Chapter 2: Noah as Man of the Earth, Abraham, and the Hebrew Language

I. That Noah was a "man of the earth" — that is, one occupied with a humble manner of life — Scripture notes in Genesis ix. 20. This befitted the wretched condition of sinners on earth, and his own in particular, who had witnessed the dreadful judgments of God upon the antediluvian world. Hence the mythmakers called Saturn the husband of Rhea, that is, of the Earth. This is the conjecture of Bochart, Geog. Sac., lib. i. cap. i. Whatever later ages may have thought of him, it is plain that this manner of life was displeasing to the ungodly of his age. He also planted a vineyard and drank of the wine; hence he was called Janus. That he was a preacher of righteousness in the antediluvian age, the apostle affirms in 2 Peter ii. 5. Faithfully discharging that office, he condemned the world — which he could not heal — by his faith and deeds (Hebrews xi. 7). His preaching is remembered in the poems called the Sibylline Oracles, in these and other verses:

O men, stained with wickedness and wickedness, trusting in mortal breath: you have not called upon God with a cry. For the immortal Savior, all-governing, who sent me as His messenger, knows all things — do not wander from the path of the righteous.

Cease from evils, putting aside wickedness; stop injuring one another violently, having a murderous heart,

defiling the earth with human bloodshed, practicing impiety widely.

"Faithless men, what madness has seized you? God is not ignorant of what you do; for the Author of salvation, imperishable, sees all things and knows all things. He who commanded me to declare these words to you — let not foolish sloth bring you to ruin. Speak justice, abstain from vices, and do not exercise cruel hatred among yourselves, widely staining the earth with human blood."

This is the Sibyl who, shortly afterwards, pretends that she was Noah's daughter-in-law and was with him and her husband in the ark. But everything that circulates under the name of the Sibyls is fabricated. I marvel that any mortal could ever have been of so abject credulity as to think otherwise. Their authors not only drew very much from the Holy Scriptures, but were Christians — and heretics at that. It is not improbable that Priscilla and Maximilla, the prophetesses of Montanus, composed these chants, if women were the authors of that work. The mysteries of the Christian religion were drawn from the Sibylline Oracles only after their prophecies had been published. I would not deny that certain prophetic women whom they called Sibyls, as though privy to the more secret counsels of the gods (for, as Diodorus says in lib. iv. 61, to be divinely inspired is what is meant by the word sibyllaino), lived among the nations. But all historical testimony teaches that their lots and oracles were diabolical. Let one consult what Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Cicero, Varro, Livy, Tacitus, Zosimus, and others — who have recorded what was drawn from their books at various times by order of the Roman Senate — have attested; everything smacks of diabolical superstition and Hellenism. Cornelius Tacitus sums up all of it in Annals xv. cap. xliv: "It was customary," he says, "to seek expiations from the gods, and the Sibylline books were consulted, from which supplications were made to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, and Juno was propitiated by the matrons, first on the Capitol, then at the nearest shore." Perhaps, however, the ancient serpent — after his custom of making truth suspect and gaining credit for falsehoods — did mix some true things in with the false. Even those things which, through a faint tradition of the first promise and of other divine revelations, had penetrated the earlier ages of the world concerning the future kingdom of the Messiah, may have been drawn into pagan gaps and intermingled with these oracles. Such seems to be the passage that Marcus Tullius mentions in lib. ii. de Divinatione, cap. liv.: "We observe," he says, "the verses of the Sibyl, which she is said to have poured forth in a frenzy; of which it was recently reported by common rumor that I was about to say in the Senate that he whom we truly had as king should also be called king, if we wished to be safe. If this is in the books, to what man and to what time does it refer? For he who composed those verses was clever in this respect: he omitted any specification of persons and times, so that whatever came to pass might appear to have been predicted." He notes Lucius Cotta, one of the quindecimviri, who — at the instigation of Antony, who sought to add even the name of royal power to the ambition of Julius Caesar — attempted to satisfy public expectation of that era concerning a coming great king. The same oracle is expounded in nearly the same words by the most eminent of Roman historians, Suetonius and Tacitus: the former in the Life of Vespasian, the latter in the fifth book of the Histories. Suetonius calls it "an old and established opinion." Tacitus calls it "a persuasion from the ancient books of the priests" — namely: from the East one will prevail, and one who goes forth from Judea will gain dominion. But these things have nothing to do with our verses.

