Commentarius in hexaemeron

Of our father among the saints Eustathius, Archbishop of Antioch and Martyr, a Commentary on the Hexaemeron. Clement, then, and Africanus, and in addition to these Tatian, and from among those of the circumcision Josephus and Justus, recorded that the inspired Moses flourished in the time of Inachus, each providing the proof in his own way from ancient history. Inachus precedes the Trojan War by seven hundred years. But one of the saints, having made a most accurate reckoning of the times, found that the most holy Jacob flourished in the times of Inachus, and Josephus found that Moses did. For having devised the arrangement of a chronological canon in parallel, he set side by side the ruler among each nation. And he gathered the times of the kingdom of the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Lydians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Athenians, Argives, Sicyonians, Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Thessalians, Macedonians, Latins, who were later called Romans. And the times of these, he set alongside the times of each nation's kings, juxtaposing the years of the reign of the Assyrian queen, that is, of Semiramis, with the years of Abraham. For the blessed Abraham was known in the time of Semiramis; and Josephus in the time of Inachus; and Moses in the time of Cecrops, who was the first of the Athenians three hundred years before the Trojan War, so that Moses is the most ancient of the ancient wise men among the Greeks, he says, of Homer and Hesiod, and of the Trojan events, and of Heracles, and Musaeus, and Linus, and moreover Cheiron, Orpheus, the Dioscuri, Asclepius, Dionysus, Hermes, Apollo, and of the Greek mysteries and initiations, and of the very deeds of Zeus.

And further, the deluge in the time of Deucalion, and the conflagration in the time of Phaethon, and the birth of Erichthonius from Hephaestus and Earth, and the seizure of Kore. For all these came after Cecrops, whom Homer and Hesiod in their chronologies place many generations later. And if they are less than these in years, surely they are far inferior to the age of Moses. This man, then, was shown forth as the teacher of all the wise, the most divine herald of the truth. For having spat out the so-called wisdom of the Egyptians, he set forth most excellently concerning the constitution of this world, being inspired with the truth by the very God over all and craftsman of the universe. For he says: In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. And many of the Greeks who dared to set forth the opposite of these things were hurled down into a depth of ignorance. For the doctrines brought forth from human reasoning are without clarity and without foundation. For no argument among them stands unmoved, the second always overthrowing the one before it; so that it is no task at all for the faithful to refute their arguments, since they suffice against one another for their own overthrow. But what sort of shape and substance heaven is, Isaiah teaches us, saying: He who set the heaven like a vault; hinting that it is thin, and not solid, nor thick, as also elsewhere he says: He who made firm the heaven like smoke. And the psalm says that the earth is suspended upon the waters, saying: He himself founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers. And how this is so one must not inquire curiously, but believe.

For the simplicity of faith is stronger than rational demonstrations; for the judgments of God are unsearchable and incomprehensible. On the first day, then, God made the heaven and the earth and the light, and in a swift turn of time he illumined all things; this is the perishable. For before this, a dark shadow held them, when the heaven was stretched out and enclosed all that it contained, and made the remaining place lightless. But outside the heaven there is light without shadow, and incorruptible, and eternal, in which the angels dwell, concerning which Solomon says: Light is for the righteous continually, into which also those who have lived well find rest. And you will understand its dispensation from a clear example, that an unquenchable light shines around the outer region of the heaven. But the inner region was held by mist before the light came into being. For just as if someone at fixed noon, having pitched a tent of dense wood, makes darkness of his own making, and the enclosed place can in no way be illuminated unless a gleam of light flashes forth; so such a shadowy darkness, without substance, held the world, covered by the heaven, which God separated when he created the light, and named it day, and the darkness night. For when the light is poured out, day comes to be, and when it is contracted, night comes on. Hence also in the measuring of times we count days, and not nights.

On the second day God made the firmament. And this is different from the heaven that was made in the beginning. And it has been said by some that it is also the same; for, he says, it is an elaboration of the second, because there the creation of earth and heaven was handed down as in a summary, while here Scripture hands down more elaborately how it came to be. But we say that one thing is one, and another is another, since both a different name and a distinct use of the second heaven have been handed down. This one, then, is different from the one made in the beginning, being of a more solid nature. And God separated between the water that was below the firmament. For the nature of the waters being boundless, he divided it so that they are both above the firmament and below. Now the aether is fiery and burning, and it would have consumed the whole continent, had it not been restrained by the boundary of the one who made it. For this reason there is also watery water carried through the clouds from the rising of vapors, which vapors the rivers and the springs and the lakes and all the seas send forth, so that the aether might not burn everything up and consume it. And thus it comes about that the... the exhalations are gathered together about the height, and the air is thickened by the compactions of the winds, and the moistures sown in the cloud, drawing near to one another, become drops, and by the weight of what has been combined they are sent downward. And snow is formed from the waters in this way: the moisture, checked by the violence of the winds, is whipped into foam; and being wholly checked through and through, it is chilled and frozen, and when the cloud is broken, the snow is borne down.

Thunder, according to this account, is a repercussion—that is, what is driven into the hollows of the clouds and violently burst forth produces the sound of thunder. On the third day, by the command of God, the water was gathered into its gatherings, and the dry land appeared. And he called the dry land earth, and the gatherings of the waters he called seas. It was gathered for this reason into one gathering, so that it might not, from the places where it is, overflow and cover the mainland. For this reason the sea, often raging from the winds and raised to the greatest height by its waves, whenever it but touches the shores, dissolves its rush into foam and returns, bridled by the weakest of all things, the sand. For what prevented the Red Sea from flooding all Egypt, which is deeper than it, and from joining with the adjacent sea, unless it had been fettered by the command of the Creator? That this is true, Sesostris the Egyptian and Darius the Mede have convinced us by deed. For when they attempted to join the Egyptian and the Indian sea, they were unable. Thus Egypt is deeper than the Red Sea. He commanded, then, that it be gathered into one gathering, and that from this no other sea come to be, but that it remain in the first collection. For there were many waters—hollows and ravines—for collection. But the phrase, and the gatherings of the waters he called seas, signifies the gulfs left by the surrounding land in their own shape.

As it were, a northern sea, a southern sea, eastern and western seas, and these have their own particular names: the Pontus, the Aegean, the Ionian, the Sardinian, the Sicilian, the Tyrrhenian. And it was not any chance gatherings of waters that came together into one sea, that is, into one body, but the greatest and most prominent ones; for one should not understand the marshy pools and lakes as included. For just as fire is both broken up into small portions and poured out in a mass by the air, so too with water: even if certain small bodies of it are separated, yet there is one gathering, the one that separates the whole element from the rest. For the water of the sea is the source of all moisture around the earth, and the whole earth is hollowed beneath and is permeated through invisible channels, as certain places of the mainland with caves beneath make clear. For the flowing sea, running through narrow places, whenever it is left behind in winding and steep outlets, being driven by the force of the spirit, bursts open the surface of the earth, and coming out to the outside, it becomes drinkable, changed into sweetness by the filtering. And again, whenever it is left behind in hot places on its way out, drawn by the same cause under the spirit, it becomes boiling. This has also been established as the source of the waters in the air; for the waters are drawn up from it through the clouds, and warmed by the sun's ray, and cooled by the shadow of the cloud, and cleared into brightness from that very height, they are made sweet and drip down upon the mainland.

On the same day God also commanded the earth to sprout grass of the field: seed-bearing according to its kind, and fruit-bearing wood producing fruit, whose seed is in itself. And even now the order of things that grow bears witness to the first ordering. For the sprouting comes first before every herb and every grass; for when the earth has moisture in due measure and warmth, the seed is cast into it, and it becomes loose and full of many seeds, and beginning with the earth around it, it draws to itself what is its own and akin, and being fattened it spreads out further; so that it takes root downward, and shoots up upward, and puts forth stalks equal in number to the roots. And as the sprout is continually warmed, the moisture drawn up through the roots is carried along by the heat together with the nourishing part of the earth; and this is distributed into the stalk, and the husk, and the sheaths of the grain, and into the grain itself, and the awns. And the stalk of the grain is girded about with joints, so that like certain bonds they may bear the weight of the ears. And the stalk is also hollow, so that it may become a receptacle for the kernel, so as not to be easily snatched by seed-gatherers. And it puts forth awns in place of barbs, so that they may keep off the injuries of small creatures. And the oat is wholly hollow, since it is not weighed down at the head. And if poisonous plants sprouted together with the nourishing ones, such as hellebore, and aconite, and mandrake, and the juice of the poppy, none of these has been taken up to be useless for use. The hemlock is fed on by starlings because of the constitution of their body;

For they have fine pores leading to the heart, and they manage to expel what has been swallowed; quails eat hellebore and suffer no harm, having a peculiarity of temperament. Through mandrake doctors induce sleep, and with opium they lull severe pains to rest. With hemlock they deaden rabid appetites, and with hellebore they soothe chronic ailments. And a fruit-bearing tree producing fruit. And all things sprang up from the earth in a single turn of time, not existing before, each with its own peculiarity, and each recognized by its own distinctive mark. The olive, the palm, and the cypress grow to a height. And of these some are not many-branched nor many-twigged, such as the fir, the cypress, and sometimes also the palm. Evergreen are the olive, the palm, and the laurel, myrtle, pine, cypress, fir, juniper, thyia, and what the Arcadians call philodrys; also the phyleos, cedar, pitys, box, holm-oak, arake, lathyrus. The rose then sprouted without the thorn; but later the thorn was yoked to the beauty of the flower, so that, having grief set beside pleasure, we might remember the sin for which the earth was condemned to bring forth thorns and thistles for us. The almond first sprouts, but later it brings forth its fruit. The bitter almond, when the stem toward the root is bored through and receives a fat pine wedge driven into the middle of its pith, changes its unpleasant juices into edible sweetness. The sour pomegranate, having received the same treatment, is turned into sweetness.

The female palm lowers its branches as if longing for the embrace of the male; and farmers, inserting the male palm's spathes into her branches, bring her into the proper upright form. The mulberry buds late, but it does not fall behind the others in bearing fruit. The olive, the linden, the white poplar, and the elm turn their leaves face upward after the summer solstice; and by this everyone recognizes that the summer solstice has occurred. The farmers guard the fruit of the cultivated fig from falling thus: stripping off the fruits of the wild fig, they cause them to remain unfallen. For the tiny creature inside the wild fig, clinging to the base of the cultivated fig, keeps off the outside air that blows around it, so that the fig does not become unpleasing and fall. Since the fig's fruit is soft, it is covered by a thickness of leaves; but the walnut, since it is hard, is protected by a light application of leaves. For this reason too the leaf of the vine is split, so that the grape may both avoid the harms from the air and receive the sun's ray through its looseness. Thus nothing is idle, but God has ordered all things in ineffable wisdom. For one water, carried or drawn up through the root, nourishes the stem in one way, the pith in another, the bark in another, the wood in another, the root itself in another; and from the same moisture wine is formed in the vine, oil in the olive, and in another plant something else. And even among the sweet fruits themselves the variation of richness is beyond telling.

For the sweetness in the vine is one thing, and another in the apple tree, and in the fig and the palm it is different. And the tears of the trees themselves are also different; for the tear of the mastic tree is one thing, and the sap of the balsam is another, which is the most beautiful of all perfumes, and it abounds when produced in Jericho. And when the natives cut it from the shrubs with a sharp stone, the sap flows back. Some also record that amber is the sap of plants, congealed into the nature of stone. 4. On the fourth day God created the two great luminaries, the sun and the moon, in the firmament of heaven, for light upon the earth, to separate between the day and between the night. This solar light has been prepared as a vehicle for that light which was first-born. For as fire is one thing, and the lamp another; for the one has the power of illuminating, and the other that of shining upon those who need it; and as whiteness is one thing, and a whitened body another, so also these things, being different in nature, are united by the power of the Creator. And let no one think that day and sun are the same. For first the Creator made simple light, which indeed he also called day, and then the sun, composed of fire and light. For as we see the earth having fire created within its very bosom, so also the sun has light; for light coming together with fire made the sun most radiant. But perhaps someone will object: And from where is this clear, since the division is not seen? For light is not seen separately, and fire separately.

But let such a person know how many things fire produces in itself: radiance, heat, yellowness—things which the Craftsman, dividing them with all wisdom, subtly reveals in their composition. For when he wishes to warm the living creature, he takes the heat of the fire, and it has the heat of it, but not the light. But the heat was divided in the living creature from the brightness; again he takes the yellowness. And we see, to be sure, the yellowness, but no longer the heat and the shining. And again he separates the heat, and gives only the radiance, as one may see in the case of lightning, that shining alone it illuminates, but does not also warm. The same example also holds for the moon. For this too, being illuminated by the sun, becomes more visible, just as the sun is by the day. For the form of the moon is coal-like, as one may see in the case of an eclipse; for when the sun withdraws its own light from it, it makes it dim; but illuminating it, it renders it full. For being somehow clothed in the sun's light, it becomes brighter; in the same way also the sun, being clothed in the light of the day, is brighter, that day being neither present nor again warming, but only illuminating. And that the sun consists of fire is clear from its burning and blazing. To separate between the day and between the night. For example, he appointed the sun to the measures of the day, and the moon to those of the night. And the night is a shadowing of the earth, when the sun is hidden. For as in the day, when something blocks the way, a shadow comes to be, and the light is present alongside—

Thus the night is constituted when the air around the earth is shadowed. And the sun, having received light from the Maker from the beginning, keeps this always hidden within itself; but the moon is not so, but continually strips itself, waxing and waning. Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years. The sun and moon generate this time. For the motions, drawn in due measure, generate the ordered comings-forth of the seasons. And it is called time, because it rolls on as it were in a circle by successive orderly sequences, first to second, and third to the next. And the phrase "let them be for signs" is because they always foretell the arrival of winter; for a mist, arising in the air, dims the rays of the sun, and it appears charcoal-like and blood-tinged, being unable to disperse the air thickened by the vapors of the earth; and from this a sign of winter is shown. But when the so-called halos (they are certain circular outlines resembling a threshing floor, for from this they are so named) encircle the sun, a violence of winds is signified; and whenever the so-called parhelia run together with the course of the sun, it becomes a sign of atmospheric occurrences; and again, whenever rod-like appearances, in the color of the rainbow, are shown in the clouds at dawn, rains, or storms, or a change of the air for the more are signified. And the moon, whenever on the third day it is shown thin and clear in its horns, promises settled fair weather; but appearing thick in its horns and reddish, it announces violent rain or a forceful south wind.

The sun and the moon are therefore established as instruments of times; and time is of days, months, and years; but the stars are for months, and sowings, and harvests. And the Pleiades, when they rise, show the time of harvest, and when they set, the time of sowing. And together with the Wagon they become a sign for those who sail; for the stars become signs and indicators of places. For the Bear points to the Bear; and one who looks sharply toward the rising of the Pleiad points out the Bear; and when the Bear itself turns, its horn shows the east, and the shining part of the moon signifies the east. But before these things there was no time, but an interval, and a certain long and timeless age. So then, it has been said concerning the signs. And we consider the changes of the seasons—winter, spring, summer, autumn—to be what he calls times. And winter comes about when the sun lingers over the southern parts and produces much nocturnal shadow around our region, so that the air around the earth is chilled, and the moist exhalations, condensing, become causes of rains, and frosts, and snowfalls; but whenever, returning again from the southern regions, it comes to the middle, an equinox occurs, and to the extent that it lingers over the places on earth, to that extent it gradually restores mildness, and spring comes, providing sprouting for plants and revival for trees.

From there, the sun, now running toward the summer solstice, to the very Bear itself, brings us the long days; and because it consorts more with the air, it chills the air itself, and dries up the whole earth, and ripens every fruit in season, being most fiery, and makes the shadows short by shining from on high. For on the shortest days the shadows become longest. And again, when it has come from the northern regions to the southern, autumn comes on, the excess of heat being gradually dimmed, and winter approaching harmlessly. The sun does not make the day—let no one suppose so; for the day and the night are older than it—but it only begins the day, as the psalmist also declares to us: He set, he says, the sun for authority over the day, and the moon and the stars for authority over the night. And this one has authority, carrying the light around in itself; whenever it rises above our horizon, it provides day, having scattered the darkness. And the moon, when it has completed its own course twelve times, is productive of a year, except that it needs an intercalary month for the exact concurrence of the seasons. For the solar year is a return from the same point to the same point according to the sun's own motion. And when the moon wanes, the bodies of animals are rarefied and become somewhat empty; but when it waxes, they are filled up. For it secretly sends in moisture mingled with warmth.

For those who sleep under the moon have their heads filled with excessive moisture, and newly slaughtered meats, and everything of that sort, are quickly changed by the moon's influence. Similarly, the conditions in the air are brought about by such a cause. For when the new moon comes, while the calm is steady, sudden disturbances of winds arise, the clouds being shaken and colliding with one another; and there occur reversals of current around the straits, and a backflow of the sea around the ocean. And if an eclipse of the sun occurs when it is the new moon, it happens more violently; for the moon, coming up from below, blocks the rays of the sun. And this moon is also a great thing. But silly myths have been preserved everywhere by drunken old women: that by certain sorceries it is moved from its own seat and brought down to the earth. And what place would receive it when brought down? For the appearance did not deceive us, as it is thought to be something small. For our sight, becoming small, made the things seen seem small too, bringing its own condition upon the visible objects. For just as if someone on a mountain peak should gaze at plains and cattle grazing together in the same place, he does not seem to see the appearance of ants; for the sight, being spent in the air and becoming faint, is not sufficient for the precise comprehension of the things seen. And that the body of the moon is of great size, it is possible to learn from proofs.

For the cities throughout the inhabited world, though very far distant from one another, and facing street-layouts oriented toward the east, all receive the moon's light equally, and those who dwell in the west and those in the southern and northern regions behold it alike. On the fifth day God commanded the waters to bring forth creeping things of living souls according to their kind; and immediately the sea brought forth all kinds of living creatures, diverse. For of marine creatures some are amphibious, such as seals, and crocodiles, and river-horses, and further frogs, and crabs, though they do not possess the power of swimming; for they are creeping by nature, dragged along by the guidance of the water; others are viviparous, such as seals, and dolphins, and torpedo-fish, and those like them. By a single command God brought forth both the deep-sea creatures and those of the shores, the abyssal, the rocky-dwelling, the gregarious, the scattered, the great sea-monsters, the huge, the very smallest of fishes, having a natural kinship with the water. For if they are separated from the water for a little while, having no respiration, they perish; for the dilation and folding of their gills, receiving the water and passing it through, provides them with this respiration. In none of them are the teeth half-formed, but all are thickly set with sharp teeth, so that their food may not slip away in prolonged chewing. For in fine chewing it would be corrupted by the water. And none among them chews the cud except the scar-fish. Their food also is suited to each differently. For some feed on mud, others on seaweed, others on the plants that are nourished by the water; and others are devourers of one another.

They also have various peculiarities. The priōn has long wings; and when it sees a ship sailing with a fair wind, it too raises its own wings and imitates the ship's forms of motion, and vies with those who sail. Having therefore made forty stades and grown weary, it lets down its wings and is carried by the waves to its own place. The sea-monster is called Aspidochelōnē by some; it is by nature exceedingly huge, so as often to create the impression of a great island for those who sail. For when it rises up from the deep, its body appears like rough rocks, and fixing stakes around it they tie up their boats, which are immediately sunk, when the monster has been warmed by the sun and has dived down into the deep; it has also by nature a heavy voice, and when hungry it opens its mouth and sends forth a most fragrant exhalation, so that the small fish are drawn away and pile themselves whole into its mouth. This creature inhabits the Atlantic seas because of its size. For the crab the flesh of the oyster is edible, and since it is unable to open the closure of its shells, it watches for it to open its folds in windless places and while it is enjoying the sunlight, and taking a pebble it inserts it secretly and prevents the closure, and thus easily devours it. The sea-urchin foreknows the approach of winter, and it goes under a pebble so as not to be carried about by the rush of the waves.

The octopus, when it comes near a certain rock, becomes the same color as it, and devours the fish that approach the rock. The echenēis is by nature the smallest of creatures, yet it brings to a standstill the greatest of ships when they are carried along by a fair wind, so that the ship seems to be fixed fast in the sea. There is also in the river the hydris, which has the form of a dog and is hostile to the crocodile, and kills it while it sleeps. For the crocodile sleeps with its mouth open; and the hydris, having rolled itself in mud, leaps into its mouth, and devouring all its insides, kills it. The crocodile is at once a beast and a fish, and large from head to tail; yet it does not have a width proportionate to its length. Its hide is a scaly skin that can be shed, and the color of its back resembles a black stone, while its belly resembles a white one. Its feet are four, gently curved to the side, just like those of the land tortoise; its tail is long and thick, for it is the end of a single bone of the spine. It is cut above into spines, and they are like the points of saws, and it strikes with it against whatever it wrestles with. It has one head woven together with its back and directed along a single straight line; and as long as it has not gaped open, it is the head of a beast; but if it opens wide, it becomes all mouth, making its gaping as far as the shoulders.

The creature called the hippopotamus has the feet and belly of a horse, but its hoof is cloven like a claw; its tail is thick and bare of hair, since the whole of its body is likewise so; its head is round, slightly different from a horse's cheek, and it has a gaping nostril, breathing out fiery smoke as from a furnace, and a broad jaw; for it opens its mouth as far as the temples. Inside it is thickly set with teeth in three rows, and it has besides two curved teeth like a boar's. It is wholly the most gluttonous of creatures, making a field its food. It is hunted by the following trick. They watch for its haunts, and make a pit, and roof it over with reed, and cover it with sand, and set below a wooden chamber having its doors open toward the roof of the pit; and the beast, stepping upon it, falls in unawares, and is carried down and shut up in the chamber. And the hunters immediately close it off. Secondly, this beast is of the size of an ox. In fish there is a great heat within, and sharp; wherefore they also swallow more quickly what they eat, since the food in their belly immediately putrefies. The sea fox, when it cannot escape the catch, having swallowed the hook, leaps up and runs back, bites off the line, and escapes. The crocodile is a man-eating beast, but when it is about to mate, it swims up and turns the female over onto the banks; for this creature alone is by nature accustomed to mount lying on its back, and after the coupling it again lifts her up with its hands and turns her back with it.

But when she perceives that it has mated with another, she pretends to mate with it, and in the same manner, turning back, she knows by smell (for she has the keenest sense in this matter) that she has been defiled by another, and tearing open her belly with her claws, she devours all that is within her. For this creature is tender about the belly; for its back is clothed with thick scales, so that even the sharpest iron, when brought against it, is blunted. Let the waters bring forth birds of living souls, and suddenly the air is filled with every kind of bird. And he gave them their origin from the waters, since they have inherited a certain kinship with the fish. For just as the fish, by the motion of their fins, cut through the water and swim through it, so the birds swim through the air with their wings. And of these, some are carnivorous, possessing a construction suited to their manner of living—with sharp claws, a hooked beak, and a sharp wing—so as to be able easily to snatch and tear apart; others are seed-eating, and others feed on everything. And the construction of both kinds differs; and some are without a leader and independent, while others are arranged under a leader, and some are migratory, while others are native. The rooster is proud, and the hawk is most kindly disposed

It happens in the case of man too. For they report that the hawks in Thrace cooperate with the bird-catchers in the hunt. They make their haunts in the thickest woods, where the kinds of birds dwell, and they arrange terms with those who go out to the hunt, to receive an equal share of what is caught. And when the hunters shake the trees, the birds, being shaken, are startled and fly up, and the hawks, flying over their heads, peck at their heads and strike them down to the ground, and make the catch an easy prey for the men; and they gladly share the catch itself with them at once. The pelican is fond of its young; for while it feeds its nestlings, it is struck by them with their wings in the face; and it, pecking at them, kills them, and, moved with compassion, mourns over them for three days. But the mother, coming over them, rends her own side and drips her blood upon the nestlings, and they are brought to life. And these pelicans eat the shellfish in this way, since they cannot destroy them because they are clamped shut: they swallow them first, so that by the heat around the throat the glue holding them together may be dissolved, and the shellfish, being released, may be loosened; then, having vomited them up, they easily devour the edible part of them. And the doves do not hatch their eggs where they lay them, but having moved away, because of the multitude of hunters, to another place, they rear their young.

