thoughts and licentious pleasures. So that to conclude this part, Tertullian and those of his opinion were not deceived in the nature of the place: but opinion, and followed a worse. Aquinas, who misliked this the schoolmen were gross in this particular. SECT. IX. Of the change of the names of places: and that besides that Eden in Calesyria, there is a country in Babylon, once of this name, as is proved out of Isaiah xxxvii. and Ezek. xxvii. zona; THESE opinions answered, and the region of Eden not found in any of those imaginary worlds, nor under torrida it followeth that now we discover and find out the seat thereof, for in it was paradise by God planted. The difficulty of which search resteth chiefly in this, that as all nations have often changed names with their masters; so are most of these places, by Moses remembered, forgotten by those names of all historians and geographers, as well ancient as modern. Besides, we find that the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians (Cyrus only and few others excepted) sought to extinguish the Hebrews. The Grecians hated both their nation and their religion; and the Romans despised once to remember them in any of their stories. And as those three monarchies succeeded each other, so did they transform the names of all those principal places and cities in the east: and after them, the Turk hath sought (what he could) to extinguish in all things the ancient memory of those people, which he hath subjected and enthralled. Now besides those notable marks, Euphrates and Tigris, the better to find the way which leadeth to the country of Eden, we are to take for guides these two considerations, to wit, that it lay eastward from Canaan and Judea; and that it was of all others the most beautiful and fertile. First then in respect of situation, the next country to Judea eastward was Arabia Petræa; but in this region was Moses himself when he wrote: and the next unto it eastward also was Arabia the Desert, both which, in respect of the infertility, could not be Eden, neither have any of the Arabians any such rivers, as are expressed to run out of it: so as it followeth of necessity, that Eden must be eastward, and beyond both Arabia Petræa and Deserta. But because Eden is by Moses named by itself, and by the fertility and the rivers only described, we must seek it in other scriptures, and where it is by the additions of the neighbour nations better described. In the prophet Isaiah I find it coupled and accompanied with other adjacent countries, in these words spoken in the person of Senacherib by Rabsakeh. PHave the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gosan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, which were at Telassar? and in Ezekiel, where he prophesieth against the Tyrians: They of Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Ashur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants, &c. r But to avoid confusion, we must understand that there were two Edens, one of which the prophet Amos remembereth, where he divideth Syria into three provinces, whereof the first he maketh Syria Damascene, or Decapolitan: the second part is that valley called Avenis, otherwise Convallis, or the tract of Chamath, where Assyria is joined to Arabia the Desert, and where $Ptolemy placeth the city of Averia: and the third is known by the name of Domus Edenis, or Colesyria, otherwise Vallis Cava, or the hollow valley, because the mountains of Libanus and Antilibanus take all the length of it on both sides, and border it for coile in Greek is cava in Latin. But this is not that Eden which we seek: neither doth this province lie east from Canaan, but north, and so joineth unto it as it could not be unknown to the Hebrews. Yet, because there is a little city therein called paradise, the Jews believed this Colesyria to be the same which Moses describeth. For the same cause doth Hopkins in his Treatise of Paradise reprehend Beroaldus, in that he confoundeth this Eden with the other p Isa. xxxvii. 12. 4 Ezek. xxvii. 23. r Amos i. 1. • Strabo. Eden of paradise: though, to give Beroaldus his right, I conceive that he led the way to Hopkins, and to all other later writers, saving that he failed in distinguishing these two regions, both called Eden: and that he altogether misunderstood two of the four rivers, to wit, Pison and Gehon, as shall appear hereafter. Now, to find out Eden, which, as Moses teacheth us, lay eastward from the deserts, where he wrote after he had passed the Red sea; we must consider where those other countries are found, which the prophet Isaiah and Ezekiel joineth with it. For, saith Isaiah, Gosan, Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden which were at Telassar. Also Ezekiel joineth Haran with Eden, who, together with those of Sheba, Ashur and Chilmad, were the merchants that traded with the city of Tyre, which was then, saith Ezekiel, the mart of the people for many isles. And it hath ever been the custom, that the Persians conveyed their merchandise to Babylon, and to those cities upon Euphrates and Tigris, and from thence transported them into Syria, now Soria, and to the port of the Mediterranean sea: as in ancient times to the city of Tyre, afterwards to Tripoly, and now to Aleppo, from whence they embark them at the port of Alexandretta, in the bay of Issicus, now Laiazzo. Ezekiel, in the description of the magnificence of Tyre, and of the exceeding trade that it had with all the nations of the east, as the only mart-town of that part of the world, reciteth both the people with whom they had commerce, and also what commodities every country yielded: and having counted the several people and countries, he addeth the particular trade which each of them exercised. u They were thy merchants, saith the prophet, in all sorts of things, in raiments of blue silk, and of broidered works, fine linen, coral, and pearl: and afterwards speaking of the merchants of Sheba and Raamah, and in what kinds they traded, he hath these words; The merchants of Sheba and Raamah were thy merchants, they occupied in thy fairs, with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold. Now these be indeed the riches which Persia and Arabia Fœlix yield: and because Sheba and Raamah are those parts of Arabia which border the sea called the Persian Gulf, therefore did those nations both vent such spice, sweet gums, and pearls, as their own countries yielded, and withal having trade with their neighbours of India, had from them also all sorts of spices, and plenty of gold. The better to convey these commodities to that great mart of Tyre, the Shebans or Arabians entered by the mouth of Tigris, and from the city of Terredon (built or enlarged by Nabuchodonozor, now called Balsara) thence sent up all these rich merchandises by boat to Babylon, from whence by the body of Euphrates, as far as it bended westward, and afterwards by a branch thereof, which reacheth within three days' journey of Aleppo, and then over land they passed to Tyre, as they did afterwards to Tripoly, (formerly Hieropolis,) and thence to Alexandretta, as aforesaid. Now the merchants of Canneh, which Ezekiel joineth with Eden, inhabited far up the river, and received this trade from Arabia and India, besides those proper commodities which themselves had, and which they received out of Persia, which bordered them. St. Jerome understandeth by Canneh, Seleucia, which is seated upon Euphrates, where it breaketh into four heads, and which took that name from Seleucus, who made thereof a magnificent city. Hierosolymitanus thinks it to be Ctesiphon, but Ctesiphon is seated down low upon Tigris, and Canneh cannot be on that side, I mean on the east side of Tigris, for then were it out of the valley of Shinar. Pliny placeth the Schenite upon Euphrates, where the same beginneth to be fordable, which is toward the border of Syria, after it leaveth to be the bound of Arabia the Desert, and where the river of Euphrates reflecteth from the Desert of Palmirena: for these people of Canneh (afterwards Schenitae) inhabited both borders of Euphrates, stretching themselves from their own city of Canneh in Shinar, westward along x Plin. 1. 6. c. 26. X the banks of Euphrates, as far as the city of Thapsacus, where Ptolemy appointed the fords of Euphrates: which also agreeth with the description of the Schenitæ by Strabo, whose words are these; y Mercatoribus ex Syria Seleuciam et Babyloniam euntibus iter est per Schonitas; "The "merchants which travel from Syria to Seleucia and Baby"lon take their way by the Schenites." Therefore those which take Canneh for Charran do much mistake it. For Charran, to which Abraham came from z Ur in Chaldea, (called by God,) standeth also in Mesopotamia, not upon Euphrates itself, but upon the river of Chaboras, which falleth into Euphrates: and the merchants of Charran are distinctly named with those of Canneh in Ezekiel, as, They of Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Ashur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants. Wherefore Charran, which is sometimes called Charre, and Haran, and Aran, is but the same Charran of Mesopotamia; and when it is written Aran, then it is taken for the region of Mesopotamia, or Aran fluviorum, the Greek word Mesopotamia importing a country between rivers: for mesos in Greek is medius in Latin, and potamos, fluvius. And when it is written Haran, or Aran, it is then taken for the city itself, to which Abraham came from Ur, as aforesaid. For Strabo, in the description of Arabia, giveth that tract of land from the borders of Colesyria to the edge of Mesopotamia to the Schenitæ, who also inhabited on both sides of Euphrates, and were in after-ages accounted of these Arabians which inhabit Batanea and the north part of the Deserts, stretching themselves towards the uninhabited solitude of Palmirena, which lieth between Syria and Arabia the Desert. So as these of Canneh lay in the very highway from Babylon to Tyre, and were neighbours (indifferent) to Charran and to Eden: and therefore they are by the prophet Ezekiel coupled together, They of Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, &c. But St. Jerome made a good interpretation of Canneh, or Chalne, by Seleucia; for Seleu |