II. We have shown above that Noah warned his antediluvian contemporaries of their crimes. It would be wicked to suspect that he did not also strive with greater effort to restrain his sons and grandsons after the flood from impiety and defection from God — yet both efforts were in vain. For although he was the father of the entire new people, he was nevertheless unable to restrain his degenerate sons from the foolish attempt to make a name for themselves by building a great tower (Genesis xi. 3, 4).

III. Holy Scripture clearly indicates that Noah himself, and all the pious, abstained from that mad enterprise of the apostates. Those who undertook that deed were the "sons of men," (Genesis 11:5) — that is, "sons of men." These are set in opposition to the "sons of God" — that is, the pious and God-fearing. For from the days of Enosh, both before and after the flood, the "sons of God" were the pious men who adhered to the Adamic theology and divine worship, while the "sons of men" were deserters and apostates. The Holy Spirit here therefore indicates the ungodly apostates and deserters of the church. Boys have dreamed up a giant-myth born from this passage. But they built the tower not in order to ascend into heaven. Nor is it credible that those whom God prevented from completing what they had begun (v. 6) were mad with that particular insanity. Nor did they undertake that deed in order to secure themselves against another flood. They could not have been ignorant that there would be no more universal floods. Nor for that reason would they have descended from the highest mountains of the whole earth into a very deep valley. But Moses expressly testifies that, lifted up with pride and vainglory, they had resolved among themselves to acquire a name and glory for themselves by that work, v. 4.

IV. Much is debated in various places about the confusion of languages, but this is not the place for it. Let us add a few words about the primeval language and the reason for the name it afterward obtained. We have said that the "sons of God" in no way made themselves accomplices in the crime. With them, therefore, and their descendants, the use of the primeval language remained. Learned men are nearly unanimous that this language was Hebrew — the language, namely, that was afterward called by that name. The distinguished Bochart correctly states [Geog. Sac.], lib. i. cap. x.: "While the languages of others were confused, these" (that is, the pious participants in the covenant) "retained their own — namely, that most ancient tongue which, from Heber, was called Hebrew, because it remained whole and intact among the posterity of Heber." As far as I know, among more recent writers Grotius alone holds a different opinion, in his Annotations on Genesis cap. xi. 1, "The earth was of one lip." "That language," he says, "the Hebrews call their own; the Syrians call it their own." This is correct; the Hebrews say so, and say so consistently. So the Targum of Jonathan: "They spoke in the holy tongue in which the world was created from the beginning." The Jerusalem Targum uses the same words. Rabbi Solomon Jarchi on this passage: "One lip is the holy tongue." So also Aben Ezra and all the ancient Christians, with the exception of Theodoret. "But the Syrians think it was their language," says Grotius. This too is true. In that opinion are the Maro-

nites, after Theodoret. That they think so is clearly quite absurd. All who have any understanding in the analogy of these languages acknowledge that the Syriac language derives from the Hebrew, not the Hebrew from the Syriac. The purity and simplicity of the Hebrew language itself proclaims this. "The Syrian Maronites," says Joseph Scaliger in his letter to Richard Thomson, "contend with any pledge that Syriac is more ancient than Hebrew; but this is the height of ignorance: for it is just as if one were to say that Italian is more ancient than Latin. For certainly Hebrew is prior to Aramaic, and we can bring forward many other arguments to overcome this obstinacy." "But the Hebrew language," says Grotius, "is the language of sojourners from Chaldea. For this is the origin of the name 'Hebrews,' not from Heber. See Joshua 24:2, 3. Therefore that Hebrew language of Abraham and his posterity, through their sojourn in Canaan, drew ever closer and closer to the Canaanite language." So says he — nothing sound. V. I confess that this etymology — of 'Hebrew' and 'Hebrews' — has pleased, and still pleases, certain learned men. Erpenius collected the arguments for that position in his Oratio de Lingua Hebraica, which Fullerus refutes in Miscellaneorum Sacrorum lib. iv. cap. iv., and Rivetus in his Exercitationes on Genesis, Exercit. lxvi.; and we have shown above that Bochart rejects that derivation of those words. It was indeed a great thing in former times to have come out of Mesopotamia, for the peoples whom, as Philostratus says, "the rivers hold in their embrace — the confused ones" — considered themselves islanders, as it were, saying that they went down to the sea when they went to the rivers, and made the circuit of the rivers the boundary of the earth, as Philostratus says in the Life of Apollonius, lib. i. cap. xiv. But that Abraham was called a Hebrew from this, and the holy Hebrew language the language of sojourners — that is, him a transitory person, and this the language of those passing through — is altogether incredible. Moses says "that Shem was the father of all the sons of Heber," (Genesis 10:21). What else can this be but "the father of all the Hebrews"? VI. Therefore the sons of Heber are the Hebrews, and the Hebrews are the sons of Heber. And this is the basis of that etymology. Some say these words can mean "that Shem was the father of all those beyond the river." But this is said without any example and is entirely without plausibility. If the Holy Spirit had said "He himself is the father of all the Hebrews" — that conjecture would not have been so futile. But the words stand as they are — namely, "to the posterity of Heber" — and it is clear from the common usage of the holy tongue that no others are denoted. Nor can any plausible reason be given why Shem should be called preeminently the father of all those beyond the river, since the greatest part of his own posterity always dwelt on this side of the river, while very many families descended from Ham crossed over it. Moreover, what we have said about Heber is expressly affirmed by Balaam in his last oracle (Numbers 24:24): "Ships from Chittim shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber" — where interpreters agree that the prophet uses gentile names and patronymics in place of conjugates, so much so that the Vulgate renders it "Assyrians and Hebrews."

