Christian Topography 1 part 22/22

And the king, turning the coins this way and that, and examining both, having greatly praised the gold coin, said:

“Truly the Romans are both illustrious and powerful and wise.”

So he ordered Sopatros to be greatly honored, and having seated him upon an elephant, led him around the city with drums, in great honor.

These things Sopatros related to us, as did those who were with him on that island, having gone there from Adulis.

And when these things had happened, as they said, the Persian was greatly put to shame.

Now among the aforementioned illustrious trading-places there are also many other trading-places, both coastal and inland, and a vast territory.

called Gollas, marching out to war, as they say, with no fewer than two thousand elephants and much cavalry;

and he holds sway over India as well, dominating it and exacting tribute.

Once, then, as they say, wishing to sack an inland city of the Indians, and the city being guarded all around by water, he himself, having besieged and kept watch for a sufficient number of days, and having used up the water by means of the elephants and horses and the army, afterwards crossed over on dry ground and took the city.

These people also love the emerald stone, and wear it on their crown.

For the Ethiopians, making exchanges with the Blemmyes in Ethiopia, bring this same stone as far as India;

and they buy the finest specimens.

And all these things, some I have related and described having learned them by experience, and others I have told having learned them accurately by having been near those places.

And the local kings of India have elephants, such as the king of Orrotha and the king of the Kallianoi and the king of Sindu and the king of Sibor and the king of Male, one having six hundred, another five hundred, each more or less.

And the king of Sielediba, as for the elephants which he has, and the horses: the elephants he buys by cubit-measure; for its height is measured from the ground, and thus he agrees on the price per cubit, paying, for instance, fifty or a hundred gold coins or even more; and the horses are brought to him from Persia, and he buys them and grants tax-exemption to those who bring them.

And the kings on the mainland also tame elephants from the wild and acquire them for use in war.

And they often hold a battle of elephants, with the king watching.

For they place between the two a great horizontal beam, bound to two other upright beams, reaching as it were up to their chest;

and many men stand on this side and that, not allowing them to come together with one another, and thus they set them against each other;

and they strike one another with their trunks, until the first of them gives way.

The Indian elephants do not have large tusks; but even if they have them, they saw them off because of the weight, lest it burden them in war.

But the Ethiopians do not know how to tame elephants; but if it happens that the king wishes for one or a second for display, they catch them small and rear them;

for their land has a multitude of them, and ones having large tusks;

for tusks are shipped from Ethiopia to India, and to Persia, and to the Homerite land, and to Romania.

And having received this information, I have written it down.

And the Pishon river divides all India and Hunnia.

For in the divine Scripture the land of the Indian country is called Evilat;

for thus it is written in Genesis:

“A river goes forth from Eden to water the garden;

from there it divides into four heads;

the name of the one is Pishon; this is the one that encircles the whole land of Evilat;

there, then, is gold; and the gold of that land is good;

there is the carbuncle and the leek-green stone” — having named it more explicitly the land of Evilat.

And this Evilat is of Ham;

for thus again it is written:

“The sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, Put, and Canaan;

and the sons of Cush: Seba, and Havilah” — that is, the Homerites and the Indians.

For Saba lies in the land of the Homerites, and Havilah is in India;

for the Persian Gulf divides these two lands.

And that land also has gold, according to the sacred Scripture;

it also has the paiderōs stone, for [Scripture] calls this 'anthrax' (carbuncle);

it also has jasper, for this it called the green stone.

Therefore the divine Scripture, being truly divine, relates the facts more clearly, as the whole treatise also shows.

BOOK 12. Yet another discourse showing that many ancient writers from outside [the faith] bear witness to the antiquity of the divine Scriptures spoken through Moses and the prophets, and that the Greeks appear to have learned both letters and anything concerning the divine Scriptures later than all others, having their unbelief deeply rooted.

In the Chaldean writings of Berossus and certain others it is written thus: that ten kings reigned among them for two thousand two hundred and forty-two myriads of years;

and they say that in the time of the tenth king, Xisouthros, as he is called among them, a great flood occurred;

they say that Xisouthros, having boarded a ship with his wife, his kinsfolk, and the irrational animals, being divinely instructed by the gods and having been saved, [came] to the mountains of Armenia, and after the flood offered sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods — having transformed almost everything from [the account of] Moses.

For men remained in the land beyond for two thousand two hundred and forty-two years, and ten generations besides; and in the time of the tenth, I mean Noah, when the flood occurred, they passed across by means of the ark;

for this Noah they themselves call Xisouthros.

And it is clear that, having turned days into years, that is, having multiplied the years ten-thousandfold, they said that the ten kings lived two thousand two hundred and forty-two myriads of years — the very [number] which Moses reckoned as two thousand two hundred and forty-two years from Adam to the flood of Noah.

Likewise Timaeus the philosopher also describes this earth as being encircled by the Ocean, and the Ocean [as being encircled] by the land beyond.

