LatineEnglish
FIRST DISPUTATION. What region or nation is denoted by the word Chus — whether Ethiopia or Arabia.
PRIMA DISPUTATIO. Qua regio aut gens donetur vocabulo Chus, utrumne Aethiopia an Arabia.
PRIMUS filius Cham appellatur Chus, unde secundum omnes origo Aethiopum: namque ubicumque in sacris literis ponitur vocabulum Chus Hebraice, vel Chusim, semper Septuaginta Interpretes, eosque secutus Latinus [noster interpres]…
The first son of Cham is called Chus, whence, according to all, the origin of the Ethiopians: for wherever in the sacred letters the word Chus is set in Hebrew, or Chusim, the Septuagint Interpreters always — and following them the Latin [our interpreter]…1
…noster interpres, interpretati sunt Aethiopiam et Aethiopes; et Iosephus atque Hieronymus aliique, tam Hebraei quam Christiani, eodem modo eas voces intelligunt et exponunt. CONTRA hunc communem omnium sensum praefracte pugnat quidam nostrae aetatis scriptor, contendens vocabulo Chus non significari Aethiopiam, sed Arabiam propinquam Aegypto et Palaestinae, et usque ad sinum Arabicum (quod Mare Rubrum appellatur) porrectam. Hoc autem ille sic argumentatur: Regio Chus et gens Chusaea secundum scripturam erat propinqua Aegypto, nec multum distans a Palaestina; sed Aethiopia est remotissima, utpote sita sub Zona torrida (Aethiopes enim solis ardore torrentur); at vero Arabia vicina est, iacens inter Aegyptum et sinum Arabicum: ergo Chus non Aethiopiam, sed Arabiam in sacris literis significat. In hac argumentatione duo sumuntur: alterum est, regionem Chus significari in sacris literis esse vicinam Aegypto et Palaestinae; alterum vero est, Arabiam esse talem, non autem Aethiopiam.
…our interpreter, interpreted ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘Ethiopians’; and Josephus and Jerome and others, both Hebrews and Christians, in the same way understand and expound those words. Against this common sense of all, a certain writer of our age stubbornly contends, maintaining that by the word Chus is signified not Ethiopia, but Arabia — near to Egypt and Palestine, and extended up to the Arabian gulf (which is called the Red Sea). And he argues thus: The region Chus and the nation of the Chusaeans, according to scripture, was near Egypt, and not much distant from Palestine; but Ethiopia is most remote, as being situated under the torrid Zone (for the Ethiopians are scorched by the heat of the sun); but Arabia is near, lying between Egypt and the Arabian gulf: therefore Chus signifies in the sacred letters not Ethiopia, but Arabia. In this argument two things are assumed: the one, that the region Chus signified in the sacred letters is near Egypt and Palestine; the other, that Arabia is such, but not Ethiopia.2
Utrumque autem sic ille probat: Sephora uxor Mosis appellatur Chusitis seu Chusaea (Latinus interpretatus est Aethiopissam); eadem vero fuisse Madianitem, ex secundo capite Exodi manifestum est; sicut etiam illud perspicuum, Madianitas vicinos fuisse Aegyptiis et Palaestinis. Scriptura autem Madianitas, Amalecitas et Ismaelitas, quantum ad regionis et locorum situm, fere confundit, quod illi Arabias quodammodo confusi et permixti colerent cum Chusaeis, et cum his quos nominatim Scriptura appellat Arabim, id est, Arabes. Aethiopes porro disiunctissimos fuisse a Madianitis, nemo qui aliquid scit in Geographia nescire potest.