And whenever they perceive that some of the hunters have come for the young, they fly up and draw the hunters' eager attention to themselves, giving the young a chance to flee; and when the young have escaped, they fly away very boldly together with the young and tread the air. The peacock, coming from India, is a lover of beauty. This bird, spreading out its beauty and displaying the spectacle of its feathers, draws the female to mating, showing her this adornment as though it were a meadow; for the peacock is almost more brightly blooming than a meadow. For gold is implanted in its feathers, and the purple dye runs in a circle around the gold; and by the gold an equal circle is set about, and there is an eye in the feather. The phoenix has the size of a peacock, but it surpasses the peacock in the beauty of its color; for its feathers are mingled with gold and purple, and its head is naturally adorned with a well-formed circle of a crown. The circle is dark blue and resembles roses. Being fair to look upon and luxuriant with rays, it stands on high like the sun; so that others too have recorded the form of its body, and in describing it they say as follows: For its length is nearly double that of an eagle. With varied feathers and colors its body is set ablaze. Its breast, then, appears purple, and its legs are the color of red ochre, and along its neck it is furnished with saffron-colored tufts. Its head is like the couch of day, and with an apple-colored pupil it looked forth. In a circle around the pupils a seed-like spot appeared. It had the most comely voice of all. And it appeared the king of all birds, as one might understand.

For all the birds together, following long after him, rushed upon him. But he went before, exulting like a bull, bearing a swift stride of foot. They say that this is a unique creature, not continuing by succession, but that it exists most alone, and lives five hundred years. And at the time when it is about to die (for it foreknows its departure), having stationed itself on some high place, toward the rising of the sun, it builds its nest from aromatic twigs, and then by the ray of the sun it is wholly burnt up, and is entirely dissolved into dust; then from the dust a worm comes to be, and from the worm it changes into the first palm. The eagle is most unjust concerning the rearing of its young; for having made two, it takes one as its own, but the other, striking it with its wings, it sends away, through its feeding, as they say, the toilsome one. But the vulture, having received the one rejected, rears it together with its own nestlings. And having reared the nestling, the eagle flies together with it, taking it up toward the aether; and if it should observe it sharp-sighted toward the brightness of the sun, and boldly swimming through the air, it keeps it as its own; but if it is feeble for these things, it casts it off as a bastard. For they say that the eagle, having grown old, is dimmed in its sight, and its wings are weighed down, and it comes to a spring, and flying up into the aether, its wings are burned up by the sun, and it recovers its sight, then immediately having come down to the spring it is dipped a third time, and is renewed; wherefore also, they say, the psalm says: Your youth shall be renewed as the eagle's.

The vulture has its offspring from the wind, and knows no union with a male, and lives a hundred years. It nests in high and lofty places, and no one knows where it makes its dwelling. And when it is with egg, it journeys to India, and taking the stone called eutokios, it sits upon it, seized by birth-pangs, and gives birth. The stone is round like a nut, and when moved it emits a sound like a bell, from within another stone being moved. They say that the vulture dies when anointed with rose perfumes; but that seeds do not harm it, nor does it injure any living thing, nor does it approach a dead bird because of kinship. And when, they say, men are drawn up for war, it follows them and does not depart, being flesh-eating. The storks both arrive at a single signal and depart at a single one. The crows escort them, and, as is likely, fight alongside them against certain hostile birds; for they return wounded. If the stork grows old, it sheds its feathers, and its young stand around and warm it with their own feathers, and provide food abundantly; and in flight they support it from below, and gently lighten it on both sides with their own feathers. The cranes all fly together equally, but one leads them, and having led for a fixed time, it goes to the rear and hands over the leadership of the way to the one after it. And while they sleep, one goes around the whole flock keeping guard.

And when, having fulfilled the sufficient measure of the interval, it cries out, it turns to sleep, and another in turn succeeds to this same service. The race of geese is wakeful and quick of hearing, swiftly perceiving the approach of those simply coming near, or of those plotting. Thus, at any rate, when certain enemies crept in through underground passages and were about to seize Rome the great city, these by the natural sharpness of their perception preserved it, delivering the plotters to the guards by their sudden cry. The halcyon is a sea bird, and it nests by the shores of the sea, in midwinter. When, then, it is brooding, the winds are lulled to rest, and the sea holds a steady calm, for up to seven days, whereas before violent winds were troubling the sea. When, then, it has fed its nestlings again for another seven days, God provides a windless calm, until it has reared its nestlings. The partridge is crafty and jealous and villainous, cooperating with the hunters for the catch. But stealing the eggs of others, it hatches them, and when the nestlings have grown, each according to its kind flies up to its own, and they leave it desolate. The dove is fond of the willow. There is a tree in India called the peridexion, bearing sweet fruits, and the doves delight in it and dwell upon it. The dragon is the enemy of the dove, and dreading the tree, does not approach it; for into whatever part of the tree the shadow falls, the dragon flees in fear. And the doves, into the side

They depart from that shadow; for if they are separated from the shadow, they are killed by the serpent. But what the nature of the dove is, is worthy of wonder; for it shows the neck, when illuminated in the sunlight, variegated with countless forms of colors—purple-red, dark blue, fiery, ember-like, pale, and red, and other colors of every kind. The crow is fond of its young and monogamous; for having reared its nestlings, in caring for them it does not cease to feed them, and always flies together with them. The night-raven is a friend of night rather than of day. The hoopoe is affectionate; for when its parents have grown old, it first flutters over them, then cools their eyes with its tongue, and then, warming them, renews them. The swallow gives birth once in the season, and building its nest it carries twigs with its mouth and mud with its wing; for having wetted the tip of its wing in water, it rolls it in the fine dust, and thus contrives the use of mud; and little by little, binding the twigs together with the mud as with a kind of glue, it constructs the nest and rears the nestlings. The turtle-dove is monogamous; for whether the male dies or the female, it does not join itself to another. Domestic fowls have the power of mating at every season. Water-loving creatures, such as ducks and swans and those like them, do not have cloven feet, but broad, membranous feet, for swimming easily in the waters, pushing the liquid as it were with oars by the membranes of their feet. The swan has a neck longer than its feet, for drawing up fish from the depth.

Of birds, many change their voice and their color each year. For the coccothaustes (hawfinch) turns from black to yellow, and from being a songster to a croaker. And the nightingale changes its color and its voice at the turnings of the year; and it is wakeful, devoting itself to its melody. Some of the birds do not hunger at the winter turnings, being nourished by the air alone and by the moisture that is present in the grazing on green things, but they also restrain the pleasures of the belly. For some mount in spring, and in autumn at the equinoxes, while others mount once a year. And the female birds hold to copulation until conception, and straightway they turn away the males. And the beetles (scarabs), if they are anointed with rose oil, die at once. And the bees and wasps, when drenched with olive oil, are destroyed, their pores being stopped up. With vinegar, then, when they are drenched, they revive; and they are nourished by the air, though they have no breathing. And the bees have a king, and they make their flight in common, and their dwelling in common; and no one goes out readily before the king begins the flight. And this one is for them unappointed by hand, having his rule over all from nature, differing from them in size, and shape, and in the gentleness of his character; for he has a sting, but he does not use it for defense. And the bees gather the wax from the flowers, and having drawn in with the mouth the dew-like moisture scattered in the flowers, they send it into the hollows of the combs; whence also it is moist at the beginning, then, being digested in time, it becomes sweet and useful to men. And wisely and with love of craft they fashion also the storehouses of the honey;

Spreading the wax into a thin membrane, they build their hives close and continuous with one another, so that the smallness of the tiniest creatures' bonding with each other is made firm. And the locusts encamp by a single signal across the breadth of the land. As they go about, they see other fields heavy with fruit, and they do not touch them, but hasten to the place appointed for them, as though urged on by a divine command. And they do not touch the fruit before permission is given them. Afterwards a selevkis is sent against them, and it devours them all, having an insatiable nature. They say the owl's sight is dimmed by day and strengthened by night. And when the bats sleep, they hang from one another; and if it happens that one of the swarm is torn away, the rest cry out against it. It alone among birds is four-footed and adorned with teeth. And the cicadas come into being in rainy weather, but they are quiet for a time, since they are congealed by the dew. They say that their wing both strikes and sings. And on the sixth day God commanded the earth to bring forth four-footed creatures according to kind, and reptiles, and beasts of the earth, and cattle, and all things that creep upon the earth according to kind, and immediately all things were brought into being—things which have perception of nature in common with man, yet do not possess a soul equal to his, living and moved with a motion which the primal nature of the blood supplies to the spirit when mingled with the air from outside. And there are also in them various dispositions, hinting at the Providence of God.

For these things too confirm this [Providence] no little. For just as the fruitfulness of plants is wise, and the good order of the stars, and the blameless course of the sun and the moon, and the ordinance of the sea's bounds, which does not overstep Providence, testify undeniably; so too the peculiar nature of animals, displaying the exactness of their order, proclaims Providence very clearly, as a soul moving the whole constitution of the world. And anyone who rejects it would be utterly ridiculous, since all the elements agree with it: the earth not disobedient to the planting of plants, and the sun, the moon, and the remaining stars not halting from their proper course, the sea not transgressing the canon of its command, and swimming creatures, birds of the air, and land animals not falling short of the service they owe. How then is he not unjust and foolish who altogether rejects Providence? Where is the argument that will say that a craftsman's work does not come about spontaneously, but that wise works are accomplished by knowledge? For instance, we form a conception of a sculptor; and when we behold a beautifully painted image, we marvel at its painter; and seeing a ship skillfully built by knowledge, we praise the shipbuilder. If then we ourselves, beholding craftsmen's works, recognize the inspired craftsman, why should we not rather grasp the wise Providence of all things, [seeing] with the eye of the mind, through the elemental parts of the world, which are ordered with knowledge? For the forms and shapes are sufficient to make the craftsman known, even if in word the elements keep silence. For things molded by someone are wont to acknowledge the one who adorned them.

Just as the composition of the elements makes Providence clear, so too the varied nature of animals provides the knowledge of it. For spiritedness is innate in the lion, and his life is solitary, sharing with no other animal, nor does he put forth food from yesterday, but fresh food; and he has sharp perception, and sooner than by smell he perceives the hunters, and by running he flees to his cave, sweeping his tracks with his tail, so that, covered by the dust, they may make him untrackable for the hunters. But his cub is born blind, and for three days it is guarded by the lioness, and he himself, coming from the hunt, breathes into its face and raises it up seeing. And whenever he comes upon a man or one of the animals, he first lashes himself with his tail, as the poet says: With his tail he lashes his flanks and haunches on both sides, and rouses himself to fight. And when he has grown old and is too weak to go out to the hunt, he lies in wait near the cities, eager to hunt men for food. And his mouth is always most foul-smelling; and when sleeping he has his eyelids open. But the lioness barely endures the conception of one cub; for coming forth outside, with the points of her claws she tears her womb apart. The leopard is swift and quick-turning in its onsets, and surpasses the others in sharpness, and leaps upon the faces of the hunters. Sluggish is the

The nature of the bear is peculiar, and its character is crafty, and it is heavy in body. Often, then, when wounded with very deep blows, it heals itself by thrusting its wounds shut with the driest mullein. And when wrestling, it intertwines its feet skillfully, and trips the opponent, and catching it in the middle, it holds it fast with strength. The bull is armed with its horns for defense against its rivals, and with its feet it paws the dust in the manner of an athlete; with fiery eyes it glares, and with its horns bent forward, and boiling with rage, it rushes with its whole body. But the boar, when it sees hunters lying in wait in the woods, stands up, and does not rush forth before it has sharpened its tusks on the nearby trees. There is also an animal, the antelope, exceedingly sharp and hard to hunt, having long horns like saws, which saws through lofty and great trees; and when thirsty it comes to the river Euphrates, and having drunk, it plays with the heather that grows by the banks of the river, and is bound by it. For being slender-branched, they become entangled around its horns, and it bellows; and the hunters, perceiving it, immediately seize it and kill it. And among the Scythians called Loi there is an animal called the tarandos, having the size of an ox, but its appearance resembling that of a deer. And it is hard to hunt, because it changes its color in relation to trees and places, and to all things it approaches, and assimilates itself to their appearance, and for this reason is unrecognizable to many. Similarly also the chameleon, into whatever meadows and dry grounds it creeps, takes on their color. The deer is timid and sharp-sighted, and hostile to creeping beasts;

And if a snake escapes it and slips into a cleft of rock, she comes thirsting to the springs; for she is exceedingly fiery with thirst, so as even to thrust her tongue out of her mouth, in order to be cooled by the coldness of the air. Having filled herself with water, then, she goes to where the snake is hidden, and having dragged it out of the cleft, she tramples and kills it. And if a little of her horns or of her hairs is burned at a house, wherever a wild beast lurks, it runs away. But when she has shed her horns, she seeks solitude, and takes possession of an inaccessible crag, and pursues a trackless desert, since she has lost the weapon of defense against the other beasts. Since, then, there are sores at the roots of the shed horns, she encamps in a place thick with trees, so that her wounds may not be sucked by flies, and by night she grazes, having relief. But when her horns have grown out, she proceeds in confidence even at midday. And wishing to test whether her horns have become firm—for being tender they are broken and scorched by the sun—she puts her head against trees and rubs it in collision, trying to know whether it is firmly fixed. And against the bites of phalangia, by eating a crab she is healed. And the wild goat in Crete, if it is pierced by an arrow, having eaten the so-called dictamnus, easily heals the wound. And panthers hunt animals with ease. For knowing clearly that the other animals rejoice in the odors from them, they sweat in deep caves; and the others, as if perceiving the savour of fat, track it by scent, and having come near the place, are straightway devoured by the panthers.

