THIRTEENTH DISPUTATION. Upon these words: 'Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abraham, Nachor, and Aram.' In what year of Thare's age Abraham was born — Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume II

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THIRTEENTH DISPUTATION. Upon these words: 'Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abraham, Nachor, and Aram.' In what year of Thare's age Abraham was born.¹

DECIMA TERTIA DISPVTATIO. Super illis verbis: Vixit Thare septuaginta annis, & genuit Abraham, Nachor & Aram. Quoto anno aetatis Thare natus sit Abraham.

ALDA perplexa & litigiosa quaestio est hoc loco, utrùm Abraham natus sit anno septuagesimo patris sui Thare, ut supradictis verbis significari videatur; an potiùs anno centesimo trigesimo, id quod ex aliis scripturae locis videtur posse colligi. Siquidem Thare vixit ducentis & quinque annis, ut extremis verbis capitis undecimi narrat Moses: post mortem autem eius Abraham ex Mesopotamia profectus in terram Chanaan, dicitur fuisse tunc septuaginta quinque annorum, ut scriptum est in capite duodecimo huius libri: ergo si Abraham septuaginta quinque annorum erat post mortem patris qui vixerat quinque & ducentos annos, necesse est eum trigesimo & centesimo patris anno esse natum. Tres vias & rationes invenio explicandi hanc quaestionem.

Here is a perplexed and contentious question: whether Abraham was born in the seventieth year of his father Thare, as the aforesaid words seem to signify; or rather in the hundred and thirtieth, which seems able to be gathered from other places of Scripture. For Thare lived two hundred and five years, as Moses narrates in the last words of the eleventh chapter; but after his death Abraham, setting out from Mesopotamia into the land of Canaan, is said to have been then seventy-five years old, as is written in the twelfth chapter of this book. Therefore, if Abraham was seventy-five years old after the death of his father, who had lived two hundred and five years, it must be that he was born in his father's hundred and thirtieth year. I find three ways and reasons for explaining this question.²

PRIMA est sententia Hebraeorum aientium, cùm Abraham defuncto patre primùm venit in terram Chanaan, fuisse eum tunc reverà centum triginta annorum, sed appellari tamen à Mose septuaginta quinque annorum, computatis scilicet eius annis non ab ortu ipsius, sed ab eo tempore quo à Chaldaeis in Charran (quòd Deum more rituque ipsorum adorare nollet) confessus est Dei unius cultum, & incolumis è flammis evasit. quia enim tunc verè quodammodo regeneratus est Abraham, propterea Moses ex eo tempore annos eius computare voluisse. Fuisse autem Abraham ex incendio ereptum, cognitum habent Hebraei ex traditionibus maiorum, idque significari putant istis verbis quae dixit Deus ad Abraham: Ego sum Deus qui eduxi te de Vr Chaldaeorum. nam Hebraicè Vr ignem significat; idque convertit Latinus Interpres in capite nono libri secundi Esdrae illo loco: Tu es Deus qui eduxisti Abraham de igne Chaldaeorum. Sic Hebraei.

The first is the opinion of the Hebrews, who say that when Abraham, his father being dead, first came into the land of Canaan, he was then in truth a hundred and thirty years old, but is nevertheless called by Moses seventy-five years old — his years being reckoned not from his birth, but from the time when, among the Chaldees at Charran (because he would not worship God after their manner and rite), he confessed the worship of the one God and came forth unharmed from the flames. For because Abraham was then in a manner truly reborn, therefore Moses chose to reckon his years from that time. That Abraham was snatched from the burning the Hebrews hold known from the traditions of their elders, and they think it is signified by those words which God said to Abraham: 'I am the God who led you out of Ur of the Chaldees.' For in Hebrew 'Ur' means fire; and the Latin Translator rendered it so in chapter nine of the second book of Esdras, in that place: 'You are the God who led Abraham out of the fire of the Chaldees.' Thus the Hebrews.³

HANC opinionem B. Hieronymus in Traditionibus Hebraicis in Genesim, quibus solet super caput undecimum, ut fabulam commemoratam refutat: sed paulò pòst, quòd alium commodiorem quaestionis exitum non reperiret, ad eam se ita applicuit: Indissolubilis, inquit, quaestio nascitur. si enim Thare genuit filium suum Abraham septuaginta annis, & posteà cùm Thare ducentorum quinque annorum vixerit (ut est in fine capitis), quomodo post mortem eius veniens Abraham in terram Chanaan septuaginta quinque annorum fuisse memoratur, cùm à morte Thare centum triginta quinque annorum fuisse à nobis demonstratum sit? Vera est igitur…

This opinion blessed Jerome, in the Hebrew Traditions on Genesis (with which he is wont to comment on the eleventh chapter), recounts as a fable and refutes; but a little afterward, because he could find no more convenient way out of the question, he applied himself to it thus: 'An insoluble question arises,' he says. 'For if Thare begot his son Abraham at seventy years, and afterward Thare lived two hundred and five years (as is at the end of the chapter), how is Abraham, coming after his death into the land of Canaan, recorded to have been seventy-five years old, when from the death of Thare he must (as we have demonstrated) have been a hundred and thirty-five years old? It is therefore true…'⁴

…illa Hebraeorum traditio quam supra diximus, quòd egressus sit Thare cum filiis suis de Vr Chaldaeorum, & venerit in Charran &c. cùm enim Abraham Babylonico incendio (quia illud adorare nollet) Dei nutu liberatus, & ex illo Charran cum patre & cognatione habitaverit; tempore quo egressus est de Charran septuaginta quinque annorum fuisse memoratur, non ab ortu suo, sed à confessione qua Deum confessus est in igne Chaldaico computatis annis vitae suae, ex eo tempore quo Dominus servavit eum de igne Chaldaeorum. Sic Hieronymus.

…that tradition of the Hebrews which we mentioned above, namely that Thare went out with his sons from Ur of the Chaldees and came to Charran, and so forth. For since Abraham, freed by the will of God from the Babylonian burning (because he would not worship it), dwelt thereafter at Charran with his father and kindred, he is recorded, at the time he went out from Charran, to have been seventy-five years old — not from his birth, but the years of his life being reckoned from the confession by which he confessed God in the Chaldean fire, from the time when the Lord saved him from the fire of the Chaldees. Thus Jerome.⁵

SED haec opinio Hebraeorum partim fabulosa est, partim infirma & duriore scriptura contraria. Fabulosam censeo quod illi tradunt de incendio Chaldaico, unde mirabiliter Abraham liberatus est: verùm hac de re paulò infrà propriè & accuratè disputabitur. Contrariam porrò eam opinionem esse divinis literis, manifestum lectori est ob ea ipsa quae à nobis sub finem superioris disputationis sunt posita. Si enim Abraham, cùm venit primùm in terram Chanaan, reverà fuit annorum centum triginta quinque, ut illi volunt; cùm igitur Moses dicat eum, cùm eò venisset, fuisse tantùm annorum septuaginta quinque, sequitur eum, prius quàm in terram Chanaan veniret, à morte Thare patris sui intercessisse sexaginta annos: id quod apertè est contra scripturam libri Geneseos, ubi dicitur Moses statim post mortem Thare venisse Abraham in terram Chanaan.

But this opinion of the Hebrews is partly fabulous, partly weak and contrary to the harder [sense of] Scripture. I judge fabulous what they relate about the Chaldean burning, whence Abraham was miraculously freed — but on this matter it will be disputed properly and accurately a little below. That this opinion is, moreover, contrary to the divine letters is manifest to the reader from the very things we set down toward the end of the preceding disputation. For if Abraham, when he first came into the land of Canaan, was in truth a hundred and thirty-five years old, as they would have it — since Moses says that when he had come there he was only seventy-five years old — it follows that, before he came into the land of Canaan, sixty years had passed from the death of his father Thare; which is plainly against the scripture of the book of Genesis, where Moses says that immediately after the death of Thare Abraham came into the land of Canaan.⁶

QVOD si, ut effugiant illud incommodum, fingant Abraham non eo anno quo defuncto patre, sed aliquot annis pòst, abiisse à Charran in terram Chanaan; ad illud dico, hanc esse coniecturam plane sine ullo scripturae fundamento: quin contra apertam scripturae sententiam, quae statim post mortem Thare profectionem Abrahae in Chanaan collocat. Quare nec hoc effugio se expediunt. Quocirca prior haec sententia, ut partim fabulosa, partim divinae scripturae contraria, repudianda est.

But if, to escape that difficulty, they should feign that Abraham went away from Charran into the land of Canaan not in the year his father died, but some years afterward — to that I say that this is a conjecture plainly without any foundation in Scripture; indeed, against the open sense of Scripture, which places Abraham's departure into Canaan immediately after the death of Thare. Wherefore neither do they extricate themselves by this escape. Therefore this first opinion, as partly fabulous and partly contrary to the divine scripture, must be repudiated.⁷

ALTERA sententia est Theodoreti (quaestione 60 in Genesim), eademque sententia est Nicolai de Lyra & Caietani. Arbitrantur isti, ex eo loco capitis undecimi Geneseos non posse colligi Abraham fuisse filium primogenitum ipsius Thare; sed cùm tres filios eo ordine quo nominantur (Abram, Nachor & Aram) genuerit Thare, non eo anno primùm genuit Abram; nempe cùm esset annorum septuaginta, genuit aliquem ex illis tribus, sed non Abram, qui posteà centesimo trigesimo anno patris natus est. Nam inter…

The second opinion is that of Theodoret (in the 60th question on Genesis), and the same is the opinion of Nicholas of Lyra and Cajetan. These judge that from that place of the eleventh chapter of Genesis it cannot be gathered that Abraham was the firstborn son of Thare himself; but that, though Thare begot three sons in the order in which they are named (Abram, Nachor, and Aram), he did not in that year first beget Abram — namely, when he was seventy years old he begot one of those three, but not Abram, who was afterward born in his father's hundred and thirtieth year. For among…⁸

…inter filios Thare primus nominatur Abram, intelligendum tamen est non fuisse eum primum ordine generationis sed dignitatis, propter electionem & benedictionem Dei, qui eum elegerat, ex eoque populus Hebraeus, & in eo populo cùm multi viri clarissimi, tum etiam omnes Messiae ipse generaretur: quemadmodum in primo libro Paralipomenon capite quarto inter filios Abrahae prior Isaac nominatur quàm Ismael, & Iacob quàm Esau; quin etiam Sem non fuit primogenitus Noe, cui tamen in enumeratione filiorum Noe primus ubique locus datur. Haec opinio vel ex eo nomine meretur videri probabilis, quòd omnes propositae quaestionis difficultates penitus exhaurit, nullamque in hac specie quidem in sacris literis dissonantiam atque discrepantiam relinquit: siquidem verè Abraham, postquam venit in terram Chanaan, septuaginta quinque annorum fuit, ut narrat Moses. Haec illi.

…among the sons of Thare Abram is named first; yet it is to be understood that he was not first in the order of generation but of dignity, because of the election and blessing of God, who had chosen him, and from whom the Hebrew people, and in that people both many most illustrious men and also the Messiah himself, would be begotten — just as in the first book of Paralipomenon, chapter four, among the sons of Abraham Isaac is named before Ismael, and Jacob before Esau; indeed, Sem was not the firstborn of Noah, to whom nevertheless, in the enumeration of Noah's sons, the first place is everywhere given. This opinion deserves to seem probable, if only because it thoroughly exhausts all the difficulties of the proposed question and leaves, in this matter at least, no dissonance or discrepancy in the sacred letters: for in truth Abraham, after he came into the land of Canaan, was seventy-five years old, as Moses narrates. Thus they.⁹

VERVM contra hoc duo validissimè pugnant. Ac primò quidem, si Thare septuagesimo anno genuit tres filios, sicut ait Moses, necesse est ut verum sit vel omnes illos tres eo anno genitos, vel certè unum aliquem eorum: nam si nullum tunc genuit, quorsum commemorat Moses illum annum septuagesimum Thare in generatione illorum trium? Genuit igitur Thare aliquem illorum trium septuagesimo anno aetatis suae: at quem? non Abraham tunc esse genitum [aiunt isti]; ergo vel Nachor vel Aram eo tempore genitus est. Verùm rationi minimè consentaneum est Mosem explicare voluisse tempus generationis Nachor & Aram, & tacuisse tempus generationis Abrahae, cùm de Abrahamo totaque eius genealogia & aetate praecipuè agatur, de ceteris autem non nisi obiter & quasi per accidens. Cùmque Moses capite undecimo Geneseos describens generationes quae post diluvium fuerunt, in singulis illarum generationum diligenter annotaverit tempus quo quisque genitus fuerat, id profectò in Abraham, in quo terminabatur series illarum generationum, omittere non debuit.

But against this two things fight most strongly. And first indeed: if Thare in his seventieth year begot three sons, as Moses says, it must be true either that all those three were begotten in that year, or at least some one of them; for if he begot none then, to what purpose does Moses record that seventieth year of Thare in the begetting of those three? Thare therefore begot some one of those three in the seventieth year of his age; but which? Not Abraham then begotten [these say]; therefore either Nachor or Aram was begotten at that time. But it is by no means consonant with reason that Moses should have wished to explain the time of the begetting of Nachor and Aram and to be silent about the time of the begetting of Abraham — when the whole concern is chiefly about Abraham and his genealogy and age, but about the others only in passing and as it were by accident. And since Moses, in the eleventh chapter of Genesis describing the generations that were after the flood, in each of those generations diligently noted the time at which each one was begotten, that surely he ought not to have omitted in the case of Abraham, in whom the series of those generations was terminated.¹⁰

DEINDE, si cùm Thare dicitur annos septuaginta genuisse tres illos filios suos, eo sensu intelligatur ut referatur ad solum unum aliquem ex tribus, non autem ad Abraham; incommodè efficeretur ut tempus secundae aetatis Mundi, quae à diluvio usque ad Abraham numeratur, incertum redderetur, & confunderetur Chronologia quam Moses tanta cura & diligentia ubique tradere studuit.

Next, if when Thare is said at seventy years to have begotten those three sons of his, it be understood in such a sense that it refers to only some one of the three, and not to Abraham, it would inconveniently come about that the time of the second age of the World — which is numbered from the flood to Abraham — would be rendered uncertain, and the Chronology which Moses everywhere strove to hand down with so much care and diligence would be confounded.¹¹

ATQVE hoc etiam B. Augustini testimonio confirmatur. Is enim libro decimo sexto de Civitate Dei capite decimo quinto, tractans illa verba Mosis quae sunt in capite undecimo Geneseos secundum translationem Septuaginta, Et fuerunt dies Thare in Charran ducenti quinque, & mortuus est in Charran, sic ait…

And this too is confirmed by the testimony of blessed Augustine. For in the sixteenth book of the City of God, chapter fifteen, treating those words of Moses which are in the eleventh chapter of Genesis according to the translation of the Seventy, 'And the days of Thare in Charran were two hundred and five, and he died in Charran,' he says thus…¹²

Non est hoc sic accipiendum quasi hos omnes dies ibi egerit, sed quia omnes dies vitae suae, qui fuerunt anni ducenti quinque, ibi compleverit. Alioquin nesciretur quot annos vixerit Thare, quoniam non legitur quoto anno vitae suae in Charran venerit: & absurdum est existimare in ista serie generationum, ubi diligenter commemoratur quot annos quisque vixerit, huius solius numerum annorum vitae non commendatum esse memoriae. Quod enim quorundam quos eadem scriptura commemorat tacentur anni, non sunt illi in hoc ordine in quo temporum dinumeratio decessione gignentium & genitorum successione contexitur. Iste autem ordo, qui dirigitur ab Adam usque ad Noe, & inde usque ad Abraham, sine numero annorum vitae suae neminem continet. Hactenus verba sunt Augustini. Quod si pro magno Chronologiae incommodo duxit Augustinus non commemorari in scriptura tempus aetatis ipsius Thare, ut propter eius reticentiam putaverit perturbatum iri Chronologiam sacram; quanto verius hoc ipsum de tempore ortus & vitae ipsius Abrahae, cuius historiae scribendae praecipua fuit cura Mosis, existimare oportet?

“This is not to be taken as though he spent all those days there, but because he completed there all the days of his life, which were two hundred and five years. Otherwise it would not be known how many years Thare lived, since it is not read in what year of his life he came to Charran; and it is absurd to think that in this series of generations, where it is diligently recorded how many years each one lived, the number of this one man's years of life alone was not committed to memory. For as to those some of whom the same scripture mentions while their years are passed over in silence, they are not in this order in which the reckoning of times is woven together by the death of the begetters and the succession of the begotten. But this order, which runs from Adam to Noah, and thence to Abraham, contains no one without the number of his years of life.” Thus far the words of Augustine. And if Augustine reckoned it a great inconvenience to the Chronology that the time of Thare's age is not recorded in scripture — so that, on account of its silence, he supposed the sacred Chronology would be disturbed — how much more truly ought this same thing to be judged of the time of the birth and life of Abraham himself, in the writing of whose history Moses took chief care?¹³

AT enim propugnatores huius opinionis quam refellimus respondere possent, quando natus fuerit Abraham, ex ipsa Mosis narratione evidenter cognosci. Nam si, cùm post mortem patris ex urbe Haran venit in terram Chanaan, erat Abraham septuaginta quinque annorum, pater autem eius Thare vixit quinque & ducentos annos; ex his necessario concluditur anno centesimo trigesimo Thare natum esse Abraham, & à diluvio usque ad ortum Abrahae numerari debere trecentos quinquaginta duos annos; addita verò generatione Cainan, quae triginta annos continet, confici summam annorum à diluvio usque ad Abraham trecentorum octoginta duorum annorum.

But the defenders of the opinion we are refuting could reply that when Abraham was born is evidently known from Moses's own narration. For if, when after his father's death he came from the city of Haran into the land of Canaan, Abraham was seventy-five years old, while his father Thare lived two hundred and five years, from these it is necessarily concluded that Abraham was born in Thare's hundred and thirtieth year, and that from the flood to Abraham's birth three hundred and fifty-two years must be reckoned; but with the generation of Cainan added, which contains thirty years, the sum from the flood to Abraham is made three hundred and eighty-two years.¹⁴

ANDREAS Masius, scriptor nostrae aetatis non minus sanè (ut de aliis taceam) pius quàm eruditus ac disertus, in Commentariis quos edidit in librum Iosue, caput ultimum eius libri explanans, cùm hanc ipsam quaestionem obiter tractaret, scripsit videri sibi similius vero Abraham primùm venisse in Chananaeam septuagesimo quinto aetatis suae anno, patre nimirum vivente & annum agente centesimum quadragesimum quintum. Quod autem B. Stephanus ait venisse eum in terram Chanaan post mortem patris, interpretandum esse…

Andreas Masius, a writer of our age no less pious (to say nothing of his other qualities) than learned and eloquent, in the Commentaries he published on the book of Joshua, explaining the last chapter of that book, when he treated this very question in passing, wrote that it seemed to him nearer the truth that Abraham first came into Canaan in the seventy-fifth year of his age — his father, that is, being alive and in his hundred and forty-fifth year. But that blessed Stephen says he came into the land of Canaan after his father's death is to be interpreted…¹⁵

…esse putat de morte non quidem naturali, sed spirituali. nam quia Thare obstinatissima voluntate constituerat in Chananaeam regionem, quo Deus vocabat, non ire, sed apud suos deos, quorum vanissimo cultui erat deditus, manere, & filio suo Abrahamo spem omnem illius profectionis ademerat: propterea B. Stephanus eum appellavit mortuum. neque enim infrequens est in sacris literis, praesertim verò apud Paulum, eos qui iacebant in peccatis, maximè verò in peccato idololatriae, mortuos appellari; quale est illud Domini: Dimitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos. Verùm haec interpretatio nec mihi probatur, nec, ut opinor, cuiquam divinarum literarum prudenti & perito probanda est. Siquidem orationem B. Stephani à propria verborum significatione ac sententia detorquens ad Tropologiam intelligendam, pervertit narrationem historicam, qualem esse eo loco Stephani orationem nemo non videt.

…to be understood of a death not natural indeed, but spiritual. For because Thare had, with most obstinate will, resolved not to go into the region of Canaan whither God was calling, but to remain among his own gods, to whose most vain worship he was given, and had taken from his son Abraham all hope of that journey — therefore blessed Stephen called him dead; for it is not infrequent in the sacred letters, especially in Paul, that those who lay in sins, and most of all in the sin of idolatry, are called dead, such as that saying of the Lord, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” But this interpretation neither pleases me, nor, as I think, ought it to please anyone prudent and skilled in the divine letters. For, twisting Stephen's speech from the proper signification and sense of the words to a tropological understanding, it perverts the historical narrative — which everyone sees Stephen's speech in that place to be.¹⁶

NEC illa nonnullis displicet enodandae huius difficultatis via & ratio: putant profectionem illam Abrahae in regionem Chanaan, cùm is septuaginta quinque annorum esset, fuisse multis annis ante mortem Thare; sed eam tamen à Mose post mortem eius commemoratam esse per figuram quae nominatur recapitulatio, qua posterius narrantur quae prius gesta fuerant. Hac figura usus est Moses infra capite vigesimo quinto, narrans prius mortem Abrahae, post eam verò ortum Iacob & Esau; cùm manifestum sit ex historia huius libri mortem Abrahae quindecim annis posteriorem fuisse ortu Iacob. Ergo quia Moses voluit quaecunque pertinebant ad historiam Thare breviter expedire, exinde autem orsus historiam Abrahae diligenter & copiosè pertexere; propterea prius exposuit mortem Thare, deinde autem, orsus historiam Abrahae, initium eius repetiit à profectione eius in terram Chanaan, licet id multis annis Thare mortem antecesserit.

Nor does that way and reason of unravelling this difficulty displease some: they think that journey of Abraham into the region of Canaan, when he was seventy-five years old, was many years before the death of Thare; but that it was nevertheless recorded by Moses after his death, by the figure which is called recapitulation, whereby things done earlier are narrated later. Moses used this figure below in the twenty-fifth chapter, narrating first the death of Abraham, and after it the birth of Jacob and Esau — though it is manifest from the history of this book that the death of Abraham was fifteen years later than the birth of Jacob. Therefore, because Moses wished to dispatch briefly whatever pertained to the history of Thare, and then, beginning Abraham's history, to weave it diligently and copiously, he first set out the death of Thare, and then, beginning Abraham's history, took its beginning from his journey into the land of Canaan — although that preceded Thare's death by many years.¹⁷

SED huic expositioni adversatur narratio B. Stephani, quae est in Actis Apostolorum, ut proximè dictum est: quippe quae distinctè & propriè habet Abraham venisse in terram Chanaan post patris sui mortem; quae verba refugium illud ad figuram recapitulationis prorsus excludunt. Verùm respondent ad hoc quidam scriptores, sacros appellare res ipsas non ex eo quod verè sunt, sed ex eo quod in aliis Scripturae locis sic commemoratae sunt: quemadmodum Beatus Paulus ad Hebraeos septimo scripsit Melchisedec fuisse sine patre, sine matre, sine fine aut initio dierum, propterea quòd Moses in libro Genesis, ubi mentionem eius facit, repente inducit ipsum, nulla eius vel parentum vel aetatis eius facta mentione. Similiter igitur quia Moses egressum Abrahae ex patria sua narravit post mortem Thare, idcirco Stephanus modum narrationis Mosaicae spectans dixit Abraham egressum esse de terra sua post mortem patris sui.

But against this exposition stands the narration of blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles, as was just said: for it distinctly and properly holds that Abraham came into the land of Canaan after his father's death — words which utterly exclude that refuge to the figure of recapitulation. But to this some writers reply that the sacred [authors] name things themselves not from what they truly are, but from how they are recorded in other places of Scripture: just as blessed Paul, in Hebrews chapter seven, wrote that Melchisedech was without father, without mother, without end or beginning of days, because Moses in the book of Genesis, where he mentions him, suddenly introduces him with no mention made of him, or of his parents, or of his age. Similarly, then, because Moses narrated Abraham's going out from his homeland after the death of Thare, therefore Stephen, regarding the manner of the Mosaic narration, said that Abraham went out from his land after his father's death.¹⁸

SED enim huic interpretationi obstat, quod Stephanus eo loci…

But this interpretation is opposed by the fact that Stephen in that place…¹⁹

…narrat Deum Abrahae, cùm esset in Mesopotamia & priusquam habitaret in Charran, dixisse verba illa: Exi de terra tua & de cognatione tua, &c. quae si voluisset Stephanus ordinem narrationis Mosaicae sequi, dixisset utique illa verba locutum esse Deum Abrahae post mortem Thare, post quam mortem dixerat eum venisse in terram Chanaan; non, ut in exordio capitis duodecimi, à verbis ea commemorat.

…narrates that God, when Abraham was in Mesopotamia and before he dwelt in Charran, spoke those words: “Go out from your land and from your kindred, etc.” If Stephen had wished to follow the order of the Mosaic narration, he would surely have said that God spoke those words to Abraham after the death of Thare — after which death he had said Abraham came into the land of Canaan — and not have reported them, as at the opening of the twelfth chapter, from [their first] words.²⁰

RESTAT quinta & ultima explicandae huius quaestionis ratio, superioribus meo iudicio praeferenda. Existimare oportet Abraham bis ex urbe Charran venisse in regionem Chananaeam: primùm quidem venit, cùm esset ipse septuaginta quinque annorum, relicto in Charran patre vivo & annum tunc centesimum quadragesimum quintum agente. Post hunc primum in Chananaeam terram adventum, Abraham per sexaginta annos in ea regione peregrinatus est, aliquoties fortasse patrem revisens. Postremùm, renunciata patris morte, reversus est Charran, ut vel patris funus curaret, vel ne bona quae paterna haereditate sibi obvenerant perderet; & tunc iterùm, mortuo iam patre, egressus est de Mesopotamia firmissimo animo certissimoque proposito nunquam eò in posterum reversurus, profectusque est in terram Chanaan, ut ibi deinceps stabilem haberet habitationem. Atque hoc significari putat B. Augustinus iis verbis quibus usus est B. Stephanus: Et inde, postquam mortuus est pater eius, transtulit illum in terram istam. pro illo, inquam, verbo transtulit, Augustinus legit collocavit. Graecè est μετῴκισεν, id est, colonum & habitatorem fecit, eique quasi nunquam amplius in Mesopotamiam reversuro domicilium in terra Chanaan statuit. siquidem vox μετοικία non simplicem translationem, sed quasi coloniam denotat.

There remains a fifth and last way of explaining this question, in my judgment to be preferred to the foregoing. One must hold that Abraham came twice from the city of Charran into the region of Canaan. First indeed he came when he himself was seventy-five years old, his father being left alive in Charran and being then in his hundred and forty-fifth year. After this first coming into the land of Canaan, Abraham sojourned in that region for sixty years, perhaps revisiting his father a few times. Last of all, the death of his father being announced, he returned to Charran, either to attend to his father's funeral or lest he lose the goods that had come to him by paternal inheritance; and then again, his father being now dead, he went out of Mesopotamia with most firm mind and most fixed resolve never thereafter to return there, and set out into the land of Canaan to have henceforth a settled dwelling there. And this blessed Augustine thinks is signified by those words that blessed Stephen used: “And thence, after his father died, He removed him into this land.” For that word 'removed,' Augustine reads 'settled.' In Greek it is μετῴκισεν, that is, He made him a colonist and inhabitant, and appointed for him a dwelling in the land of Canaan, as for one never again to return to Mesopotamia; for the word μετοικία denotes not a simple transfer, but as it were a colonization.²¹

ERGO Abraham ante mortem patris sui, per annos sexaginta, dici potest non tam habitasse in terra Chanaan, quàm peregrinatum esse, quòd per intervalla patrem & fratres reviseret; post mortem autem patris ita Mesopotamiam dereliquit, ut perpetuus deinceps terrae Chananaeae colonus & habitator esset. Huic rei fidem illud facit, quod in libro Geneseos capite vigesimo tertio legitur, Abraham, cùm esset centum triginta septem annorum, hoc est, duobus annis post mortem Thare patris sui, primùm possedisse partem aliquam terrae Chanaan, empta spelunca duplici in sepulturam uxoris Sarae: quod sanè non est ab Augustino non animadversum & annotatum.

Therefore Abraham, before his father's death, throughout those sixty years can be said not so much to have dwelt in the land of Canaan as to have sojourned, because at intervals he revisited his father and brothers; but after his father's death he so abandoned Mesopotamia that he was thenceforth a perpetual colonist and inhabitant of the land of Canaan. To this is given confirmation by what is read in the book of Genesis, chapter twenty-three: that Abraham, when he was a hundred and thirty-seven years old — that is, two years after the death of Thare his father — first possessed some part of the land of Canaan, having bought the double cave for the burial of his wife Sara; which indeed was not left unnoticed and unannotated by Augustine.²²

HANC sententiam Tostatus sequitur; sed eius sententiae principem partem convenit Augustino. Is enim in Quaestionibus super Genesim, quaestione vigesima quinta, & in libro decimo sexto de Civitate Dei capite decimo quinto, licet tres enodandae huius quaestionis rationes exponat, id est, de iis quas supra commemoravimus, primam, secundam & quintam, in hanc tamen quintam videtur ipse propensior. Nam cùm in eo libro, quem proximè dixi, de Civitate Dei, difficultatem indicasset quam nos in hac disputatione tractamus, quomodo Abraham post mortem patris, qui ducen-…

Tostatus follows this opinion; but the chief part of his opinion agrees with Augustine. For Augustine, in the Questions on Genesis, question twenty-five, and in the sixteenth book of the City of God, chapter fifteen, although he sets out three ways of unravelling this question — that is, of those we mentioned above, the first, the second, and the fifth — yet seems himself more inclined to this fifth. For when, in that book of the City of God just mentioned, he had pointed out the difficulty which we treat in this disputation — how Abraham, after the death of his father, who [had lived] two hundred…²³

…ducentos quinque annos vixerat, & ipsum genuerat septuagesimo aetatis suae anno, quòd Abraham tunc venit in terram Chanaan, respondet igitur revera Abraham fuisse tunc septuaginta quinque annorum, neque eo tempore fuisse mortuum Thare patrem eius, sed annum egisse centesimum quadragesimum quintum: Mosen tamen quasi per recapitulationem discessum illum Abrahae ex Mesopotamia narrasse post mortem patris sui Thare à se commemoratam. Sic autem scribit B. Augustinus: Intelligendum est more suo scripturam recapitulando redisse ad tempus quod iam narratio transierat: nam cùm dictum esset, Et fuerunt dies Thare in Charran quinque & ducenti anni, & mortuus est Thare, &c. deinde scriptura redeundo ad id quod ideo praetermiserat, ut prius de Thare id quod inchoatum erat compleret, subiunxit praecepti Domini datum Abrahae de egrediendo ex terra sua; & quod tunc Abraham fuerit septuaginta quinque annorum. Tunc autem revera hoc factum est, cùm pater eius centesimum quadragesimum quintum annum ageret aetatis: tunc enim fuit Abraham septuagesimum quintum annum agens.