VII. But Grotius sends us to Joshua 24:3. Joshua does indeed say in that place that God took Abraham from beyond the river, "from the crossing of the river," or from the place that was beyond the river. Grotius therefore concludes that Abraham was called a Hebrew from this — as one might say, a "crosser" — and that for this reason, namely because Abraham crossed the river, that name was put into use by the Holy Spirit to become the surname of all his posterity, so that they would be called crossers for all time, or the people of those who cross over. But no parallel or similar basis for such an etymology exists anywhere in the records of any people. Not even a trace of the reason for such a conjecture appears here. Nor was Abraham the only one in that age who had crossed the Euphrates in order to migrate to the land of Canaan. For that reason — and not because he had dwelt in Mesopotamia — he was no more to be called a crosser or a trans-fluvian than very many others. Indeed, it is most certain that the greater part of the Canaanites, descended of course from Ham, crossed the Euphrates not long after the Babylonian dispersion. They therefore, on the basis of this derivation of the word, would have to be called Hebrews no less than Abraham himself and his posterity, and could have boasted no less than the apostle Paul that they were Hebrews of the Hebrews.

VIII. It is gratuitously said — indeed, falsely presumed — by some in this matter that Abraham was first called a Hebrew by the Canaanites, as though they wished to denote his crossing over, which they had almost, as they say, seen with their own eyes, by that name. For he was first marked with that surname by the Holy Spirit Himself, in Genesis 14:13: "He came," it says, "who had escaped, and reported to Abraham the Hebrew." These are the words of the Holy Spirit, not of the Canaanites. It is true that among the Canaanites he was first called by that name — but not by the Canaanites. But the LXX (Septuagint) renders those words "to Abraham the crosser." Chrysostom too was quite incautious in thinking that Abraham was therefore called Abram, and that that name carries such a signification, in his Homily on Genesis 35: "From the beginning," he says, "the parents imposed the name prophesying of him his [illegible].

