FIRM. LACTANTII LIB. DE OPIFICIO DEI.

of things, either from simple makes double, or from double makes simple, and governs and contains the whole: so in the body, things compacted from two universals would present an inseparable unity. The appearance of the mouth, too, and the opening stretched out crosswise, how useful, how decent it is, cannot be fully told. Its use consists in two offices: taking in food and speaking.

The tongue, enclosed within, which distinguishes the voice into words by its movements, is also the interpreter of the mind. Yet it cannot fulfill the duty of speaking by itself alone unless it strikes its point against the palate, unless it is aided by the interference of the teeth or the compression of the lips. Teeth, however, contribute more to speaking; for infants do not begin to speak until they have teeth, and old men, having lost their teeth, stutter in such a way that they seem to have returned again to infancy. But these things pertain to man alone, or to birds, in whom the tongue, pointed and vibrated by certain movements, expresses innumerable flexions of songs and various modes of sounds. It has, furthermore, another duty, which it uses in all creatures, but in the mute ones it is the only one used: it collects food ground and crushed by the teeth, and once gathered into a ball by its own power, it presses it down and sends it to the stomach. And so, Varro thinks the name of the tongue (lingua) comes from ligando binding food. It also assists with drink; for when extended and cupped, they draw in water, and having captured it, the tongue strikes it to the palate with speed so that it does not flow away through slowness and delay. Thus, how this concavity of the palate is covered by a roof; and He has surrounded it with the barrier of the teeth as if by a wall.

Moreover, He has beautified the teeth themselves, fixed in an admirable order—so that they would not be naked and restricted, which would be more of a horror than an ornament—with soft gums (which are named from the generating of teeth), and then with the covering of the lips. Their hardness, just as in a millstone, is greater and rougher than in other bones, so that they might suffice for crushing food and fodder. But the same [He] divided that which previously clung together, before the teeth; of which He marked the upper part under the very middle of the lips with a slight hollow, like a valley, and for the sake of decency, He softly turned it outward. As for what pertains to taking in taste, anyone is mistaken who thinks this sense resides in the palate; for it is the tongue by which tastes are sensed: yet not the whole of it; for...

A In... mundo summa rerum... de duplici simplex. Thysius and Heumann interpret these regarding God the Father and the Son. These seem to me to be taken from the two principal elements, fire and water, from whose discordant concord he shows the world to consist more fully in Book II of the Institutes, chap. 9. Add from Book II, chap. 8, a doubtful passage in the notes: By whose mixture and tempering the world, and all things that are in it, consist. Certainly, I do not recall God ever being called the summa rerum summit of things by Lactantius.

Lingua intus inclusa, quæ vocem motibus suis in verba discernit. Plato in the Timaeus; Xenophon where mentioned above; Aristotle, III On the Soul at the end, and Book IV On the History of Animals, chap. 16 and 17. Cicero where mentioned above; Galen, Book VIII, chap. 5; Book IX, chap. 8; Book XI, chap. 10; Book XVI, chap. 3. Isæus.

B Nisi juta vel offensione dentium. Thus I have restored from the 3 Royal, 1 Colbert, Clarom. manuscripts (from the first hand), Marm., Brun., and Bov., and 2 old editions of Rom. and Cellar., with the addition of the Goth., 3 Colbert, and Lips. manuscripts, in which it is erroneously read as vita life for juta aided. In the manuscripts 3 Royal, 2 Colbert, Baluz., Clarom., and Sangerm. (from the second hand) and the Ald. and Parrhas. editions [it is] adjuta, which others followed, perhaps because it seemed more common in usage. Yet juta is not unusual; for Tacitus, Book XIV, chap. 4, at the beginning, says: The trickery pleased, aided also by the time.

Ad infantiam revoluti. Lips. 3 and Reimm.: Ad infantiam resoluti dissolved into infancy, incorrectly. Book VIII Institutes, chap. 15: As if returned to another infancy. Book VII, chap. 22: To be returned again to the womb and to retreat to infancy. BUN.

Quo in omnibus, etc. This is read in the common editions; and in the Bov. and Sangerm. manuscripts and many others. Truly, in the Regio-Put. and in one Bonon. it is quod in omnibus. Ms. Erasm. quo in hominibus. The tongue uses the office of collecting food in all mute animals, but in this [it is] the only [office], while in man it offers a double use. ERASMUS. — Heumann, however, reads: quo non in hominibus solum, sed etiam in mutis utitur which it uses not only in men, but also in the mute.

Itaque Varro a ligando, etc. Isidore, Book XI Origins, chap. 1, reports that Varro thought the tongue was named not from ligando binding food, as Lactantius says, but from lingendo licking food, while others [thought it came] from ligandis vocibus binding voices, because it binds words through articulated sounds. ISÆUS.

Effluat. Thus I have restored from the manuscripts, except 1 Bonon., where it is refluat flow back; 2 Royal and common ones, in which it is defluat flow down.

Eamque dentium septis Deus, etc. Thus I have restored from the Rom. 1470, Is., Cellar., Walch editions, and from all manuscripts except Cauc., in which, as in ten others, it is read: eamque dentium ordine sepiens and fencing it with a row of teeth.

C — Eamque dentium septis Deus quasi muro circumvallavit. Gellius, Book I, chap. 15. He writes that Homer said a barrier of teeth was placed against the checking of petulant words, and he reports his poems.

Mirabili modo per ordinem fixos. Although the Angl., Goth., Lips., and Reimm. manuscripts, and those printed since 1566 do not have these words, and Cellar. and Walch again proscribe them; nevertheless, it seems to be the genuine reading of Lactantius, which two most ancient Bononian codices and Taxaq. provide, from which Thomas Isæus, Gall. Sparkius, and Heumann have correctly judged them to be acceptable. By similar reasoning, our author, chap. 5: Fixed in the same order. BUN. — Mirabili modo per ordinem fixos. Thomas correctly restored these five words from the best manuscripts (2 Bonon. and Tax.), which are absent from the other manuscripts and common editions, except Is. and Spark.

Ac deinde labiorum tegminibus honestavit. For these were provided both for the sake of protecting the teeth and for the use of speech, Aristotle II On Parts, chap. 1. D ISÆUS.

In molari lapide, etc. Whence molar teeth, to which he seems to allude: he also calls them maxillary.

Ut ad conterendos. Thus it is read in the 2 Bonon., 7 Royal, Colb., Tax., Peu., Clarom., Brun. manuscripts, and some old editions and 5 common ones [read] aut; in Regio and Marm., etc.

Sensum palato, etc. Aristotle is therefore mistaken, and Pliny, and with them the whole (and indeed the only) antiquity is mistaken. For this word is used metonymically by authors, just as the gullet, for pleasure. For in Cicero, where it is said in On Ends, Book II, wisdom speaks: It does not follow that one who has a heart does not have a palate that tastes, and Quintilian, Book I, chap. 1, where he says that it [happens] before the palate of boys is formed rather than the mouth. Favorinus, in Gell. Book XV, chap. 8, rebukes the prefects of the kitchen, who say that those who eat the upper part of birds and fish do not have a palate. Hor. 2 Epist.: