what is ‘a parte ante’

I am working away on Sunday’s sermon. I come across a line in Keil & Delitzsch… a parte ante. Alas, my classical education is severely lacking. What to do?

I search on the internet for a Latin-English dictionary. I find a nifty little program that (I think) gives me the correct translation.

a = from or by
parte = birth
ante = prior

I come up with this translation: “from prior birth” or “by prior birth”. Here is the quotation from K & D:

“[In the beginning] in itself is a relative notion, indicating the commencement of a series of things or events; but here the context gives it the meaning of the very first beginning, the commencement of the world, when time itself began. The statement, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, not only precludes the idea of the eternity of the world a parte ante [by prior birth], it shows that the creation of the heaven and the earth was the actual beginning of all things.” [Keil and Delitzsch, Pentateuch, 1:46-47.]

Are any of you out there real Latin scholars? Am I close in my translation? It does seem to fit.

UPDATE: After thinking about this, perhaps “from before birth”, i.e., in this case K & D are talking about the beginning being the beginning, and there is no world before the beginning, so the phrase might mean ‘from before birth’, i.e., from before creation.

Here is the online version of the Latin/English program, and here is a place you can download it to run in a nifty modern looking Command Prompt window. Gotta love basic computing!