…had lived two hundred and five years, and had begotten him in the seventieth year of his age, [says] that Abraham then came into the land of Canaan — he answers, therefore, that in truth Abraham was then seventy-five years old, and that at that time Thare his father was not dead, but was in his hundred and forty-fifth year; yet that Moses, as it were by recapitulation, narrated that departure of Abraham from Mesopotamia after the death of his father Thare, which he had [already] recorded. And thus blessed Augustine writes: “It is to be understood that scripture, after its custom, by recapitulating has returned to a time which the narrative had already passed; for when it had been said, ‘And the days of Thare in Charran were two hundred and five years, and Thare died,’ etc., then scripture, returning to that which it had passed over for this reason — that it might first complete concerning Thare what had been begun — subjoined the giving of the Lord's command to Abraham about going out from his land; and that Abraham was then seventy-five years old. But this truly happened when his father was in his hundred and forty-fifth year of age; for then Abraham was in his seventy-fifth year.”²⁴

POST haec Augustinus tractans verba illa B. Stephani, Inde postquam mortuus est pater eius, transtulit eum [Deus] in terram istam (ubi pro illo verbo transtulit legit Augustinus collocavit, quibus verbis significatur Abraham post mortem patris sui venisse in terram Chanaan), haec, inquam, verba tractans ait Augustinus: Non dixit Stephanus, postquam mortuus est pater eius, exiit de Charran, sed dixit, postquam mortuus est pater eius hic eum collocavit. Intelligendum igitur est locutum fuisse Deum cùm Abraham esset in Mesopotamia, priusquam habitaret in Charran; sed eum in Charran pervenisse cum patre, retento apud se praecepto Dei, & inde exisse septuagesimo & quinto suo, patris autem sui centesimo quadragesimo quinto anno. Nec sanè incredibiliter existimatur, cùm postea secutus esset Nachor frater Abrahami patrem suum Thare, tunc Abrahamum Dei praeceptum implevisse, & cum Sara coniuge sua & Lot filio fratris sui exisse de Charran; collocationem verò Abrahae in terra Chanaan post mortem patris, non autem profectionem de Charran appellasse Stephanum, quia iam mortuus erat pater eius quando emit terram, cuius ibi iam, ut suae rei, coepit esse possessor. Quod autem iam in Mesopotamia constituto, hoc iam egresso de terra Chaldaeorum dixit Deus, Exi de terra tua & de cognatione tua & de domo patris tui, non ut corpus inde exiret, quod iam fecerat, sed ut animam evelleret, dicitur. Non enim exierat inde animo, si spe redeundi & desiderio tenebatur, quae spes & desiderium, Deo iubente ac iuvante & illo obediente, fuerat amputanda. Haec Augustinus.

After these things Augustine, treating those words of blessed Stephen, “Thence, after his father died, God removed him into this land” (where, for that word 'removed' Augustine reads 'settled,' by which words it is signified that Abraham came into the land of Canaan after his father's death) — treating, I say, these words, Augustine says: “Stephen did not say, after his father died he went out of Charran, but said, after his father died He settled him here. It is therefore to be understood that God spoke when Abraham was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran; but that he came to Charran with his father, keeping the command of God with him, and went out thence in his seventy-fifth, but his father's hundred and forty-fifth, year. Nor indeed is it incredibly supposed that, when afterward Nachor the brother of Abraham had followed his father Thare, then Abraham fulfilled God's command, and went out of Charran with Sara his wife and Lot his brother's son; and that Stephen named the settling of Abraham in the land of Canaan after his father's death, but not his departure from Charran, because his father was already dead when he bought the land, of which there he now began to be possessor as of his own property. And that to him, now established in Mesopotamia, now gone out from the land of the Chaldees, God said, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house,’ is said not that he should go out thence in body, which he had already done, but that he should tear out his soul. For he had not gone out thence in soul, if he was held by the hope of returning and by desire — which hope and desire, with God commanding and helping and him obeying, had to be cut off.” Thus Augustine.²⁵

ERGO duplicem cogitare oportet Abrahae profectionem ex Mesopotamia in terram Chanaan: alteram quidem vivo patre eius & centesimum quadragesimum quintum annum agente, ipso autem Abraham annos nato septuaginta quinque; & de hac profectione locutus est Moses capite duodecimo huius libri. Altera verò eiusdem profectio sexaginta annis post facta est, quibus annis peregrinatus est Abraham in terra Chanaan, nonnunquam revisens patrem suum; post cuius mortem ita dereliquit Mesopotamiam, ut nunquam eò…

Therefore one must conceive a double journey of Abraham from Mesopotamia into the land of Canaan: the one indeed while his father was alive and in his hundred and forty-fifth year, and Abraham himself seventy-five years old — and of this journey Moses spoke in the twelfth chapter of this book; but the other journey of his was made sixty years afterward, during which years Abraham sojourned in the land of Canaan, sometimes revisiting his father; after whose death he so abandoned Mesopotamia that never thither…²⁶

…eò reversurus esset, ut superius diximus. Atque hac posteriori decessione Abrahae ex Mesopotamia & profectione in terram Chanaan locutus est B. Stephanus. Atque haec sententia, quae est B. Augustini, plus apud me ponderis habet quàm quod tradit S. Chrysostomus homilia trigesima prima in Genesim, Abraham non ante mortem patris sui Thare ex urbe Haran unquam discessisse.

…he would return, as we said above. And of this latter departure of Abraham from Mesopotamia and journey into the land of Canaan blessed Stephen spoke. And this opinion, which is that of blessed Augustine, has with me more weight than what Chrysostom hands down in the thirty-first homily on Genesis — that Abraham never departed from the city of Haran before the death of his father Thare.²⁷

HVIVS autem duplicis profectionis Abrahae Tostatus causam reddit sanè idoneam & probabilem. Causa, inquit Tostatus, duplicis exitus Abrahae de Charran & adventus in Chanaan fuit, quia primùm venit Abraham cum patre suo in Charran, & mansit ibi diu, eratque tunc pater eius Thare verus Dei cultor; sed postea, processu temporis, depravatus est, fortasse ex consortio filii sui, factusque est idololatra in terra Chaldaeorum, ut scribit Augustinus libro decimo sexto de Civitate Dei capite decimo quarto. Ne igitur Abraham perverteretur propter pravam conversationem idololatrarum & propter alias causas, iussit eum Deus exire de Charran & de domo patris sui, & venire in terram Chanaan; eratque tunc Abraham septuaginta quinque annorum, pater autem eius centum quadraginta quinque. Et tunc Abraham peregrinatus est in terra Chanaan sexaginta annis; sexagesimo autem anno, qui erat aetatis Abrahae centesimus trigesimus quintus, mortuus est pater eius Thare. Tunc Abraham rediit in Charran, partim ut sepulturae patris operam suam navaret, partim ut bona paterna quae sibi haereditario iure obvenerant possideret. Post haec omnino ex Mesopotamia profectus est in Chanaan, animo nunquam illuc rediturus; & de hac ultima profectione locutus est B. Stephanus. Haec Tostatus. Sed utrùm Nachor & Thare fuerint Idololatrae (ut hoc loco ait Tostatus) nec ne, dispiciemus infrà in alia disputatione, quam secundo post hanc loco tractaturi sumus.

