'And God planted a paradise in Eden toward the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed.' A discourse to be undertaken concerning paradise seems to stir up no slight heat in us who desire to investigate and explain what paradise is, and where it is, and of what nature it is — especially since the Apostle, whether in the body or out of the body he knew not, says nevertheless that he was caught up even to the third heaven. And again, 'I know,' he says, 'such a man — whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows — that he was caught up into paradise and heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. For such a one will I glory; but for myself I will not glory, save in my infirmities. For if I should wish to glory, I shall not be a fool, for I speak the truth.'
Therefore, if paradise is of such a kind that only Paul, or scarcely anyone like Paul, could see it while he dwelt in this life — and yet he, whether he saw it in the body or out of the body, cannot remember, though he did hear words which he was forbidden to make common, namely what he had heard — by what means, pray, shall we be able to settle the situation of paradise, which we could not even see, and which, if we could have seen it, we should yet be forbidden to disclose to others? Since Paul too feared to exalt himself by the sublimity of his revelations, how much more must we strive not to indicate too anxiously that whose very revelation is liable to peril! We ought not, therefore, to esteem this paradise as worthless, and so let us leave it to be Paul's secret.
Yet since we read in Genesis that paradise was planted by God toward the east, and that the man whom God had formed was placed there, we can already discover the author of that paradise. For who is there that could fashion paradise but Almighty God, who spoke and they were made, never in want of those things which he willed to be brought forth? He himself, therefore, planted paradise, of which Wisdom says: 'Every plant which my Father has not planted shall be rooted up.' Good is the planting of the angels, good that of the saints; for the saints are said to be under the fig tree and the vine in that coming time of peace, in whom there is a figure of the angels. Therefore paradise is a place having very many trees, but fruitful trees, trees full of sap and of vigour, of which it is said:
'All the trees of the woods shall exult' — trees ever flowering with the verdure of their merits, like that tree which was planted beside the courses of the waters, whose leaf shall not fall, because all the fruit in it abounds. This, therefore, is paradise. But the place in which it is planted is called pleasure (voluptas). Whence also holy David says: 'Thou shalt give them to drink of the torrent of thy pleasure.' For you have read that a fountain proceeds out of Eden which waters paradise. These trees, therefore, which are planted in paradise, are watered as it were by a certain outpouring of the torrent of the Spirit. Of which he also says elsewhere: 'The rushing of the river makes glad the city of God.' And that city is the Jerusalem which is above, which is free, in which the diverse merits of the saints have sprung up.
In this paradise, therefore, God placed the man whom he had formed. Understand now that he placed there not that man who is according to the image of God, but him who is according to the body; for the incorporeal is not in a place. And he placed him in paradise like the sun in heaven, awaiting the kingdom of heaven, even as the creature awaits the revelation of the sons of God. Therefore, if paradise is that in which shoots had sprung up, paradise appears to be the soul, which multiplies the seed it has received, in which each several virtue is planted, in which was also the tree of life, that is, wisdom — as Solomon said, that wisdom did not spring up from the earth, but from the Father; for it is the splendour of eternal light and the emanation of the glory of the Almighty.
Now there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in paradise. For thus you have it: that God brought forth a tree fair to look upon and good for food, and the tree of life in paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Afterward we shall see whether this tree also was fair to look upon and good for food like the rest. For it will be more opportunely discussed in that place where we find the man who tasted of it to have been deceived. Meanwhile we have nothing which we ought now to censure, even though we cannot know the reason.
For neither in this creation of the world ought we, by some rash judgment, to condemn anything if certain things seem to us difficult to understand and incomprehensible to our wit — such as the creation of serpents and of some venomous living thing — seeing that we men cannot yet understand and know by what reason each several thing has been made. So then, in the divine Scriptures also, let us not easily censure anything which we cannot understand; for there are very many things which are not to be measured by our wit.
But they are to be estimated from the height of the divine arrangement and word. Suppose, then — yet without prejudging a future assertion — that this tree of the knowledge of good and evil displeases you for this reason, that after men tasted of it they understood that they were naked: nevertheless, toward the consummation of the divine working I will say to you that this tree too sprang up in paradise and was therefore permitted by God, that we might be able to know the surpassing excellence of the good. For how, if there were no knowledge of good and evil, should we learn any distinction between good and evil?
