Jerome

(Chapter 10, Verse 2.) The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. Japheth, son of Noah, had seven sons who possessed the land in Asia from Mount Amanus and Mount Taurus to the mountains of Syria Coele and Cilicia, all the way to the River Tanais. In Europe, they journeyed as far as Gades, leaving names to places and tribes: many of these were later changed, but others remain as they were. Gomer became the Galatians, Magog became the Scythians, Madai became the Medes, Javan became the Ionians, also known as the Greeks, hence the Ionian Sea. Thubal the Iberians, who are also called Hispani, from whom the Celtiberi, although some suspect they are Italians. Mosoch, the Cappadocians, from whom the city is still called Mazaca among them. (Furthermore, the Septuagint interpreters consider the Cappadocians to be the Caphthorim.) Thiras, the Thracians, whose name has not been sufficiently changed. I know that someone named Gog and Magog, both from present location and from Ezekiel, recently related a story of the Goths who were recently reveling in our land, which is demonstrated to be true by the end of the battle itself. And certainly all the educated Goths, more accustomed to call the Getae than Gog and Magog. Therefore, these seven nations, which I mentioned came from the line of Japheth, inhabit the northern part.

(Ver. 4.) The sons of Javan were Elisha and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim. From them were divided the islands of the nations in their lands, each according to its language, its kindred, and its people. From the Ionians, that is, the Greeks, were born the Aeolians, who are called Aeolians: hence the fifth language of Greece is called Aeolian, which they call 'the fifth dialect.' Josephus considers Tarshish to be Cilicia, stating that the letter θ was mistakenly corrupted by later generations into τ: hence their metropolis is called the city of Tarsus, glorious to the Apostle Paul. Cethim, they are the Cetians, from whom even today the city of Cyprus is also called Citium. Dodanim, the Rhodians: for so the Septuagint translators have rendered it. Let us read the books of Varro on Antiquities, and those of Sisinnius Capito, and the Greek Phlegon, and other most learned men: and we will see almost all the islands, and the shores of the whole world, and the lands near the sea, occupied by Greek settlers: who, as we have said, possess all the coastal areas from the mountains of Amanus and Taurus to the British Ocean.

(Verse 15.) And Canaan begot his firstborn Sidon, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, and the Girgashites, and the Hivites, and the Arkites, and the Sinites, and the Arvadites, and the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. From Canaan, Sidon was born, from whom the city of Sidon in Phoenicia is named. Then the Arkite, who founded Ark, a town situated opposite Tripolis at the roots of Mount Lebanon. Not far from there was another city named Sini, which, after various events of war, was destroyed and only retained its original name. There are Aradians, who possessed the island of Aradu, separated by a narrow strait from the Phoenician coast. The Samaritans, to whom Emesa, a noble city of Coele Syria, belongs. Amath, up until our time, is called by both the Syrians and the Hebrews, as it was called by the ancients. The Macedonians, who ruled in the East after Alexander, called it Epiphania. Some believe that Antioch was called by that name. Others, though not truly, yet consoling their opinion with a seemingly plausible word, think that the first dwelling of Emath, as they journeyed from Antioch, was called Edessa: and that it is the same as Emach, which was called by the ancients.

Verse 2. <i>"And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand."</i> The fact that Jehoiachim is recorded to have been given over shows that it was not a victory for the might of his enemies but rather it was of the will of the Lord. <i>"...and some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar to the house of his god, and he conveyed them into the treasure house of his god"</i> (Gen. 11). The land of Shinar is a region of Babylon in which the plain of Dura was located, and also the tower which those who had migrated from the East attempted to build up to heaven. From this circumstance and from the confusion of tongues the region received the name Babylon, which, translated into our language, means "confusion." At the same time it ought to be noted, by way of spiritual interpretation, that the king of Babylon was not able to transport all of the vessels of God, and place them in the idol-house which he had built himself, but only a part of the vessels of God's house. By these vessels we are to understand the dogmas of truth. For if you go through all of the works of the philosophers, you will necessarily find in them some portion of the vessels of God. For example, you will find in Plato that God is the fashioner of the universe, in Zeno the chief of the Stoics, that there are inhabitants in the infernal regions and that souls are immortal, and that honor is the one (true) good. But because the philosophers combine truth with error and corrupt the good of nature with many evils, for that reason they are recorded to have captured only a portion of the vessels of God's house, and not all of them in their completeness and perfection.