The panther is friendly to all animals, but hostile to the dragon. It is star-marked in body and very gentle. And as long as it does not need food, it remains sleeping in its den; but on the third day, being hungry, it comes out and cries with a loud voice, and from its mouth a certain fragrant sweetness issues, by which the other animals are charmed, and those near and those far off draw near to it and follow, delighting in the variegation of its body. And the panther, having gone a little ahead of them, turns back and watches, and whichever of the animals pleases it, it leaps upon and takes. The elephant conceives in time, for in ten years it ripens the seed, and when the offspring becomes old, then it gives birth; and whenever it has been brought down into a pit, and another elephant sees it, it goes and gathers many elephants, and coming they draw up the fallen one, gently lightening it. And the dragon in India creeps up on the back of the elephant and coils around its whole belly, and whatever vein it happens to divide, it fills itself insatiably with the blood, drawing it in with violent breath and intense hissing. And the elephant leaps and strikes its sides with its trunk, as the dragon sits upon it; then, as the blood is drained out, no longer able to leap, it stands trembling, and a little later it falls, its legs having weakened; then it also breathes out its life and brings the dragon down with it; and the dragon, unable to loose the bond it has wrapped around itself and pressed by the weight of the elephant, is choked and dies. The horse is hot toward desire for the female. The donkey is sluggish, and sharp-hearing, and mindful. The camel is resentful of wrongs.

The wolf is untamed. The ox is steady. The dog is grateful and loves its master; for often, when they were killed on the road, it died alongside them; and others even denounced the killers and procured that they be visited with the punishment they deserved. But some have suspected the hyena, supposing that it changes each year from the female nature to the male, or from the male to the female. But it is not so; for this animal, being altogether the most wanton, has before the passage an excrescence under the tail, resembling a female pudendum, which has no passage, or only a cavity, established for no purpose useful to a womb, and receives only empty lust. At any rate, because of its excessive lewdness, both the male and the female have this peculiarity; for when their passages are filled and occupied with gestation, they perform unnatural intercourse with one another. Hence it is very rare to find a female hyena; for the conceptions of this animal are not continuous. The hare is most unrestrained for copulation. The female gives birth monthly, and after giving birth is again mounted by any hare that happens by, and conceives while still nursing; for she is not satisfied with one. They say the griffin is an animal of enormous size, so as to cast the shadow of a field; and it seizes a lion as easily as an eagle among us seizes a hare. There is an animal, the charadrios, mentioned by Moses, very white, having no spot of another color throughout its whole body; and they say that its excrements heal those with dim eyesight. They report that it dwells in the royal courts, becoming a prophet of life and death to those of mankind who are sick.

For they say that when some illness befalls a person, they bring the charadrius before him, and if it opens its mouth toward the sick man, and the sick man toward it, the charadrius swallows his disease, and flies up into the air toward the sun, and there scatters the man's disease; but if it does not open its mouth, they know that the one who is ill will die. The monoceros is a small animal, like a kid, exceedingly sharp. It has only one horn on the crown of its head, and it is hunted as follows: they cast a pure virgin in front of it, and it leaps into her bosom; and she, embracing it, carries it off to the houses of kings. There is an animal called the castorion, very gentle and quiet; its genitals are useful for healing. So when it is pursued by hunters for this, it cuts off its own genitals and halts those who pursue it. But when others pursue it, it shows itself already cut off, and cuts off its hunters from the chase. The myrmecoleon has a father with the face of a lion, and a mother that is an ant. And the father is flesh-eating, but the mother is seed-eating, and they beget the myrmecoleon with two natures, having the face of a lion, but the hinder part of an ant; and being able to eat neither flesh nor seeds, it dies. The onager is the leader of the herd, and it crushes the genitals of the males that are born, and they do not produce seed. The

The hedgehog is, as it were, a sphere in its body, and its back is entirely covered with spines, its spines being like those of sea urchins. At any rate, it goes to the cluster of the vine and pulls down the grapes, and having rolled itself over, it impales the grapes on its spines and departs. The fox is crafty, hunting birds by some such device as this. For having found a dung-heap, it rolls itself in it, and again wraps itself in the finest dust or chaff, and places itself in the plain with its eyes wide open, or even drawing its breath into itself, so that it is thought by the birds to be dead, puffed up as it were; and they, flying down upon it, it immediately seizes and devours. The lizard, when it has grown old, becomes blind, and it enters into a crack of a wall looking deliberately toward the east, and when the sun rises, having opened its eyes, it is illuminated by the sun's ray and is healed, and is restored to health. So indeed do you also, O man, when you have grown old in sins and been blinded in mind, seek the Sun of righteousness, that you may be renewed in righteousness, having fixed your gaze upon him and looked up with the eyes of the soul. But of all beasts the dragon is the most spiritual and the most fiery, and it produces forms of various shapes, coiling itself and making the impulses of its course, and it comes most swiftly wherever it wishes. It is also long-lived; for it not only strips off old age, but also admits a greater increase. When, then, it has completed the appointed time of life, it is consumed into itself; for it does not die by its own end before fulfilling the limit of life, unless it be violently destroyed by someone.

With this the ichneumon does battle, having smeared itself with mud and covering its nostrils with its tail. But indeed it also joins combat with the Egyptian asp in this way: the asp advances upon it with a great hissing, dragging its tail in coils, and leaping up from its breast toward its head on high, puffed up in mid-air, with a goodly breast and broad neck, and filled with rage it comes on, rolling its tongue with an intense hiss. But the ichneumon, raising its tail, shakes it to deceive the asp and draw it aside, and crouching on its forefeet it rushes forward, and having lowered itself entirely it extends only its gaze, watching out lest it be the first to receive a fatal blow. So when it sees the asp eagerly striving toward its tail as toward a beast, it suddenly leaps upon it and presses its neck and strangles it. The lizard called the salamander, if it enters into an oven or a bathhouse, cools it. They say that the viper receives the seed through the mouth of the male, and with its teeth cuts off that very member and kills him. But she, having become pregnant, is killed by her offspring; for while still in her belly they devour the womb, and having burst open the belly they come out through the side. But the serpent, having grown old, is blinded, and having fasted forty days it is loosened in body, and enters into a narrow cleft of rock, and being dragged through by force it strips off its aged skin and is renewed. But when it thirsts, it first lays aside its venom, and thus drinks the water from the spring.

Hunting the mouse-snake, it blinds it and rears it, and when it has been softened it devours them. But if it sees a naked man, it does not approach; but if he is clothed, it leaps upon him. The basilisk sends forth deadly poison through its eye, so that the one who has looked upon it is instantly struck dead. Its breath is fiery, burning up regions and a place thick with trees. They relate that it comes into being in this way. Whenever more snakes are shut up together and are pestilential (since the creature is utterly polluted), each devours its neighbor; and the stronger snake, consuming the weaker, and filled with the poison of all the snakes that it has devoured, becomes a basilisk, having the most grievous poison, so as to kill even by its eye alone. The scarab beetle, having molded a circular shape from cow dung, rolls it facing forward. They say that it is six months above the earth, and that it sows seed into the dung-ball, and that it gives birth to a male scarab; for a female scarab never exists. And the Egyptians, on account of such a nature of its, worship it, transforming it into the sun, since it rolls a sphere, and they liken the stars to the shapes of snakes, because they make their course oblique. The ants, gathering the grain, cut through the middle of the kernels, so that it does not sprout when moistened; and they remain without going out for the winter, having procured sufficient food through the summer. The leech, being a worm-like creature, lives in sweet waters; and one who drinks greedily swallows it down, for by reason of its great smoothness it slips down together with the water being drunk.

And it suffers no small harm from it, since it sucks out the flesh along with the blood, and this makes it grow; and it is insatiable in its thirst for blood. And often, when doctors need to draw it off, it is not drained until it bursts. But the cat is hostile to vipers and the other biting reptiles. The ibis is hostile to snakes, locusts, and caterpillars. The hawk is deadly to horned snakes, scorpions, and the other small reptiles. And this creature is sympathetic toward man; for if it sees him dead and unburied, it laments and throws earth upon him. After the creation of the world, God later created man, breaking the cold with the hot, binding the moist with the dry, and again loosening the dry with the moist, and composed him, having all the parts of the universe. For just as the earth, standing firm, possesses the cold air poured around within itself, and in order upon it the fire suspended, and again the water running in a circle around it—so indeed man also, like earth by the solid nature of his bones and by the flesh poured over them, has been composed and has received, through the nostrils, the spiritual breath, as it were air, and his innate heat, which cools it. For the air above our head, cooling the fiery nature of the air, makes it well-tempered for the whole life of living things. But the heat existing in the body of man melts away the excess of phlegm, like a crystalline congelation of water. And the veins and the blood in them preserve the likeness of rivers.

God, having fashioned man in this way from the earth and given him a rational soul, allowed him to enjoy the paradise of delight. Then, when he disobeyed the commandment, he removed him to this earth, declaring that his life upon it would be full of toil. Having known his wife Eve, he fathered two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain was a tiller of the soil, and Abel a shepherd; and he did not pursue the first-fruits of the fruits of the tiller. Abel brought an offering to God, and his sacrifice was accepted. But Cain, being the first of those born to be filled with envy, brought his offering in this way, and his sacrifice was not accepted. And Cain, enraged at this, killed his brother out of envy; and God made him accursed and cast him out from that land. And he, after wandering a long way, came to a certain place called Cain, and practiced every kind of unspeakable deed, lying in ambush for those who passed by, killing them, and gathering from the spoils a countless multitude of riches. Cain was the first to devise measures, weights, and boundaries of land, and the building of a city, while all people at that time embraced a simple and unbusy life. But Adam, remaining in the place where he happened to be, had many sons and daughters, among whom a certain outstanding one was Seth, who, when he had come to maturity

He devised many excellences, of which he also left his descendants as zealous emulators. For he was the first to discover astronomy and the whole celestial order, which Adam arranged to remain in this way until the last times. For Adam, about to die, prophesied to his children that God was about to wipe out the nature in the world by fire and water; and Seth and those with him, having heard, made two pillars, constructing one of stone and the other of baked brick; and on these they engraved the whole celestial motion, so that their discovery of astronomy would not become forgotten; so that if all things are destroyed by water, the stone pillar might be preserved, but if by fire, the brick one. When the deluge came, then, the stone pillar remained, which remains to this day set up as a pillar in the land of Seir. And Cain begot Enoch, and Enoch begot Gaidad, and Gaidad begot Maleleel, and Maleleel begot Mathusala, and he begot Lamech. And Lamech took two wives, Adan and Selan, and by them made three children: by Adan, Jobel, who became a keeper of livestock, and Jubal, who discovered the psaltery and the cithara. And by Selan, Thobel, who became a smith of bronze and iron. And Adam, having lived nine hundred and twelve years, died. And Enos, the son of Seth, hoped to call upon the name of the Lord; and having lived nine hundred and five years, he died. And his son Cainan, having lived nine hundred and ten years, came to his end. And the son of Maleleel, having lived seven hundred and ninety-five years, died.

