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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume II

Book Sixteen — the tower of Babel and the division of tongues

{Upon those words, Genesis ch. 11: Come, let us make us a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven.}

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{Upon those words, Genesis ch. 11: Come, let us make us a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven.}1

Super illis verbis, Genes. cap. 11: Venite, faciamus nobis civitatem et turrim cuius culmen pertingat ad caelum.

ILLUD „Venite“ Hebraismus est: apud Hebraeos enim „veni“ et „venite“ eandem vim et elegantiam habent atque apud Latinos „Eia“ et „Age“ vel „Agite“; sunt enim cohortantis. Principem autem atque ducem istius cohortationis et incitationis fuisse Nemrod, famosum illum gigantem de quo superiori libro decimo quarto disputavimus, affirmat Iosephus. „Hanc superbiam,“ inquit ille, „Deique contemptum excitavit in illis hominibus Nemrod, nepos Cham filii Noë, vir audax et manu promptus, subinde iactans non Deo sed suae virtuti felicitatem eos debere; atque ita paulatim rem ad tyrannidem trahens, ratus fore ut homines ad se deficerent si se illis ducem praeberet.“ Post haec subdit Iosephus Nemrod auctorem fuisse illis hominibus aedificandi turrim celsissimam: sed verba eius paulo infra, cum tractabimus quartam disputationem, commemoraturi sumus.
That „Come“ is a Hebraism: for among the Hebrews „come“ (singular) and „come“ (plural) have the same force and elegance as among the Latins „Eia“ and „Up!“ or „On!“; for they are [the words] of one exhorting. And that the chief and leader of this exhortation and incitement was Nemrod, that famous giant about whom we disputed in the preceding fourteenth book, Josephus affirms. „This pride,“ says he, „and contempt of God Nemrod stirred up in those men — the grandson of Cham the son of Noah, a man bold and ready of hand, repeatedly boasting that they owed their felicity not to God but to their own valor; and thus gradually drawing the matter toward tyranny, thinking that men would defect to him if he offered himself to them as leader.“ After this Josephus adds that Nemrod was the author to those men of building a very high tower: but his words we shall mention a little below, when we treat the fourth disputation.2
EADEM est Sancti Augustini sententia. Is enim, loquens de prima aedificatione Babylonis, cui nomen illud accidit ex confusione linguarum quae in eius constructione contigit, sic ait: „Unde colligitur gigantem illum Nemrod fuisse illius civitatis conditorem: qui propterea dictus est venator contra Dominum, quod erigere voluit cum suis popularibus turrem contra Dominum, quae est impia significata superbia.“ Sic Augustinus. Ergo Nemrod illius tam superbi et audacis consilii, conatus et incepti princeps et auctor fuit. Non recte igitur id negavit Caietanus, qui locum hunc Mosis explanans, „Neque Nemrod,“ inquit, „neque aliquem certum hominem auctorem fuisse illius fabricae declarat exhortatio et incitatio attributa vage et indefinite hominibus; ut intelligamus hinc quod Nemrod civitatem Babyloniae inchoatam communi voto et conatu, post confusionem linguarum ipse occupaverit, et ibidem regnare coeperit.“ Vult igitur Caietanus Nemrod non fuisse auctorem condendae Babylonis, sed eius iam conditae primum regnatorem: verum id contrarium esse Iosephi multorumque veterum sententiae superiori libro docuimus.
The same is the opinion of Saint Augustine. For he, speaking of the first building of Babylon, to which that name befell from the confusion of tongues that happened in its construction, says thus: „Whence it is gathered that that giant Nemrod was the founder of that city: who was therefore called a hunter against the Lord, because he wished to raise up, with his fellow-countrymen, a tower against the Lord — which is the impious pride signified.“ So Augustine. Therefore Nemrod was the chief and author of that so proud and bold design, endeavor, and undertaking. Not rightly, then, did Cajetan deny this, who, explaining this place of Moses, says: „That neither Nemrod nor any certain man was the author of that fabric is declared by the exhortation and incitement attributed vaguely and indefinitely to the men; so that we understand from this that Nemrod, after the confusion of tongues, himself occupied the city of Babylonia, begun by common vow and endeavor, and there began to reign.“ Cajetan, therefore, would have Nemrod to have been not the author of founding Babylon, but the first ruler of it when already founded: but that this is contrary to the opinion of Josephus and many of the ancients we taught in the preceding book.3
ILLUD autem quod hic dicitur, „Faciamus nobis turrim,“ duplicem intellectum habere potest: vel ut positum sit singulare pro plurali, id est turrim pro turres; vel ut, inter multas alias turres, unam aliquam omnium celsissimam, tanquam illius urbis Capitolium, excitare voluerint…
But that which is here said, „Let us make us a tower,“ can have a double understanding: either that the singular is put for the plural, that is ‘tower’ for ‘towers’; or that, among many other towers, they willed to raise some one, the highest of all, as it were the Capitol of that city…4
…sive una fuerit turris, quam inter omnes praecipuam moliebantur, inquit Augustinus, sive multae turres fuerint, quae per numerum singularem significatae sunt: quemadmodum enim „rana“ et „locusta“ dicitur, ita appellantur et intelliguntur millia militum; ut „rana et locusta“ sic dicitur multitudo ranarum et locustarum quibus Aegyptii percussi sunt per Mosen. Aedificatio turrium in civitatibus facit ad earum ornatum simulque munimentum, necnon et ad civium oblectationem, qui ex illis longinqua loca quoquoversus prospectantes, oculos atque animum iucundissime pascunt. Diodorus Siculus prodidit Semiramidem, quae ducentis circiter annis post Nemrod aedificavit Babylonem, cum extrueret Babylonem, turres in ea quinquaginta et ducentas excitasse, quarum altitudo latitudoque magnificentiam aequaret murorum.
