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PARADISE (Gr. lrap6BEwos)

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 752 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PARADISE (Gr. lrap6BEwos) , the name of a supernatural locality reserved for See also:God and for chosen men, which occurs in the See also:Greek See also:Bible, both for the earthly " See also:garden " of See also:Eden (see EDEN), and for the heavenly " garden," where true Israelites after See also:death see the See also:face of God (4 Esdras viii. 52; See also:Luke See also:xxiii. 43; 2 See also:Cor. Xii. 4; Rev. ii. 7). The See also:Hebrew parties (one), to which 7rapaaecvos corresponds, occurs thrice in the Old Testament in See also:late books, in the See also:general sense of " See also:park, See also:grove "; it is derived somewhat hazardously from the Zend pairidae"za, an enclosure (once only in the Avesta), though another word (See also:Vera) is used in the See also:account of the mythical enclosure of Yima (see See also:DELUGE). But what interests us most is not the name, but the conception and its imaginative vehicle. The conception is the See also:original godlikeness of human nature, and the See also:necessity of expecting a closer See also:union between God and See also:man in the future than is possible at See also:present. The imaginative See also:form which this conception takes is that before the present See also:condition arose man dwelt near to God in God's own See also:mountain See also:home, and that when the See also:mischief wrought by " the See also:serpent " has been undone, man—or more strictly the true See also:Israel—shall once more be admitted to his old See also:privilege. According to the fullest Old Testament account (Ezek. See also:xxviii. 12–19; see See also:ADAM), the See also:holy mountain was in a definite earthly region, and certainly it was appropriate for worshippers of Yahweh that it should be so (1 See also:Kings xx.

23, 28). But there are traces in that account itself as well as in Gen. ii. that an earlier belief placed the divine home in See also:

heaven. Similarly the Zoroastrians speak of their Paradise-mountain Alburz both as heavenly and as earthly (Bundahish, xx. r, with See also:West's See also:note). It appears that originally the Hebrew Paradise-mountain was placed in heaven, but that afterwards it was transferred to See also:earth. It was of stupendous See also:size; indeed, properly it was the earth itself.' Later on each Semitic See also:people may have chosen its own mountain, recognizing, however, perhaps, that in primeval times it was of vaster dimensions than at present, just as the See also:Jews believed that in the next See also:age the " mountain of Yahweh's See also:house " would become far larger (Isa. ii. 2= Mic. iv. 1; Ezek. xl. 2; Zech. xiv. ro; Rev. xxi. so); compare the idealization of the earthly Alburz of the Iranians " in See also:revelation " (Bund. v. 3, viii. 2, xii. 1–8). We now return to the accounts in Ezek. xxviii. and Gen. ii.

The references in the former to the See also:

precious stones and to the " stones of See also:fire " may be grouped with the references in See also:Enoch (xviii. 6–8, See also:xxiv.) to seven supernatural mountains each composed of a different beautiful See also:stone, and with the See also:throne of God on the seventh. These mountains are to be connected with the seven See also:planets, each of which was symbolized by a different See also:metal, or at least See also:colour.' See also:Ezekiel's mountain therefore has come to earth from heaven. And a similar result follows if we See also:group the four See also:rivers of Paradise in Gen. ii. with the phrase so often applied to See also:Canaan, " flowing with See also:milk and See also:honey " (Exod. iii. 8; Num. xiii. 27, &c.). For this descriptive phrase is evidently mythical,' and refers to the belief in the four rivers of the heavenly Paradise which " poured honey and milk, oil and See also:wine " (See also:Slavonic Enoch, viii. 5; cf. See also:Vision of See also:Paul, xxiii.). In fact, the four rivers originally flowed in heavenly See also:soil, and only when the mountain of Elohim was transferred to this See also:lower earth could mythological geographers think of determining their earthly course, and whether Havilah, or See also:Cush, or Canaan, or Babylonia, was irrigated by one or another of them. But what happened to Paradise when the affrighted human pair See also:left it ? One view (see Eth.