And both he proves thus: Sephora the wife of Moses is called Chusitis or Chusaea (the Latin interpreted ‘Aethiopissa’); and that she was a Madianite is manifest from the second chapter of Exodus; as also it is clear that the Madianites were neighbors of the Egyptians and Palestinians. And Scripture, as to the situation of region and places, almost confounds the Madianites, Amalecites, and Ismaelites, because they cultivated the Arabias in a way confused and mingled with the Chusaeans, and with those whom Scripture by name calls Arabim, that is, Arabs. And that the Ethiopians were most disjoined from the Madianites, no one who knows anything in Geography can be ignorant.3
DEINDE in libro secundo Paralipomenon capite decimoquarto narratur Zaram regem Chusaeorum (Latinus vertit Aethiopum) duxisse contra Iudaeos immensum paene exercitum, decies centenum millium; quem ex remotissima regione Aethiopiae venisse adversus Iudaeos quis credat? Neque enim tam longo itinere tam magnum exercitum ducere potuisset; nec ullas inimicitiarum causas inter Aethiopes et Iudaeos fingere licet: erat igitur ille Zara rex Chusaeorum, id est, Arabum, non Aethiopum. Quocirca Asa rex Iuda, qui Dei praesidio tantum exercitum parva manu fudit, dicitur persecutus eum, et aliquas urbes eius finitimas Gerarae diripuisse. Geraram autem fuisse in fine Palaestinae versus Aegyptum, ex peregrinationibus Abrahae et Isaac (Geneseos vigesimo et vigesimo sexto) notum est. Praeterea Isaiae vigesimo sic est: Timebunt et confundentur a Chus spe sua (Latinus, ab Aethiopia), et ab Aegypto gloria sua. Significatur his verbis auxilium quod Iudaei sperabant a Chusaeis et Aegyptiis adversus Assyrios, fore vanum ac plane nullum. At enim Iudaei nullum ab Aethiopibus longissime remotis auxilium sperare poterant, sed ab Arabibus vicinis. Chusaei igitur non Aethiopes sed Arabes fuerunt.
Next, in the second book of Chronicles, chapter fourteen, it is narrated that Zara, king of the Chusaeans (the Latin renders ‘of the Ethiopians’), led against the Jews an almost immense army, of a thousand thousand [a million]; who would believe that he came from the most remote region of Ethiopia against the Jews? For he could not have led so great an army by so long a journey; nor may one feign any causes of enmity between the Ethiopians and the Jews: that Zara, therefore, was king of the Chusaeans, that is, of the Arabs, not of the Ethiopians. Wherefore Asa, king of Judah, who by God's protection routed so great an army with a small band, is said to have pursued him, and to have plundered some of his cities bordering on Gerara. And that Gerara was at the end of Palestine toward Egypt is known from the wanderings of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 20 and 26). Besides, in Isaiah 20 it is thus: “They shall fear and be confounded at Chus their hope (the Latin, ‘at Ethiopia’), and at Egypt their glory.” By these words is signified that the aid which the Jews hoped for from the Chusaeans and Egyptians against the Assyrians would be vain and plainly nothing. But the Jews could hope for no aid from the Ethiopians, most far removed, but from the neighboring Arabs. The Chusaeans, therefore, were not Ethiopians but Arabs.4
IDEM firmatur alio testimonio eiusdem vatis, apud quem capite trigesimo ita est: In illa die egredientur nuncii a facie mea in trieribus ad conterendam Chus confidentiam (Latinus, Aethiopiae confidentiam), et erit pavor in eis in die Aegypti. Quis nescit ex Aegypto non opus esse navibus ad petendam Aethiopiam, quae desertis et montibus supra et circa Syenem discernitur ab Aegypto? Arabia vero, quae sinu Arabico sive Mari Rubro disiungitur ab Aegypto, navibus eget ut adeatur ex Aegypto. Quapropter Nabuchodonosor, superata Aegypto, navibus traiecit in Arabiam quae vires suas iunxerat cum Aegyptiis adversus ipsum; sed utramque gentem Deus imperio eius regis subiecit, ut indicat Hieremias capite 25, gentes imperio Nabuchodonosor subiugatas singillatim recensens. Verum prae ceteris urgent isti verba illa Isaiae capite decimo octavo: Vae terra cymbalo alarum quae est trans flumina Chus (Latinus et Septuaginta, trans flumina Aethiopiae). Haud dubie, inquiunt, vates loquitur his verbis de Aegypto: quam esse inter flumina Aethiopiae ne intelligi quidem potest, namque Aethiopia est sub Zona torrida; ultra ea vero quae flumina sunt, aut quae regio Iudaeis cognita? aut quomodo Aegyptus dici potest esse trans flumina Aethiopiae? At si vocabulo Chus interpretemur Arabiam, sententia horum verborum plana est: etenim Arabia Aegypto contermina, versus mare Syriacum habet Lacum Sirbonidem, et ex altera parte versus Meridiem habet Traianum fluvium, item sinum Arabicum seu Mare Rubrum, praeterea complures fossas manufactas quas Diorygas appellant, quas omnes aquas nomine fluminum notavit Scriptura.