From there he passed over: "For because he had crossed over the Euphrates and was coming into Palestine, for this reason also Abraham was called" — "From the beginning his parents had given him this name, signifying beforehand that he would migrate from there. For he was called Abram because he was about to cross over the Euphrates and come into Palestine." Would that this most learned man had erred from ignorance of the Hebrew language in this place alone. But that the meaning of this name is altogether different, even children know. Some think that the LXX (Septuagint) called Abraham a "passer-over" from a certain word. But the force of the word plainly deceives them. They rendered the interpretation of the word, not the word itself. That this was their custom, Jerome observes, on Isaiah 27:12, where on the contrary they render a Hebrew word by "Rhinocurura." "For the stream of Egypt," he says, "the LXX (Septuagint) translated 'Rhinocurura,' which is a town on the border of Egypt and Palestine, expressing not so much the words of the Scriptures as the sense of the words." Thus deceived by the similarity of letters, they more than once translated the word for "Hebrew" as "servant." For they read Daleth in place of Resh. At Isaiah 41:3, a Hebrew phrase — "Let the Hebrews hear" — the LXX (Septuagint) renders as "The servants were contemptuous." What that rendering means, I do not know. And at Jonah 1:9, a Hebrew phrase — "I am a Hebrew" — the LXX (Septuagint) renders as "I am a servant of the Lord," where they add "of the Lord" on their own, in order to give some color to their error. There is therefore no reason why their interpretation of this name should move us in the least. But if Moses had wished to call him a passer-over and not a Hebrew, he would not have used the word that is plainly a patronymic — as Augustine, Steuchus, and Buxtorf show — but another form. The reason for the derivation from a proper name is ready at hand. The entire nation of the Canaanites, which was eventually to be extirpated, had at that time been formed from many families which had been driven from their eastern seats by various accidents, or impelled by a certain impulse from God, and had been led into that land under various leaders. And all of them were distinguished from one another by surnames taken from the most well-known founders of their families (not from Ham, not from Canaan himself, just as Abraham was not named from Shem), which Moses enumerates in Genesis 10:15–18. This one was an Amorite, that one a Jebusite, another a Hivite, and another a Hittite. Each one was named from his own stock, or the founder of his stock. Abraham, dwelling among them, was called by the name of the most famous founder of the family from which he had descended, and was thus separated from the entire line of Ham, even by his familiar designation. For in the very same passage where Abraham is first called "Hebrew," his ally Mamre is called an "Amorite"; so that we can easily perceive that the rationale for both surnames was the same, for both are equally patronymics. Just as therefore all the peoples of that land were distinguished from one another by being marked with some patronymic name, so Abraham was called "Hebrew" from the most celebrated founder of his stock — and it is in a different sense that the Targumists take this word. Whoever consults Ben Uzziel on this passage will encounter a fable which I thought should be expounded here, so that the reader may understand what coals instead of treasure those will find who happen to fall upon this Talmudic fabulist; for scarcely anywhere does he reveal his character more than here. His account of Genesis 14:13 runs thus: "And Og came, who had escaped from the men who had died in the flood; and he had ridden upon the ark, and there was a covering on its top, and he was fed from Noah's food; and he was not rescued by his own righteousness, but that the inhabitants of the world might see his strength and say: Did not the giants who were from the beginning rebel against the Lord of the world, and were they not destroyed from the earth? And he came to Abraham, at the close of the Day of Passover, and found him making unleavened cakes." To these add his account of the end of this same antediluvian Og, which he narrates at Numbers 22 thus: "And it came to pass that after the wicked Og... saw the camp of the Israelites, which extended six miles, he said to himself, I will array a battle line against this people, so that they do not do to me as they did to Sihon."

Sihon. He went and tore up a mountain six miles in extent, and placed it upon his head to hurl it at them. Immediately the word of the Lord prepared a worm which gnawed through the mountain and bored through it, and his head was plunged into the middle of it; he wished to draw his head out of it" (not as it is in the London translation, "He wished to draw it out from his head") "but could not, because his teeth and molars had been drawn out to one side and the other; Moses went and took an axe ten cubits long, and leaped ten cubits, and struck him on the heel of his foot, and falling he died." Such are his tales — worthy to be counted among Aesop's fables; and yet not worthy of that, since they are insipid, and in every way useless, indeed harmful. The Quran of Muhammad teems with no more shameless lies than this Pentateuch of Ben Uzziel. And he is all the more to be detested for this, that this trifler set out to defile the sacred oracles of God. Targum Onkelos has the Hebrew word for "Hebrew"; and at Exodus 2:6, it renders the Hebrew word for "Hebrews" as "Jews"; and at Deuteronomy 15:12, the phrase "your brother the Hebrew" is rendered as "your brother the son of Israel." For Onkelos, Hebrew, Jew, and son of Israel are the same thing; and this is what that patronymic name signifies.

