Annotatio XLII
”The Lord had planted a Paradise.” — Genesis 2:8
Augustine, in the twelfth book On Genesis to the Letter, in which he inquires about Paradise, chapter 33, seems to hold that the underworld [inferi] is not under the earth,1 when he proposes a question about these things in this manner: “Whence, however, [it is that] the underworld is said to be under the earth — if it is not under the earth — is rightly asked.” Answering which question, in the following chapter 34, he says that the underworld is said and believed to be under the earth for a twofold reason: either because, just as a place under the earth is assigned to dead flesh, so the likeness of a subterranean place is represented to the soul dead through the sin of the flesh; or because, just as in corporeal things those are called “lower” which are heavier, so in spiritual things those are called “lower” which are sadder. Whence also, among the Greeks, the name ᾅδης [Hades], by which the underworld is called, took its origin from the fact that it has nothing sweet. Retracting which words, Augustine, in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 24, speaks thus:2 “About the underworld, I seem to myself rather to have had to teach that they are under the earth, than to give a reason why they are believed or said to be under the earth — as though it were not so.” See above, Annotation 40.