DISPUTATION. What place Paradise was, where it was, and how great it was; and why it has at no time yet been found by men; finally, whether that terrestrial Paradise still exists — Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

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DISPUTATION. What place Paradise was, where it was, and how great it was; and why it has at no time yet been found by men; finally, whether that terrestrial Paradise still exists.¹

DISPUTATIO. Quis locus fuerit Paradisus, Ubi, et Quantus fuerit, et Cur nullo tempore adhuc ab hominibus inventus sit: denique, An etiamnunc extet Paradisus ille terrestris.

CIRCA verba Mosis de Paradiso hactenus exposita tractandae sunt aliquot quaestiones, priusquam cetera quae de Paradiso subtexit Moses persequamur. PRIMA QUAESTIO. An Mosaica Paradisi descriptio proprie intelligenda sit de loco aliquo corporeo et terrestri, an potius figurate de re quapiam intelligibili et spirituali. Philo Iudaeus, in extremo lib. de Mundi opificio et in lib. de Allegoriis legis Mosaicae, mystice duntaxat et allegorice interpretatur orationem Mosis de Para[diso]...

Concerning the words of Moses about Paradise hitherto expounded, several questions must be treated, before we pursue the rest which Moses adds about Paradise. FIRST QUESTION. Whether the Mosaic description of Paradise is to be understood properly, of some corporeal and terrestrial place, or rather figuratively, of some intelligible and spiritual thing. Philo the Jew, at the end of his book On the Making of the World, and in his book On the Allegories of the Mosaic Law, interprets the discourse of Moses about Para[dise] only mystically and allegorically...²

...[de Para]diso, nec aliter censet esse intelligendam: quem secutus Origenes in tomis super Genesim pervertit omnem historiam paradisi, non aliter quam figurate accipi debere arbitratus: itaque paradisum ponit non in terra sed in tertio caelo, ad quem scilicet raptus est Paulus; per arbores paradisi virtutes angelicas interpretatur; per flumina vero aquas quae supra dorsum firmamenti sunt. Ac licet quidam conentur ostendere Origenem historicam paradisi interpretationem non reiecisse, verbis illis ex 31 homilia eius in numeros in medium productis, Adam post peccatum extruditur in aridam, ante enim non erat in arida sed in terra, paradisus namque non est in arida sed in terra: haec tamen verba ad Origenis purgationem atque defensionem parum valent, quippe qui ob supradictam opinionem a plurimis Patribus damnatus sit. Epiphanius certe multa contra hanc Origenis interpretationem disputat, tam in Ancoratu quam in Epistola quam ad Ioannem Episcopum Hierosolymitanum scripsit.

...about Paradise, and judges it must be understood no otherwise: whom Origen having followed, in his tomes on Genesis, perverts the whole history of paradise, having judged that it ought to be taken no otherwise than figuratively: and so he places paradise not on earth, but in the third heaven, to which, namely, Paul was caught up; by the trees of paradise he interprets angelic virtues; but by the rivers, the waters which are above the back of the firmament. And although some try to show that Origen did not reject the historical interpretation of paradise—by those words brought forward from his 31st homily on Numbers, ‘Adam after his sin is thrust out into the dry land, for before he was not in the dry land but in the earth; for paradise is not in the dry land but in the earth’—yet these words avail little for Origen's clearing and defense, since he was condemned by very many Fathers for the aforesaid opinion. Epiphanius certainly disputes much against this interpretation of Origen, both in the Ancoratus and in the Epistle which he wrote to John, Bishop of Jerusalem.³