IX. Some object that no probable reason can be assigned why the entire family was named after Heber rather than after others, namely Shem or Arphaxad; or why Abraham, rather than other descendants of Heber, should be called "Hebrew" from Heber. But a probable cause and a rationale for both are not lacking. That Heber was highly distinguished among the new people is probable from the fact that, setting aside the rest, Shem is pointedly said to be "the father of all the children of Heber" in (Genesis 10:21). And no reason can be assigned by which he could have attained that degree of honor except through holiness and virtue toward God. Furthermore, of all the patriarchs who were born after the flood, he was the longest-lived, and he outlived his own son Peleg. After Peleg's death there can be no doubt that he took special care of his grandchildren and was to them in the place of an immediate parent. Thus, although Aram was the youngest son of Shem, yet because he lived longer than all his brothers, the Syriac language, which very many others besides his own progeny used, was called Aramaic — as Elias Levita teaches us in his preface to the Methurgamim. Heber also lived, distinguished for piety, at the time when the languages were confused and the earth was divided; and in view of this specimen of adorable divine providence, he gave his son the name Peleg. He also appears to have been the leader of those who did not consent to the building of the tower, as evidenced by the preservation of the primeval language in his family. It was therefore not without the weightiest reasons that his name was passed down to his descendants. That they constituted a family or tribe separately from the rest of Shem's posterity is most plainly apparent from those words of Moses which we cited earlier.

X. Furthermore: it is evident from the outcome that not only did all the sons of Joktan, who was the younger son of Heber, join themselves to the apostate crowd, but also that very many of those descended from Peleg himself mingled with them and bade farewell to the paternal family in which the pure worship of God had flourished. But Abraham followed the footsteps of the pious ancestors, and indeed of Heber himself, more than any of the rest — although he himself also was not free from the stain of the common defection. At length, however, by God's leading and by the benefit of new revelations, he restored the ancient piety and the worship of God that had been banished from the earth. Should it therefore seem strange — especially since he became celebrated above all other mortals of his age and was constituted the head and founder of a most glorious nation — that he claimed for himself and his posterity the celebrated patronymic name (which his apostasy had rejected, or at least held in no esteem, in what remained of that kinship)? Nor was the crossing of a river of such importance that from it a name enduring forever should be given to him and to the entire holy nation. The migration of Abraham from his homeland and the land of his kindred, in order to follow God, to a place he did not know, was indeed an illustrious demonstration of his faith. But he judges wrongly who thinks that this Abrahamic obedience is to be estimated from the crossing of the river, which he had in common with countless others. That, obedient to God's word, complying with His will and commands, he left his paternal home and his own dwelling, and the superstitious worship in which he had been reared, drawn by no hope of a better condition, to follow God to a place he did not know — this, among countless other things, commends his faith. If the crossing of the river is compared with these things, it will be a matter of no importance. But that this migration so greatly pleased God that for this reason he received the promises — that his posterity would possess by hereditary right the land into which he would journey, and that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed — as some affirm, is false and absurd. False, because he had received those promises before he had crossed the Tigris, let alone the Euphrates, as can be seen in (Genesis 12:1–4). And it is absurd because it teaches that this is in any way to be attributed to Abraham's obedience, when it is most certain that it came entirely from mere grace. For that God gave those promises to Abraham without any regard to any preceding obedience is more fully acknowledged than to need proofs. Regarding this origin of the name of the Hebrews, those among the Jews who agree with us are: Josephus, Antiq., lib. i. cap. vi.; the Threefold Targum; Aben Ezra on Exodus 1; Kimchi, root; Elias Levita, Methurgam. — Among the Fathers and ancient Christians: Eusebius, Preepar. Evangel., lib. vii. cap. ii; Jerome, Quaest. in Gen.; Augustine, de Civitat. Dei, lib. xvi. cap. iii.; Eucherius in Gen., lib. 2. cap. vi.; Zonaras, Annal., lib. i. — Among the more recent writers: Calvin on Genesis 10:20; Pererius on Gen. 20; Mercerus on Genesis 14:13, and in the Lexicon of Pagninus, root; Munster on Genesis 11:16; Drusius on Genesis 14:13; Paraeus on Genesis 14:15; Junius, Orat. de Ling. Heb.; Cornelius a Lapide on Gen. 14; Buxtorf, Dissertat. de Ling. Heb. Conservat.; Sigonius, de Repub. Heb.; Schindler in the Lexicon, root; Bochart, lib. i. cap. x., and countless others.

XI. Let us return to the distinguished Grotius, treating of the primeval language.

He concedes that Hebrew was the language of Abraham; but what that language was, since that ancient language was not coeval with the world, he does not show. "Chaldean," says Cappellus, in Chronol. Sac. Not. ad Tab. Secundam. "That language of Abraham and his posterity, through their dwelling in Canaan, drew nearer and nearer to the Canaanite language," says Grotius. That he learned the Canaanite language — which he claims was that primeval language now called Hebrew — from the Canaanites, Cappellus asserts. We grant that the language of the Canaanites (from which the Punic language derived) closely approached the Hebrew language. This has been shown most plainly, after others, by the distinguished Bochart in his truly admirable work, the argument being drawn from the proper names of cities and men. But that those who were without doubt among the chief builders of the tower of Babylon retained the pure, primeval, holy language, while those who religiously abstained from that crime — among whom, if any, were the ancestors of Abraham — had forgotten it: this surpasses all belief. Joseph Scaliger preceded Cappellus in this opinion, in his Epist. ad Thomsonum and Animad. Euseb. ad num. Deccry. But we are about to show that the Hebrew language was the primeval language. The loss of that language was a punishment. Whether anyone can bring himself to seriously believe that those who had never consented to the crime which merited that punishment were penalized by ignorance or corruption of that language, I strongly doubt. That some of them deviated somewhat from the purity of the dialect over the course of time is probable. Elias, in his preface to the Methurgamim, affirms that such a deviation was the origin of the Chaldean language. But that the accursed Canaanites, devoted to eternal destruction, retained the pure primeval language; that Abraham also learned their language, whatever it was; and that he communicated that language alone to his posterity, to whom it was most strictly forbidden to have anything in common with those Canaanites whom they were to exterminate from the face of the earth — these things seem absurd.

XII. Furthermore, it is most certain — contrary to what has seemed right to that learned man — that the Philistines did not use the Hebrew language. For those who were born of Jewish fathers but Ashdodite mothers "spoke partly in the language of Ashdod, and did not know how to speak in the Jewish language." With whom Nehemiah was greatly angry, cap. 13:24–25. And Jerome, in his commentary on Isa., lib. vii. cap. xix., affirms that "the Canaanite language is midway between Egyptian and Hebrew." "Therefore," says Grotius, "it is more true that the primeval language exists nowhere in its pure form, but that its remnants are in all languages; and that the names of Adam, Eve, and the rest were expressed by Moses in the Hebrew speech for the sake of the Hebrews, with the same meaning that they had in the primeval language. So Curtius says that certain soldiers were called 'immortals' by the Persians; that the passage into Cilicia was called 'Pylae' by the inhabitants; and that those who commanded individual thousands of soldiers were called 'chiliarchs' by the Persians." Thus he dismisses both sides — namely those contending for Hebrew and those for Syriac — awarding the palm of antiquity to neither. And in this opinion he stands nearly alone. Goropius indeed

Becanus attempted to claim the honor of primeval antiquity for his own vernacular language — but in vain, for the matter has been settled here against all such claims. That God wished to record His oracles in a language that was a mixture of others, each equally corrupt, does not seem credible. But the most learned Mercerus long since replied to these objections, and we need no other words to refute the vanity of these exceptions. His words are as follows: "I hold it for certain and persuaded and beyond doubt that that primogenial language was Hebrew, although some who are more unfavorable to this view say that proper names were changed by Moses and translated into his own language which he favored; as if historians did not commonly retain proper names even of barbarian peoples unchanged, though they sometimes change them when, over the course of time, the names of regions or places have been altered. But they generally retain men's names unchanged, only accommodated to the inflection and structure of their own language, somewhat twisted and corrupted; yet in such a way that the origin is easily recognized. Add to this: the etymology of all proper names before the flood, and after it up to the division of the languages, cannot be attributed to any other language; and neither can those of others after that time which Moses uses, than to Hebrew — as Eve from a Hebrew word meaning 'life,' and another meaning 'mother of the living.' Cain, Abel, Seth, Mahalaleel, Kenan, Noah, etc., of all of whom and of the rest the source can only be Hebrew." These words of his are learned and pious.

XIII. But whether it is probable that all these proper names of men were translated into another language by Moses, when for most of them no adequate reason for such a translation can be given, let the learned judge. A Hebrew name meaning "appointed" is derived from a Hebrew verb meaning "he placed," because God "placed another seed," etc. What also will they say about the wordplays drawn from the Hebrew language, which are the very opposite of their argument? Such as that saying, "God enlarge Japheth." But some say that these words were also in use in the Chaldean or Syriac language; but their pretension is plainly met by those words of Adam, "She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man" — a Hebrew word for "woman" derived from a Hebrew word for "man" — whereas among the Chaldeans the word for "woman" is one thing and the word for "man" is quite another, between which words no such affinity exists as the first-former implies.

