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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Seven — Cain and Abel

QUESTION I. To what extent the life of man can naturally be prolonged

LatineEnglish

QUESTION I. To what extent the life of man can naturally be prolonged.1

QUAESTIO I. Quatenus vita hominis naturaliter produci queat.

EPIGENES, centum viginti duos annos impleri posse negavit: Berosus, vix excedi centum decem & septem: Alii ultra etiam protendi posse credidere. Fuere, qui non idem putarunt ubique observandum, sed varie per diversas regiones, prout in singulis sit coeli ad
Epigenes denied that a hundred and twenty-two years can be completed; Berosus, that a hundred and seventeen can scarcely be exceeded; others believed it could be extended even further. There were those who thought that not the same [limit] is to be observed everywhere, but variously through different regions, according as in each is the [inclination] of the sky...2
ad circulum finitorem inclinatio, quod vocatur Graece clima. Lege Censorinum in libro de natali die Romanorum, & Plinium libr. 7. c. 49. apud quos illud aliis quidem mirabile, mihi autem perridiculum, videtur, quod de Aegyptiis traditur. Ponam hic verba Plinii ex capit. 37. lib. 11. Augeri, inquit, cor humanum ab ortu hominis per singulos annos, ac binas drachmas ponderis ad quinquagesimum annum accedere: ab eo detrahi tantumdem, & ideo non vivere hominem ultra centesimum annum defectu cordis Aegyptii existimant, quibus mos est cadavera asservare medicata.
...the inclination toward the bounding circle [the horizon], which is called in Greek 'clima.' Read Censorinus in the book On the Birthday, of the Romans, and Pliny book 7, ch. 49; among whom [is found] that which, to others indeed, seems wonderful, but to me most ridiculous, [namely] what is handed down about the Egyptians. I will set down here Pliny's words from ch. 37 of book 11: 'The Egyptians think,' he says, 'that the human heart is increased, from the birth of a man, each year by two drachms of weight up to the fiftieth year; and that from it the same is subtracted; and therefore a man does not live beyond the hundredth year, by the failing of the heart' — the Egyptians, whose custom it is to preserve corpses embalmed.3
SED haec falsa esse, manifesto argumento, seu ut verius dicam, experimento confirmat Plinius. Accedunt, inquit, experimenta & exempla recentissimi census, quem intra quadriennium imperatores Caesares Vespasiani pater filiusque censores egerunt. Et ut multos omittam, inventi sunt duo, alter Bononiae, alter Arimini, centum quinquaginta annorum. In regione autem Italiae octava centenum annorum censiti sunt homines quinquaginta quatuor: centenum denum, homines quinquaginta septem, centenum vicenum quinum, homines duo, centenum tricenum, homines quatuor, centenum tricenum quinum, aut septenum, totidem, centenum quadragenum, homines tres.
But that these things are false, Pliny confirms by a manifest argument — or, to speak more truly, by experiment. 'There are added,' he says, 'the experiments and examples of the most recent census, which within a four-year period the emperors, the Caesars, Vespasian father and son, conducted as censors. And, to omit many, two were found — one at Bologna, another at Rimini — of a hundred and fifty years. But in the eighth region of Italy, fifty-four men were registered of a hundred years; of a hundred and ten years, fifty-seven men; of a hundred and twenty-five years, two men; of a hundred and thirty years, four men; of a hundred and thirty-five or a hundred and thirty-seven years, the same number; of a hundred and forty years, three men.'4
VERUM ab antiquis & gentilibus scriptoribus etiam memoriae proditum fuisse, quosdam vixisse ad quingentos & sexcentos & eo amplius annos, auctor est Iosephus, qui in 1. lib. Antiquitatum extremis verbis cap. 3. testes huius rei excitat Manethonem Aegyptiarum rerum, Berosum Chaldaicarum scriptores. Itemque Mochum Estchiaeum, Hieronymum Aegyptium qui Phoenicum res tradidere scriptis: quin etiam Hesiodum, Hecataeum, Hellanicum, Agesilaum, Ephorum, & Nicolaum narrare; priscos illos ad mille annos vitam produxisse. Plinius item proxime nominato loco memorat Alexandrum, Cornelium, & Xenophontem, qui vixisse quosdam ad quingentos & sexcentos, atque etiam octingentos annos tradiderunt. Verum mox Plinius subiungit haec: Quae omnia, inquit, inscitia temporum acciderunt: Annum enim alii aestate unum determinabant, & alterum hyeme, alii quadripartitis temporibus, sicut Arcades, quorum anni trimestres fuere, quidam Lunae senio, ut Aegyptii. Itaque apud eos aliqui & singula millia annorum vixisse produntur. Haec Plinius. Eadem fere tradit Victorinus, & Solinus, cap. 3. & ex Varrone Lactantius, lib. 2. cap. 12.
But that it was also handed down to memory by ancient and Gentile writers that some lived to five hundred and six hundred years and more, Josephus is the author, who in book 1 of the Antiquities, in the last words of ch. 3, cites as witnesses of this matter Manetho, writer of Egyptian affairs, Berosus of Chaldaic affairs; and likewise Mochus the Sidonian, and Hieronymus the Egyptian, who handed down the affairs of the Phoenicians in writings; indeed also that Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Agesilaus, Ephorus, and Nicolaus narrate that those ancients prolonged life to a thousand years. Pliny likewise, in the place just named, mentions Alexander, Cornelius, and Xenophon, who handed down that some lived to five hundred and six hundred, and even eight hundred years. But soon Pliny subjoins these words: 'All of which,' he says, 'happened through ignorance of times [reckonings]: for some determined one year by summer and another by winter; others by the four seasons, like the Arcadians, whose years were of three months; some by the waning of the Moon, like the Egyptians. And so among them some are reported to have lived even single thousands of years.' Thus Pliny. Nearly the same things Victorinus hands down, and Solinus (ch. 3), and, from Varro, Lactantius (book 2, ch. 12).5