Enoch, xxxii. 2, 3, lx. 8, lxxvii. 3, 4, &c.) was that its site was in some nameless, inaccessible region, still guarded by " the serpents and the See also:

cherubim " (Eth. Enoch, xx. 7), and that in the next age its See also:gates would be opened, and the threatening See also:sword (Gen. iii. 24) put away by the Messianic See also:priest-See also:king (Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, See also:Levi, 18). This agrees with the See also:story in Gen. ii., iii., except that the original narrator knew the site of the garden. It is a sufficiently reasonable view, for if Paradise See also:lay in some definite earthly region, and if no one knows " the paths of Paradise " (4 Esdras iv. 7), it would seem that it must have ceased to exist visibly. This See also:idea appears to be implied by those Jewish writers, who, especially after the fall of See also:Jerusalem (A.D. 70), 'dwelt so much on the See also:hope of the heavenly Paradise, reviving, partly under emotional pressure and partly as the result of a fresh influx of See also:mythology, the old myth of a See also:celestial garden of God.

To See also:

notice only a few leading passages. In Apoc. See also:Bar. iv. 3 it appears to be stated that when Adam transgressed, the vision of the See also:city of God and the See also:possession of Paradise were removed from him, and similarly the stress laid in 4 Esdras iv. 7, vi. 2, vii. (36), 53, viii. 52, on the heavenly Paradise seems to show that no earthly one was supposed to exist.4 Beautiful, indeed, is the use made of that form of belief in these passages, with which we may group Rev. xxi. 1, xxii. 5, where, as in 4 Esdras viii. 52, Paradise and the city of God are combined. Some See also:strange disclosures on this subject are made by the Slavonic Enoch (c. viii.; cf. xlii.

3), according to which there are two Paradises. The former is in the third heaven, which explains the well-known saying of St Paul in 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4; o' It was the Babylonian " mountain of the lands," which meant not only See also:

mother earth, but the earth imagined to exist within the heaven; cf. Jeremias, Atao, pp. II, 12, 28, and Jastrow, See also:Religion f Bab. and See also:Ass., p. 558. 2 See Zimmern, K.A.T. (3), pp. 616 sqq. 3 See also r Esdras ii. 19. This explains See also:Joel iv.

18; See also:

lea. lv. r (wine and milk). See also Yasna, 'See also:die. 5 (Zendavesta) ; and cf. See also:Cheyne, Ency. Bib., See also:col. 2104, and especially Usener, Rheinisches Museum, 'vii. 177-192. 4 The statement in Gen. iii. 24 comes from a form of the story in which the " garden " was not geographically localized.the latter is conventionally called the Paradise of Eden. In fact, the belief in an earthly Paradise never wholly died. See also:Medieval writers loved it. The mountain of See also:Purgatory in See also:Dante's poem is " crowned by the delicious shades of the terrestrial Paradise." See further The See also:Apocalypse of See also:Baruch and The Ethiopic and the Slavonic Enoch, both edited by R.

H. See also:

Charles; also Kautzsch's Apocrypha, and See also:Vole, Judische Eschatologie (1903), pp. 374–8, whose full references are most useful. On the Biblical references, cf. Gunkel, See also:Genesis (2), pp. 21–35; Cheyne, Ency. Bib., " Paradise "; and on Babylonian views, Jeremias, " Holle and Paradies " (in Der alte Orient). The See also:Mahommedan's Paradise is a sensuous trans-formation of the Jewish; see especially See also:Koran, Sura Iv., and note the phrase " gardens of Firdaus," Koran, xviii. Io7. For the Koran and the Zoroastrian books see the Sacred Books of the See also:East (See also:Oxford See also:Series). The doorkeeper of the mountain-Paradise of the See also:Parsees is the Amshaspand Vohu-mano (Vendidad, xix. 31).

(T. K.

End of Article: PARADISE (Gr. lrap6BEwos)

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