloss: 'That at the beginning of the world the same season was not in all parts of the earth.' Pererius's resolution: trees were created ripe only where the season fitted; elsewhere with leaves/flowers, or bare—each region according to its own time. ↩
  38. Conclusion of the spring-vs-autumn disputation: the trees were created in whatever state suited each region's season. Marginal gloss: 'God did not create all trees together with fruits everywhere.' ↩