For neither should we declare what was evil to be evil, unless there were a knowledge of good — and there could be no knowledge of good unless there were also a good — nor, again, should we know what was good to be good, unless there were a knowledge of evil. Take an example from the very constitution of the human body. Surely it has also a certain bitterness of gall, which, if you look to the common good, is found useful for man's health. So then, even what we think evil is for the most part not wholly evil, but useful for the common good. For as the gall is in a part of the body and yet profits the advantage of the whole body, so God, knowing the knowledge of good and evil would profit the advantage of all, set it in a part, that it might profit the common good.
Finally, you find the serpent in paradise, assuredly not generated apart from the will of God. But in the figure of the serpent is the devil; for that the devil was in paradise even the prophet Ezekiel teaches, who says concerning the prince of Tyre: 'Thou wast,' he says, 'in the pleasure of paradise'; and the prince of Tyre we take as a figure of the devil. Shall we from this too accuse God, because we cannot grasp the treasures of his height and knowledge that are hidden and concealed in Christ, save those which he himself has deigned to reveal? Yet he has revealed them, that we may know that even the malice of the devil profits men unto salvation — not that the devil wishes to profit, but that the Lord turns his malice, even when it resists, unto our salvation.
Finally, his malice made the virtue and patience of holy Job to be more illustrious. His malice exercised Job's righteousness, that he might contend and conquer, and that the crown might follow the victory; for no one is crowned save he who has lawfully contended. The chastity of Joseph, too, would never have come to our memory, had not the woman, his master's wife and housemate, incited by the fiery darts of the devil, tempted his affection — had she not at last sought his destruction, whereby the chastity of the man might be more illustrious, who despised death for the sake of chastity. Do you wish to know the counsel of God? Surely, by the devil's instigation deaths seem to be prepared for righteous men, and the murders of sons are even carried out.
Yet the Lord tempted Abraham also by this very device, in that he required of him that his son should be offered up to him. By which temptation Abraham was proved faithful to the Lord, in that he was not called back from the obedience of devotion even by pity for his beloved son. So then, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in paradise also, which was fair to the sight and good for food, was so in appearance; for it was not good for food in use, since its food is seen to have harmed men. Therefore there is that which may harm individuals, yet profit the common good. As the devil harmed Judas, but, except for him, crowned all the apostles who overcame the temptations of his malice.
And so it is neither to be doubted nor censured that the devil was in paradise, since he could not block the way to the saints, that none should ascend; nor did he, as a possessor, snatch away from the righteous the dwelling of their abode. For grant that he turned away some slothful and vicious ones from the abode of the supernal possession: that is far more august and far more beautiful, that he shall be shut out by the prayers of the saints, when that shall have been fulfilled: 'I beheld Satan falling like lightning from heaven.' Therefore let us not fear him who is so far weak that he too is destined to fall to the earth. He received indeed licence to tempt, but he did not receive power to overthrow, unless a weak affection slip of its own accord — one that has not known how to summon help to itself.
And therefore it is needful to know by what guile he tempted the first man, and what he supposed in man was to be tempted, by what order, by what art, that we may be able to beware. Yet very many, who wish that the devil was not in paradise — although we have read of him standing in heaven among the angels — lest they seem to be offended in this discourse, may receive the interpretation of this reading according to their own will.
For there was one before us who related that the transgression was committed by man through pleasure and sense, taking in the appearance of the serpent the figure of delight, and in the figure of the woman setting the sense of soul and mind, which the Greeks call aisthēsis; and, the sense being deceived, he maintained that, according to the history, the mind was the transgressor, which the Greeks call nous. Rightly, therefore, in the Greek the nous received the figure of the man, the aisthēsis that of the woman. Whence also some have interpreted Adam as the earthly nous. But the Lord, in the Gospel, set those virgins awaiting the bridegroom's coming with their torches kindled or extinguished, in place of the senses, whether sound (of the wise) or corrupt (of the foolish).
