Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/299

 CHRONICLE.] birth he lived 403 years. The Septuagint makes it 130 the second years before Eber's birth, and 330 afterwards. From this Eber the Hebrews are descended, and they derive their name from him.

Eber lived 34 years and begat Peleg; after whose birth he lived 430 years. The Septuagint reckons 134 years before the birth of Peleg, and 270 years afterwards. Peleg is interpreted division, and this name was given to him by his parents, because at the time of his birth the earth was divided by the confusion of tongues. Of this division Arnobius the Rhetorician makes mention in his Exposition of the 104th Psalm, as follows: "Shem, the first-born of Noah, had his portion from Persia and the Bactrians, as far as India and Rhinocoruræ." This extent of country comprises twenty-seven barbarian languages, and among these are tribes of 406 countries, not of different languages, but, as I said, of different countries. For instance, whereas the Latin tongue is but one, under this one tongue there are several countries, the country of the Brutii, the Lucanians, the Apulians, the Calabrians, the Picentes, the Tuscans, so among these also, as one might say, it is the same.

But Ham, the second son of Noah, had his portion Ham's portion from Rhinocorurse to Gadira, containing languages in the Punic dialect on the side of the Garamantes, in Latin on the north, in the barbarian dialect on the south and on the side of the Ethiopians and Egyptians, and twenty-two languages of the inland barbarians in various dialects, and in 394 countries.

But Japhet was the third, extending from Media to Gadira towards the north. Japhet has the river Tigris, dividing Media from Babylonia, in 200 countries, speaking various dialects, in twenty-three languages. All together, therefore, are seventy-two languages, and 1000 countries, placed in this order in a three-fold generation.