…whether there was one tower, which they were building as the chief among all, says Augustine, or whether there were many towers, which are signified by the singular number: for just as „frog“ and „locust“ is said, so are thousands of soldiers called and understood; as „frog and locust“ is so said for the multitude of frogs and locusts with which the Egyptians were smitten through Moses. The building of towers in cities serves for their ornament and at the same time for defense, and also for the delight of the citizens, who, looking out from them at far-off places in every direction, feed their eyes and mind most pleasantly. Diodorus Siculus has handed down that Semiramis, who about two hundred years after Nemrod built Babylon, when she was constructing Babylon raised in it two hundred and fifty towers, whose height and breadth equaled the magnificence of the walls.5
EX hoc loco non bene argumentatur Caietanus non fuisse ibi universum genus humanum. Namque, inquit, „fuissent illi valde stulti, cogitando et dicendo, Aedificemus nobis civitatem: sed vox ista illorum tantum est qui profecti ex Oriente venerunt ad habitandum in campo Sennaar. Delectati enim planitie et forte amoenitate loci, tractarunt de aedificatione civitatis propriae.“ Sic ille. Significat autem his verbis Caietanus eos qui conspirarunt ad aedificandam illam civitatem non fuisse omnes homines qui tunc erant in terris, quia una civitas omnium hominum capax esse non poterat. Sed ratio haec infirma est. Cogitabant enim illi alias postea aedificare civitates; sed hanc unam primo extruere voluerant amplissimam et munitissimam, quae esset velut metropolis aliarum et quasi arx imperii et dominationis eorum.
From this place Cajetan does not argue well that the whole human race was not there. For, he says, „they would have been very foolish, in thinking and saying, Let us build us a city: but that saying is only of those who, having set out from the East, came to dwell in the plain of Sennaar. For, delighted with the level and perhaps the pleasantness of the place, they treated of the building of their own city.“ So he. By these words Cajetan signifies that those who conspired to build that city were not all the men who then were on the earth, because one city could not be capable of all men. But this reasoning is weak. For they were thinking afterward to build other cities; but this one they had willed first to construct, most ample and most fortified, which should be as it were the metropolis of the others, and as it were the citadel of their empire and dominion.6
ILLUD porro quod subditur, „Cuius culmen pertingat ad caelum,“ videtur Augustinus in libro Quaestionum in Genesim quaestione vigesima prima simpliciter et ut verba sonant intellexisse: nam tractans ea ipsa verba sic ait: „Si se hoc posse crediderunt, nimium stulta audacia et impietas eorum deprehenditur. Et quia ob hoc Dei vindicta secuta est, ut eorum lingua dividerentur, non absurde id cogitasse eos credi potest.“ Idem in libro 16 de Civitate Dei cap. 4, deridens illorum hominum amentiam: „Quid,“ inquit, „factura erat humana et vana praesumptio? Cuiuslibet enim et quantamlibet in caelum adversus Deum altitudinem molis extolleret, quando montes transcenderet universos? Quando spatium nebulosi aëris evaderet? Quid denique noceret Deo quantacunque vel spiritalis vel corporalis elatio?“
And that which is subjoined, „Whose top may reach to heaven,“ Augustine in the book of Questions on Genesis, question twenty-one, seems to have understood simply and as the words sound: for, treating those very words, he says thus: „If they believed that they could do this, their too foolish audacity and impiety is detected. And because for this the vengeance of God followed, that their tongues should be divided, it can not absurdly be believed that they thought this.“ The same in book 16 of the City of God, chapter 4, deriding the madness of those men: „What,“ he says, „was human and vain presumption going to do? For whatever and however great a height of mass it might raise to heaven against God, when would it pass beyond all the mountains? When would it escape the space of the misty air? What, finally, would any elevation, however great, whether spiritual or bodily, harm God?“7
PHILO, in exordio eius libri quem scripsit De confusione linguarum, commemorat Ethnicorum sapientum calumniam quandam adversus hanc historiam Mosis. „Quibus,“ inquit Philo, „maiorum nostrorum instituta displicent, homines impii et tantum ad iustas leges accusandas diserti, arreptis impietatis ansis, historiam hanc Mosis de aedificatione turris ita cavillantur nosque derident: Etiamnum extollitis,“ inquiunt, [praecepta…]