For he posits a certain island, Atlantis, [lying] toward the west, outside in the Ocean, off Gades, great and indescribable, and says that ten kings from the land beyond, having hired the nations dwelling in it, came and made war on Europe and Asia, and were afterward defeated by the Athenians, and that the island itself was sunk beneath the sea by God.

Both Plato and Aristotle praise this man, and Proclus writes a commentary on him; and he says things similar to ours, having transformed the account and having said 'west' instead of 'east,' and moreover he too mentions the ten generations and the land beyond the Ocean.

And, simply put, it is clear that they all took [their material] from Moses and set it forth as their own.

For those who wrote the Chaldean histories, being more ancient and more eastern, made mention in their own writings of both the flood and the tower-building, since they saw with their own eyes the tower and its construction — [claiming] that the people of that time, supposedly devising it on account of the flood, made for themselves a refuge and salvation.

But those who came later, having also read Moses and having found that Noah, in whose time the flood occurred, was the tenth from Adam, themselves also fabricated ten kings who reigned among them for two thousand two hundred and forty-two myriads of years, as has been said before; of whom the first is Aloros, that is, Adam; the second Alaaparos, Seth; the third Almedon, Enos; the fourth Ammeon, Cainan; the fifth Ammegalaros, Maleleel; the sixth Daonos the shepherd, Jared; the seventh Euedorankhos, Enoch; the eighth Amempsinankhos, Methuselah; the ninth Otiortes, Lamech; the tenth Xisouthros, Noah.

They say that in his time the great flood occurred, in agreement with Moses.

Those who wrote the Egyptian histories, that is, Manetho and Chairemon and Apollonius Molon and Lysimachus and Apion the Grammarian, mention Moses and the exodus of the sons of Israel from Egypt.

For being Egyptians and recording Egyptian matters, they too fittingly relate the things that happened in those places — the very ones who also disparage Moses as having caused sedition, having stirred up a multitude of vagabonds and disfigured people, and having driven them out of Egypt; and [say] that these went off to Mount Sinai and to Jerusalem and were called Jews.

And, simply put, the Chaldeans and Egyptians, in a certain way, being more ancient than the Greeks, bear witness to the divine Scripture, that the flood in the time of Noah did occur, and the tower-building, and the exodus of the sons of Israel from Egypt.

But the Greeks, being of a later age, and having learned to write only quite late, and being settled far off toward the west, remote from the east, and living further away from both Judea and Egypt, were ignorant of such things, having received them neither by sight nor by hearing.

Therefore even to the present they disbelieve the divine Scripture, both the Old and New Testament, considering the matters therein to be myths.

and the Medes and the Persians, knowing something more from the tower-building and the flood and the events under Hezekiah and Jonah and the captivity, and those concerning Daniel and the three youths, were partly instructed by them in their writings;

likewise the Egyptians also were instructed through the events concerning Joseph and Moses and the people of the Israelites, these nations having become more ready for the reception of Christianity.

Nevertheless the Greeks too later came to believe, through the apostles, seeing the wonders performed by them;

but later again, when the signs had ceased and time had passed, you will find many Greeks who have believed and been baptized, yet who disbelieve and are ignorant of the Old and New Testament, that is, the divine Scripture, since they do not have, from of old, a root of piety deeply grounded and a foundation of faith.

Therefore [the Greeks] did not even make mention in their own writings — as the Chaldeans and the Egyptians first did — of the flood and the tower-building and the exodus of the sons of Israel from Egypt and of Moses the first writer; but considering themselves higher and wiser and first of all, through the conceit that surrounded them they remained ignorant of much;

wherefore a certain one of the Egyptians — this being Solomon — said well to Plato:

"Greeks are always children, and there is no old Greek, nor is there among you any learning grey with time."

But also certain ones, that is, Dius and Menander, who translated the ancient records of the Tyrians into the Greek tongue, bear witness in their own writings to Solomon and the Jews;

and moreover, one might almost say, all Ethiopia and the southern regions bear witness to the divine Scripture, while the Greeks alone, wise in their own estimation, are ignorant of their own salvation;

but only Timaeus, mentioned above, having taken [his account] from I know not where — perhaps from the Chaldean [sources] — reshaped [the story of] the ten kings who came from the land beyond into [the story of] the island Atlantis, which he says was sunk beneath the sea, and [says] that they hired the nations dwelling in it and came into this land and made war on Europe and Asia — which is a most evident fabrication;

for, being unable to show the island, he said that it had been sunk beneath the sea by God.

But indeed the aforementioned Greeks, who are admired for wisdom, yet who learned letters only quite late and were only late deemed worthy of laws, supposed that they alone had rained forth wisdom;

for the Lycurguses and Solons and Zaleucus of the Locrians and all the rest appear to have come into being as if only yesterday and the day before, when compared to that Moses, seeing that not even the very name of 'law' was known of old among the Greeks;

and Homer is witness, nowhere making use of it in his poetry.