The same is confirmed by another testimony of the same prophet, in whom, chapter thirty, it is thus: “In that day messengers shall go forth from my face in galleys to crush the confidence of Chus (the Latin, ‘the confidence of Ethiopia’), and there shall be dread in them in the day of Egypt.” Who knows not that from Egypt there is no need of ships to seek Ethiopia, which is divided from Egypt by deserts and mountains above and around Syene? But Arabia, which is separated from Egypt by the Arabian gulf or Red Sea, needs ships to be approached from Egypt. Wherefore Nabuchodonosor, Egypt being overcome, crossed by ships into Arabia, which had joined its forces with the Egyptians against him; but God subjected both nations to the dominion of that king, as Jeremiah indicates in chapter 25, reckoning one by one the nations subjugated to Nabuchodonosor's dominion. But beyond the rest these men press those words of Isaiah chapter eighteen: “Woe to the land of the winged cymbal which is beyond the rivers of Chus” (the Latin and Septuagint, ‘beyond the rivers of Ethiopia’). Doubtless, they say, the prophet speaks by these words of Egypt: which cannot even be understood to be among the rivers of Ethiopia, for Ethiopia is under the torrid Zone; and what rivers are beyond it, or what region known to the Jews? or how can Egypt be said to be beyond the rivers of Ethiopia? But if by the word Chus we interpret Arabia, the sense of these words is plain: for Arabia, bordering on Egypt, toward the Syrian sea has the Sirbonian Lake, and on the other side toward the South has the Trajan river, likewise the Arabian gulf or Red Sea, and besides several man-made channels which they call Dioryges — all which waters Scripture noted by the name of ‘rivers.’5
APPARET igitur vocabulo Chus non posse intelligi Aethiopiam propter longissimam eius a Palaestina distantiam, sed intelligi debere Arabiam, quae confinis erat Aegyptiis, nec longinqua Palaestinis. Audi Plinium lib. 5 c. 11: Ultra Pelusiacum Nili ostium Arabia est, ad Rubrum Mare pertinens, et usque ad odoriferam illam et divitem et beata nomine inclytam; et cetera quae sequuntur. Idemque proxime sequenti cap.: Iuxta, inquit, Syria littus occupat, quondam terrarum maxima, et pluribus distincta nominibus: namque Palaestina vocabatur qua contingit Arabas, et Iudaea, et Caele, dein Phoenice, et qua recedit intus, Damascena. Hactenus ex Plinio. HAEC disputant isti adversus Septuaginta et Latini interpretis translationes, et contra communem totque saeculis confirmatam tam Hebraeorum quam Christianorum sententiam. Ast ego istis argumentis a tam veteri et communi sententia minime deducar; nec possum inducere in animum ut credam tot tantosque viros (non dico Philonem, Iosephum, Eusebium, Hieronymum omnesque Hebraeos iuxta atque Christianos, divinarum literarum tractatores; non hos dico, sed illos Septuaginta Interpretes, convertendis sacris literis summam non sua tantum aetate et in Synagoga, sed multis seculis in Ecclesia auctoritatem et venerationem promeritos, nec in Palaestina tantum, verum in Aegypto cum ipso rege regnique proceribus magna sapientiae existimatione laudeque versatos) — hos dico, vel ignorasse quaenam regio [et gens nomine Chus]…
It appears, therefore, that by the word Chus Ethiopia cannot be understood, on account of its very great distance from Palestine, but Arabia must be understood, which bordered on the Egyptians and was not far from the Palestinians. Hear Pliny book 5 ch. 11: “Beyond the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile is Arabia, reaching to the Red Sea, and as far as that odoriferous and rich [region] renowned by the name ‘Blessed’ [Arabia Felix]”; and the rest that follows. And the same in the next chapter: “Hard by,” he says, “Syria occupies the coast, once the greatest of lands, and distinguished by several names: for it was called Palestine where it touches the Arabs, and Judaea, and Coele, then Phoenice, and, where it withdraws inland, Damascene.” Thus far from Pliny. These things these men dispute against the translations of the Septuagint and the Latin interpreter, and against the common opinion, confirmed through so many ages, both of the Hebrews and of the Christians. But I will by no means be drawn from so ancient and common an opinion by these arguments; nor can I bring myself to believe that so many and so great men (I do not say Philo, Josephus, Eusebius, Jerome, and all the Hebrews as well as Christians, handlers of the divine letters; not these I say, but those Septuagint Interpreters, who in translating the sacred letters merited the highest authority and veneration, not only in their own age and in the Synagogue, but for many ages in the Church, and were held in great esteem and praise of wisdom not only in Palestine but in Egypt with the king himself and the nobles of the kingdom) — these, I say, either were ignorant what region [and nation the name Chus]…6
