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episcopus Arbela, episcopus Salmasti, episcopus Adurbeigan; en e vestigio convenimus in insulam, quæ est intra Tigrim flumen, Eden; fecimusque compactum inter nos, &c. which is, "Neither are there remaining among us any metropolitan bishops, to whom it belongs to ordain a patriarch, but only a few bishops, as the bishop of Arbela, "the bishop of Salmastus, and the bishop of Adurbeigan : "but lo, we assembled speedily in the island of Eden, "which is in Tigris, and agreed between ourselves," &c.

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Now this island of Eden, Masius describeth with other places; which being well conceived, the Nestorian epistles and the state of the church may be in those parts, saith he, the better understood. And after he hath distinguished the four sorts of Christians in those parts of the world, and in the south part of Africa, which he calleth Nestorians, Jacobites, Maronitæ, and Cophti, he goeth on in these words: Mox, audita illius morte, concurrisse aiebant tumultuario in illam quam modo dixi Tigris insulam, quæ duodecim circiter passuum millibus supra Mosal posita, decem fere millia passuum suo ambitu continet, muris undique cincta, et a paucis aliis quam Christianis hominibus habitata: which is, "Now hearing of the death of the patri"arch, (as those that came to Rome reported,) they ran tu

multuously together into that island of Tigris, or Eden, be"fore spoken of, which island is situated about twelve miles "above Mosal, containing very near ten miles in compass, " and every where environed with a wall, inhabited by few "other men than Christians." And afterward he maketh a recapitulation of the Christian churches; among the rest he addeth the isle of Eden by the name of Geserta, insula Tigris, sive Geserta. Furthermore, describing the city of Hosan-Cepha, or Fortis Petra, he placeth it supra prædictam Tigris insulam, rupi asperæ impositam; "above the "aforesaid island of Tigris, being seated on a steep rock." Of this island of Geserta, Andrew Theuet maketh mention in his 10th book of his general Cosmography in these words: Geserta ou Gesire est au milieu de la riviere du Tigre, et pense que c'est une terre des plus fertiles de toute l'Asie;

"Geserta, or Gesire, is in the middle of Tigris, the soil the "most fertile of all Asia."

By this we may see that the ancient name of Eden liveth; and of that Eden which lieth eastward from Arabia Petræa, and the desert where Moses wrote, and that Eden which bordereth Charran, according to Ezekiel, and that Eden which is seated according to the assertion of the said prophet, and joined with those nations of Reseph, Canneh, and Charran, and the rest which traded with the Tyrians, and is found at this day in the parting of the two regions of Assyria and Babylonia, where the Edenites in Telassar were garrisoned to resist the Assyrians, whose displantation Senacherib vaunted of, as above written; and lastly, the same Eden which embraceth Tigris, and looketh on Euphrates, two of the known rivers of those four, which are by all men ascribed to paradise.

SECT. XI.

Of the difficulty in the text, which seemeth to make the four rivers to rise from one stream.

BUT it may be objected, that it is written in the text, that a river went out of Eden, and not rivers, in the plural: which scruple Matthew Beroaldus hath thus answered in his Chronology: the Latin translation, saith he, hath these words: Et fluvius egrediebatur de loco voluptatis ad irrigandum paradisum, qui inde dividebatur in quatuor capita: quæ verba melius consentiunt cum rei narratione, et ejusdem explicatione, si ita reddantur; Et fluvius erat egrediens ex Edene (hoc est) fluvii procedebant ex Edene regione ad rigandum pomarium; et inde dividebatur, et erat in quatuor capita: which is, "And a river went out of the "place of pleasure to water paradise, and thence was di"vided into four heads; which words," saith Beroaldus, "do better agree with the narration and explication of the place, if they be thus translated; And a river was going "forth of Eden, that is, rivers went forth, and ran out of "the region of Eden to water the orchard; and from thence

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"it was divided, and they became four heads." The Tigurine differs from the Vulgar, or Latin; for it converts it thus, Et fluvius egrediebatur de deliciis; "And a river went out "of pleasure,” instead of Eden; and the Latin addeth the word locus, or place, Et fluvius egrediebatur de loco voluptatis ; "And a river went out of the place of pleasure :" and so the word place may rightly be referred to Eden, which was (of all other) a region most delightful and fertile; and so also the word inde, and thence was divided, hath reference to the country of Eden, and not to the garden itself.