Philo, at the opening of the book which he wrote On the Confusion of Tongues, mentions a certain calumny of the pagan sages against this history of Moses. „Those,“ says Philo, „to whom the institutions of our elders are displeasing — impious men, and eloquent only for accusing just laws — having seized handles for impiety, thus cavil at this history of Moses about the building of the tower, and deride us: Do you still,“ they say, [extol your precepts…]8
…praecepta vestra ut veritatis regulas? Ecce sacri, quos vocatis, libri fabulas continent, quales vos, aliis referentibus, irridere soletis. Haec enim historia de aedificatione turris usque ad caelum persimilis est fabulae gigantum, adversus quos Homerus narrat conatos esse tres maximos montes, Pelium, Ossam et Olympum, alium super alium imponere, sperantes hac se via ascensuros in caelum et inde Iovem deturbaturos. Similiter legislator vester Moses inducit turrim exstructam ab eius saeculi hominibus, qui propter dementiam et immanem animum conati sunt caelum attingere, consilio sane stultissimo. Nam etiamsi universae terrae partes superstruerentur fundamento modico, ut in unius columnae formam attollerentur, longissimo tamen intervallo distarent a sphaera aetherea: praesertim iuxta opinionem Philosophorum, terram esse centrum Mundi asseverantium.“ Atque haec quidem erat illorum hominum calumnia.
„…your precepts as the rules of truth? Behold, the books you call sacred contain fables such as you are wont to deride when others relate them. For this history about the building of the tower up to heaven is very like the fable of the giants, against whom Homer relates that they tried to set three great mountains — Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus — one upon another, hoping by this way to ascend into heaven and thence to cast down Jove. Similarly your lawgiver Moses brings in a tower built by the men of that age, who, on account of madness and a monstrous spirit, tried to reach heaven, by a counsel surely most foolish. For even if all the parts of the earth were built up upon a modest foundation, so as to be raised into the form of a single column, they would yet be distant by a very long interval from the etherial sphere: especially according to the opinion of the Philosophers, who affirm that the earth is the center of the World.“ And this indeed was the calumny of those men.9
PHILO, quo eam calumniam depelleret, primum negat verba Mosis quibus haec narrat proprie esse accipienda, sed figurate et ad intellectum allegoricum esse conferenda. „Neque enim,“ inquit, „pars ulla terrae potest caelum attingere, quia nullum centrum tangit suam circumferentiam: terra vero centrum est caeli. Deinde, quoniam aether sacratus ignis, flamma est inexstinguibilis: testis est Sol, ignium quasi rex caelestium, qui ex tanto intervallo intima terrae penetrat suis radiis, nec tantum hanc sed et aërem, qui ad caelestem usque orbem ab ea pertinet, licet suapte natura frigidum, partim tepefacit, partim exurit. Nam quaecunque aut multum distant ab eius orbita aut ad latus alterutrum declinant, tepefacit tantum; quaecunque vero propinqua sunt aut directe opposita, maiore vi caloris pereunt. Quae cum ita se habeant, non erat opus ullis fulminibus contra conantes ascendere in caelum, cum per se ausus illorum tam magnifici evanescere necesse fuerit.“
Philo, in order to drive off that calumny, first denies that the words of Moses by which he narrates these things are to be taken properly, but [says] they are to be referred figuratively and to an allegorical understanding. „For neither,“ he says, „can any part of the earth reach heaven, because no center touches its circumference: and the earth is the center of heaven. Then, since the ether is sacred fire, an inextinguishable flame: witness is the Sun, as it were the king of heavenly fires, which from so great an interval penetrates the inmost parts of the earth with its rays, and not only this but also the air, which extends from it up to the heavenly sphere — though by its own nature cold — it partly warms, partly burns. For whatever things are far distant from its orbit, or decline to either side, it only warms; but whatever are near or directly opposite perish by the greater force of its heat. Which being so, there was no need of any thunderbolts against those trying to ascend into heaven, since of itself the daring of those so magnificent men had necessarily to vanish.“10
APERIENS igitur Philo allegoricum eius historiae intellectum, quem ipse putat veram atque germanam Mosis esse sententiam: „Duae,“ ait ille, „civitatis sunt species, una melior, altera deterior. Melior est in qua, sub populari administratione, cives aequo iure vivunt, legibus principatum obtinentibus: haec ad laudem Dei pertinet. Deterior autem et adulterina est, in qua penes vulgum est regimen, et inaequalitas est in pretio, praesidente iniustitia atque impietate. In prioris civitatis ius adscribuntur probi et pii: in posterioris autem ignavorum multitudo, perturbationem magis quam ordinem, et confusionem magis quam bene distinctam et temperatam gubernationem diligens. Insipiens igitur ad male agendum socios convocat, non contentos peccatis propriis, hortaturque ad navandam sibi operam nunc visum, nunc auditum, ceterosque sensus, ut praesto sint, et pro viribus suum quisque ministerium accommodet. Accersit etiam et concitat catervas affectuum qui suapte natura indomiti sunt.“
