Text, translated from the 1601 Latin, 1603 Latin, 1606 English, 1608/1612 Italian, 1609/1612 Spanish, 1609/1612 Latin edition and 1624 Latin Parergon/1641 Spanish, but text in Latin:
179.1. {1601L{THE GEOGRAPHY OF
HOLY WRITERS.
179.2. That which we have promised, behold [it] now, you students of divinity and Holy Script. Finally we offer to your view a map of Sacred Geography, or of those places as are named by the holy writers in the books of the Old and New [Testaments]. Whether [they have been represented] as exactly as the matter requires and [whether the map offers what] you are looking for, I do not know. But that it has been done to the best of my ability and skills, (on which in any matter, but particularly in this one I dare not rely much) I know and can truly vouch. Yet, in spite of all this, lest I rob the learned of their recommendations, I acknowledge willingly that we have done what we could, seeing that we might not achieve what we would.
179.3. Therefore, what we offer here is what we can do, rather than what we wish we could do. Two things, most kind reader, we want you to observe, before you pass critical judgment on our labour. First, that in the [wording of] geographical names of places, we have followed the translation of the Septuagint because it is consistent and uniform. The Latin translations are as numerous as they are diverse, and in the naming of places they vary much, so that a word which one [author] translates literally, another in contrast [to this] may translate according to its meaning. Which is [the same], if I may use Varroes phrase, as making a noun correspond to a proper name and conversely to make a proper name into a noun. Examples of this you may see in the annotations of Emanuel Sa as well as in our Geographical Treasury.
179.4. Therefore when we are in doubt which of these different readings and writings of proper names we may take, we may consult the 70 [Septuagint]{1606E has instead{72}1606E instead} interpreters [to obtain] a more certain basis. If anyone likes to know by what other names the Latin interpreters called these proper names, let him have recourse to our Thesaurus Geographicus, and he shall without any great difficulty easily satisfy his desire. For in it, he shall find all the synonyms of places arranged according to the order of the alphabet. The other thing, gentle reader, which I would like you to note, and what should be done, lest [your] prejudice prevails over sound judgment, is this: the locations of all places of Palestina have not been recorded on this map of ours, but [only] a few of those that are more famous [have been depicted], according to what the map could accommodate (for you see how limited and narrow it is). What is lacking here may be supplied from the following maps.
179.5. Two of Tileman Stella [Ort 170/171/172, Ort180], the third entitled the Peregrination of S. Paul [Ort181], and the fourth entitled the Peregrination of the Patriarch Abraham [Ort182/183]. For if all these had been portrayed and joined together on one and the same map, it would have grown much too large, yes, it would have been so extended and huge that it would have exceeded the one we give here a hundred times. And by reason of this huge size, it would not only be troublesome to use, but also unpleasant to the eye. [In that case,] in the heart and middle of our map, where you see Syria it would have been sufficiently covered and filled with places, but in places at coasts on all sides, it would have been empty and barren, so that it would appear like a small island in a vast ocean, and [the resulting map] would soon have grown into a large, burdensome and objectionable size to no purpose at all.
179.6. On the side, {1606E only{in an empty place}1606E only}, we have set the map of the whole world. In this way the diligent student of divinity by comparison can easily see which and how great a portion [of it] the holy history mentions and comprises, and also, with the same effort, you can find out the location and position of two famous places mentioned in the Holy Script, namely the location of the country Ophyr and [that of] the earthly Paradise. Although many men have written numerous and diverse things about them, and although the opinions of learned men [on this matter] may be very different, yet, we have also recorded [here] our own judgment, willingly allowing the learned reader, to his discretion, to take [as true] what pleases him most, and he may read, if he likes, that which we have written at greater length {not in 1608/1612I{about Ophyr}not in 1608/1612I} in our Geographical Treasury.
179.7. About [the location of] Paradise there is a similar controversy amongst the theologians. Most people place it in the East, others in Syria. Postellus [puts it] under the Arctic pole. There are some who guess that it was under the equinoctal line. Goropius, our fellow countryman, is persuaded by many arguments that it was in Indoscythia, {1606E only{a province of India in the East, bordering on the river Indus}1606E only}. Some old writers imagined it to reach as high as the sphere of the moon. Others locate it in other places. Cæsarius, the brother of Nazianzene, in his dialogues supposes it to be in a place I cannot make sense of, for he makes the Danube one of those four rivers [of Paradise], namely the one which sacred antiquity called Phison. This Saint Hieronymus and Eusebius take to have been the Nile {1606E only{in Ægypt}1606E only}, whereas others think it is the Ganges {1606E only{in East India}1606E only}.
179.8. Saint Augustinus as opposed to the Manichæi has this opinion: Beatam vitam, Paradisi nomine significatam existimo. {1606E & 1608/1612I only{Paradise I think we should take to mean the happy life}1606E & 1608/1612I only}. Others, later still, who have specifically written about the location of Paradise are Moses Bar Cepha {1606E only{in the Syrian tongue, which has been translated by the learned Masius}1606E only}; Pererius [has written about it] in Genesis; John Hopkinson, {1606E only{an Englishman}1606E only}, [discussed this subject] in a specific treatise where you may also see a geographical map of it. Others have done the like, as Beroaldus in his Chronicle, Vadianus in his description of the three parts of the world, and Ludovicus Nugarola in his book entitled Timotheus or Nile &c.
179.9. This map cannot display Phison, one of the rivers of Paradise, which some explain to be the Ganges, which runs too far to the East, because of its limited size. You can see its location on another map of ours in our accessory work [Parergon] entitled Ævi veteris Geographiæ tabula, a geographical chart of the old world [Ort186]}1601L, 1603L, 1606E, 1608/1612I, 1609/1612L/S & 1624LP/1641S end here}.