:

And for the word river for rivers, it is usual among the Hebrews for it is written, Gen. i. 11. Let the earth bud forth the bud of the herb that seedeth seed, the fruitful tree, &c. Here the Hebrew useth the singular for the plural, herb and tree, for herbs and trees; and again, Gen. iii. 2. We eat of the fruit of the tree, instead of trees: and thirdly, Gen. iii. 8. The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God; in medio ligni paradisi, in the middle of the tree of the garden, for trees. And of this opinion is David Kimchi and Vatablus, who upon this place of Genesis say, that the Hebrews do often put the singular for the plural, as illud, for unumquodque illorum; and he giveth an instance in this question itself, as, a river, for rivers, went out of Eden.

And this answer out of divers of the learned may, not without good reason, be given to the objection, that Moses speaketh but of one river, from which the heads should divide themselves. Howbeit I deny not, but with as good (and perhaps better) reason, we may expound the four heads to be four notable passages into famous countries. And so we may take the word river, verse the 10th, for one river, to wit, Euphrates, as this name comprehendeth all the branches thereof. For this river (after he is past the place where we suppose Paradise to have been) divides itself, and ere long yieldeth four notable passages into several countries, though not all the way down stream, (for this is no where in the text,) where it is noted, that following the river down

ward, there is conveyance into the countries named in the text, though part of the way to one of the countries (to wit, to Assyria) were up Tigris.

To this end the text, speaking of Hiddekel, as it riseth from the river of Eden, doth not say, it compasseth or washeth the whole region of Assyria, (as it had used this phrase of Pison and Gehon,) but that it runneth towards Assyria. The first branch Pison, is Nahar-Malcha, by interpretation Basilius, or flumen regium, which runneth into Tigris under Apamia; whence ariseth the name of Pasi-Tigris, as it were Piso-Tigris: this leadeth to the land of Havilah, or Susiana. The second branch Gehon, is that which in historians is Nabarsares, or Narragas, for Naharragas; both which names signify flumen derivatum, (a river derived ;) also Acracanus, quasi Ranosus, by reason of the froggy fens which it maketh: this Gehon leadeth to the first seat of Chus, about the borders of Chaldea and Arabia, and it is lost at length in the lakes of Chaldea. The third branch, Hiddekel, may be expounded the upper stream of Pison, or Basilius, which runneth into Hiddekel, properly so called, (that is, into Tigris,) above Seleucia, where it sheweth a passage up Tigris into Assyria: where, because at length it is called Hiddekel, or Tigris, having before no known proper name, the text in this place calleth it Hiddekel from the beginning. The fourth Perath, or Euphrates, so called per excellentiam, being the body of the river Euphrates, which runneth through Babylon and Otris. But be it a river or rivers that come out of Eden, seeing that Tigris and Euphrates are noted in the text, there can be no doubt but that paradise was not far from these rivers; for that Perath in Moses is Euphrates, there can be no question; and, indeed, as plain it is that Hiddekel is Tigris. For Hiddekel goeth, saith Moses, eastward towards Assur, as we find that Tigris is the river of Assyria proprie dicta, whose chief city was Nineveh, as in Genesis the 10th it is written, that out of that land, to wit, Babylonia, Nimrod went into Assur, and builded Nineveh, which was the chief city of Assyria.

And as for the kind of speech here used in the text, speaking of four heads; though the heads of rivers be (properly) their fountains, yet here are they to be understood to be spoken of the beginning of their division from the first stream. Caput aquæ, saith Ulpianus, illud est, unde aqua nascitur; si ex fonte nascatur fons; si ex flumine, vel ex lacu, prima initia, &c. "If the beginning of the water be "out of a fountain, then is the fountain taken for the head; "if out of a lake, then the lake; and if from a main river "any branch be separate and divided, then where that "branch doth first bound itself with new banks, there is "that part of the river, where the branch forsaketh the main 66 stream, called the head of the river."

SECT. XII.

Of the strange fertility and happiness of the Babylonian soil, as it is certain that Eden was such.

IT may also be demanded, whether this region of Eden, by us described, be of such fertility and beauty as Eden the seat of paradise was: which if it be denied, then must we also consider, that there was no part of the earth that retained that fertility and pleasure that it had before the curse: neither can we ascribe the same fruitfulness to any part of the earth, nor the same virtue to any plant thereon growing, that they had before the flood; and therefore this region of Eden may be now no such flourishing country as it was when it was first created in his perfection. Yet this I find written of it; first in Herodotus, (Clia. lib. i.) who was an eyewitness, and speaketh of the very place itself, for the isle of Eden is but twelve miles or thereabout from Nineveh, and so from Mosal. Ex Euphrate exiens in Tigrim, alterum flumen, juxta quod urbs Ninus sita erat, hæc regio, omnium quas nos vidimus, optima est, &c. "Where Euphrates runneth out into Tigris, not far from the place "where Ninus is seated; this region, of all that we have seen, is most excellent." And he addeth afterward, Cereris autem fructu procreando adeo ferax est, ut nunquam