XIV. But this entire argument was treated not long ago in a special dissertation on the origin and antiquity of the Hebrew language by the most learned Buxtorf the Younger, in such a way that no place for doubt seemed to remain for anyone thereafter. The primeval language, therefore, whose use God instilled in man at the very creation, is Hebrew. After it had been common to the whole earth for 1,757 years, at the division of the languages it remained among those descendants of Shem who had not participated in the mad building of the tower. So says Genebrardus, Chron. lib. i: "The Hebrew language, which had previously been common, remained uncorrupted with Heber (from whom both the language and the people take their name), because he had taken part neither in the counsels of those who pleased to build a tower to heaven, nor in the work itself." But as many of them gradually defected from the true worship of God, so they also appear to have gradually deviated from the pure dialect of the language — from which the Chaldean dialect was born, as the distinguished

Selden holds, in Prolegom. ii. de Diis Syris. And thus Elias Levita teaches us in his preface, saying in Hebrew: "The Aramaic language is a corrupt form of the holy language." Elsewhere he proves from Rabbi Aben Ezra that it is nearer to the holy language than all other languages; and he adds furthermore: "It is evident that this language was already corrupted in the time of the patriarchs. The proof of this is the Aramaic phrase 'jegar sahaddutha'; it therefore seems to me that it must be said to have become corrupted as soon as Abraham left Chaldea. For without doubt he and his fathers spoke the holy language, just as they received it from Adam down to Noah, one from the mouth of another."

XV. Where the church remained — or most especially the clearest traces of it, and particularly that family from which it was decreed that it would be renewed — there also the purity of the ancient language remained. This was the family of Heber, from whom this Hebrew language took its name, which had previously been distinguished by no special designation; nor did it have need of a title by which to be distinguished from others, since it was the only one — as Augustine rightly says in de Civitat. Dei, lib. xvi. cap. xi.: "Because," he says, "this language remained in the family of Heber, while the rest of the nations were divided by other languages — which language is not undeservedly believed to have previously been common to the human race — it was thereafter called Hebrew; for then it was necessary for it to be distinguished from other languages by its own proper name, just as the others were also called by their proper names. But when it was the only one, it was called nothing other than the human language, or human speech, in which alone the entire human race spoke." From Heber also, Abraham — who embraced the ancestral religion in its holiness almost alone — was called "Hebrew," as we have proved; and he brought that language with him into Canaan, the land promised to him and to his seed. The remaining brothers and kinsmen of Abraham himself, and others of his contemporaries from the family of Heber, as they degenerated from the true religion, so also from the pure use of the holy language.

XVI. The sacred page affirms that this division of languages occurred either a little before the birth of Peleg, or around that time — (Genesis 10:25, 1 Chronicles 1:19). The Jews in the Seder Olam, that is, the Series of the World, count 340 years from the flood, says Munster; for so he works out the calculation in the margin of his translation. The text has it that from the flood to the division was two hundred and seventy-two years; for they report that this division occurred when Abraham was forty-eight years old. But from the flood to the forty-eighth year of Abraham there are 340 years; hence Munster added fifty-two years to their number so that the reckoning might be consistent with itself. But this is false; and that division falls in the year two hundred and forty-first before the birth of Abraham, around the birth of Peleg, as has been shown above. But Buxtorf also settles this dispute most learnedly in his Dissertation on the Confusion of Languages; David Pareus also treats it at length in his Commentary on Genesis ch. xii; and most recently Ussher in his Sacred Chronology, ch. v, where he defends the credibility and accuracy of the calculation of the Hebrew text against the objections of Morin.

XVII. But when it had been driven into this state and condition

CHAP. TITLE.] ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF IDOLATRY. 179 nearly the whole human race, and had been left to the counsel of its own mind — after, that is, weariness of the true God and of His worship had seized them — it poured itself gradually into every form of idolatry. The earlier ages, to be sure, could not entirely cast aside all the knowledge of God that they had received either from the instruction of their parents or from vague tradition. We accordingly find that very many of them — as is the manner of men convicted by the small sparks of divine light — did indeed fear God, yet at the same time served idols. But as time went on, all revealed theology being gradually rejected, and the memory of the solemn promise and of the divine covenant being utterly abolished, the whole world polluted itself universally with unspeakable and most vile idolatries. It is therefore our purpose to investigate here more carefully the origin and progress of those idolatries, as we promised above.