Of this double journey of Abraham, Tostatus renders a cause indeed fitting and probable. The cause, says Tostatus, of Abraham's double going out from Charran and coming into Canaan was this: that first Abraham came with his father into Charran and stayed there a long time, and his father Thare was then a true worshipper of God; but afterward, in process of time, he was corrupted — perhaps from the company of his [other] son — and became an idolater in the land of the Chaldees, as Augustine writes in the sixteenth book of the City of God, chapter fourteen. Therefore, lest Abraham be perverted on account of the wicked conduct of the idolaters and for other causes, God commanded him to go out from Charran and from his father's house and come into the land of Canaan; and Abraham was then seventy-five years old, but his father a hundred and forty-five. And then Abraham sojourned in the land of Canaan sixty years; but in the sixtieth year, which was the hundred and thirty-fifth of Abraham's age, his father Thare died. Then Abraham returned to Charran, partly to bestow his care on his father's burial, partly to possess the paternal goods that had come to him by hereditary right. After all this he set out entirely from Mesopotamia into Canaan, with mind never to return thither; and of this last journey blessed Stephen spoke. Thus Tostatus. But whether Nachor and Thare were idolaters (as Tostatus here says) or not, we shall examine below in another disputation, which we are going to treat in the second place after this one.²⁸

Translator’s notes

Disp. 13 title (the third and last disputation of the Second Part). On Gen 11:26, 'Thare lived seventy years and begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran' — the question being in what year of Thare's life Abraham was actually born. Margin: 'Genesis 11, v. 26.' ↩
§186 (the problem). Gen 11:26 seems to make Abraham born in Thare's 70th year; but Thare lived 205 years (Gen 11:32), and Abraham was 75 when he left for Canaan after Thare's death (Gen 12:4) — which puts Abraham's birth in Thare's 130th year (205−75). Pererius will give three solutions. ↩
§187 (first solution — the Hebrews). Abraham was really 130 at Thare's death, but Moses counts only 75 years — reckoned not from birth but from his 'rebirth' when, at Charran, he refused Chaldean idolatry, confessed the one God, and emerged unharmed from a fire. They support this fire-legend from elder traditions and from reading 'Ur of the Chaldees' as 'fire of the Chaldees' (Hebrew 'Ur' = fire), citing Neh 9:7 ('who led Abraham out of the fire of the Chaldees'). Margin: 'The Hebrews.' ↩
§188 (begins). Jerome (Hebrew Questions/Traditions on Genesis) first records the fire-legend as a fable and refutes it, but then, finding no better exit, leans on it: he frames the 'insoluble question' — if Abraham was born in Thare's 70th year and Thare lived to 205, then at Thare's death Abraham would be 135, yet Gen 12 calls him 75. (Jerome's resolution continues next page.) Margin: 'Jerome.' ↩
§188 (concl.). Jerome's adopted resolution: Abraham's 75 years are counted from his confession of God amid the 'Babylonian/Chaldean fire' (when God delivered him), not from his birth — so the 75 dates from his deliverance, harmonizing with the Hebrew fire-tradition. ↩
§189 (refutation of the Hebrews). Their view is partly fabulous (the Chaldean-fire deliverance — to be treated below) and partly contrary to Scripture: if Abraham was really 135 at his coming yet Moses calls him 75, then 60 years would have elapsed between Thare's death and that coming — flatly against Gen 12, which has Abraham enter Canaan immediately after Thare died. Margin: 'The Hebrews refuted.' ↩
§190. Pererius blocks the Hebrews' escape-route (claiming Abraham left Charran some years after Thare's death): that is a baseless conjecture against the plain text, which sets the departure immediately after Thare died. The first opinion is therefore repudiated. ↩
§191 (begins — second solution). Theodoret (Questions on Genesis, q. 60), Nicholas of Lyra, and Cajetan: Gen 11:26 does not prove Abraham was Thare's firstborn. Thare at 70 began begetting (one of the three, not Abram); Abram was actually born in Thare's 130th year. The three are named by dignity, not birth order (argument continues next page). Margin: 'Nicholas of Lyra; Cajetan.' ↩
§191 (concl.). Abram is named first by dignity (God's election — source of the Hebrew people and the Messiah), not birth order, as Isaac before Ismael and Jacob before Esau (1 Chron 4), and Sem listed first though not Noah's firstborn. The view is attractive because it removes all the difficulty: Abraham truly was 75 on entering Canaan (Gen 12), being born in Thare's 130th year. ↩
§192 (first objection). If Thare at 70 begot three sons, at least one was born that year (else why does Moses note the 70th year?). Per the Lyra/Cajetan view it was not Abraham, so Nachor or Aram — but it is unreasonable that Moses would date Nachor's/Aram's birth and omit Abraham's, when the whole passage centers on Abraham, the others mentioned only incidentally; and Moses carefully dates every post-flood begetting. Margin: 'Abraham's birth.' ↩
§193 (second objection). If the 70th year refers to one of the other sons and not to Abraham, then the length of the world's second age (flood→Abraham) becomes uncertain and the chronology Moses everywhere kept exact would be confounded. ↩
§194 (begins). Pererius adds Augustine's testimony: in City of God bk. 16 ch. 15, commenting on Gen 11:32 (LXX: 'the days of Thare in Charran were 205, and he died in Charran'), Augustine says… (continues next page). Margin: 'Augustine.' ↩
§194 (concl.). The close of Augustine's testimony (City of God 16.15 on Gen 11:32 LXX): 'the days of Thare were 205 years' means he completed his life there, not that he spent it all there; and the genealogical order from Adam through Abraham records everyone's lifespan — so the silence about Thare's age at Abraham's begetting is deliberate. Pererius's a-fortiori: if such silence about Thare worried Augustine for the chronology, far more does the silence about Abraham's own birth-date, the very subject of the history. ↩