Philo, therefore, opening the allegorical understanding of that history — which he himself thinks is the true and genuine meaning of Moses: „There are,“ says he, „two kinds of city, one better, the other worse. The better is that in which, under popular administration, the citizens live by equal right, the laws holding the chief place: this pertains to the praise of God. But the worse and adulterine is that in which the rule is in the hands of the mob, and inequality is held in esteem, injustice and impiety presiding. To the right of the former city are enrolled the good and the pious; but to the latter, the multitude of the slothful, loving disturbance more than order, and confusion more than a well-distinguished and tempered governance. The fool, therefore, calls together associates for doing evil, not content with his own sins, and exhorts now sight, now hearing, and the other senses to do him service, that they may be at hand, and that each may apply his ministry according to his strength. He summons also and rouses the bands of the affections, which by their own nature are untamed.“11
HOS itaque socios his verbis concitat: „Aedificemus nobis civitatem et magistratus eligamus nobis commodos, opulentiam, honores, voluptates — exclusa iustitia, paupertatem et obscuritatem afferre secum solita; scribamus leges quae sancant potentioribus, quorum, ut reipublicae utiliorum, praecipua habenda est ratio. In primis turris extruatur, quae superbiae atque impietati sit pro arce…“
These associates, therefore, he rouses with these words: „Let us build us a city and choose for ourselves convenient magistrates, opulence, honors, pleasures — justice being excluded, which is wont to bring with it poverty and obscurity; let us write laws which sanction [things] for the more powerful, of whom, as more useful to the commonwealth, the chief account is to be had. First of all, let a tower be built, which may be for pride and impiety as a citadel…“12
…arce et regia; et fundata quidem sit in terra, sed caput etiam ad caelum erigat: ut non solum comparandis terrenis bonis inhiet, sed adversus quoque caelestia, per impios et Deo infestos sermones, sese erigat; dum aut caeli numen negat, aut providentiam eius, aut mundi conditi principium; vel, si hunc creatum concedit, tamen causas eius incertas putat, affirmans eum nunc perperam nunc fortuito agitari, sicut naves aut quadrigas Circensium, quae nunquam sine gubernatore aurigaque feruntur cursu prospero. At providentia non interdum (sed humana saepe), divina semper bonum habet eventum: nam error, omnium confessione, abest a divina providentia.“ Sic Philo.
…as a citadel and royal seat; and let it be founded indeed on earth, but let it raise its head also to heaven: so that it not only gapes after the gaining of earthly goods, but also rears itself against the things of heaven, by impious words hostile to God; while it either denies the deity of heaven, or His providence, or the beginning of the created world; or, if it grants this to have been created, yet thinks its causes uncertain, affirming that it is driven now amiss, now by chance, like the ships or the chariots of the Circus, which are never borne on a prosperous course without a pilot and a charioteer. But providence — not sometimes (as human providence often is), but the divine always — has a good outcome: for error, by the confession of all, is absent from divine providence.“ So Philo.13
ITAQUE brevissime respondemus non ea mente ac consilio homines illos aedificasse turrim, ut per illam ascendentes in caelum inde cum Deo belligerarent, quemadmodum de Gigantibus fabulati sunt poetae; sed ut admirandum aliquod sui nominis monumentum famamque apud omnes omnique aevo celeberrimam relinquerent. Et hanc fuisse illis aedificandi causam, propriis eorum hominum verbis expressam, sic exposuit Moses: „Et dixerunt: Venite, faciamus nobis civitatem et turrim cuius culmen pertingat ad caelum, et celebremus nomen nostrum antequam dividamur in universas terras.“ Illud porro „Cuius culmen pertingat ad caelum“ non proprie accipiendum est — insana enim fuisset eorum hominum cogitatio, nedum inceptum aut etiam votum — sed hyperbolica est ratio, plus nempe significans quam intelligi oporteat; cuiusmodi orationes et in sacris et in profanis litteris frequentes sunt. Ergo significatur illis verbis inusitata et incredibilis quaedam aedificii altitudo.
