It seems to some vain and useless to put any labor into investigating and expounding the site and names of those cities and places. But these are greatly deceived. For, first, [there is] the highest usefulness of Chorography in absolutely every history — as Strabo teaches at the beginning of bk. 1, and, [even] when he is silent, daily experience [teaches it]. “Lest,” says Polybius (bk. 5), “the [things] which are said be obscure on account of ignorance of places, the nature and site of them must be declared.” And a little after: “Topography is to be despised in no matter at all.” Plutarch relates, in [his life of] Nicias, [that] he [Alcibiades] set forth the Topography of Sicily in the semicircles [benches] and workshops of the craftsmen, and so — on account of the opportuneness of the place, that war could be waged against the Carthaginians — stirred up the Athenians. Second: [it is] not of nothing [= not purposeless], whatever is placed in the sacred letters by the Holy Spirit. “All Scripture,” says the Apostle, “divinely inspired, is useful for teaching, for reproving, for correcting, for instructing in Justice.” How [then] would that Scripture which denotes and sets forth places be useless? How would its investigation and contemplation be empty and unfruitful? Third: St. Chrysostom (homily on Priscilla and Aquila, at the beginning): “Nothing at all,” he says, “in the sacred letters [is] superfluous. Have you not learned [that] both the inscriptions and the names must be diligently sifted in the arcane Scriptures? I indeed think the studious would not even bear [tolerate] that some little word in the sacred letters be contemptuously passed over — even if only names be recounted, or time be numbered, or some brief knowledge come about.” In the same sacred Scripture, [the things] which seem small are great — as the same St. Chrysostom shows (homily 1 to the people): “Those who smelt the earth of metals [= ore],” he says, “after they have thrown [it] into the furnace itself, take not only the masses of gold, but also gather the small flakes with much diligence.” Similar [things] are read in Origen not rarely, as on this book, homilies 13, 14, 20, 23. Fourth: the ancient doctors of the Church judged so much of advantage [to be] placed in this matter, that Eusebius laboriously wrote a most useful book “On the Hebrew places,” and St. Jerome rendered it into the Latin tongue (not as, before him, a certain other [had done], scarcely imbued with the first rudiments [of letters]); and Bede followed these afterward, and others. Fifth: Nay rather,
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and the same holy Father [Jerome] resolved to traverse the whole region — and indeed with great care, study, and expense — that he might become master of the fruit which is wont to be perceived from the knowledge of places, as his preface on Paralipomena attests by these words: “Just as those understand the histories of the Greeks better who have seen Athens, and [understand] the third book of Virgil [better, those] who have sailed from the Troad through Leucate and the Acroceraunian [headlands] to Sicily, and thence to the mouths of the Tiber — so [he] will behold the holy Scripture more lucidly who has contemplated Judaea with [his] eyes, and has come to know the memorials of the ancient cities, and the names of places, whether the same or changed.” Whence to us too [there] was a care — with the most learned of the Hebrews — to undergo this labor, that we might go around the province which the whole Church of CHRIST resounds. Sixth: one may sometimes see some [people] who — whether in schools or in sermons to the people, when mention of Capharnaum, Bethlehem, and the like comes up — blunder, on account of ignorance of places, no otherwise than that [Apion], concerning whom [more] a little after, in q. 8. Prudence, therefore, rejects the opinion of those who judge the scrutiny of places placed in the sacred codices [to be] unfruitful. What — if it is usefully and pleasantly inquired, learned, and handled in what places some things are narrated by Caesar, Livy, and the like (even profane and Gentile [things]) — why not much more those [things] which divine men annotated, and sent into the sacred letters?
Yet I cannot praise Origen’s opinion (in the last homily on Numbers, and homily 23 on this book), when he judges so great a usefulness of those places, that he thinks [them] Symbols and figures of similar places in the heavens. And that, on account of nearly three arguments. First: the Apostle calls all earthly [things] (Heb. 8:5) “a shadow and copy of the heavenly.” Second: [there] is “a heavenly Jerusalem, and a heavenly mount Sion” in the same epistle (ch. 12:22). Third: Just as [there are] regions of the earth, so also [there] are certain regions of the sky; and the names of the stars [are] the same as [those] on earth, as is handed down in the books of “Enoch.” But as in all things, so also in the allegorical and anagogical explanations of the scriptures, [there] ought to be a measure. For what “Samaria” [is there] in heaven? what “Bethaven”? what salt sea? what “hacrabbim” [Akrabbim], or “ascent of the Scorpions”? Nor do his arguments effect anything. For as to the first: “heavenly” [things] are called the spiritual and divine [things] — the mysteries which lead to the heavens — whether they be on earth or in heaven. As to the second: “the heavenly Jerusalem” is the Church, both militant and triumphant. But to deal only with this [heavenly one]: since the whole kingdom of the heavens is [one] Jerusalem, what place [is there] for other places? Would we crowd into one city all the cities, villages, and castles of the 12 tribes? As to the third: I have already said elsewhere, from St. Jerome, [that] the Stars [constellations] [are] disfigured by the infamous names of the Gentiles. For [there are] no she-bears in heaven, [no] rams, bulls, crabs, scorpions, dogs, and little-dogs. And the “books of Enoch” themselves are apocryphal, as I touched on [in commenting on] St. Jude’s epistle; and Origen himself does not deny [it], in the cited homily on Numbers. But between those extreme opinions, I see [that] by some, sometimes, the inquiry of times and places in the Scriptures is called useless — not simply, but when it either calls [away] the minds from more useful and more necessary [things], or retards [them] more than is fair; as in schools — if certain books of the Scriptures are to be lectured through in one year — [it] does not seem worth the labor to tarry longer in these [matters], and, [when one is] desirous of thoroughly learning Theology, to fill the minds with measures, or numbers of years, or pictures of places. See below, q. 8.