His son Jared lived nine hundred and sixty years and died. And Jared's son Enoch, having pleased God, was translated. His son Methuselah lived seven hundred and sixty-nine years and died. And Lamech the son of Methuselah lived seven hundred and fifty-three years and died. To this Lamech a son was born, Noah, who took delight in the excellences of good deeds, and who persuaded the human race to be changed from wickedness to virtue; for up to the seventh generation men inscribed God as master of all things and cared for righteousness. But later, as time went on, they lapsed into every lawlessness. Since, then, Noah could not persuade them to depart from wickedness, he loathed their company and withdrew to another land. And God commanded him to build a four-storied ark, three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty in depth, so that, shutting himself up in it together with his family, he might escape the danger of the flood. For God wished by such a punishment to wipe out the wickedness of those times. And when the flood was brought on, the heights of the mountains were covered by the water. For even now some, cutting stones for building on the summit of Lebanon, find kinds of sea fish, which it happened were frozen together with the mud into the hollows of the mountains. And the ark, lifted up by the water, came to rest on a certain peak of a mountain in Armenia, and when the water subsided, all those in the ark came out.

And the local inhabitants still even now call that place Apobaterion, and they display the remains of the ark, and they use its asphalt for averting evil. And Noah died, having lived nine hundred and fifty years. And his sons, fearing to depart from the mountain because of all the others (for they suspected that they would again experience another flood), persuaded them to come down and to settle the spread-out plain. But so that, having multiplied, they might not stir up strife among themselves, God commanded them to make settlements abroad. But they did not obey, since they were cultivating good land and had the greatest abundance of crops. Again, therefore, he subjected them to a grievous calamity so that they might undertake the settlement abroad. But not even so did they yield to the will of God, supposing that the fertility of the land belonged to them not by the favor of God but by their own strength. And Nebroth the giant persuaded them to hold this conceit, being a certain bold man and valiant in hand, who also, having caused them to revolt from God, compelled them to procure worship for himself, and indeed he permitted them to build a tower touching the height of heaven, threatening to take vengeance on God if he should again bring a deluge upon the world. At any rate, while the multitude with great zeal cooperated with his madness and was constructing the tower faster than speech, God immediately confounded their language, and by the dissimilarity of tongues they were scattered, and from this the place received the name Babylon, since the Hebrews call the confusion Babylon.

Each one, then, occupied the land that fell to his lot, and they filled every coastal region and mainland, and also the islands; for crossing the sea with ships, they settled on these. Some of the nations, then, preserve the names of their founders, while others changed them, when the Greeks later gained power and adorned the nations with their own names, and they also set their own laws for them, in order to claim them for the glory of their own creation, so as to leave no suspicion of earlier peoples to those who came afterward. Now Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; beginning from the mountains of Taurus and Ammanus, they settled and advanced in Asia as far as the river Tanais, and in Europe as far as Gades. And these are they: Gamer, who established the Gamareis, the present Galatians; Agod, the Magodeis, the present Scythians; Adai, the Madaians, the present Medes; Ouan, Ionia, and the Greeks; Obel, the Theobelians, the present Iberians; Osoch, the Meschenians, the present Cappadocians; Theras, the Theiras, the present Thracians. And Gamer also had three sons: Schanax, from whom the Aschanaxaians, the present Rhegines; Riphath, from whom the Riphathaians, the present Paphlagonians; Thygammaiis, who established the Thygammeis, the present Phrygians. And Joua had three sons: Elisasa, from whom the Alisaians, the present Aeolians; Tharses, from whom the Tharseis, the present Cilicians; for thus Cilicia was called in ancient times; for even now its metropolis is called Tharses; Chetheim, Chetheima, the island which they now call Cyprus; for from it the Hebrews call every island and the coastal region Iththo.

The sons of Ham occupied the land from Syria, and Ammon, and the mountains of Lebanon, taking possession of as much of it as faced the sea, and appropriating the regions as far as the Ocean. And the names of some were changed entirely, while those of others were changed into other names, hard to recognize; but the names of a few are still preserved intact. And these are the sons of Ham: Cush, from whom come the Cushites, who are now the Ethiopians; Mizraim, from whom come the Mizraites, who are now the Egyptians; Put, the Putes, who are now the Libyans, and to this day the river among the Moors and the region near it are called Putes. And the nation was called Libyans, and the land, after one of the sons of Mizraim named Libya, who reigned over them. And to Cush were born seven sons: Sabat, from whom come the Sabatians, who to this day preserve the name together with the land; Evilat, from whom come the Evilaites, who are now the Getuli; Sabath, from whom come the Sabatheni, who are now the Astabari; Regmara, from whom come the Allaei, who even now have this appellation; Iudadan, from whom come the Iudadani, an Ethiopian nation bearing the same name as its forefather to this day; Sebekatha, from whom come the Sabakteni, who are themselves likewise namesakes; Nimrod—he remained in Babylon and was the first to tyrannize over them. Mizraim had eight sons, who occupied the land from Gaza as far as Egypt. And the land of the Philistines at that time kept the same name for a while, but later it was called Palestine. And to Canaan also were born eleven children: Sidon the firstborn,

He founded a city bearing his own name, Sidon, in Phoenicia. Hamathios built the Hamathite region, now called Epiphaneia, after one of the Macedonians who was renowned and gained control of it and gave it his own name. Aroukaios founded the land in Lebanon. This Arodios settled the island of Arados. Asennasos, from whom come the Asennaioi. Samareios established Samareia, Chettaios the Chettaians, and Iebousaios the Iebousaians. Amorios the Amorites, who inhabited Bethel. Gergesaios the Gergesaians, who dwelt beyond the Jordan as far as Philadelphia. Euaios the Euaians. And the Kinaians dwelt around Lebanon and Amaron. The Eniakeim, giants, dwelt in Hebron, and around it the Chettaians and the Pherezaians, mingled with the Chananaians, held Palestine. Others held Raphia, that is Philadelphia. Again the Gergesaians held Gadara, and the city of Gergisa, and the lake of Tiberias, and the Iebousaians held what is now Jerusalem. Shem also had five sons, who settled Asia as far as the Ocean in their own portion, that is, beginning from the Euphrates. These are: Ailam, from whom come the Ailamaians, who are now the Persians. Assour, from whom come the Assyrians. Arphaxad, from whom come the Arphaxaians, who are now the Chaldaians. Aram, from whom come the Aramaians, who are now the Syrians. These held the land from Mesopotamia as far as the mountains of Ararat, which are toward Armenia. Loud, from whom come the Lydaians, who are now the Lydians. Kainan, from whom come the Kanatai. And four sons were born to Aram: Ouz, who founded Damascus and the Trachonitis, which is in the middle of Palestine and Coele Syria. Oul, from whom come the Lazoneis. Gathe, from whom come the Staphenoi.

Mesoch, from whom came the Massenians. The sons of Arphaxad: Kainan, from whom came the Songodians; and from him astronomy and augury were devised. And a son was born to Kainan, Sala, from whom came the Sousians. The son of Sala was Heber, from whom came the Hebrews, who retained the ancient Hebrew dialect, since Heber did not join in the building of the tower and his tongue was not changed. And the sons of Heber: Phalek, from whom came the Adiabenians; Jektan, from whom came the Edramaeans. And Phalek was called Phalek for this reason, because, according to the apostle, he was born in the time of the dispersions. For the Hebrews call phalek "division," and in his days they were divided. And the supposed number of the years of the world's duration was divided into two exactly equal parts; for three thousand years were completed at the genesis of the world's own existence. For we reckon that the creation will endure until the sixth thousand, since God also established the consummation of this universe in six days. And I think the Divine reckons days as thousands of years; for, it says, a day of the Lord is as a thousand years. So from Adam to the end of Phalek there are three thousand years. And to the coming and resurrection of the Lord there are five thousand five hundred and thirty-one years, so that four hundred and fifty-nine years are lacking from the sixth thousand. And the sign of the world's consummation is the Sabbath; and reasonably in the last days the Lord, having come to the world, suffered on the Preparation, which is the sixth day, and it was about the sixth hour of this day when he was crucified, the word signifying through this the half of the sixth thousand.

And for this reason he did not say definitively "the sixth hour," the account hinting that it exceeds the number by a little. And from Christ to the thirtieth year of Constantine there are 269 years. And just as Jonah, having spent three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, was restored unharmed, so too we all, having passed through the three divisions of the age upon the earth, shall rise again. For there are three universal intervals of time: the present, the past, and the future, whose symbols our Savior dispensed, making three days and three nights in the earth, teaching clearly that, when the aforementioned intervals of time have been completed, our resurrection will be, being the beginning of the age to come. And sons were born to Jektan: Salmodad, from whom the Indians; Saleph, from whom the Bactrians; Asarmoth, from whom the Arabs; Jarach, from whom the Carmanians; Odorra, from whom the Mardi; Jeziel, from whom the Arrianians; Dekla, from whom the Cedrusians; Gebal, from whom the Scythians; Abimeel, from whom the Hyrcanians; Sabeu, from whom the Arabians of the Happy Land; Ophir, from whom the Armenians; Euilat, from whom the Gymnosophists. These are all sons of Shem. And Zala begat Ragau; and Ragau begat Seruch; and Seruch begat Nachor, and taught him the divination and astronomy of the Chaldeans. And in the times of Seruch the sons of Noah began to worship idols and to pursue every wickedness, and to build cities, and to set up kings, and to besiege, and to plunder, and to take captives. And Nachor begat Tharra, and Tharra begat Abraham, and Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begat Lot, and Sarra, and Melcha.

And Haran died in a city of the Chaldeans called Ur, where even now his tomb is pointed out. And he died in the conflagration with which Abram burned his father's idols when he entered to rescue them. And they marry their sisters—Nahor marries Milcah, and Abraham marries Sarah. And they do this not unlawfully, since there was never any law forbidding it. For if nature, urging them to beget children, compelled the males and females born from the common father of all, Adam, and from his wife—being brothers and sisters—to enter into the union of marriage, it is not unreasonable that those who came afterward, receiving the first succession of the law, should follow the customs of their ancestors. And Terah, hating Chaldea because of the mourning for his son, departed to Mesopotamia, and there he died, having lived two hundred and five years. For from that time the life of men was cut short and became briefer, until the birth of Moses. For after Moses the limit of life became one hundred and twenty years, which he himself also lived, and then departed this mortal life. And Abraham, thrice blessed, was an excellent astronomer, and thought greater things than others in virtue; when all the sons of Noah had fallen into superstition, he alone declared that God was the Maker of all things, inferring it from the changes concerning the sun and the moon, and from the affections concerning earth, and air, and sea. For why, he says, since the power of their own good order is in them, are they not provided for, but fall short of it?

From these things, then, it is possible to know that he accomplishes nothing by his own strength—even if he seems to benefit men no small amount—but by the will of the one who made him. It was concerning this glory of his, then, that the Chaldeans and those who inhabited Mesopotamia differed and opposed him. And rising from there at God's command, he settled in the land of the Canaanites. But when a terrible famine came upon him, he went to Egypt, and he showed that the Egyptians, who held opposing opinions against one another and rejected and overturned their own customs, all thought and prophesied nothing worthy of note. And being admired for his understanding and great wisdom, he handed over to them arithmetic and astronomy; for before his arrival the Egyptians were unacquainted with these things, but having learned them later they passed them on to the Greeks. And to Abraham, when he returned from Egypt, a son Ishmael was born from the slave-girl Hagar, from whom the nation of the Hagarenes and Saracens arose; and that of the Ishmaelites from Ishmael. And Lot separated from Abraham and settled in the land of Sodom, which was condemned to heavenly conflagration because of its lawless transgression, and even now the burnt traces of it are visible; for one can see the shadows of five cities, in which a fruit grows which appears outwardly similar to edible fruits, but when taken in the hands it dissolves into ash and smoke. And adjacent to this is the Asphaltitis lake,

which formerly had hollow pits containing asphalt, but when the land was destroyed, it became a lake, which is also called the Dead Sea. And it is by nature extremely bitter and barren; but its water is light, so that heavy objects thrown into it—stone or iron, perhaps—do not sink into the depths, but are again, as it were, blown up by a breath and float on the surface. For living men thrown into it bob up; but dead men sink; and burning lamps are carried on the surface, but when extinguished they are swallowed up. It produces bitter salt, and alum, and black lumps of asphalt, so that these resemble headless bulls in size. And the sailors, grasping these lumps, fill their boats and drag them to the shore. The asphalt sticks fast to the wood of the ship and is stripped off with the wood, so that it cannot be detached in any other way unless it be soaked with urine and women's menstrual blood; for it is its nature to yield to these alone. They say that the water changes color three times a day and sends forth a varied appearance, shining back against the ray of the sun. And Abraham, having become a hundred years old, begot a legitimate son, Isaac, from Sarah; and after the eighth day he circumcised him, from which even now the Hebrews keep this custom, being circumcised on this day. For the Arabs and the Ishmaelites are circumcised in the thirteenth year, since their forefather Ishmael was thus circumcised. And Abraham, persuaded by Sarah, settled Ishmael elsewhere, lest after his death, as firstborn, he should plot against Isaac concerning the rights of primogeniture.