And so we answer most briefly that those men did not build the tower with that mind and design — that, ascending by it into heaven, they might thence war with God, as the poets fabled of the Giants — but that they might leave behind some wonderful monument of their name, and a fame most renowned among all and in every age. And that this was their cause of building, expressed in those men's own words, Moses thus set forth: „And they said: Come, let us make us a city and a tower whose top may reach to heaven, and let us make our name famous before we be scattered into all lands.“ Now that „Whose top may reach to heaven“ is not to be taken properly — for it would have been an insane thought of those men, much more an undertaking or even a wish — but it is a hyperbolic manner of speaking, signifying namely more than ought to be understood; of which kind of expressions there are many both in sacred and in profane letters. Therefore by those words is signified some unusual and incredible height of the building.14
NEC equidem non mihi perquam credibile videri potest quod a nonnullis proditum est: ex hac historia Mosis occasionem arripuisse poetas fingendi praelium gigantum cum Diis tantopere ab ipsis celebratum. Dixerunt enim eos, quo ascensum sibi pararent in caelum, ut inde tanquam ex castris caelum oppugnarent, altissimos Thessaliae montes alios super alios imposuisse: quem eorum tam impium atque infandum conatum et infelicem exitum eleganter Ovidius illis versibus exposuit: „Affectasse ferunt regnum caeleste Gigantes, / altaque congestos struxisse ad sidera montes. / Tum Pater omnipotens misso perfregit Olympum / fulmine, et excussit subiectum Pelion Ossae.“
Nor indeed can it seem to me other than quite credible what some have handed down: that from this history of Moses the poets took occasion to invent the battle of the giants with the gods, so greatly celebrated by them. For they said that those [giants], in order to prepare for themselves an ascent into heaven, that they might thence, as from a camp, assault heaven, piled the highest mountains of Thessaly one upon another: which so impious and unspeakable attempt of theirs, and unhappy outcome, Ovid elegantly set forth in those verses: „The Giants, they say, aimed at the celestial realm, / and heaped up mountains to the high stars. / Then the almighty Father, hurling his bolt, shattered Olympus, / and struck off Pelion set under Ossa.“15
BEATUS Ambrosius libro 3 de Fide: „Gigantes,“ inquit, „et vallem Titanum prophetici sermonis series non refugit.“ Huius poeticae fabulae non dissimile est quod apud Eusebium libro 9 de Praeparatione Evangelica capite 4 prodidit Abydenus his verbis: „Primos homines ferunt, terra natos, robore atque magnitudine confisos, Diis spretis, turrim eo in loco ubi nunc Babylon est ad Solem usque tollere contendisse; cumque iam fere ad caelum aedificando pervenissent, magna ventorum vi a diis missa, dirutam turrim super eos ipsos cecidisse; fuisseque tunc inter Saturni et Titanum inceptum bellum.“
Blessed Ambrose, in book 3 On the Faith: „The series of prophetic discourse does not shrink from the Giants and the valley of the Titans.“ Not unlike this poetic fable is what Abydenus handed down, in Eusebius, book 9 of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 4, in these words: „They say that the first men, born of the earth, trusting in their strength and size, the gods being despised, strove to raise a tower up to the Sun in the place where Babylon now is; and when they had now almost reached heaven by building, the tower, by a great force of winds sent by the gods, fell down upon those very men; and that there was then begun a war between Saturn and the Titans.“16
SED videamus, licet homines illi divinitus impediti fuerint aedificationem illius turris ad designatum animo et optatum fastigium perducere, inchoatum tamen opus quantae magnitudinis et altitudinis reliquerint. Iosephus, commemorans orationem qua Nemrod cohortatus est populares suos ad aedificandam turrim, ait promisisse illum turrim se aedificaturum celsiorem quam quo aqua diluvii ascendere posset. Ex quo intelligitur cogitasse eos turrim attollere supra altitudinem diluvii: diluvium autem quindecim cubitis transcendit altissimos terrae montes; quorum nonnulli, ut libro duodecimo docuimus, altitudine ad perpendiculum sumpta excedunt quatuor milliaria. Cogitabant igitur illi turrim ad altitudinem prope quinque milliarium excitare. Quantae vero magnitudinis fuerit opus quod ab illis relictum est imperfectum, proxime indicat Iosephus subiungens: „Cum ingens esset,“ inquit, „operarum numerus, surgebat opus supra quam speraverant: crassitudo enim erat tanta ut proceritatem superaret.“
But let us see — granting that those men were divinely hindered from carrying the building of that tower to the summit designed and wished in their mind — yet of how great a size and height they left the work begun. Josephus, recounting the speech by which Nemrod exhorted his fellows to build the tower, says that he promised that he would build a tower higher than the water of the flood could ascend. From which it is understood that they thought to raise the tower above the height of the flood: but the flood rose fifteen cubits above the highest mountains of the earth; some of which, as we taught in the twelfth book, taken in perpendicular height exceed four miles. They thought, therefore, to raise the tower to a height of nearly five miles. But of how great a size was the work which was left unfinished by them, Josephus next indicates, subjoining: „Since the number of workers was huge, the work rose above what they had hoped: for its thickness was so great that it surpassed its height.“17
BEROSUS Annianus narrat Nemrod, quem ipse appellat Saturnum primum, una cum filio suo Iove Belo et popularibus suis venisse in campum Sennaar, ibique designasse urbem et fundasse maximam turrim, anno post diluvium centesimo trigesimo primo, regnasseque annis quinquaginta sex; deduxisse turrim ad altitudinem ac magnitudinem montium, ut ea monimentum esset posteris primum in orbe terrarum esse populum Babylonicum et Regnum regnorum appellari debere; et illum quidem aedificasse turrim, sed eam tamen non complevisse, neque designatam a se urbem fundare potuisse. Sic ille.
Berosus Annianus relates that Nemrod, whom he calls Saturn the First, together with his son Jupiter Belus and his fellows came into the plain of Sennaar, and there marked out a city and founded a very great tower, in the 131st year after the flood, and reigned fifty-six years; that he brought the tower to the height and bulk of mountains, that it might be a monument to posterity that the Babylonian people was the first in the world and ought to be called the Kingdom of kingdoms; and that he indeed built the tower, but yet did not complete it, nor could he found the city he had marked out. So he.18
MIRUM dictu magis quam credibile est illud quod a B. Hieronymo proditum est libro quinto Commentariorum in Esaiam, in expositione illorum verborum capitis 14, „Et consurgam super eos, dicit Dominus exercituum, et perdam Babylonis nomen,“ etc. Ait enim se accepisse ab iis qui turrim illam propriis oculis curiose spectaverant, altitudinem eius turris quatuor millia tenere passuum. Hieronymi verba ita se habent: „Babylonem fuisse potentissimam, et in campestribus per quadrum sitam, et ab angulo usque ad angulum muri sexdecim millia tenuisse passuum (id est, simul per circuitum quadringenta octoginta stadia), refert Herodotus et multi alii qui Graecas historias conscripserunt. Arx autem, id est Capitolium illius urbis, est turris illa quae aedificata est post diluvium, quam in altitudine quatuor millia dicunt tenere passuum, paulatim ex lato in angustias coarctata, ut pondus immensum facilius a latioribus sustentetur. Describunt ibi templa marmorea, aureas statuas, plateas lapidibus auroque fulgentes, et multa alia quae paene incredibilia videantur.“ Sic B. Hieronymus.
More wonderful to tell than credible is that which was handed down by Blessed Jerome in the fifth book of his Commentaries on Isaiah, in the exposition of those words of chapter 14, „And I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and I will destroy the name of Babylon,“ etc. For he says that he had received from those who had carefully looked upon that tower with their own eyes, that the height of that tower was four thousand paces. Jerome's words are these: „That Babylon was most powerful, and situated in the plains in a square, and from corner to corner of the wall held sixteen thousand paces (that is, together by circuit four hundred and eighty stadia), Herodotus relates, and many others who wrote Greek histories. And the citadel, that is the Capitol of that city, is that tower which was built after the flood, which in height they say holds four thousand paces, gradually narrowed from broad into straits, so that the immense weight may more easily be sustained by the broader [parts below]. They describe there marble temples, golden statues, streets gleaming with stones and gold, and many other things that may seem almost incredible.“ So Blessed Jerome.19
SED profecto vere dixit Beatus Hieronymus ea quae relata ad se fuerant visa sibi esse paene incredibilia: sunt enim plane fabulosa et incredibilia. Neque enim turris illa, usque ad altitudinem quatuor milliarium, adiuncta congruenti crassitudine et amplitudine eius simulque profunditate fundamentorum (quo scilicet tantae molis pondus sustineretur), ulla hominum opera aut fabricari, aut fabricata…
But truly indeed Blessed Jerome said that the things reported to him seemed to him almost incredible: for they are plainly fabulous and incredible. For neither could that tower, up to the height of four miles — with a fitting thickness and breadth joined to it, and at the same time a depth of foundations (by which, namely, the weight of so great a mass might be sustained) — by any work of men either be built, or, once built…20
…tandiu consistere ac perdurare potuisset. Herodotus quidem narrat fuisse sua etiam aetate Babylone Iovis Beli templum aereis portis, duorum undecunque stadiorum amplitudine, figura quadrata. In templi medio turris erat solida, crassitudine simul et altitudine stadii; cui alia rursus erat superimposita turris, et huic subinde alia ad octavam usque. His forinsecus in circuitu erant scalae adhibitae, per quas ad singulas conscenderetur turres. In mediis gradibus ductus, sellaeque erant in usum ascendentium ad sedendum et requiescendum factae. In postrema turri sacellum erat, habens lectum splendide stratum et appositam mensam auream, nullam tamen habens statuam. Diodorus autem tradit in medio Babylonis templum fuisse Iovi Belo erectum a Semiramide, tantae magnitudinis ut, ob admirandam eius altitudinem, constet a Chaldaeis (tum Orientem tum Occidentem versus) astrorum in eo observationes esse factas.
…could it for so long have stood and endured. Herodotus indeed relates that there was in his own age at Babylon a temple of Jupiter Belus, with bronze gates, of two stadia in extent on every side, in a square shape. In the middle of the temple was a solid tower, of a stadium in thickness and likewise in height; upon which there was again another tower superimposed, and upon this presently another, up to the eighth. To these, on the outside in a circuit, stairs were applied, by which one ascended to each of the towers. In the middle of the steps there were halts and seats made for the use of those ascending, to sit and rest. In the topmost tower was a shrine, having a splendidly-spread couch and a golden table set by it, yet having no statue. Diodorus, however, hands down that in the middle of Babylon there was a temple raised to Jupiter Belus by Semiramis, of so great a size that, on account of its wonderful height, it is agreed that observations of the stars, both toward the East and toward the West, were made in it by the Chaldeans.21
APPARET igitur ex supradictis verbis Diodori, Herodoti et Hieronymi, necnon et iis quae refert Theodoretus in Quaestionibus in Genesim ante quaestionem quinquagesimam nonam, usque ad tempora B. Hieronymi et Theodoreti monumentum illius admirandae turris apud Babylonios permansisse. Illud tamen neque ex sacris literis, neque ex fideli et probabili maiorum traditione, neque ex auctoribus qui aliquid fide dignum tradant, exploratum et compertum est, ad quantam aedificium illius turris altitudinem perductum ab illis hominibus fuerit.
It appears, therefore, from the aforesaid words of Diodorus, Herodotus, and Jerome, and also from those things which Theodoret reports in the Questions on Genesis before the fifty-ninth question, that down to the times of Blessed Jerome and Theodoret the monument of that wonderful tower remained among the Babylonians. Yet this is neither from the sacred letters, nor from a faithful and probable tradition of the elders, nor from authors who hand down anything worthy of credence, explored and ascertained: to how great a height the building of that tower was carried by those men.22

Translator’s notes

  1. Gen 11:4 (verse lemma, for Disputation 3). ↩
  2. §27. ‘Come’ (Venite) is a Hebraism (like Latin ‘Eia/Age’ — an exhortation). The leader of this incitement was Nemrod, the famous giant (treated in Liber XIV) — Josephus: Nemrod, grandson of Cham, bold and ready, stirred this pride and contempt of God, boasting they owed their fortune to their own valor not God, drawing things toward tyranny by offering himself as leader; he was the author of building the tower (his words deferred to Disp. 4). Margins: Josephus, Antiquities bk. 1; Nemrod. ↩
  3. §28. Augustine agrees (City of God 16.4): Nemrod the giant was the founder of that city (called a ‘hunter against the Lord’ for raising the tower against God — signifying impious pride). So Nemrod was chief and author of the design. Cajetan wrongly denied this (the exhortation is attributed vaguely, so Nemrod merely occupied and ruled the already-begun city) — contrary to Josephus and many ancients (shown in the preceding book). Margins: Augustine, City of God bk. 16 ch. 4; Gen 10; Cajetan. ↩
  4. §29. ‘Let us make a tower’ — two senses: the singular for the plural (‘tower’ = ‘towers’); or one tower, the highest of all, as the city's ‘Capitol’ (continues p. 486). ↩
  5. §29 (concl.). Augustine: one chief tower, or many (the singular for plural, as ‘frog’ and ‘locust’ for the plagues' swarms, Exod 8). Towers serve a city's ornament, defense, and the citizens' delight (the view). Diodorus: Semiramis (~200 yrs after Nemrod) raised 250 towers in Babylon, as high and broad as its walls. Margins: Augustine; the use of towers in cities; Exod 8; Diodorus bk. 3 ch. 3. ↩
  6. §30. Cajetan again argues (weakly) that not all men were there: ‘Let us build a city’ suits only those who came to Sennaar, since one city could not hold all mankind. Pererius rebuts: they meant to build other cities later; this first one was to be the vast, fortified metropolis — the citadel of their empire. Margin: Cajetan. ↩
  7. §31. ‘Whose top may reach to heaven’: Augustine (Questions on Genesis q. 21) takes it literally — if they believed they could, their foolish audacity and impiety is plain, and God's vengeance (dividing their tongues) followed. And (City of God 16.4) deriding their madness: whatever height they raised, when would it pass the mountains or the misty air? what could any elevation harm God? Margins: Augustine (cited just above); Augustine, Questions on Genesis q. 21. ↩
  8. §32. Philo (On the Confusion of Tongues) reports a calumny of the pagan sages against Moses's Babel history: impious men, eloquent only in accusing just laws, deride it (continues p. 487). Margins: the pagans' calumny against Moses's history of Babel, as Philo reports; Philo. ↩
  9. §32 (concl.). The pagan calumny (per Philo): the sacred books contain fables like the pagans' own — Moses's tower is like the giants piling Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus to scale heaven and cast down Jove (Homer); the builders foolishly tried to reach heaven, though even a column of all the earth would fall far short of the etherial sphere (the earth being the world's center). Margin: Homer. ↩
  10. §33. Philo's defense: Moses's words are not literal but figurative/allegorical. Literally, no part of earth can reach heaven (no center touches its circumference; earth is heaven's center); and the ether is inextinguishable fire — the Sun, king of heavenly fires, from afar penetrates earth and air with its rays (warming the distant, burning the near). So no thunderbolts were needed against the climbers — their daring would vanish of itself. ↩
  11. §34. Philo's allegory (which he takes as Moses's true sense): two kinds of city — the better (popular rule, equal law, the good and pious — to God's praise) and the worse (mob rule, prized inequality, injustice/impiety, the slothful loving confusion). The fool calls allies for evil, summoning his senses and the untamed bands of the passions to serve him (continues). ↩
  12. §35. Philo's allegory (cont.): the fool rouses his ‘associates’ — ‘Let us build a city and choose convenient magistrates, opulence, honors, pleasures (justice excluded, since it brings poverty and obscurity); let us write laws favoring the powerful; and first of all let a tower be built as a citadel for pride and impiety…’ (continues next batch). ↩
  13. §35 (concl.). End of Philo's allegory (On the Confusion of Tongues): the wicked ‘city/tower’ — founded on earth but raising its head to heaven — gapes after earthly goods and rears against heaven by impious words, denying God's deity, providence, or the world's created beginning (or making its causes mere chance, like a pilotless ship). But divine providence always has a good outcome, free of error. ↩
  14. §36. The true reply to the pagan calumny: they built the tower not to scale heaven and war with God (the poets' Giants), but to leave a wondrous monument and undying fame (Gen 11:4, their own words). ‘Top reaching heaven’ is not literal (that would be insane) but hyperbole (common in sacred and profane writing) for an unusual, incredible height. Margin: the true repulse of the pagans' calumny. ↩
  15. §37. It is quite credible (so some) that the poets' famous fable of the giants' war on the gods took its occasion from this history of Moses: the giants piled the highest Thessalian mountains to assault heaven, as in Ovid (Metamorphoses) — ‘The Giants aimed at the celestial realm… the Father shattered Olympus and struck off Pelion set under Ossa.’ Margins: that the war of the Giants is not rashly believed to take its origin from this history of Moses; Ovid, Metamorphoses. ↩
  16. §38. Ambrose (On the Faith bk. 3) notes prophetic discourse does not avoid ‘the Giants and the valley of the Titans.’ Like this fable is Abydenus (in Eusebius, Preparation bk. 9 ch. 4): the first earth-born men, trusting their strength and despising the gods, tried to raise a tower to the Sun where Babylon now is; nearing heaven, it was blown down on them by winds the gods sent — and then began the war of Saturn and the Titans. Margins: Abydenus in Eusebius; Ambrose. ↩
  17. §39. How high they meant the tower: Josephus — Nemrod promised one higher than the flood-water could reach. The flood rose 15 cubits above the highest mountains (some over 4 miles, per bk. 12), so they aimed at ~5 miles. The unfinished work's bulk: Josephus — the huge workforce raised it beyond hope, its thickness surpassing its height. Margins: how high they meant the tower; Josephus, Antiquities bk. 1; Gen 8. ↩
  18. §40. Berosus Annianus: Nemrod (‘Saturn the First’), with his son Jupiter Belus and his people, came to Sennaar, marked out a city and founded a great tower in yr 131 after the flood, reigned 56 yrs, raised the tower mountain-high as a monument of Babylonian primacy (‘the Kingdom of kingdoms’) — but left both tower and city unfinished. Margin: Berosus Annianus bk. 4. ↩
  19. §41. Jerome's astonishing report (Commentaries on Isaiah bk. 5, on Isa 14): eyewitnesses told him the tower was 4,000 paces high. Jerome: Babylon, most powerful, square in the plains, its wall 16,000 paces corner-to-corner (= 480 stadia round, per Herodotus and others); its citadel/Capitol is the post-flood tower, said to be 4,000 paces high, narrowing upward so the lower breadth bears the weight — with marble temples, golden statues, gold-gleaming streets, ‘almost incredible.’ Margins: Jerome reports a wondrous account of the height of the Tower of Babel; Herodotus. ↩
  20. §42. But Jerome rightly called it ‘almost incredible’ — it is plainly fabulous: no human work could build a 4-mile tower (with the requisite thickness, breadth, and deep foundations to bear such mass), or, once built… (continues p. 490). Margin: Jerome. ↩
  21. §42 (concl.). …nor could it have stood so long. Herodotus (bk. 1): in his day a square temple of Jupiter Belus at Babylon (bronze gates, 2 stadia each side), with a solid central tower (a stadium thick and high), seven more towers stacked on it (to the eighth), an external spiral stair with rest-seats, and a top shrine with a couch and golden table but no statue. Diodorus: Semiramis's temple of Jupiter Belus, so high the Chaldeans made their star-observations from it. Margins: Herodotus bk. 1; Diodorus bk. 1 & 3 ch. 4. ↩
  22. §43. So (from Diodorus, Herodotus, Jerome, and Theodoret on Gen, before q. 59) the monument of that wondrous tower remained at Babylon down to Jerome's and Theodoret's time. But to what height the builders actually carried it is not ascertainable — not from Scripture, nor reliable tradition, nor any credible author. Margin: Theodoret. ↩