…quodve discrimen vicinorum Arabum atque remotissimorum Aethiopum esset, ut magno inscitiae errore, ubicunque scriptura vocabulum Chus posuit, semper ipsi pro Arabia Aethiopiam, et pro Arabibus Aethiopas Graece reddiderint.
…[was signified] by the word Chus, or were ignorant where in the world that province and nation was located, or what difference there was between the neighboring Arabs and the most remote Ethiopians — so that, by a great error of ignorance, wherever Scripture put the word Chus, they always rendered in Greek Ethiopia for Arabia, and Ethiopians for Arabs.7
RATIONES vero contrarias ex variis locis scripturae petitas facile est discutere, unica et brevi distinctione adhibita. Constat duplicem fuisse Aethiopiam, alteram Orientalem, Occidentalem alteram, Arabico sinu disclusas; illam conterminam et contiguam Aegypto, hanc longe remotam. De illa supradictis locis Scripturam loqui, de hac minime. Ergo rationes quas supra exposuimus adversus hanc validae sunt, adversus illam plane infirmae. Hanc distinctionem Aethiopiae non ego finxi ex meo sensu, sed ex optimis auctoribus exprompsi: illam primus (quod equidem memini) Homerus indicavit, bipartitas faciens Aethiopas, et ad Ortum et ad Occasum spectantes; quam distinctionem postea confirmavit Herodotus, eandemque duo praestantissimi Geographi Strabo et Plinius comprobarunt. Nec illa quorundam coniectura de nihilo est, quoniam Aethiopes quondam latissime dominati sunt, etiam imperio Aegyptiorum potiti, multas Orientem ac Septentrionem versus insedisse terras, quibus longo tempore nomen Aethiopum adhaeserit.
But the contrary reasonings, drawn from various places of scripture, are easy to dispel, by a single and brief distinction. It is established that there were two Ethiopias, one Eastern, the other Western, separated by the Arabian gulf; the one bordering on and contiguous to Egypt, the other far remote. Of the former Scripture speaks in the aforesaid places, of the latter not at all. Therefore the reasonings which we set forth above against the latter are valid, against the former plainly weak. This distinction of Ethiopia I did not feign from my own sense, but drew out from the best authors: the former (as I recall) Homer first indicated, making the Ethiopians twofold, looking both to the East and to the West; which distinction Herodotus afterward confirmed, and the same two most excellent Geographers, Strabo and Pliny, approved. Nor is that conjecture of some about nothing — that the Ethiopians once ruled most widely, having even obtained the empire of the Egyptians, [and] settled many lands toward the East and North, to which for a long time the name of the Ethiopians clung.8
EXTREMAM porro istorum rationem ex capite decimo octavo Isaiae ductam, quam ipsi vt praecipuum opinionis suae firmamentum magnificant, parvi negotii fuerit dissolvere. Beatus Hieronymus eum locum Isaiae explanans ait vatem loqui de Alexandria aut de Aegypto: quam dixit esse trans flumina Aethiopiae, id est, trans rivos Nili, quem in Aegyptum ex Aethiopia fluere nemo dubitat; rivos autem Nili appellat septem illos Nili alveos seu (ut vocant) ostia, quibus aquas suas in mare nostrum exonerat — quae Ovidius quodam loco Septemflua Nili flumina nominavit. Possent etiam rivorum nomine intelligi multiplices fossae manu factae, per quas Nili aqua diducitur ad irrigandam et fecundandam Aegyptum. Ad hoc Ezechiel quoque spectavit, cum in capite vigesimo nono dixit Pharaonem quasi draconem magnum cubare in medio fluminum suorum. Aegyptus igitur, quae inter haec flumina iacet, respectu Iudaeae dicitur esse trans flumina: hoc enim positus Aegypti demonstrat, cum situ Iudaeae comparatus. Sed transeamus ad secundum Cham filium.
