The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

XI. The Canticle of Moses related in Exodus, chapter 15, after the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt, the escape from the Red Sea, and the subversion of the Egyptians—beginning, "Let us sing to the Lord, for He has been gloriously magnified, etc."—and what is narrated in the same chapter 15, verse 20, that Mary the Prophetess, his sister, led the women with timbrels and dances, was not composed by the whole people of every age, untaught by any prior warning, in one and the same moment, as if with one mouth, with God granting and governing their tongues and ingenuity in such a canticle, as the author of the book On the Miracles of Holy Scripture asserted. Nor do those words in Wisdom, chapter 7, verse 21—"They sang: Lord: they praised Thy holy name and Thy victorious hand together, because wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of infants eloquent, etc."—favor the asserted miracle that everyone sang the same letters in unison by the same breathing of the spirit. Rather, it was composed by Moses and sung by all as he led, just as the women sang as Mary led.

XII. The Psalm which is 88 in the Latin Vulgate and 89 in the Hebrew, beginning: "The mercies of the Lord"—although it is inscribed by the Paraphrast: "A good understanding. Said by the hand of Abraham," and is attributed by the Hebrews themselves to Abraham as the author—can in no way be maintained to have been composed by Abraham. The title affixed by the Paraphrast does not help this in the least, since in our Vulgate it is entitled: "The understanding of Ethan the Ezrahite," who was a contemporary of David and most famous at that time, whom we read in 3 Kings, chapter 4, was a most wise man, and in 1 Chronicles, chapter 22, was the Prince of the Singers.

XIII. The Psalm which is 91 in the Latin Vulgate and 92 in the Hebrew, inscribed in the Chaldaic: "Praise and a canticle which the first man said on the day of the Sabbath, etc."; in the Vulgate, however: "A Psalm of a canticle on the day of the Sabbath, etc.," beginning: "It is good to confess to the Lord, etc.," was not composed by Adam