For if Eve — that is, the sense of the first woman — had had her torches kindled, she would never have entangled us in the snares of her transgression, nor would she have fallen from that immortality of virtue. Therefore paradise is a certain fertile earth, that is, a fruitful soul, planted in Eden, that is, in a certain pleasure or in cultivated earth, in which there is the delight of the soul. There is also the nous as it were Adam, and there is the sense as it were Eve. And lest you should have something to throw back upon the weakness of nature, or upon a condition liable to perils in enduring them, consider what helps this soul has. There was a fountain to water paradise. And what is that fountain but the Lord Jesus Christ, the fountain of eternal life, as the Father is? Because it is written:
'For with thee is the fountain of life'; and again: 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' Both a fountain is read of, and a river is read of, which waters the fruitful tree of paradise, that it may bear fruit unto eternal life. This fountain, therefore, as you have read — 'for a fountain,' it says, 'proceeds out of Eden,' that is, in your soul is the fountain, whence also Solomon says: 'Drink water from your own vessels and from the fountains of your own wells' — this is the fountain which proceeds out of that cultivated soul, full of pleasure; this is the fountain which waters paradise, that is, the virtues of the soul that sprout with most eminent merit. 'And the fountain,' it says, 'is divided into four heads. The name of the one is Pishon; this is that which compasses all the land of Havilah, where there is gold.'
'And the gold of that land is good, where there is the carbuncle and the green stone. And the name of the second is Gihon; this is that which compasses all Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris; this is that which goes toward the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.' These, then, are the four rivers, that is, Pishon — according to the Hebrews it is called Pishon, but according to the Greeks the Ganges — which flows toward India. Gihon, moreover, is the Nile, which compasses the land of Egypt or Ethiopia. And it is called Mesopotamia because the Tigris and Euphrates have enclosed it, since it is set between these two rivers, which the very name and common opinion have expressed even to those set far away. But in what manner is the wisdom of God called a fountain?
For it is a fountain according to the Gospel which says: 'If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink'; it is a fountain also according to the prophet, who says: 'Come and eat of my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.' As, therefore, wisdom is the fountain of life, the fountain of spiritual grace, so it is the fountain of the other virtues, which direct us to the course of eternal life. Out of this soul, therefore, which is cultivated — not out of that which is uncultivated — this fountain proceeds, that it may water paradise, that is, certain thickets of the diverse virtues, of which there are four heads, into which this wisdom is divided. And what are the four heads of the virtues but one of prudence, another of temperance, a third of fortitude, a fourth of justice?
These the wise men of this world also, having taken them from ours, transferred into the writings of their own books. And so, as wisdom is the fountain, so also these four rivers are certain streams of the virtues flowing from that fountain. Pishon, therefore, is prudence, and therefore it has good gold, the splendid carbuncle, and the green stone. For we frequently take gold to signify prudent discoveries, whence also the Lord says through the prophet: 'I gave them gold and silver'; and David says of the prudent: 'If you sleep among the midst of the lots, the wings of the dove are silvered, and her hinder parts in the appearance of gold,' because whoever has cleaved to the Old and the New Testament can advance into the very secrets of the wisdom of God with the abundance of his discourse.
This good, then, one may call gold, not coined money, which is corruptible and earthly. It has too, he says, the gleaming carbuncle, in which a certain little fire of our soul lives. It has also the green stone, which by the appearance of its color seems to display something verdant and full of life. For the shrubs that live are green, while whatever dies withers away; the earth is green while it flowers, and the seeds are green while they burst forth. And rightly is this river Phison set in the first place, which according to the Hebrews is called Pheoyson, that is, 'change of countenance,' since it does not flow around one nation only, but flows even through Lydia. For prudence is no narrow thing, but rich in useful benefits, that it may profit many.
Therefore it stands first, so that if anyone has departed from paradise, a certain river of prudence may receive him, lest he should quickly wither, but that through it he may easily return to paradise. This river is frequented by many people and is reported to possess the greatest beauty and fertility. And so prudence is understood under its likeness, prudence which brought forth many fruits at the coming of the Lord our salvation. And it flows into the farthest parts of the earth, because through wisdom all men have been redeemed. Whence also it is said: Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
The second river is Geon, beside which the law was laid down for the Israelites when they were settled in Egypt, that they should depart from Egypt and, with their loins girded, eat the lamb—which is a mark of temperance; for it is fitting that those who keep the Lord's Passover be chaste and sanctified. And so beside this river the lawful observance was first established, because this name signifies a certain chasm of the earth. Therefore, just as a chasm swallows up the earth and whatever filth or refuse there is in it, so chastity is wont to abolish all the passions of the body; and rightly there is the first establishment of observance, because through the law the sin of the flesh is swallowed up.