And their last reasoning, drawn from the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah, which they magnify as the chief support of their opinion, will be of small trouble to dissolve. St. Jerome, explaining that place of Isaiah, says the prophet speaks of Alexandria or of Egypt: which he said to be beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that is, beyond the streams of the Nile, which no one doubts flows into Egypt out of Ethiopia; and by the streams of the Nile he calls those seven channels or (as they call them) mouths of the Nile, by which it discharges its waters into our sea — which Ovid in a certain place called “the seven-flowing rivers of the Nile.” By the name of streams could also be understood the manifold man-made channels by which the water of the Nile is led off to irrigate and fertilize Egypt. To this Ezekiel too looked, when in chapter twenty-nine he said that Pharaoh lay like a great dragon in the midst of his rivers. Egypt, therefore, which lies among these rivers, is in respect to Judaea said to be beyond the rivers: for this the position of Egypt shows, compared with the situation of Judaea. But let us pass on to the second son of Cham.9
ALTER filius Cham nominatur Mezraim, vel ut est Hebraice Mizraiim, quo vocabulo significatur tam provincia Aegypti quam gens Aegyptiorum, quod filius ille Cham eiusque posteri eam regionem primi incoluerint, et Aegyptiorum parentes fuerint. Haec autem regio multis saeculis postea nominata est Aegyptus ab Aegypto, Danai fratre et filio Beli Aegyptii, cui defuncto successit ille in regnum, eiecto Danao qui concessit Argos in Peloponnesum (ex quo Argivi nominati sunt postea Danai). Id contigisse putat B. Augustinus lib. 18 de Civitate Dei capite 11, secutus Eusebium in Chronicis, [quo tempore apud Hebraeos imperium tenuit Iosue]…
The second son of Cham is named Mezraim, or as it is in Hebrew Mizraiim, by which word is signified both the province of Egypt and the nation of the Egyptians, because that son of Cham and his posterity first inhabited that region and were the parents of the Egyptians. But this region was many ages afterward named Egypt, from Aegyptus, the brother of Danaus and son of Belus the Egyptian, whom, when he died, he [Aegyptus] succeeded in the kingdom, Danaus being expelled (who withdrew to Argos in the Peloponnese, from whom the Argives were afterward named Danai). That this happened, St. Augustine thinks (book 18 of the City of God, ch. 11, following Eusebius in the Chronicles), [at the time when among the Hebrews Joshua held the rule]…10
…quo tempore apud Hebraeos imperium tenuit Iosue, id est, plus octingentis annis post diluvium. Sed enim Manethon (apud Iosephum priori libro contra Appionem), vir Aegyptius et Graecarum literarum ac doctrinarum peritus, quique historiam rerum Aegyptiacarum scripsit ex sacris Aegyptiorum libris depromptam, numerat omnes reges Aegypti ab eo tempore quo Hebraei duce Mose decesserunt Aegypto, usque ad Danaum et Aegyptum fratres, recensitis cuiusque regis annis quibus regnavit: quorum annorum facta computatione rationeque subducta, exsistit summa annorum trecentorum et nonaginta, et eo amplius; quae si vera est computatio, necesse est initium appellationis Aegypti fuisse plus trecentis triginta annis post mortem Iosue, post diluvium autem plus mille annis.