Translator’s notes

  1. Quaestio I of the disputation: the natural limit of the human lifespan. ↩
  2. Opinions on the natural life-limit: Epigenes — a man cannot reach 122 years; Berosus — scarcely past 117; others — further still; and some held the limit varies by region, according to the disposition of the sky (climate). Marginal glosses: 'Epigenes'; 'Berosus.' Catchword 'ad' (continues on the next page). ↩
  3. The natural life-limit varies by 'clima' (the latitude/climate — the sky's inclination to the horizon); cf. Censorinus (De Die Natali) and Pliny (NH 7.49). Pererius calls 'most ridiculous' the Egyptian theory Pliny reports (NH 11.37): the heart grows two drachms a year to age 50, then declines equally, so no one lives past 100 — a theory of that embalming people. Marginal glosses: 'Ridiculum Aegyptiorum figmentum de corde hominis'; 'Plinius lib. 7. cap. 49.' Odd-side running head 'IN GENESIM, LIB. VII.' number '767'; true printed page 777. ↩
  4. Pliny refutes the '100-year limit' by the census under Vespasian and Titus (NH 7.49): two men of 150 (at Bologna and Rimini); and in Italy's eighth region, 54 men of 100 years, 57 of 110, two of 125, four of 130, some of 135-137, three of 140. Marginal gloss: 'Homines longaevi Plinii aetate in Italia, quot.' ↩
  5. Ancient pagan witnesses to great longevity: Josephus (Antiq. 1.3) cites Manetho, Berosus, Mochus the Sidonian, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Agesilaus, Ephorus, Nicolaus (some ancients lived to 1,000 years); Pliny cites Alexander [Polyhistor], Cornelius [Nepos?], Xenophon (500-800 years). But Pliny explains this away as confusion of time-reckoning: some counted a 'year' as a season (summer/winter), or a quarter (the Arcadians' three-month years), or a lunar month (the Egyptians) — hence 'thousand-year' lifespans. So too Victorinus, Solinus (ch. 3), and Lactantius (2.12, from Varro). ↩