Rightly therefore is Geon, in which is the figure of chastity, said to compass about the land of Ethiopia, that it may wash the abject body and quench the burning of the most vile flesh; for Ethiopia in the Latin rendering is marked as 'abject and vile.' But what is more abject than our body, what so like Ethiopia, which is even black with a certain darkness of sins? The third river is the Tigris, which goes toward the Assyrians, to whom Israel the transgressor was led captive. This river is said to be swifter than all, and the Assyrians dwell beside it, that is, 'those who direct'—for this is what the interpretation means. Therefore whoever by the courage of his soul takes captive the transgressing vices of the body, directing them toward things above, that man is reckoned like to this river.
And therefore fortitude too flows forth from that fountain which is in paradise. Now fortitude, with a certain rapid course, breaks through whatever stands in its way, nor does its course cling to any obstacles of hindrance. The fourth river is the Euphrates, which in Latin is called 'fruitfulness and abundance of fruits,' bearing a certain mark of justice, which feeds every soul. For no virtue seems to have more abundant fruits than equity and justice, which profits others more than itself and neglects its own advantages, setting common benefits before its own. Many think that Euphrates is so called from euphrainesthai, that is, from rejoicing, because the human race rejoices in nothing more than in justice and equity.
But as to the reason why the regions through which the other rivers pass are described, while the regions through which the Euphrates passes are not described, we take it to be this: because its water is asserted to be life-giving, water that nourishes and increases. Whence the wise men of the Hebrews and Assyrians called it Auxen ('the increaser'), whereas the water of the other rivers is said to be the contrary. Then, because where there is prudence there is also malice, where there is fortitude there is anger, where there is temperance there is often intemperance and other vices, but where there is justice there is the concord of the other virtues. Therefore it is known not from the places through which it flows, that is, not in part; for justice is not a part, but is, as it were, the mother of all.
In these rivers, therefore, are expressed the four principal virtues, which have, as it were, enclosed the ages of this world. The first age, then, from the beginning of the world up to the flood, was the age of prudence, in which time are reckoned the just: Abel, so called by the Lord, and Enos—that is, 'man made to the image of God'—who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God; and Enoch, who in Latin is called 'grace of God,' caught up to heaven; and Noah, who himself too was just and a certain right ordering of rest. The second age is that of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the number of the patriarchs, in whom shone forth a certain chaste and pure temperance of religion.
For the immaculate Isaac, given as a son to Abraham by promise, presenting not so much a bodily birth as a gift of divine indulgence, in him the figure of the truly immaculate One went before, as the Apostle teaches when he says that to Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He says not 'and to seeds,' as in many, but as in one: 'and to thy seed,' which is Christ. The third age is in the law of Moses and the other prophets.
For time would fail me in telling of Gideon, Barak, Samson, David and Samuel and the other prophets, of Ananias, Azariah, Misael, Daniel, Elijah, Elisha, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered from infirmity, were made strong in battle, took the camps of foreigners. Not without reason, therefore, is the figure of fortitude in these men. For they were cut asunder, as you have below, were tempted, died in the slaughter of the sword.
They wandered about in goatskins, destitute, afflicted with distress and sorrows, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains and in caves and in the dens of the earth. Rightly therefore do we place in these the figure of fortitude. But according to the Gospel the figure is properly of justice, because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And finally the Lord himself says: Suffer us to fulfill all justice—justice which indeed is the fruitful parent of the other virtues; although in whomever one of these chief virtues we have spoken of is present, in him also the others are at hand, because the virtues are themselves bound together and grown into one with one another.
For surely Abel was just, and Abraham most brave and most patient, and the prophets most prudent, and Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, esteemed the reproach of Christ a greater honor than the treasures of Egypt. And who was wiser than Daniel? Solomon too asked for wisdom and obtained it. It has been said, then, concerning the four rivers of the virtues, whose draught is profitable. And because Phison was said to have the good gold of the land and the carbuncle and the green stone, let us consider also what this means. For Enos seems to us as it were the good gold, who prudently desired to know the name of God.