The descendants of Ishmael, then, occupied the land extending from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. But after a time, God commanded that Isaac be offered to him in sacrifice; and Abraham, considering this also the greatest token of piety, came with great eagerness to a certain mountain height, and having prepared everything for the sacrifice, he says to his child: "O child, having asked with countless prayers that you be born to me from God, since you came into life, there is nothing that I did not strive for concerning your upbringing, nor anything in which I thought I would be more blessed than that I might leave you, when you had reached manhood, as successor of my own authority when I die. But since by God's will I became your father, again, at his request, I dedicate you to him. Bear the consecration, then, nobly; for I yield you to God, who has deemed this honor worthy to be received from us, in return for which he has been gracious and a protector to me. Go, then, not dying by the common manner of life, but sent forth by your own father as a sacrifice by law to God, the father of all. I think you are worthy, since he has judged you so, neither by disease, nor by war, nor by any other of the sufferings that naturally befall humans, but with prayers and sacred rite has he received your soul. And you will be to me a guardian and caretaker of my old age, providing God to me in place of yourself." Having heard these things, Isaac said to him: "I would not be just even in my very beginning, if I were about to thrust away the judgment of God and my father, and not readily give myself to the will of both.

But even if the father alone had chosen this, it would have been unjust not to obey. And saying these things, he rushed upon the altar and the slaughter. But God, having accepted the eagerness of each, granted the child back to the father, showing a ram in place of the sacrifice of the child; and immediately he offered this up in place of Isaac his son. And to Abraham first the Word of God, appearing in the form of a man, foretold the calling of the nations, which, having come to dwell in the world in our time, he brought to fulfillment through his evangelical teaching to all the nations. And Isaac, being in the fortieth year of his age, takes Rebecca as his wife, from whom he begot two sons, Esau and Jacob. And Abraham, after Sarah had died, marries Keturah, and has six children from her: Zembran, Jazan, Maden, Madianen, Lousoubakos, Souos. And children are born from these as well: from Souos, Sabakanes and Dadanes; from the latter, Latousimos, Assouros, and Louobos; from Madamos, Hetha, Thophres, Amochos, Ebidos, Eldos. And to all these Abraham from his own womb devised names, who occupied Troglodyte and the parts of Arabia Felix, and as much as extends toward the Red Sea. And from Assour Assyria was named; and Sophren, having campaigned against Libya, held it, and his descendants, that is, his grandsons dwelling in it, named the country Africa from his name, who fought alongside Heracles when he campaigned against Antaeus the earthborn.

Heracles marries the daughter of Ouaphres, from whom he fathered a son Bodoron, who begot a son Sophonas, from whom the barbarians called Sophonas take their name. But Abraham, having lived 175 years, died. Jacob, having snatched away the blessing of Esau, came to Mesopotamia to Laban, his mother's brother, and having served him fourteen years, he marries his two daughters, Leah and Rachel, for whom he came to a greater desire. But he desired her not because he was overcome by her beauty (since, as it is written, Rachel was beautiful in appearance and exceedingly lovely to look upon), but because, having seen her first, as though she had met him by divine providence, he greeted her and loved her, knowing that this wonder had also happened in the case of his mother Rebecca, when, after the child Abraham had prayed, what he had prayed for met him, and what had been begun for him through works was fulfilled. And six children are born to him from Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun; and from Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin; and from Rachel's maidservant Bilhah, Dan and Naphtali; and from Leah's maidservant named Zilpah, Gad and Asher. But the race of the Syrians was constituted from Esau, who were also called Idumaeans, from the former Idumaean, Esau, having been so called because he desired red pottage; for the Hebrews call the red thing Iduma. Later they were renamed Syrians, when a certain man named Syros gained mastery over their nation.

But Esau took three wives from the Canaanites in marriage: Addah the daughter of Elom the Hittite, and Elibemah the daughter of Enan the Hebrew, and Basemmath the daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nabaioth. And by Addah he begot Eliphaz, by Basemmath Raguel, and by Elibemah he begot Ieoul, and Ieglom, and Kore. Having made these in the land of the Canaanites, he settled in Mount Seir, because his brother Jacob, when he returned from Mesopotamia, could not dwell together with him on account of the multitude of their possessions. Having therefore begotten a child there also, he named him Edom from his own surname. And legitimate sons were also born to his sons: to Eliphaz five—Theman, Hymar, Sophar, Gomoth, Kenex—among whom was also a bastard, Amalek, born to him from a concubine named Thamnas; and to Raguel four sons were born—Namin, Zares, Some, Roze; and to Edom eleven—Thamma, Gola, Iothom, Ailibaiman, Ielas, Phinon, Kenyx, Theman, Mazariei, Maediel, Zephonen. And to Seir the Chorrite, who inhabited the land of Lotan, five sons were born: Sobal, Sebegon, Anadeson, Aser, Reson; and to Lotan two, Chorrei and Eman. And Thamna was the sister of Lotan, who bore Amalek to Eliphaz. And Sobal the son of Seir begot five sons: Odomnan, Nachath, Gebeel, Soph, Omnan; and Osebegon two, Aidei and Ainan, who found in the wilderness Amin pasturing his father Sebegon's beasts of burden. And Ainan begot Deson and Elibama his daughter; and Deson begot Amadan, and Asban, and Gethran, and Charran.

And Asher, the fourth son of Seir, begot four children: Balam, Zucam, Iucam, and Ucam. And the fifth son of Seir was Oreson, who begot Ossaran. And before kings reigned in Israel, these were the kings who reigned in Edom: Balak son of Beor, and the name of his city was Denaba; after him Jobab son of Zara, who was from Bosorra; after him Azom, who was from the land of Theman; after him Adad son of Barad, who cut off the Midianites in the plain of Moab, and the name of his city was Getthem; and after him Samalak, who was from Masekka; after him Saul, who was from Roboth by the river; after him Balaennon son of Abochor, whose wife was named Metebeel, daughter of Matrad, son of Mezooph. All these were in number one hundred and fifty years. But the sons of Jacob, hating their brother Joseph out of envy, sold him to the Ishmaelites; and they themselves sold him into Egypt to Petephres, the chief cook of Pharaoh. And at this time Judah came to a certain Hiran the Odollamite; and seeing there a Canaanite woman named Saba, he took her in marriage and had four children by her: Er, Aunan, Selom, and Phares. And Judah took for his firstborn son Er a wife named Thamar; and because of the great wickedness of his ways he died childless, God having put him to death. And Judah permitted his second son Aunan to lie with Thamar, so as to raise up seed for his brother. And Aunan, knowing that the sowing of children was not fitting for him, when he was about to lie with the woman, spilled his seed upon the ground; and being resented by God for this, he died immediately.

And Judah commands Tamar to sit as a widow in her father's house until Shelah grows up. When he had grown to manhood, he was afraid to unite him with Tamar, suspecting that he too would perish. But she, grieved painfully at this, repaid Judah in the following way. When he had come to the shearing of the sheep, she, hearing of it, stripped off her mourning garment and clothed herself in costly attire, and sat at the gates of the city of Ainan. Judah, seeing her as he passed by from there, desired her as a harlot; for she had covered her face so as not to be recognized, and he promised to send her a kid and asked to have intercourse with her. But she did not yield before she had received as a pledge the ring, the necklace, and the staff. And when he had lain with her, he went away to his flocks; but she, having again changed back into the garments of a widow, hid herself and remained concealed. And when Judah sent the kid and sought the necklace and the rest, and did not find her, he was tormented by the deception, yet he endured it, wishing by every means to detect the trick. After some time, then, Tamar became pregnant, and Judah, hearing that she had conceived by harlotry, ordered her to be burned alive. But she, being led out, sent to Judah the necklace, the ring, and the staff, saying: "By the man whose these are, I have conceived. Recognize, then, whose is the ring, the necklace, and the staff." And Judah, indignant at the matter and becoming inspired, blamed himself for the injustice, saying:

She has been justified, or I, for which reason I did not give her to Shelah my son. But she, having become pregnant, brought forth twins in the birthing. And the larger one, that is the first, thrust out his hand beforehand, and the midwife bound a scarlet thread to his hand, saying: "This one will come out first." And immediately the child drew his hand back inside, and his brother came out first, and his name was called Phares. And after him came out the brother on whom was the scarlet thread on his hand, and he was named Zara. Of these was Joseph the descendant, the betrothed of the undefiled Mary, from whom Christ took up the flesh. For Phares, as the evangelist Matthew records, begot Esrom, and Esrom begot Aram, and Aram begot Aminadab, and Aminadab begot Naasson, and Naasson begot Salmon, and Salmon begot Booz, and Booz begot Obed from Ruth, and Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king. And David the king begot Solomon from the wife of Uriah, and Solomon begot Roboam, and Roboam begot Abia, and Abia begot Asa, and Asa begot Josaphat; and Josaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Oziah, and Oziah begot Joatham, and Joatham begot Ezekiah, and Ezekiah begot Manasseh, and Manasseh begot Ammon, and Ammon begot Josiah, and Josiah begot Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

But after the deportation to Babylon, Jechoniah begot Salathiel, and Salathiel begot Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel begot Abiud, and Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor, and Azor begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud, and Eliud begot Eleazar, and Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. Now all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. But we must inquire by what account Matthew and Luke disagree in the genealogy of Joseph: the one writing him as son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, while Luke writes him as son of Heli, the son of Melchi; and how these men, being of two different families—both Melchi and Matthan—appear as grandfathers of Joseph. This, then, is made clear as follows. For first Matthan, who was of the family of Solomon, takes a wife named Aitha, and by her begets Jacob, and dies. And Melchi, who was of the family of Matthan, takes her, and begets Heli from her. And so then both Matthan and Melchi, having taken the same woman, fathered two brothers of the same mother; for which reason we find Jacob and Heli to be from two different families.

But Heli, having taken a wife, died childless, and his brother Jacob took his wife, so that according to the law he might raise up children for his brother, and he begot Joseph from her. So then by nature Joseph was the son of Jacob, but by law of Heli. It is also worth going through the account that a certain James relates concerning the holy Mary. For he says that in the tribes of Israel there was a wealthy man named Joachim, who at the feast brought double the gifts of others to God, speaking thus: "The abundance of my possessions among all the people, and the offering of remission for atonement, are mine for the Lord God." When therefore the greatest feast of the Lord came, and all were bringing their gifts to God according to custom, he himself hastened to bring his first. And a certain Reuben prevented him from bringing his first, saying that it was not permitted to him, since he stood childless in Israel. And grieved at this, he came to the wilderness, and there pitching a tent he besought God to grant him also, just as to Abraham, the offspring of a legitimate child; for he knew that he alone was such in Israel; fasting for forty days he besought God. Likewise also his wife, putting on cheap clothing, begged God to obtain offspring. And when the greatest day of God came, she put on a bright robe; for it was not lawful on this feast to be clothed in a mourning robe. Around the ninth hour of the day, under a certain tree in the

having sat down in its paradise. She was entreating God, saying: "O God of our fathers, bless me, and hear my supplication, just as you blessed the womb of Sarah and gave her a son, Isaac." And saying these things, she looked toward the tree, and when she saw a sparrow caring for its own nestlings, she groaned bitterly, and having wailed aloud she said: "Alas, O Lord, that I am not even like these birds, which are fruitful!" And while she was crying out these things to God, an angel of the Lord appeared to her and announced to her the bearing of a child. And she, hearing it, immediately promised to dedicate the one born to God. The angel also declared such things to Joachim on the mountain. And Joachim, having come down from the mountain, offered to the Lord a sacrifice of ten lambs, and to the priests twelve calves, and to the elders and all the people a hundred kids. And having completed these sacrifices in the temple of God, he arrives at his house; and having known his wife, he begets from her a daughter, and he names her Mariam, whom, when she had become three years old, they dedicated to the temple of God. And when she had become twelve years old, the priests held a council, as to whom they should join her in marriage. And they entrust the high priest Zacharias, having entered into the Holy of Holies, to ask God to reveal to him to whom it is fitting that she be joined. And while Zacharias was praying, an angel appeared and signified that he should gather all the widowers of the people, and that each should hold a rod; and to whomever God should show a sign, to him they should join the virgin. And Zacharias, having gone out, did just as the angel had commanded him.

And taking the rods of all of them, he went into the temple and prayed, and coming out he distributed to each one his own rod. Last of all, when he handed the rod to Joseph, a great sign occurred. For suddenly, as he received his rod from the priest, a dove flew out of the rod and settled on the head of Joseph; and the high priest and all the priests who were present, marveling at what had happened, judged that he should become the betrothed of the girl, whom Joseph took and kept, and leaving her in his house he set out to complete his building works; for he was a carpenter by trade. And at that time it seemed good to the priests that a veil for the temple of God be made by pure virgins, and there were found in the tribe of Judah seven virgins. And Zacharias, remembering Mary also, ordered that she too be present for the enrollment; and bringing them into the house of God, he commanded them to cast lots as to which of them should work the gold and the amianthus and the fine linen and the silk and the true purple and the hyacinth and the scarlet. And Mary was allotted to work the purple and the scarlet. And while she was working in the house, an angel appeared and announced to her the wondrous birth, as the Gospels record. Having completed the task assigned to her, she gives it to the high priest, and after being blessed by him she departs; and after a time she gives birth to Christ according to the flesh. And when the magi from the East had worshiped him with gifts as a king, Herod was troubled, and he intended to put him to death at once.

But he was carried by Joseph and Mary into Egypt, and escaped the death that came from Herod. And he, ignorant of the flight, ordered all the infants in Bethlehem to be slain; among whom he also hastened to kill John, who was still an infant. But Elizabeth, snatching him up, fled into the wilderness; and when she prayed, the mountain was split, and received her together with the child, and an angel of God kept them safe. Herod therefore sends to Zacharias: Give me your son; tell me where you have hidden him. But Zacharias writes back to him, saying: I, always attending at the altar, do not know what became of my son. And Herod, enraged, again sent word to him. Give up your son, he said. Do you not know that your blood is in my hand? And Zacharias said: I have God as my witness. You may have my blood, but my spirit belongs to God. Receive this too and know that you are shedding innocent blood at the forecourts of the temple of the Lord. And Herod, enraged at these words, ordered him to be killed in the midst of the altar before daybreak, so that his murder might not be prevented by the people. But at dawn the priests, coming to the temple, were astonished, since the high priest had not met them as was customary, and they waited outside. As the hour dragged on, one of them dared to enter. And he sees blood congealed beside the altar, and hears a voice saying: Zacharias has been murdered, and his blood shall not be wiped away until the avenger comes. Hearing these things, then, he became afraid, and going out he reported it to the priests.

But when they entered, they did not see the body, only the blood, and tearing their garments, they beat their breasts and announced it to the people, and for three days and nights they made lamentation over him. And after these things they appointed Symeon to his place by lot, who had been divinely warned by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he should see the Christ of the Lord. But another account concerning Zacharias is also reported: that there was a certain place about the temple, where it was permitted only for virgins to enter and worship God; but for those who had been married it was not lawful. Mary therefore, having given birth to the Savior, came and stood in this place. And when those who knew that she had given birth were preventing her, Zacharias said that she was worthy of the place of the virgins. So then, as one transgressing the law in regard to the place of the virgins, they killed him between the altar. And these things were said, as it were, in passing. But Joseph, having been handed over in Egypt by his brothers, by divine design distinguished dreams for Pharaoh, and was appointed ruler of all Egypt. And when famine was pressing upon all the land, his brothers went down into Egypt, themselves also to buy grain because of the famine; and Joseph, being recognized by them, transferred them together with their father Jacob, with all their family, into Egypt. For to Reuben four sons were born: Enoch, Phales, Arrom, Charmei; and to Symeon six: Jebuel, Jabin, Aod, Achia, Sade, Saul; and to Levi three: Gedsom, Boad, and Menarei; and to Judah five: Er, Aunon, who, as was written before, died, Selom, Phares, Zara; and to Phares two: Arrom and Jemoel; and to Issachar four: Thala, Phona, Iasouph, Zabran.

To Zebulun three: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel; all thirty-three, having their descent from Leah, and a daughter Dinah. And to Gad there were seven sons: Zaphon, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. And to Asher four: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, and Serah their sister; and from Beriah were born Heber and Malchiel. These all are the sixteen sons of Zilpah, the handmaid of Leah, who bore them to Jacob in the name of Leah. And to Joseph in Egypt two children were born, Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera the priest of Heliopolis, bore to him. And from Manasseh was born Machir, by race from the handmaid of Syria; and Machir begot Gilead; and from Ephraim were born sons Shuthelah, Bered, and Ladan. And from Shuthelah was born Eden. And to Benjamin also two children were born, Balla-Chobor and Ashbel; and from Balla-Chobor, Gera, Naaman, Ahiram, and Muppim. And Muppim begot Ard. These are the sons of Rachel, eighteen in all. And a son was born to Dan; and to Naphtali, Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. These are the sons of Bilhah, the handmaid of Rachel, seven in all. And the blessed Jacob, having lived one hundred and forty-seven years in all, died in Egypt, having first blessed each of his sons with various blessings. And the blessing of the firstborn of Joseph

he provided, and not Reuben; because Joseph, not yielding to the pleasure of the Egyptian woman, was justified, while Reuben, defeated, sinned. And besides, he was the firstborn from Rachel, and he allotted the kingdom to the tribe of Judah, and not to that of Reuben; because Judah was reproached in the matter of a woman, but he was justified, confessing with good sense that he himself was liable for the sin, and not the woman. But also in this respect he was appointed to reign, since alone of the other tribes it proved more daring for zeal and vengeance of God; therefore he prophesies that the Christ according to the flesh would spring from him, and the calling of the nations through him. And to Levi alone he assigned the high priesthood, since Amram, sprung from him, thwarted the decree of Pharaoh, and kept alive his own son Moses. But Reuben alone he made great in number, because he did not consent to the plot against Joseph. When Jacob had died in Egypt, they carried him and buried him in the land of Canaan; and likewise all his sons. And at the end, departing from Egypt, they bury Joseph where their forefather Abraham had been buried before; in which place there was also the terebinth, under which Jacob hid the idols of Laban, which even now is worshipped by the neighboring peoples in honor of the ancestors; for there is even to this day beside its trunk an altar, on which they used to offer both whole burnt offerings and hecatombs; and they say that it was a rod of one of the angels who were entertained by Abraham, which he, being present at that place then, planted, and from it the wondrous terebinth grew.

For when it is set on fire, it becomes entirely fire, and it is thought by all to be reduced to dust by the flame, yet when the fire has been quenched it is shown to be entirely unharmed and intact. And after the death of Joseph, the Egyptians, forgetting his beneficence, subjected the race of the Israelites to manifold calamities, being disposed toward them with envy and jealousy. For the Israelites, being steadfast in toils, surpassed the Egyptians in virtue and wealth, while the latter were enervated into drunkenness and idleness, and were always fettered by sloth. And a certain one of the sacred scribes among the Egyptians foretold to Pharaoh that there would be born among the Israelites one who would humble all Egypt, but would advance his own nation to great prosperity, having acquired glory ever to be remembered. And for this reason Pharaoh purposed in every way to destroy the Hebrews: commanding them to labor at works, to fortify all the cities of Egypt, and to cut the river into many channels; and he ordered them to raise embankments, so that the river, flooding the city, might in no way harm it; and besides these things, he declared that they should raise pyramids and cast the infants born among them down into the river, thinking that the one prophesied to destroy Egypt would also be slain at the river. There was therefore a certain man from the tribe of Levi, Amram by name, who, having taken Jochebed as his wife, begot from her the wondrous Moses, and hid him for a time.

But when she saw that the king's law prevailed more strongly, fearing lest she be detected, she put the child into a chest and exposed it by the banks of the river. And the daughter of Pharaoh, having come for the sake of bathing, saw the chest and opened it, and delighted by the beauty of the child, she took him in as her own, being in want of a child; and having summoned many nurses of the Egyptians, she could not find how to nourish the child; for he would accept the breast of none of them. In the end, then, his mother, having secretly made herself known to the queen, was commanded to nurse him; for she alone accepted her breast, receiving, I think, from his very swaddling clothes what was his own kindred and loathing what was foreign. When he had grown to manhood, then, Thermuthis addressed him as Moses (for this was the name of the queen), since he was saved from the water; for the Egyptians call water "mou" and "ses" to be saved. But formerly his parents called him Melchis. And he was exceedingly comely in appearance, so that whoever met him on the road stood aside, struck with amazement and marveling exceedingly at his beauty. Thermuthis, then, when he had grown, brought him to her father, deeming him worthy to make him successor of his kingdom, and she placed him in his hands. And he, taking him and embracing him to his breast, kept kissing him; and playfully, taking the diadem from his own head, he placed it on his head. But Moses, throwing the diadem to the ground, trampled on it. And the scribe who had foretold his birth, seeing this and understanding that he was the one prophesied to be the enemy of the rule of the Egyptians, rushed to kill him, but was not able;

But he cried out and said to the king: "This is that man, O king, whom the demon foretold to us would spring up from the Hebrews as a plotter against the kingdom of the Egyptians; and he has now shown no small sign of what is to come, having cast down the very token of the kingdom and trampled it to the ground. If you put this man to death, you will deprive the Egyptians of the evils they expect, and you will cause the Hebrews to fail of the hope they have in him." When he had said this, the king, by the providence of God, became reluctant for the murder; but Thermouthis, snatching Moses from the king's hands, kept him safely. But the Ethiopians, who were neighbors of the Egyptians, came suddenly and besieged Egypt, and having routed the Egyptians when they drew up against them, they advanced as far as Memphis and the sea, inasmuch as the Egyptians, according to the oracle, had taken the race of the Hebrews as allies and were advancing. And Pharaoh, thinking he had found a suitable occasion for the removal of Moses, asked Thermouthis to hand Moses over to him, so that he might make him general of the Hebrews, swearing that he would do him no harm, but would only appoint him commander of the Hebrews, supposing that he would easily be destroyed by the enemies, since he was inexperienced in battle. But she, having first reproached her father and the scribes at length, that those whom they wished to kill as an enemy they now summoned as a helper, gives Moses to them.

But the general of his own nation, having been brought forward, leads the army secretly past the Ethiopians by another road, through the impassable and beast-bearing region (for it breeds every kind of beast, so that there are even winged creatures in it), and so that they might not be struck by any of the beasts, he ordered each man to carry woven baskets filled with ibises; for this creature is hostile to asps. So when they were traversing that place, they set the ibises upon the beasts, and those, unable to withstand their onset, were destroyed; and having passed through in this manner, he suddenly fell upon the Ethiopians, and having slaughtered a great multitude of them, he put the rest to flight. But the Ethiopians, scarcely escaping the slaughter by flight, occupied the city of Saba. For this was their royal city, fortified with a strong wall and embankments, inaccessible because of the Nile (since it walls it round entirely with its stream); and for this reason it also proved difficult for the Egyptians to besiege. Moses, then, led the army against the city, being in the greatest perplexity, because it was hard to capture. While the Egyptians were devising many things and prevailing in nothing, the daughter of the king, Tharmis by name, having seen Moses from the towers, and having been pleased with his beauty, and having marveled at the ingenuity of his undertakings, came into desire; and having sent the most trusted of her servants, she discussed marriage with him. But Moses promised to do this, if she would hand the city over to him. And she immediately made peace and handed the city over to him. When the battle was therefore dissolved, and

When the Egyptians had returned to their own places, she is led to marriage, and he founds a city and proclaims it Hermopolis; for thus Moses is addressed by the Egyptians, because he made [his name] from the interpretation of the sacred letters. He was also honored among the Ethiopians not a little for his admirable wisdom. For he first devised for them the use of boats, and machines for stone-laying, and Egyptian weapons, and instruments for drawing water and for war. Moreover, he also divided all Egypt into thirty nomes, in order to secure the kingdom for Chenephres; since the Egyptians were being ruled in disorder, bringing forward their opinion and deposing whomever they had chosen. For these reasons, then, he was honored by the priests as a god, and by the Ethiopians as a king; for indeed, having learned circumcision from him, they keep it to this day. For he was the first to become wise, as Eupolemus records, and he first handed down letters to the Hebrews, which the blessed Abraham brought from the Chaldeans; for the Chaldeans were the first inventors of these; and the Phoenicians received them from the Hebrews; and Cadmus brought them over to the Greeks. After the campaign against the Ethiopians he arrives in Egypt; and Chenephres received him with fair words, but in deeds he was preparing death against him; for having left him destitute of his own people, he comes with him to Memphis; and he asks him what is useful for men. And he said: The race of oxen, because the land is made arable by them.