…at the time when among the Hebrews Joshua held the rule — that is, more than eight hundred years after the flood. But Manethon (in Josephus, in the former book against Appion), an Egyptian man, skilled in Greek letters and learning, and who wrote a history of Egyptian affairs drawn from the sacred books of the Egyptians, numbers all the kings of Egypt from the time when the Hebrews under the leadership of Moses departed from Egypt, up to the brothers Danaus and Aegyptus, the years of each king's reign being reckoned: which years, the computation being made and the reckoning drawn out, yield a sum of three hundred and ninety years and more; which, if it is a true computation, the beginning of the name of Egypt must have been more than three hundred and thirty years after the death of Joshua, but more than a thousand years after the flood.11
Translator’s notes
- §29. Chus — by common consent the origin of the Ethiopians (the LXX and Latin always render Chus / Chusim as ‘Ethiopia’/‘Ethiopians’). Continues on p. 410. ↩
- §29 (cont.) / opponent's view: a modern writer argues ‘Chus’ = Arabia (near Egypt/Palestine), not Ethiopia (too remote, under the torrid zone) — resting on two claims. Margin: Matthaeus Beroaldus (?), in his Chronicle. ↩
- §30. The opponent's proofs: Moses's wife Sephora, called ‘Chusite,’ was a Madianite (Exod 2) — and the Madianites neighbored Egypt; Scripture conflates Madianites/Amalekites/Ishmaelites with the Chusaeans and Arabs (far from Ethiopia). Margins: Num. 12; “Whether Sephora the wife of Moses was an Ethiopian.” ↩
- §31. More proofs: Zara ‘king of the Chusaeans’ (2 Chron 14) led a million men — impossible from remote Ethiopia, so he was an Arab (Asa pursued him near Gerara, on the Egyptian border); and Isaiah 20 (the Jews' hope in ‘Chus’ and Egypt against Assyria) means the near Arabs, not far Ethiopia. Margin: “The innumerable army of king Zara.” Continues on p. 411. ↩
- §31 (cont.). And Isaiah 30 (galleys to ‘Chus’) and 18 (‘beyond the rivers of Chus’) fit Arabia, not Ethiopia (no ships needed for Ethiopia; Egypt cannot lie ‘beyond Ethiopia's rivers’; Arabia's lakes/Red Sea/canals are the ‘rivers’). ↩
- §31 (cont.) / §32 begins. The opponent concludes ‘Chus’ = Arabia (Pliny on Arabia beyond Pelusium). But Pererius refuses to abandon the ancient, common view — incredible that the Septuagint and all the Fathers erred. Margins: Pliny; “The aforesaid opinion is examined.” Continues on p. 412. ↩
- §32 (cont.). It is incredible the Septuagint so blundered as to render ‘Ethiopia’ for ‘Arabia’ everywhere. ↩
- §33. Pererius's solution: there were two Ethiopias (Eastern, bordering Egypt; Western, remote) divided by the Arabian gulf — Scripture means the near one (Homer, Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny on the twofold Ethiopians). Margin: “A twofold Ethiopia.” ↩
- §34. The Isaiah-18 objection dissolved (Jerome): the prophet means Egypt, ‘beyond the rivers of Ethiopia’ = beyond the Nile's seven mouths/canals (Ovid, Ezek 29) — Egypt is ‘beyond the rivers’ relative to Judea. Margin: “The passage Isaiah ch. 18.” ↩
- §35. Mesraim = Egypt and the Egyptians (his line first settled it); the land was later named ‘Egypt’ from Aegyptus (brother of Danaus, son of Belus) — per Augustine (City of God 18.11) and Eusebius. Margins: “The origin of the name of Egypt”; “When Danaus and Aegyptus lived, from whom Egypt got its name.” Continues on p. 413. ↩
- §35 (cont.). On the dating: Augustine/Eusebius put it in Joshua's time (800+ yrs post-flood); but Manethon (via Josephus) reckons the kings from the Exodus to Danaus/Aegyptus at 390+ yrs, putting the name ‘Egypt’ 330+ yrs after Joshua, 1,000+ after the flood. Margins: Josephus; Manethon. ↩