§195. The opposing side's rejoinder: Abraham's birth-date IS knowable from Moses — Abraham was 75 at his coming to Canaan after Thare's death, Thare lived 205, so Abraham was born in Thare's 130th year. This makes the flood-to-Abraham total 352 years (the earlier 292 + 60, since Thare was 130 not 70 at the birth), or 382 with Cainan's 30. ↩
§196 (begins — third opinion). Andreas Masius (16th-c. scholar), in his Commentary on Joshua (last chapter), treating this question in passing, holds it likelier that Abraham first came to Canaan at 75, while his father Thare was still alive and in his 145th year. Stephen's 'after his father's death' (Acts 7) Masius takes... (continues next page). Margin: 'Andreas Masius said'; 'Third opinion'; 'Acts 7.' ↩
§196 (concl.). Masius reads Stephen's 'after his father died' as a SPIRITUAL death: Thare obstinately refused to go to Canaan, clinging to his idols and dashing Abraham's hope, so Stephen called him 'dead' (as Scripture, esp. Paul, calls those in sin — and the idolatrous — dead; cf. the Lord's 'Let the dead bury their dead,' Mt 8). Pererius rejects this: it twists Stephen's plainly historical speech into a tropology. Margin: 'Matthew 8.' ↩
§197 (fourth opinion). Some resolve it by 'recapitulation' (narrating earlier events later): Abraham's journey to Canaan at 75 actually happened many years before Thare died, but Moses placed it after Thare's death as a literary device — just as Gen 25 narrates Abraham's death before Jacob and Esau's birth, though Abraham died 15 years after Jacob was born. So Moses finished Thare's brief history first, then began Abraham's at his journey to Canaan, though it preceded Thare's death. Margin: 'Fourth opinion.' ↩
§197 (concl.). Objection to the recapitulation view: Stephen (Acts 7) distinctly says Abraham came to Canaan AFTER his father's death, which excludes recapitulation. A defense: sacred writers may describe things as Scripture elsewhere records them, not as they literally were — as Paul (Heb 7) calls Melchisedech 'without father, mother, beginning of days' merely because Moses introduces him abruptly (Gen 14). So Stephen followed Moses's narrative order. Margin: 'Genesis 14.' ↩
§198 (begins). Pererius's counter: but Stephen in that passage [narrates that God spoke the Gen 12:1 call to Abraham while still in Mesopotamia, before Charran — so Stephen does not simply follow Moses's order; continues next page]. ↩
§198 (concl.). The objection completed: Stephen places God's call ('Go out from your land,' Gen 12:1) while Abraham was in Mesopotamia, BEFORE Charran. Had Stephen merely followed Moses's order, he would have set the call after Thare's death; so he is reporting the real sequence, not Moses's literary order — which undercuts the recapitulation defense. ↩
§199 (fifth/preferred solution — the two journeys). Abraham came to Canaan TWICE: first at age 75 (Thare alive, in his 145th year); he then sojourned 60 years, occasionally revisiting his father; finally, on news of Thare's death, he returned to Charran (for the funeral and his inheritance), then left Mesopotamia for good to settle permanently in Canaan. Augustine takes Stephen's 'removed him' (Acts 7:4) as 'settled' (collocavit; Greek μετῴκισεν, μετοικία = a colonization, not a mere transfer). ↩
§200. During the 60 years Abraham was a sojourner rather than a settler (revisiting kin); only after Thare's death did he become a permanent inhabitant. Confirmation: Gen 23 records Abraham first possessing land in Canaan — the double cave bought for Sara's burial — when he was 137, i.e. two years after Thare's death (Abraham being 135 when Thare died). Augustine noted this. ↩
§201 (begins). Tostatus follows this fifth view, its main part agreeing with Augustine. Augustine (Questions on Genesis q. 25; City of God 16.15) lays out three of the solutions (the first, second, and fifth listed here) but inclines to the fifth. He had raised the same difficulty treated here — how Abraham, after his father's death (Thare having lived 205…)... (continues next page). Margin: 'Tostatus; Augustine.' ↩
§201 (concl.). Augustine's resolution (City of God 16.15): Abraham was truly 75 at his coming to Canaan, with Thare not yet dead but in his 145th year; Moses, by recapitulation, narrated the departure after recording Thare's death. Augustine quoted: scripture returned by recapitulation to a passed time — having said 'the days of Thare were 205… and Thare died,' it then went back to complete Thare's account and subjoined God's command to Abraham (Abraham being 75, his father 145). ↩
§202. Augustine on Stephen's wording (Acts 7:4): Stephen says not 'after his father died he left Charran' but 'after his father died God settled him here' (Augustine reads 'settled' for 'removed'). So God's call came in Mesopotamia before Charran; Abraham reached Charran with his father, then left at 75 (father 145). Stephen dates the SETTLING (not the departure) after Thare's death, since Thare was already dead when Abraham bought land and became a possessor. And 'Go out from your land…' meant tearing out his soul (cutting off the hope/desire of returning), not bodily departure, which he had already made. ↩
§203 (begins). Summation: Abraham made a double journey from Mesopotamia to Canaan — the first at age 75 (father alive, 145), which Moses recounts in Gen 12; the second 60 years later, after sojourning and occasionally revisiting his father, when on Thare's death he left Mesopotamia never to return (continues next page). ↩
§203 (concl.). Stephen (Acts 7) spoke of this LATTER departure (after Thare's death). Pererius judges Augustine's two-journey view weightier than Chrysostom's (Homily 31 on Genesis), which held Abraham never left Haran before Thare died. ↩
§204 (concl. of Disp. 13 and of Liber XVI). Tostatus's account of WHY Abraham journeyed twice: Thare was at first a true worshipper of God but later became an idolater among the Chaldees (Augustine, City of God 16.14); so God called Abraham out (at 75, Thare 145) to keep him from corruption. Abraham sojourned 60 years; in the 60th (his 135th year) Thare died; Abraham returned to Charran for the burial and inheritance, then left Mesopotamia for good — the journey Stephen meant. Pererius defers the question whether Nachor and Thare were truly idolaters to a later disputation (the second after this). This ends Liber XVI / Genesis 11. ↩