Chenephrēs therefore ordered the crowds to build a shrine for the bull Apis, and he hid beneath the floor of the temple the memorials of Moses' virtue (these were made of bronze, proclaiming the conception of the ibises and the history of the manly deeds against the Ethiopians), in order to consign Moses' achievements to oblivion. He divided the multitude of the Hebrews who attended him into two tasks: for he sent some out to guard Ethiopia, and he permitted others to build the temple in the city of Zeus out of stone, having quarried the nearby mountain; for formerly the temple had been built of baked brick. And having alienated Moses from the Egyptians as well, he commanded his friends to kill him, putting all under oath not to make known to him the plot being contrived against him. When all had refused this plan, a certain Chanenōthēs undertook to serve the king's purpose, promising to murder Moses by treachery. Then indeed, when Merrhōē (for thus Thermuthis was called) had died, Pharaoh, considering the occasion a windfall, ordered Moses and Chanenōthēs to go to the regions beyond Egypt to bury her. As they were arriving, one of those who knew Pharaoh's purpose informed Moses; and Moses, guarding himself on every side, buried Merrhōē, and named both the place and the river Merrhōē after her. But he himself, having crossed the Nile from Memphis, fled to Arabia on the pretext of his brother Aaron; and Chanenōthēs, learning of it, drew his sword and went to meet him.

But Moses restrained his hand, and snatching his sword from his hand, he slew him with his own sword, and came to Arabia to Raguel, the ruler of those regions, and taking his daughter Sephphora, he begot two children by her. But Pharaoh, having learned of all Moses' dramatic exploits, poured out his wrath upon the multitude of the Jews, and ordered them to be destroyed utterly; for having commanded them alone to wear linen clothing because of its distinctiveness, he handed them over to the Egyptians for slaughter; for which God punished him with the greatest vengeance; for Pharaoh, the first of all men to become elephantine, ended his life with a shameful death. But he who succeeded to the same beginning of his kingdom was at the same time also the successor of his wickedness; for he subjected the Jews to the same evils. And with great lamentation encompassing them, God, taking pity on them, sent Moses to Egypt, commanding Pharaoh to release the nation of the Jews into the wilderness, so that they might serve him. When Pharaoh was angered at such a saying of Moses, he ordered him to be cast into prison immediately; and through the night the whole earth was shaken by an earthquake, so that some of the guards expired from fear, while others relaxed their limbs in deep sleep; and the very gates of the prison were opened wide, and Moses came out and came by night to the palace; for indeed its doors also parted when the earth was shaken; and while all the bodyguards were sleeping, he awoke Pharaoh, saying:

God has sent me, commanding you to release the people of the Jews." And Pharaoh, struck with amazement, asked what sort of being this was, and what was the name of the God who had sent him. And Moses, leaning in toward his ear, made the name of God clear to him; and Pharaoh, unable to endure the hearing, fell to the ground speechless. And Moses came near and raised him up, and having engraved the all-holy name on a tablet, he sealed it. And one of the priests among the Egyptians, having dared to treat this name with contempt, straightway ended his life in a convulsion. And Pharaoh permitted Moses to perform a sign; and Moses, casting down on the ground the staff he held, changed it into a serpent; and again, touching it, he restored it to its former state. But when he did not yield to this and release the people, Moses prayed to God, and a great earthquake with hail fell upon them, so that whoever fled from the houses was destroyed by the hail because of the earthquake, while those again who hastened to escape the hail were destroyed by the earthquake. And when even at this he remained unrelenting, he struck the water of the Nile with the staff, and the river, flooding, inundated Egypt, so that it almost covered it all, so that from that time until now it makes its descent. Pharaoh, then, having summoned the priests above Memphis, threatened to destroy them and all the shrines of the idols, unless they worked wonders in a manner similar to Moses.

But they, using their customary sorceries, caused serpents to crawl out and, by appearance, discolored the river, so that Pharaoh, blinded by this, subjected the Jews to the greatest punishment. And Moses, striking the ground with his staff, caused a winged creature to crawl forth from it, which, settling on the bodies of the Egyptians, inflicted painful sores on them, so that no medical assistance could help them. And when Pharaoh was hardened even at this plague, finally he subjected the firstborn of all Egypt to death. And when immeasurable mourning fell upon Egypt because of this, Pharaoh sent all the Jews out of the country with their whole families; and after they had traveled a long road and crossed the rivers of Arabia, on the third day they arrived at the Red Sea. But when God hardened Pharaoh's heart, the Egyptians again, forgetting the evils that had come before, pursued the Israelites together with Pharaoh. Let no one suppose that Pharaoh was compelled by God to become insensible to what he was doing; for such a person perhaps charges God with injustice, saying: If he himself hardens the heart, why does he blame the one who is hardened? But let him know that the forbearance of the plagues became the cause of his hardening; for whenever he brought the blows upon him, he promised to release the people; but whenever he relieved him of the torments, he was hardened; for this is what Scripture also signifies in express words when it says:

But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and did not listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken: "For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show in you all my power." But when you hear this, do not suppose it in a blasphemous way, saying: Why does he punish them, thereby preparing him to resist him? Why does he strike, if there is no injustice with God? But let him first know that the things that appear to be contradicted in Scripture are resolved not by reasonings but by examples. For just as the best of physicians, eager to devise something beneficial for human nature, request those condemned to death and dissect them, so that through those liable to death they may discover something beneficial for humans; so too God, who surpasses all human wisdom, through Pharaoh, who had sinned incurably, shows great signs, punishing the one who deserved punishment, but healing those born afterward, providing his punishment as a basis of salvation for them. So Pharaoh, having gathered all his force—two hundred chariots and twenty thousand horsemen—pursued the Israelites. And they, after the Red Sea was divided by Moses, went forward at God's command; and the Egyptians, driving on behind them, were drowned in the sea, when Moses struck with his staff and gathered the waters together. And on the next day, the water, driven by the wind, brought the weapons of the Egyptians to the multitude of the Hebrews. And Moses, reckoning that this too had happened by God's providence, ordered them to procure them, so that they might not be unarmed. So they arrive at the desert.

And Raguel and Jethro (for he happened to have two names) came to Moses, bringing with him his wife and his sons; and when he learned from him all the wondrous works of God against the Egyptians, he was astonished and glorified God. And this man was, as they say, a descendant of Abraham, born from one of those begotten to him by Keturah; for from Jokshan came Dadan, Raguel, Jethro, and Obab. So Moses, having received him kindly with hospitality, sent him on to his own places. But Moses himself, after establishing many laws useful to the Hebrews, died, having lived one hundred and twenty years. And Joshua the son of Nun succeeded to his leadership, and led the people out of the wilderness, who had spent forty years in it, where even yet the traces of the dwelling of the Jews are preserved. For those who have visited the places for the sake of inquiry report that the forms of the tents still stand, belonging to a countless multitude, and that Mount Sinai is seen, where Moses received the laws, and each of the things recorded in detail. But it must be investigated: The Hebrews sojourned in Egypt five hundred and thirty years, and not two hundred and fifteen; for the consecutive record of the times indicates two hundred and fifteen, but the Scripture five hundred and thirty. For it says that the seed of Abraham shall be a sojourner in a foreign land for four hundred and thirty years. First, then, it must be observed that it did not say "in Egypt," but "in a foreign land the seed of Abraham shall be a sojourner"; and the land of Canaan was also foreign, in which Isaac sojourned, himself being the seed of Abraham before all, an exceptional one; for he was a son.

It is clear, then, that before they inherited the land of the foreigners, they were sojourners for forty-five years, as the Apostle also says somewhere: "A covenant previously ratified by God, after four hundred and thirty years, to make the promise fruitful"; and he adds: "But God graciously gave it to Abraham through a promise." It is likely, then, that they sojourned in Canaan for two hundred and fifteen years, and in Egypt the same two hundred and fifteen, which together make four hundred and thirty years. And while Joshua was leading the people and the ark of the covenant through the Jordan, the waters parted, standing up as a single heap very far off; and the part flowing down into the sea of the salt marshes went down into the Arabah, until it was completely gone, and all crossed over on dry ground, and they encamp against Jericho. Now this city was fortified with very great walls. So they encircled it for six days, as God commanded; and on the seventh day at dawn they went around it a seventh time, and the priests, having sounded with the trumpets, stirred up all the people to shout with one accord; and when they shouted, the wall immediately fell, and the city was captured, and everything became a devoted offering to the Lord. And after Jericho they ambushed the city of Ai, and having taken it they burned it, and having hanged its king on a tree, as Joshua commanded, they crucified him. And when the sun was setting they threw his body into a ravine, and covered it with a heap of stones. But the Gibeonites, having learned of these sieges (for they were their neighbors), craftily outwit the Israelites. They were...

For so that they might not fall upon their city first, they meet them clothed in torn garments and sandals, and carrying sacks of dry and moldy bread and old wineskins, saying to them: "Our city is far distant from us; for we provisioned ourselves with these fresh loaves, and the clothing we wear we put on new, and we placed new sandals on our feet; and all these things the length of the journey has worn out and made old. Make peace, then, with us, and make us your friends." And the blessed Jesus confirmed peace with them by oaths. But later, recognizing their cunning, he spared them because of the oath, but commanded them to carry wood and water for the Israelites in place of their deceit. And Adonibezek the king of Jerusalem, angered that the Gibeonites had gone over to the Israelites, took as allies the neighboring kings—Ailam king of Hebron, and Phidon of Jerimoth, and Sipha of Lachish, and also Dad of Sodollam—and encamped against them, and besieged Gibeon. And the Gibeonites, being hard pressed, sent an embassy to Jesus. And he, being at Gilgal, drew up his army against them, and when battle was joined the foreigners were routed; and some perished by the sword, and others by hail. For as they fled, God rained hail upon them, which destroyed very many of the enemy, more than the war did. And in order to destroy them utterly, Jesus prayed to God that he might lengthen the day beyond nature for them, halting the sun over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Arnon.

And God stopped the sun and the moon in their course until he had taken the enemies in a full day. And Joshua the son of Naue found the five kings of the nations hiding in a cave, lying on their backs on the ground, and he ordered them to be thrown down, and having made the people trample on their necks, he killed them; and having hung their bodies on a tree, he afterward buried them in the cave. And having sacked all their cities, he subdued all the mountainous country and the plain. But Asor, the king of Jabin, taking as allies the kings round about, gathered a great force, so that one might liken the multitude of their army to the countless sand of the sea, and he drew up his line against Joshua. But Joshua, falling upon them suddenly, slaughtered him and all his allies with their whole army, and hamstrung their horses, and divided all their land among the Israelites; to the tribe of Ruben he allotted the land of the Amorrites and Raphase, and to Gad the same land of the Amorrites, and he assigned half to the tribe of Manasse, and to the tribe of Juda the land of the Hebrews and the Chettites, and that of the Enakim. That is, the tribe of Juda, taking as ally the tribe of Symeon, sacked the Chananites and Pherezites, and having overpowered Adonibezek as he fled, they cut off his feet and his hands; and lamenting himself he said: "As I did, so God has repaid me.

For seventy kings, with the extremities of their feet and hands cut off, were beneath my table, gathering up the fallen scraps. So he was carried to Jerusalem and died at once. To the tribe of Ephraim Joshua assigned the land of the Amorites, the Perizzites, and the Samarians; and to the half-tribe of Manasseh the land of the Gersites and the Amorites. The land of the Hebrews, the Amorites, and the Jebusites he gave as an inheritance to Benjamin; to Simeon the land of the Hebrews and Perizzites; to Zebulun the land of the Perizzites; the land of the Kenites to Naphtali; to the tribe of Dan the land of the Amorites; and to the tribe of Issachar and the tribe of Asher the land of the Perizzites. Having distributed all this land, Joshua died, having lived one hundred and ten years. When Eleazar the son of Aaron had died, Phineas his son succeeded to the high priesthood. After the death of Joshua the son of Naue, the Israelites, having fallen away from God, served Astarte, and God delivered them into the hands of Chusharthan the king of the Syrians, who brought them into great distress, so that being greatly afflicted they cried out to God, and judges were given to them.