Question Four
Which region is more desirable: the east of the unbelievers, or the west of the Christians?
It must be investigated, according to those things in which the healthfulness of regions is considered, whether the eastern region, commonly belonging to unbelievers, is more desirable and pleasing than the western regions, commonly belonging to Christians.
To this the easterners say that their country is more pleasing than the western and more desirable for habitation. They prove this with reasons.
First, as follows. As was touched upon before from the mind of the Philosopher in Book VI of the Politics, the seven things in which the healthfulness and nobility of countries are considered are found especially toward the eastern quarter, the right side of heaven, Scripture bearing witness from the things stated. Therefore, and so forth.
Those seven things are these:
- The nobility of things that grow, namely metals, spices, and gems.
- The healthfulness of springs and the fecundity of rivers for the generation of fish and the irrigation of adjacent lands.
- A position more suitable in relation to the sun and a more propitious influence with respect to celestial influx.
- An abundance of useful and noble animals suitable for human uses.
- The pleasantness of the situation arising from mountains, forests, rivers, springs, and the sea.
- A suitable abundance and healthfulness of provisions.
- The temperateness of the air arising from a regular disposition of birds.
The easterners boast that they excel the westerners in these seven things, and they give a reason for their boasting. For, as Peter Comestor bears witness, on account of the benignity of the sun and the more healthful eastern celestial influence, certain islands nourish human beings most healthfully and into great old age; nor can they die upon those islands unless they are transferred to other islands.
There are also trees in India, as Alexander the Great writes to Aristotle, upon whose fruits the priests of the sun and moon—to which those trees are dedicated—feed, and from eating them the life of the priests is prolonged to three hundred years.
Second, this is proved in the same place from Sacred Scripture, through which God promises to the obedient the land of promise in Egypt toward the eastern quarter, which abounds in milk, honey, and waters, as is evident in Isaiah 1 and Deuteronomy 6.
But to the contrary is Pliny, who in the final book of the whole Natural History says: “In the whole world, and wherever the connected vault of heaven extends, Italy is the most beautiful in all things and deservedly obtains the principate of nature.”
I answer this doubt under two conclusions.
The first: in certain spices, metals, fruits, and precious gems, the eastern region of the unbelievers excels the regions of the western Christians, and conversely.
This conclusion is evident from the things said above. God and nature made it so for two reasons.
First, for the mutual and friendly communication of regions and human beings with one another. This nourishes the affection and love toward which he also disposed things by causing one human being or country to need the things of another human being or another country, and conversely.
Second, this was done so that no human being or region, after considering its own excellences, should exalt itself and become proud as though it were more perfect than all others, altogether sufficient to itself, and in need of no one.
Therefore, just as there is rarely any human being who does not excel every other in some manifest or hidden good, and just as every other human being excels him in something, so the most wise God moderated and tempered the conditions of regions, so that almost every region abounds in something which another lacks or possesses in smaller measure.
On account of this and the other wonders of divine operation which the most wise God worked in the disposition of the earth, it is written: “Let the earth bless the Lord; let it praise and exalt him above all forever.” That is, from the consideration of the best and most fitting disposition of the earth in its regions and rivers, in things that grow and in animals, and in its other goods, a human being ought to praise and exalt the Creator who disposed all things thus for the sake of the human being.
The second conclusion: the western regions of the Christians are simply far more desirable in those common things which belong to a suitable and excellent human manner of life for the preservation of a lawful and moral life. In temporal things they are more ordered, and in natural things more honorable, more temperate, and more healthful than the eastern regions of the unbelievers. Italy, Spain, France, and the western regions of the Christians surpass and excel the whole land of Havilah, India, and Judea in spiritual goods, in the most suitable corporeal goods, and in the most ordered and honorable practices.
This conclusion is proved by reason and authorities.
By reason, as follows. A country in which all the conditions of the best region concur in moderate and measured fashion is happier than one in which one or several—but not all—of these conditions concur. But Italy possesses this happiness, because whatever things make a region good concur in her moderately and temperately, which does not occur in the others. Therefore it seems, without injury, that she should be preferred to the other eastern regions.
To this is added the authority of Virgil, who praises Italy in a long poem in Book I of the Georgics, and that of Pliny in Book XXXVII of the Natural History, final chapter, whose words are these:
In the whole world, and wherever the connected vault of heaven extends, Italy is the most beautiful in all things and deservedly obtains the principate of nature. She is the ruler and second parent of the world: in men, women, commanders, soldiers, servants, excellence of arts, and brilliance of talents; then in her position and healthfulness, the sky and its temperateness, easy access for all nations, coasts rich in harbors, and the benign blowing of the winds. For this last results from her position, which runs into the most useful part, midway between rising and setting. In abundance of waters, healthfulness of groves, the joints of her mountains, the harmlessness of wild animals, fertility of soil, and richness of pasture—whatever there is without which life ought not to be, nowhere is more excellent. Crops, wine, oil, fleeces, flax, garments, and young cattle: I observe that not even horses in the chariot races are preferred to any native ones. In metals of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, so long as it pleased her to work them, she yielded to none. And now, pregnant with these within herself, she pours forth various juices and the flavors of crops and fruits in place of every dowry. With the fabulous Indies excepted, I would indeed place Spain next, wherever it is surrounded by sea.
And in Book III, chapter 5, he says concerning the city of Rome:
Rome, the nursling and also the parent of all lands, chosen by the divine will, which would make heaven itself brighter; gather together scattered empires; soften customs; draw into converse, through the fellowship of speech, the discordant and savage tongues of so many peoples; give humanity to the human being; and, in brief, become the one fatherland of all the nations in the whole world.
And concerning the coast of Campania, now called the Kingdom of Naples, he says in the same place:
That happy and blessed pleasantness of Campania, in which there is every life-giving and perennial healthfulness and temperateness of the sky: such fertile fields, such sunny hills, such harmless uplands, such shady groves, such bountiful kinds of forests, so many mountain breezes, such fertility of crops, vines, and olives, such noble fleeces for the flocks, such fat necks upon bulls, such abundance of rivers and springs bathing the whole of it, so many seas and harbors; and with the bosom of its lands open everywhere to commerce, itself runs eagerly into the sea as though to aid mortals. Nor do I commemorate the talents and customs, the men, and the nations surpassed by language and hand. The Greeks themselves claimed for themselves a race from it, pouring forth their own glory most abundantly, by calling so great a part of it—that is, Apulia—Magna Graecia.
These are his words. In what manner Spain, France, and the other western regions surpass the eastern ones, let those to whom the matter pertains see for themselves.
From these things the answer to the first argument of the easterners is evident.
To the second, it is answered that the goodness of the country of the Jews came from God and from nature, which obeys God, on account of the merits of the human beings inhabiting it, if they had been good imitators of divine things.
Hence Leviticus 26 says: “If you walk in my precepts, keep my commandments, and do them, I will give you rains,” and so forth. “But if not, I will give you the heaven above like iron,” and so forth.
Hence the Psalm says: “He turned rivers into a desert, and the outlets of waters into thirst,” and so forth. The history in 3 Kings 18 bears upon this.
From these things we can observe two matters.
First, the divination of astrologers who pronounce upon the abundance and sterility of places and years is vain and frivolous, since such matters vary according to the merits or demerits of human beings, which are not subject to the stars.
Second, the happiness, fecundity, and blessing of the ancient land of promise of the Jews was transferred through Christ to the western Christian people, and it will endure with us if we are good imitators, or if we are converted to him.
And these things are sufficient concerning the sixth receptacle, namely the terrestrial Paradise.