Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Note 1. The word Paradise has been derived either from these Greek words περί and δοσος, which is formed from δευ ρίγω, so that you would call it a watered garden. So Suidas; with whom agrees A. Gellius, book 1, chapter 20.: These places, he says, which the vulgar now call Hicaria, are those whom the Greeks name κηπούς. Or, which is more likely, from the Hebrew word pardes, whereby is signified a pleasant place planted with fruit-bearing trees of every kind, in which sense it is used in Canticles 4: Thy emissions are a Paradise (in Hebrew pardes) of pomegranates: and in Ecclesiasticus 2 Solomon says: I made me gardens, and pardesim, where the Septuagint render Paradises, and Orchards. Whence Rabbi Kimchi, in his Hebrew Roots, says: Pardes is a garden planted with trees for food. Which also the Latins have used; for Procopius, book 2 of the Vandalic War, says: Where the royal seat of the Prince of the Vandals was situated, there was the most beautiful Paradise of all that I have seen; for it was wholly irrigated by fountains, and groves grew green on every side: and the trees were laden with fruits, so that the very soldiers, weary, lay broadly beneath the shade of the trees under their tents, and plucked the fruits therefrom. Nevertheless it is now received among the Interpreters of the sacred Books that pardes signifies a place of pleasure, from the root para, that is, it brought forth fruit, and hadas, that is, myrtle; as though one should say, a garden of myrtles, or one in which myrtles bring forth fruit; for Myrtle, by its odor and savor, refreshes and excels other trees.

Note 2. A threefold Paradise can be distinguished from Holy Scripture: the first indeed is Terrestrial, of which we have spoken just now, and of which we shall say more hereafter: the second is Celestial, of which Apocalypse 2: To him that overcometh, I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God. And St. Paul, 2 to the Corinthians, chapter 12, says that he was caught up into Paradise; but what he understood by the name of Paradise he had declared shortly before in the same place, verse 2, affirming that he was caught up even to the third Heaven: that is, say some sacred Interpreters, even to the seat of the Blessed: for they distinguish a threefold Heaven: the first first, which encompasses the waters and the earth: whence birds are called the fowls of the air [Coeli], Psalm 8. The second is the Heaven divided into those orbs which Astronomers acknowledge. Third and last, that which is the seat of the Blessed, which is called the Heaven of Heavens. Third and last, finally, that Paradise is the one which Christ the Lord signified in Luke 23, when addressing the penitent Thief crucified with him, he said: This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise: that is, thou shalt rest from labors and sufferings, until, borne up with me into Heaven, thou enjoy eternal felicity. — Or otherwise, Paradise is threefold: the First, corporal in the order of nature: the Second, spiritual in the order of grace: the Third, divine in the order of glory. The first for Adam: the second for the Just, whose souls, laden with virtues as with flowers, are the delights of God: the third and last for the Blessed.

Note 3. From St. Augustine, book 8 of De Genesi ad litteram, concerning the entity and truth of the earthly Paradise, there are three quasi-general opinions: One is that of those who wish Paradise to be understood only corporally: Another that of those who understand it only spiritually. The third is that of those who take Paradise in both ways: at times corporally, at other times spiritually. To the first opinion subscribe almost all Scholastic Theologians, and the more recent sacred Interpreters together with St. Augustine himself, and certain other holy Fathers. The second opinion was that of Origen, book 1 of Periarchon, chapter 2, where, heaping together many examples of those things of which in Holy Scripture there is not to be sought a true and real historical narrative, but only a mystical and spiritual understanding, among the rest he placed the Paradise of pleasure, speaking thus: Who indeed would be found so unlearned as to think that God, like some husbandman, planted in it that tree visible and palpable, so that one eating of corporal foods might receive from the tree of life; and again, eating of another tree, might attain to the knowledge of good and evil? And that also, that God is said to have walked in Paradise after midday: and Adam to hide himself beneath the tree of good and evil: I judge that no one doubts that these things are set forth by Scripture in a figurative trope, whereby by them certain mystical things were signified.

The third opinion, lastly, is that of those who, admitting the literal history of Paradise, nevertheless translate it into a mystical sense, for the attaining of certain interior and more sublime understandings of things spiritual and celestial, as did many of the holy Fathers; most especially indeed St. Augustine lib. 18. De Civit. Dei, cap. 21. who, after having recalled a certain Allegorical exposition of Paradise, subjoins these words: These things, and whatever others can be more fittingly said concerning the understanding of Paradise spiritually, let them be said with none forbidding, provided nevertheless that the truth of that history also, commended by the most faithful narration of the deeds done, be believed.

These things premised, three things are to be proved: First, that Paradise is a corporeal place; Second, that it is not the whole orb of the earth: Third, that it is not outside this our earthly orb.

First Conclusion. — Paradise, which Moses described, was a visible and corporeal place, not indeed purely spiritual and mystical. This is the common opinion among the Holy Fathers, who on that account accuse Origen of error because he overturned the literal history of Paradise by his allegories. Whence Epiphanius writes in the Ancoratus: Thus do many dispute allegorically concerning Paradise, as Origen, furiously shadowing forth I know not what species, thrust it forth into the world for truth: and St. Jerome in Epistle 61 to Pammachius, among the eight errors of Origen, reckons this in the sixth place: That he so allegorizes Paradise as to take away its historical truth, understanding Angels for the four corners [quatuor] of the world, celestial virtues for the rivers, and overturning the whole content of Paradise by tropological interpretation. Whence St. Augustine, in the book De haeresibus, chapter 59, places the Soleucians and Hermianos among Heretics, because they took away Paradise as visible and capable of being beheld.

These things will plainly stand if we shake out for a while the words of Moses concerning Paradise, both in chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Genesis. First, for he says, It was planted toward the East, that is, in the Eastern part of the world, which truly is corporeal: therefore Paradise likewise was corporeal and sensible. Secondly he says: And the Lord God brought forth (from it) of the ground every tree beautiful to the sight, and pleasant to eat of; the tree of life also in the midst of Paradise, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil: if the trees of Paradise were brought forth from the ground, or from the earth, by what reason will they not be corporeal, and Paradise not an earthly place? Of the ground, he says — what clearer? etc.

Third, he says a River irrigated the whole of Paradise, namely as a watered garden, which is wont to be irrigated by diversions of waters. Fourth, he adds that thence went forth its issue into four rivers, and that Phison compasseth the whole land of Hevillath: where gold is born, and the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. Truly then, and really, that river of Paradise existed, one branch whereof, Phison, truly and corporeally flows through the land of Hevillath; it is indeed in the earth, and truly washes the earth with its waters: that gold is beholdable, and the bdellium, and the onyx stone, all corporeal, and born in the land of Hevillath. Fifth, he asserts that Geon compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. This indeed is corporeal and visible. We omit to speak of the Tigris and the Euphrates, that they are true and sensible rivers — whoever is unwilling to believe it, let him enjoy his own wit without envy. — Which indeed St. Chrysostom urges luminously in Homily 13 on Genesis, writing: Therefore Moses, describing Paradise, and the name of the place in which it was, to wit Edem, and the Eastern region which it faced, and the names of the rivers issuing from Paradise, known almost to all, narrated so subtly and truthfully that it might not be permitted to triflers wishing to deceive the simpler folk, by saying that there was no Paradise upon the earth, but in Heaven, and other fables, boasting their own dreams. For if, together with Moses, such diligence were placed in describing Paradise, nevertheless some fablers of sacred things would say that Paradise was not above the earth, introducing many other things most alien from the doctrine of Moses, and twisting his words otherwise than they have been spoken: what would have come to pass, if he had not described Paradise so minutely, so clearly, in fine so perspicuously? Thus St. Chrysostom.

Proof 2. In that manner must the narration of Moses concerning Paradise be taken, in which manner is taken that which he makes concerning sin, both of Eve and of Adam, chapter 3 of Genesis: but this is taken in the literal and proper sense: therefore also that. The Minor stands. Its proof: in this propriety without doubt are those words to be understood: And the Lord God brought forth of the ground every tree beautiful to the sight, and pleasant to eat of, the tree of life also in the midst of Paradise, etc. As in chapter 3 it is said: And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold, and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat: for in both contexts mention is made of sight and of eating, which are corporeal actions: but it stands that the latter context is not to be understood metaphorically; otherwise all things which the Church believes concerning the sin of the first Parent would be false and vain: whence St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus: if there is no sensible Paradise, he says, there is no fountain, no fig tree, no leaves, Eve did not eat — but already it is a fable. — Lastly, in Genesis 13, verse 10 [sic], the Region about the Jordan is compared in beauty and pleasantness to the Paradise of the Lord. It was watered, he says, as the Paradise of the Lord, and as Egypt when one cometh into Seior: but that comparison of that region with a spiritual and mystical thing would appear utterly inept, as St. Augustine rightly gathers, question 27 on Genesis: therefore it is necessary that Paradise be a corporeal place, as Egypt, to which it is compared: Therefore let their ravings be silenced, as St. Jerome infers upon chapter 10 of Daniel, verse 1, of those who, following shadows and images, endeavor to kill truth itself, so as to think that Paradise, and rivers, and trees must undermine themselves allegorically with fables. — The same is confirmed by the other Holy Fathers; most especially indeed by the holy Bishop Theophilus of Antioch, book 2 ad Autolicum: When man was created, he says, God chose a region in the Eastern places, surpassing in pleasantness, coruscating with light, illustrious with splendid air, fertile with various plants, and in this he placed man..... But that I may know...

St. Methodius, Bishop of Olympus in Lycia, and Martyr, expressly against Origen, who by his allegories destroyed the corporeal Paradise, thus discourses: First, for Paradise, from which we were cast out in our first Parent, openly is in this earth a place preeminent, destined for delightful repose and a better life for the Saints. From it spring the Tigris, and the Euphrates, and the remaining rivers which are poured forth there; hence appear the courses of the rivers inundating our continent: For they are not poured out and dashed down from the supernal Heavens: for neither could the earth have sustained so great a mass of water descending in heaps from on high: nor was Adam cast down from the Heavens, but from Paradise planted in Edem toward the East. —

Also favors this the sixth general Synod of Constantinople, in Action 13, approving the Epistle of Sophronius recited in Action 11, in which the same Patriarch of Jerusalem, among other errors of the Origenists, condemned also this, that outside the paternal and Apostolic tradition he cast away the plantation of Paradise.

Yet I do not deny that this narration made by Moses concerning Paradise can be expounded in a mystical sense, for as St. Augustine observes lib. 13. De Civit. Dei, cap. 21. Some refer that whole Paradise, in which the first men are said to have been, to intelligible things: and convert those trees, and fruitful woods, into the virtues of life and manners: as though those visible and corporeal things had not been, but were so said, or written, for the sake of signifying intelligibles. As therefore Paradise could not have been corporeal because it can also be understood spiritually: as though therefore there were not two women, Agar and Sara, and from them two sons of Abraham, one of the Handmaid, another of the Free, because two Testaments figured in them the Apostle speaks of. No one therefore forbids that

Paradise be understood as the life of the Blessed: its four rivers, the four virtues, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Justice; and its trees, all useful disciplines: and the fruits of the rivers, the manners of the pious; and the tree of life, Wisdom itself of all goods: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the experience of transgressing the commandment. — These things can also be understood of the Church, that we may receive them the better, as prophetic signs preceding things to come: to wit, that the Paradise is the Church itself, as is read of her in the Canticle of Canticles: moreover the four rivers of Paradise, the four Gospels; the fruitful trees, the Saints; but their fruits, their works: the tree of life, the Holy of Holies, certainly Christ; the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the proper arbiter of the will.

Thence he concludes this: And whatever others can be more fitly said concerning the understanding of Paradise spiritually, let them be said with none forbidding: provided nevertheless that the truth of that history be believed in the most faithful narration of the deeds done.

You will say 1. That narration of Moses embraces many things which can be taken only tropologically and by metaphor; for instance, the walking of God in Paradise after midday: therefore by equal reason, those things which it relates concerning Paradise itself are also to be understood metaphorically.

I answer, conceding the antecedent, denying the consequence. For it plainly stands that that walking according to the literal sense cannot be taken; since God is without partaking of body, he is also incapable of corporeal walking; and therefore that walking could not literally be used without evident and manifest absurdity: but such an absurdity does not follow from the fact that Paradise is said to be some corporeal and sensible place, and that the whole Mosaic narration concerning it is used according to the letter.

You will say 2. The earthly Paradise is that into which the soul of Christ the Lord received itself during the three days of death, and of which he spoke to the penitent Thief in Luke 23, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise: but that place into which the soul of Christ received itself was not corporeal and sensible, for such a place befits not a purely spiritual soul: therefore that Paradise is not any corporeal place.

I deny the major; for, as has been said in Notable 2, a threefold Paradise is distinguished in Holy Scripture; namely Celestial, Mystical, and Earthly: The First is the heavenly Fatherland, in which blessed minds enjoy eternal vision and felicity of God: The Second is the clear vision of God itself, and the supreme rest from all labors and pressures, wherever it may be, whether in Heaven, or on earth, or even in Limbo, into which Christ himself descended during the three days of death: The Third and last is that most delightful place into which innocent Adam was carried by God from the very beginning of his condition, and from which he went into exile by sin. Christ spoke in Luke 23 of the Mystical Paradise, not of the terrestrial: and therefore our proposition is true and certain, namely that the terrestrial Paradise is a certain visible and corporeal place. Whether however it be a special place, the second Conclusion shall disclose.

Second Conclusion. — By the name of the terrestrial Paradise is understood not this whole orb of lands which we inhabit, but a certain particular place constituted in a certain region of this orb. This is against very many Recentiors, especially Pineda, book 1 of Monarchiae Ecclesiasticae, chapter 6, Abraham Ortelius in the table of sacred Geography, and others of no interior name, who wish

the Paradise of pleasure described by Moses to be this whole orb of lands, overflowing at the beginning of its condition with all beauty, fertility, amenity, and delights: but the Fountain which washed Paradise to be the Ocean, which Homer and most of the Philosophers called the parent of rivers, and the greatest fountain of all.

The truth of this conclusion is patent from the Mosaic narration itself, whence it stands, First, that Paradise was planted in the East: but the whole earth spreads far and wide, not only toward the East, but also toward the West, the North, and the South: therefore this is not Paradise. — Next, from the same it stands that God carried Adam from the place in which he had formed him into Paradise, and afterwards, in punishment of sin, cast him out of Paradise, and appointed a Cherub the guardian of Paradise itself, that it might bar Adam himself and his posterity therefrom: but it is not likely that God created Adam outside this orb of lands, that he might afterwards carry him into it: nor is it equally credible that he cast him out beyond this world; inasmuch as he dwelt in this our earth, and was buried in it, as shall most openly stand from what is to be said below. Nor, lastly, does it become in any way probable that a Cherub was appointed about this whole orb of lands, lest Adam, or his posterity, break in upon it: therefore it stands that this Mosaic history of Paradise can by no means be deduced to the whole earth except by illusory and thin little allegories.

You will say 1. That river, which went forth from the place of pleasure to irrigate Paradise, and which thence is divided into four heads, is none other than the Ocean, as holy Damascene affirms, book 2 of De Fide orthodoxa, chapter 9, in these words: There is also the Ocean, as it were a certain river encompassing the whole earth: concerning which it seems to me that divine Scripture said, that a river proceeds from Paradise, etc.

I deny the major; For that Paradisal river went forth from the place of pleasure to irrigate Paradise; but the Ocean does not go forth from this whole orb of lands. Next, it was divided only into four rivers: but the Ocean is poured forth not only into all rivers; but is also discharged and flows out into various gulfs and tracts of seas; and therefore it cannot be taken for that Paradisal fountain.

You will say 2. Paradise was a place destined for the habitation of the human race, and of all the posterity of Adam, if he had preserved innocence; whence Philoxenus, Bishop of Mobug, in the Oration on the contemplation of the tree of life, writes thus: Paradise was the first habitation of our race: for as Heaven is the seat of Angels, but of demons, after their fall, is the air, placed doubtless in the middle place: Moreover of brute animals and men, after the law violated, this earth in which we dwell: lastly, of fishes, and all swimming things, the waters: So also had Paradise been destined, that it might be the domicile of men before they sinned. But the mandate of God having been spurned, Adam was cast down through ignominy into this earth subject to sin, that he might dwell therein with brute beasts. — Moses Barcepha confirms it, in the book De Paradiso, chapter 22. Three places, he says, God had created for Adam, Heaven, Paradise, and this earth which is outside Paradise. If indeed obedient, as the reward of the cultivated precept, the heavenly kingdom would be given him, whither he would be translated from Paradise: but if rebellious and a transgressor, he would be thrust down from Paradise into this cursed earth: but if Paradise were some special place in this orb of lands, it would not be capacious enough to contain the whole multitude of men who would have been propagated in the state of innocence: therefore it is necessary that by the name of Paradise this whole orb of lands be understood.

I answer 1. It is more likely that even if original justice had stood to the human race, nevertheless innocent men would also have inhabited the earth outside Paradise; partly because, since men lived long, they would also have been endowed with innumerable progeny, and therefore the Paradisal garden, however spacious, would not have been sufficient for locating them all: partly because in Genesis 1, verse 28, when God had created man male and female, He blessed them, and said: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth. In which God chiefly imposes three things upon men: First indeed, that they fill the earth, and subdue it: Second, that they rule over all living creatures that move upon the earth: Third, that they take for food the fruits of all trees, and every herb germinating throughout the whole orb. From which it is manifest that men were created by God to be inhabitants, not of one Paradise only, but also of the whole orb of lands, even if innocence had stood. —

To the foresaid authorities I say, that from them indeed is inferred that innocent men would live in Paradise: but nothing is evinced against our Conclusion, namely that Paradise is some particular place, but not this whole orb of lands; for each Author expresses this in the very words conceived.

Third Conclusion. — The terrestrial Paradise was not constituted outside this whole orb of lands. This plainly follows from what has been said in the foregoing, and is gathered, First, from Holy Scripture itself, which sufficiently indicates that Adam was created in this our orb of lands, and driven from Paradise, lived and was buried therein: but it is not likely that he was carried into another orb, that being innocent he might remain there, and from which, driven as a deadly enemy, he would again be carried back into our orb.

Next, there are noted in our orb those two immense rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which Moses affirms to flow forth from the Paradisal fountain: but it is not credible that those rivers issue beneath the sea of the earth [sub mare terrae], and at length in this earth which we inhabit: it is clear therefore that Paradise was created in this our orb of lands.

Lastly, there is none of the holy Fathers and of the more ancient writers who subscribes to the contrary opinion, and therefore, if anyone contended to defend it, he would deserve to be banished as a commentator of a new testament.

You will say: Moses Bar-Cepha, in the book De Paradiso, chapter 9, affirms that the earth in which Paradise was constituted is not only higher than that which we inhabit, but also altogether distinct from it and disjoined by that immense sea which girds and washes our earth. Which opinion he reports from holy Ephrem, saying that Paradise encompasses the whole earth, and is so placed beyond the Ocean that it encircles the whole orb of lands from every region, not otherwise than the sphere [orbis] of the Moon encircles the Moon itself; and Moses adds in chapter 14, that those who hold that Paradise is placed beyond the Ocean also affirm that the first men came on foot from that

kindred land of Paradise into this ours across the shallow sea, since they were of most lofty stature, etc. Therefore this opinion is defended by Authors not of unknown name.

I answer. That Moses Bar-Cepha in that aforesaid book collected all the opinions whatsoever published concerning Paradise, both serious and playful, and yet did not approve them all; and therefore from that no patronage accrues to that opinion which is opposed to the truth of our Conclusion. But to that which he relates of holy Ephrem, I answer that it is not found in his works which Vossius translated from Greek into Latin and published. But if holy Ephrem so judged, I say that by "the land beyond the tenth" [ultra decennam] he perhaps designated the new orb of America: for it is certain that Africa, and Europe almost on every side are washed by the Ocean: and beyond the Ocean lies that immense continental land of the new orb not yet sufficiently opened and explored from every side. For it will be less paradoxical to judge that holy Ephrem held Paradise to be planted in America, than in another land beyond the Ocean, and America, that is, the new orb.