For there was nothing [of law] in his time, but the multitudes were governed by the best opinions and by the commands of kings;

from which [time] they continued for a long while using unwritten customs, and constantly altering many of these according to circumstance;

for the Lacedaemonians and Cretans educated by customs, not by precepts;

but the Athenians and almost all the rest prescribed by laws what one ought or ought not to do, but neglected to accustom [people] to these through deeds;

and these and those alike, having come by degrees to a progress of stable and firm laws, [did so] not indeed from the beginning, as the ancient Moses [did], who instructed his own nation both in the experience of letters and in a firm law, being the first to demonstrate in word and deed the firmness of the law and of letters, until, over a long time, he led the nation, guided and guarded by the firmness of the law, toward the Master Christ who was proclaimed beforehand, and toward his teaching.

The Phoenicians, then, being neighbors to this nation and having learned letters from them, wrote records more ancient than those of the Greeks, and enabled the Greeks to learn letters;

for Cadmus, having taken the letters from Tyre, brought them over into Greece;

having gathered as borrowed contributions [the doctrines of] the sphere and astronomy and astrology —

for, having appeared late in [the course of human] life, they held the opinion that the cosmos was eternal;

having been taught by others to suppose the heaven [to be] a sphere, they set forth the rule of astronomy as their own, as though they themselves had first held this opinion;

having been taught letters by others, they represent themselves as ancient and first writers;

having been taught by others how to legislate, they portrayed themselves as ancient lawgivers and dispensers of justice;

having received breadth of tongue and beauty of speech from God the giver, they, being ungrateful to God the giver, disobey his words;

having received everything from God and from those before them, they set all these aside and arrogantly appropriate them as their own.

For, fighting against the divine words which say, "He who set up the heaven as a vault," these 'best' ones cry out in opposition, saying:

"It is not so, for it is spherical, and this is evident from the eclipses we foretell;"

and moreover, hearing the resurrection of the dead being proclaimed among them, [they say] that this is impossible to happen;

"for how is it possible for one who has been consumed by countless bodies in succession to rise again?" And, simply put, they use sophistry against the giver of speech, attempting to overturn the doctrines of his Church.

And yet He did not leave Himself without witness among them, doing good and providing for them; and before the coming of Christ, four hundred years and more, in the time of Alexander of Macedon, after the Trojan War, when the Greeks were also distinguished, He manifested to them certain tokens of His goodness — such as, I say, this: Alexander the Macedonian, passing by Jerusalem, going forth to war against Darius, when he met the high priest of the Jews wearing the vestment which he wore — I mean the high-priestly vestment — himself dismounted from his horse and gladly embraced him;

and when his own men reproached him and said:

"Why have you done thus?" He, defending himself, said:

"From the beginning, when I was setting out from Macedonia, wearing such a vestment, someone appeared to me in a dream, who said:"

whence, accordingly, he himself also offered sacrifices to God and brought many gifts to the temple, and granted many things to the land of the Jews.

Afterward Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, having diligently inquired and learned from Tryphon of Phalerum about the Jewish books, earnestly sought them from the high priest Eleazar, having sent many gifts both to the temple and to the high priest; he received these [books] together with seventy elders, who translated [them] from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek tongue and deposited them in his own library.

And this too was a work of divine providence, that it might be prepared beforehand prior to the coming of Christ, and not, occurring later in the time of the apostles, become suspect to the many — as though they had interpreted, to their own liking, the things spoken of old by the prophets concerning Christ and the calling of the nations.

Ptolemy, again, [surnamed] Physcon, having conquered the Jews and wishing to destroy them there in Alexandria by means of elephants, and God unexpectedly having turned back the rage of the beasts against his own army, was taught to revere the God [worshipped] among them, honoring thereafter with honors and sacrifices and offerings of votive gifts the God who truly is, and his people, that is, the Jews.

And other kings, who belonged to the Macedonian empire, invited them as allies to their own [forces];

but others, who had chosen rather to make war on them, and who had enslaved them for a considerable time, later saw the inclination of God operating on their behalf and being roused as if for their aid, and saw themselves being defeated by them — by the fewest and most easily numbered of men.

At the sojourn of the Master Christ through the apostles, many nations of Greece, beholding the signs, came to the faith of Christ, confessing his resurrection and his ascent into the heavens.

But now, much time having passed and the signs having ceased, they took, as it were, a certain forgetfulness of that faith, and reverted to their former superstition, saying that it is impossible for there to be a resurrection of men from the dead, and an ascent into heaven.

For this reason you find them possessing baptism, yet also holding the opinion that heaven has a spherical shape, [doing so] toward the end that the resurrection of bodies and their ascent into heaven be set aside.

One will find these matters—the theories and the eclipses put forward on the basis of a spherical shape, as though it were some divine teaching—philosophized about for the most part among the Greeks alone, wherein they are both deceived and deceive others.

Therefore we too, having turned our attention to the shapes and the places of the whole cosmos and to the revolution of the stars, and having taken the field against them, have set this down in writing from the divine Scriptures, striving to show through all these things also...