But Enoch, who was translated and saw not death, is a certain carbuncle, a stone of good odor, who by his works rendered to God a certain grace, breathing it forth in deeds and conduct, holy Enoch. Noah, however, like the green stone, displayed the living color, since in the time of the flood he alone was preserved in that ark as, so to speak, a living seed for the future constitution. Rightly, then, is paradise, which is watered by many rivers, set toward the East—not against the East, that is, according to that East whose name is Orient, that is, according to Christ, who poured forth a certain radiance of eternal light—and it is in Eden, that is, in delight. And God took the man whom he had made and set him in paradise to till it and to keep it.
You see that he who already existed is taken; and he existed in the land of his fashioning. Therefore the power of God took him, breathing into him the advances and increases of virtue. Finally he placed him in paradise, that you may know that he who was taken was, as it were, breathed upon by the divine power. In which place note this, that the man was made outside paradise and the woman within paradise, so that you may observe that each one procures grace for himself not by nobility of place nor of birth, but by virtue. And so the man, made outside paradise—that is, in a lower place—is found the better, and she who was made in the better place, that is, in paradise, is found the inferior; for the woman was first deceived, and she herself deceived the man.
Whence the apostle Peter recorded that holy women, subject as to the weaker vessel, should obey their husbands as masters. And Paul says that Adam was not seduced, but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression. Then it must be considered that no one ought rashly to presume upon himself. For lo, she who was made as a help for the man stands in need of manly protection, because the man is the head of the woman; but he who believed he was going to have the help of a wife fell through his wife.
Whence no one ought rashly to trust himself to another unless he has proved that other's virtue, nor should he who thinks himself taken on as a helper claim too much for himself; but rather, if he finds a stronger one, to whom he supposed he was a protection, let him borrow grace from that one, just as the apostle Peter commands men also to impart honor to women, saying: Husbands, likewise dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman as to the weaker vessel, as to coheirs of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered.
Therefore the man was placed in paradise, the woman was made in paradise; but even then, before the woman was deceived by the serpent, she had the grace of the man, since she was taken from the man—though this is a great mystery, as the apostle said—and so she drew the cause of her life from him. And therefore the Scripture said only of the man that he placed him in paradise to till it and to keep it. To till and to keep are not the same; for in tilling there is a certain advance of virtue, while in keeping there is found a certain consummation of the work, in that one keeps as it were what is already completed. These two things are required of man, that by his works he should seek new things and keep what is acquired, which is a general principle.
But Philo, since he did not grasp spiritual things with the Jewish disposition, kept himself within moral matters, so as to say that these two things are sought: work in the field, the keeping of the house. And although paradise, he says, had no need of rural labors, yet because the first man was to be the law of posterity, therefore even in paradise he took on the appearance of lawful labor, so as to bind us to the working and keeping of our due office and to the gift of hereditary succession. These two things, then, are required of you, whether morally or spiritually. This too the prophetic psalm teaches you, for it is written: Unless the Lord build the house, in vain have they labored who build it; unless the Lord keep the city, in vain have they watched who keep it.
You see those laboring who are in the process of work and building, but those watching who have already received the keeping of the perfected work. Whence the Lord too says to the apostles, as to the more perfect: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation, teaching that the gift of a perfect nature and the grace of full virtue must be guarded, and that no one, even the more perfect, ought to be secure of himself unless he has watched. And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree which is in paradise you shall eat for food, but of the tree which is of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. And in the day in which you eat of it, you shall die the death. For what reason, where he commanded that he should eat of every tree, did he say in the singular:
'you shall eat,' but where it concerns the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, said in the plural 'you shall not eat'—this is no idle question. But if you attend carefully, it can be resolved by the authority of the Scriptures. For that which is good is also to be done, and what is good and to be done is consonant and coherent; but what is base is dissonant, disordered and divided. And therefore the Lord, always intending unity, commanded according to unity. In short, he works unity who made both one, and not only both, but he made all one; for he commanded that we all be one body and one spirit. But the Firstborn through all things, since he is in unity with the Father, is always most closely joined to the Father, because the Word was with God. And finally he says: