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| Concerning Paradise.
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Chapter
XI.—Concerning Paradise.
Now when God was about to fashion man out of the
visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign
as king and ruler over all the earth and all that it contains, He first
made for him, so to speak, a kingdom in which he should live a life of
happiness and prosperity1772
| 1772 Greg. Nyss.,
De opif. Hom., ch. 2. | . And
this is the divine paradise1773
| 1773 See the
treatise of Anastas. II. Antiochen., on the
Hexaëmeron, bk. vii. | , planted in
Eden by the hands of God, a very storehouse of joy and gladness of
heart (for “Eden”1774
| 1774 ᾽Εδεμ, Edem, in the
text. Basil, Hom. de Parad. | means
luxuriousness1775
| 1775 See 2 Kings xix. 12; Isai. xxxvii. 12; Ezek. xxvii.
23. | ). Its
site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate
and the air that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen
plants are its pride, sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with
light, and in sensuous freshness and beauty it transcends
imagination: in truth the place is divine, a meet home for him
who was created in God’s image: no creature lacking reason
made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God’s own
hands.
In its midst1776
| 1776 See
Chrysost., In Gen. Hom. 16, Theodor., Quæst.
27, &c. | God
planted the tree of life and the tree of knowledge1777
. The tree of knowledge was for
trial, and proof, and exercise of man’s obedience and
disobedience: and hence it was named the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, or else it was because to those who partook of it was
given power to know their own nature. Now this is a good thing
for those who are mature, but an evil thing for the immature and those
whose appetites are too strong1778
| 1778 Text,
τὴν
ἔφεσιν
λιχνοτέροις.
Variant τὴν
αἴσθησιν, &c. | , being like
solid food to tender babes still in need of milk1779
| 1779 Greg. Naz.,
Orat. 38 and 42: Method., ap Epiph.
Hæres. 64. | . For our Creator, God, did not
intend us to be burdened with care and troubled about many things, nor
to take thought about, or make provision for, our own life. But
this at length was Adam’s fate: for he tasted and knew that
he was naked and made a girdle round about him: for he took
fig-leaves and girded himself about. But before they took of the
fruit, They were both naked, Adam and Eve, and were not
ashamed1780
. For God
meant that we should be thus free from passion, and this is indeed the
mark of a mind absolutely void of passion. Yea, He meant us
further to be free from care and to have but one work to perform, to
sing as do the angels, without ceasing or intermission, the praises of
the Creator, and to delight in contemplation of Him and to cast all our
care on Him. This is what the Prophet David proclaimed to us when
He said, Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He will sustain
thee1781
. And,
again, in the Gospels, Christ taught His disciples saying, Take no
thought for your life what ye shall eat, nor for your body what ye
shall put on1782
. And
further, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and
all these things shall be added unto you1783
. And to Martha He said,
Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many
things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that
good part, which shall not be taken away from her1784
, meaning, clearly, sitting at His feet
and listening to His words.
The tree of life, on the other hand, was a tree
having the energy that is the cause of life, or to be eaten only by
those who deserve to live and are not subject to death. Some,
indeed, have pictured Paradise as a realm of sense1785
| 1785 Nemes., de
Nat. Hom., ch. 1. | , and others as a realm of mind.
But it seems to me, that, just as man is a creature, in whom we find
both sense and mind blended together, in like manner also man’s
most holy temple combines the properties of sense and mind, and has
this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body is
spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul
is passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty,
where God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a
glorious garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains
him like an angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of
Himself. Verily it has been fitly named the tree of life.
For since the life is
not cut short by death, the sweetness of the divine participation is
imparted to those who share it. And this is, in truth, what God
meant by every tree, saying, Of every tree in Paradise thou mayest
freely eat1786
. For
the ‘every’ is just Himself in Whom and through Whom the
universe is maintained. But the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil was for the distinguishing between the many divisions of
contemplation, and this is just the knowledge of one’s own
nature, which, indeed, is a good thing for those who are mature and
advanced in divine contemplation (being of itself a proclamation of the
magnificence of God), and have no fear of falling1787
| 1787 Greg. Naz.,
Orat. 38 and 42. | , because they have through time come
to have the habit of such contemplation, but it is an evil thing to
those still young and with stronger appetites, who by reason of their
insecure hold on the better part, and because as yet they are not
firmly established in the seat of the one and only good, are apt to be
torn and dragged away from this to the care of their own
body.
Thus, to my thinking, the divine Paradise is
twofold, and the God-inspired Fathers handed down a true message,
whether they taught this doctrine or that. Indeed, it is possible
to understand by every tree the knowledge of the divine power derived
from created things. In the words of the divine Apostle, For
the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made1788
. But of all these thoughts and
speculations the sublimest is that dealing with ourselves, that is,
with our own composition. As the divine David says, The
knowledge of Thee from me1789
, that is from
my constitution, was made a wonder1790
| 1790 εθαυμαστώθη
ἡ γνῶσίς σου
ἐξ εμοῦ,
τουτέστιν, ἐκ
τῆς ἐμῆς
κατασκευῆς.
Basil, Gregory Naz., Anastasius II., Antiochenus and others render it
so, following the LXX. version, and not the Hebrew text. | . But
for the reasons we have already mentioned, such knowledge was dangerous
for Adam who had been so lately created1791
| 1791 Maxim., in
Script. p. 10. | .
The tree of life too may be understood as that
more divine thought that has its origin in the world of sense, and the
ascent through that to the originating and constructive cause of
all. And this was the name He gave to every tree, implying
fulness and indivisibility, and conveying only participation in what is
good. But by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we are
to understand that sensible and pleasurable food which, sweet though it
seems, in reality brings him who partakes of it into communion with
evil. For God says, Of every tree in Paradise thou mayest
freely eat1792
. It is,
me-thinks, as if God said, Through all My creations thou art to
ascend to Me thy creator, and of all the fruits thou mayest pluck one,
that is, Myself who art the true life: let every thing bear for
thee the fruit of life, and let participation in Me be the support of
your own being. For in this way thou wilt be immortal. But
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die1793
. For
sensible food is by nature for the replenishing of that which gradually
wastes away and it passes into the drought and perisheth: and he
cannot remain incorruptible who partakes of sensible
food.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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