10. The Euphrates, a river of Mesopotamia, greatly abounding in gems, rises in Paradise and flows through the midst of Babylonia.... It irrigates Mesopotamia in certain places just as the Nile does Alexandria. Sallust, however, a most reliable author, asserts that the Tigris and the Euphrates arise from one source in Armenia, and going by different ways are far separated, an intervening space of many miles being left, and the land which is enclosed by them is called Mesopotamia. Therefore as Hieronymus noted, there must be a different explanation of the rivers of Paradise. 24. Tanus was the first king of the Scythians, from whom the river _Tanais_ is said to have been named. It rises in the Riphaean forest, and separates Europe from Asia, flowing in the midst between two divisions of the world, and emptying into the Pontus. 35. Certain rivers were overwhelmed in the flood, and shut off by the mass of the lands, but certain ones which were not, burst forth by passages that were at that time violently formed from the abyss. Chapter 22. On floods. 2. The first flood occurred under Noah, when the Omnipotent, offended at man’s guilty deeds, covered the whole circle of the lands[344] and destroyed all, and there was one stretch of sky and sea; and we observe the proof of this to the present time in the stones which we are wont to go to see in the distant mountains, which have mingled in them the shells of mussels and oysters, and besides are often hollowed by the waters. [344] _Orbis._ 3. The second flood was in Achaea in the time of the patriarch Jacob and of Ogygius, who was the founder and king of Eleusina, and gave his name to the place and time. 4. The third flood was in Thessaly in the time of Moses and Amphictyon, who reigned third after Cecrops. At which time a flood of waters destroyed the greater part of the peoples of Thessaly, a few escaping by taking refuge in the mountains, especially on mount Parnassus, on whose circuit Deucalion then possessed dominion. And he received those who fled to him on rafts, and warmed and fed them on the twin peaks of Parnassus, and so the fables of the Greeks say that the human race was re-created from stones—because of the inborn hardness of the heart of man. BOOK XIV ON THE EARTH AND ITS PARTS EXTRACTS Chapter 1. On the earth. 1. The earth is placed in the middle region of the universe, being situated like a center at an equal interval from all parts of heaven; in the singular number it means the whole circle;[345] in the plural[346] the separate parts; and reason gives different names for it; for it is called _terra_ from the upper part where it suffers attrition (_teritur_); _humus_ from the lower and _humid_ part, as for example, under the sea; again, _tellus_, because we take (_tollimus_) its fruits; it is also called _ops_ because it brings opulence.[347] It is likewise called _arva_, from ploughing (_arando_) and cultivating. [345] _Orbem._ [346] _Terrae._