B. Ambrosius, in libro quem de Paradiso edidit, Philonis atque Origenis vestigia insistens, similia illis de paradiso sentit et scribit. Idem in libro Epistolarum 6 epistola 42, quae est ad Sabinum scripta, ubi postremum de paradiso disseruit—Iam veteranus (ut inquit ipse) Sacerdos—recensitis aliorum scriptorum variis opinionibus, tandem ut similius vero concludit paradisum non fuisse locum terrestrem sed quippiam spirituale ac intelligibile, quod ad mentem et spiritum Adami oblectandum et quodammodo in hac vita beandum pertinebat. Non me fugit esse quosdam qui veram habuisse Ambrosium de paradiso sententiam probent ex Commentario eius in caput 6 prioris epistolae Pauli ad Corinthios, quod eo loci dicat Ambrosius, Sicut duplex est Hierusalem, una caelestis altera terrestris, ita duplicem esse paradisum, unum terrestrem in quo positus est Adam ut ipsum coleret atque custodiret, alterum caelestem ad quem raptus est Paulus. Verum ea probatio parvam fidem faceret viris doctis, qui multis nec levibus coniecturis persuasum habent non esse Commentarios illos in Pauli epistolas ex Ambrosii officina profectos.

Blessed Ambrose, in the book which he published On Paradise, treading in the footsteps of Philo and Origen, thinks and writes things like theirs about paradise. The same, in the book of Epistles 6, epistle 42, which is written to Sabinus, where he last discoursed about paradise—‘now a veteran’ (as he himself says) ‘Priest’—having reviewed the various opinions of other writers, at last concludes (as more like the truth) that paradise was not a terrestrial place, but something spiritual and intelligible, which pertained to the delighting of Adam's mind and spirit, and in a way to his being made blessed in this life. It does not escape me that there are some who prove that Ambrose held the true opinion about paradise from his Commentary on the sixth chapter of the former epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, because in that place Ambrose says, As Jerusalem is twofold, one heavenly, the other earthly, so paradise is twofold—one terrestrial, in which Adam was placed, that he might till and keep it; the other heavenly, to which Paul was caught up. But that proof would make little credit with learned men, who hold, by many and not slight conjectures, that those Commentaries on Paul's epistles did not come from Ambrose's workshop.⁴

NE multa, etiam Hieronymus videri cuipiam posset in eodem versatus errore, siquidem in libro traditionum Hebraicarum inquit Paradisum ante caelum et terram esse a Deo conditum: quod de paradiso terrestri non potest intelligi. Sed ea verba Hieronymi vel ita sunt interpretanda ut nos supra interpretati sumus; vel putandum est ea Hieronymum non ex suo sed ex aliorum sensu dixisse: neque enim obscurum aut dubium esse potest quin Hieronymus a supradicta Philonis et Origenis de paradiso sententia vehementer abhorruerit, cum is in Epistola quam dedit ad Pammachium de erroribus Ioannis Episcopi Hierosolymitani inter eos hunc quoque Origenis de paradiso commemoret; et in Commentariis suis in Danielem explanans caput 10 gravissimis verbis in istos allegoricos para[disi]...

In short, even Jerome might seem to someone to have been engaged in the same error, since in his book of Hebrew Traditions he says that Paradise was founded by God before heaven and earth: which cannot be understood of the terrestrial paradise. But those words of Jerome are either to be interpreted as we interpreted above; or it must be thought that Jerome said them not from his own, but from the sense of others: for it can be neither obscure nor doubtful that Jerome vehemently abhorred the aforesaid opinion of Philo and Origen about paradise, since he, in the Epistle which he gave to Pammachius on the errors of John, Bishop of Jerusalem, among them commemorates this one of Origen about paradise too; and in his Commentaries on Daniel, explaining chapter 10, with the gravest words [inveighs] against those allegorical [interpreters] of para[dise]...⁵

...[in istos allegoricos para]disi Interpretes invehatur:

...he inveighs against those allegorical Interpreters of paradise:⁶

Let their ravings be silent, he says, who, following shadows and images in the truth, attempt to overturn the truth itself: so that they think paradise and the rivers and the trees ought to be undermined by the laws of allegory. Thus Jerome.⁷

Conticescant, inquit, eorum deliramenta, qui umbras et imagines in veritate sequentes ipsam conantur evertere veritatem: ut paradisum et flumina et arbores putent allegoriae legibus se debere subruere. Sic Hieronymus.

Sanctus Augustinus in libro de Haeresibus, num. 59, inter errores Seleucianorum et Hermogenianorum hunc quoque numerat, quod negaverint paradisum visibilem. CAETERUM, Iosephus primo libro Antiquitatum, Basilius homilia 11 in Genesim quae est de paradiso, atque (ut uno verbo dicam) omnes propemodum Patres tam Graeci quam Latini concordi sententia paradisum quem describit Moses locum fuisse corporeum ac terrestrem existimarunt. Quanquam non putaverint cuiquam interdictum ut post sensum historicum paradisi etiam alios sensus mysticos et allegoricas interpretationes afferre non posset. Quinimo Augustinus initio libri 8 de Genesi ad litteram tres de paradiso refert opiniones: primam tantum spiritualiter, alteram tantum corporaliter, tertiam utroque modo paradisi historiam interpretantium; hanc ultimam omnium maxime probari sibi affirmavit. Quod non sic est intelligendum ut velit Augustinus historiam paradisi partim corporaliter partim spiritualiter esse interpretandam (universa namque secundum sensum historicum corporaliter est intelligenda), sed verbis illis Augustinus significavit recte atque utiliter eos fecisse qui descriptionem paradisi primo secundum sensum historicum et litteralem exposuerunt, deinde per sensum mysticum ad interiores et sublimiores quasdam rerum spiritualium et caelestium intelligentias applicuerunt. Nam quid Augustinus de historica paradisi expositione sentiret clarissime ostendit in libro 13 de Civitate Dei extremis verbis 21 capitis: cum enim allegoricam quandam paradisi expositionem commemorasset, subiungit haec verba:

Saint Augustine, in the book On Heresies, number 59, numbers this too among the errors of the Seleuciani and Hermogeniani—that they denied a visible paradise. But Josephus, in the first book of the Antiquities; Basil, in the eleventh homily on Genesis, which is on paradise; and (to say it in one word) almost all the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, by a concordant opinion held that the paradise which Moses describes was a corporeal and terrestrial place. Although they did not think it forbidden to anyone that, after the historical sense of paradise, he should not be able to bring also other mystical senses and allegorical interpretations. Nay rather, Augustine, at the beginning of the eighth book On Genesis according to the Letter, reports three opinions about paradise: of those interpreting the history of paradise only spiritually, only corporeally, and in both ways; he affirmed that this last pleased him most of all. Which is not to be understood as if Augustine would have the history of paradise interpreted partly corporeally, partly spiritually (for the whole is to be understood corporeally according to the historical sense), but by those words Augustine signified that those did rightly and usefully who first expounded the description of paradise according to the historical and literal sense, then by the mystical sense applied it to certain deeper and more sublime understandings of spiritual and celestial things. For what Augustine thought about the historical exposition of paradise he shows most clearly in the thirteenth book of the City of God, in the last words of the 21st chapter: for, having mentioned a certain allegorical exposition of paradise, he subjoins these words:⁸

These things, and any others that can be more fittingly said about understanding paradise spiritually, let them be said with no one forbidding it—provided, however, that the truth also of that history, commended by a most faithful narration of things done, be believed. Thus Augustine.⁹

Ista, et si qua alia commodius dici possunt de intelligendo spiritualiter paradiso, nemine prohibente dicantur, dum tamen et illius historiae veritas fidelissima rerum gestarum narratione commendata credatur. Haec Augustinus.

SED nullus veterum, meo iudicio, luculentius hoc de quo agimus exposuit quam Chrysostomus, qui homilia 13 in Genesim hoc modo ait:

But no one of the ancients, in my judgment, has more clearly expounded this matter of which we treat than Chrysostom, who, in the thirteenth homily on Genesis, speaks in this manner:¹⁰

Therefore Moses, in describing paradise—both the name of the place in which it was (namely Heden), and the eastern region which it faced, and the names of the rivers going out from paradise, nearly known to all—narrated it so subtly and accurately, that it should not be permitted to those wishing to trifle to deceive the simpler folk, by saying that there was no paradise on earth but in heaven, and by tossing about other fables and their own dreams. For if, although Moses placed so great diligence in describing paradise, there were nevertheless some who fabled that there was no paradise upon earth, and who brought in many other things most foreign to the doctrine of Moses, and twisted his words elsewhere than as they were said: what would have happened if he had not described paradise so minutely, so clearly, and finally so distinctly?[...]¹¹

Ideo Moses describens paradisum, et nomen loci in quo erat (scilicet Heden), et plagam orientalem quam spectabat, et nomina fluminum e paradiso egredientium fere nota omnibus, tam subtiliter et accurate enarravit, ut non liceret nugari volentibus decipere simpliciores, dicendo nullum fuisse in terra paradisum sed in caelo, et alias fabulas suaque somnia iactando. Nam si, cum Moses tantam in describendo paradiso diligentiam posuerit, nihilominus tamen fuere nonnulli fabulantes non fuisse super terram paradisum, multaque alia a doctrina Mosis alienissima inducentes, et verba eius aliorsum quam dicta sunt detorquentes: quid futurum fuisset si non tam minutatim, tam dilucide, denique tam enucleate paradisum descripsisset?[...]

...[descripsisset?] Ita Chrysostomus. Hoc ipsum docuit Sophronius Patriarcha Hierosolymitanus in ea Epistola quae recitata est a sexta Synodo generali, actione 11, et postea in actione 13 ab universa Synodo approbata. CERTE, universa narratio Mosis apertissime demonstrat paradisum fuisse locum quendam in terra corporatum et aspectabilem, omni genere voluptatum ac deliciarum abundantem. Cum enim ea narratio non minus sit historica quam aliarum rerum quas prius memoraverat Moses, profecto verus et germanus eius historiae sensus id debet sine controversia censeri, quem reddunt verba Mosis secundum propriam et usitatam eorum significationem sumpta. Multa idem licet observare in narratione Mosis quae huic sententiae fidem astruunt: ait enim paradisum fuisse in regione Heden ad orientalem eius plagam locatum, extra quem conditus est homo sed mox in eum a Deo introductus ut ipsum coleret et custodiret; fuisse in eo arbores aspectu amoenissimas et gustatu suavissimas; irrigatum esse uno flumine, postea diducto in quatuor fluvios, eorumque duos esse Tigrim et Euphratem; ex eo loco Adamum esse a Deo propter peccatum inobedientiae eiectum, positumque in aditu eius Cherubim scilicet ad hominem ingressu prohibendum; Evam vidisse, fructum arboris scientiae boni et mali decerpsisse, comedisse, edendumque Adamo dedisse; et alia his similia, quae paradisum fuisse locum corporatum et terrestrem non dubie demonstrant.

...had he described it? Thus Chrysostom. This same thing Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, taught in that Epistle which was recited by the sixth General Synod, in the eleventh session, and afterward in the thirteenth session approved by the whole Synod. Certainly, the whole narration of Moses most openly demonstrates that paradise was a certain place on earth, corporeal and visible, abounding in every kind of pleasures and delights. For since that narration is no less historical than that of the other things which Moses had earlier recorded, surely the true and genuine sense of its history ought, without controversy, to be reckoned that which the words of Moses render when taken according to their proper and usual signification. One may observe many things in the narration of Moses which build up faith in this view: for he says that paradise was located in the region Heden, toward its eastern part; that man was made outside it, but was soon led into it by God, to till and keep it; that there were in it trees most pleasant to sight and sweetest to taste; that it was watered by one river, afterward led off into four rivers, two of which are the Tigris and the Euphrates; that from that place Adam was cast out by God on account of the sin of disobedience, and the Cherubim placed at its entrance, namely to bar man from entry; that Eve saw, plucked, ate, and gave to Adam to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and other things like these, which undoubtedly demonstrate that paradise was a corporeal and terrestrial place.¹²

CUR autem quos supra dixi Auctores, doctrinae ac vetustatis auctoritate praestantes, negaverint paradisum fuisse locum terrestrem: equidem reor illam esse causam, quod putarent non nisi figurate et mystice intelligi posse quae docet Moses—de immortalitate quam esus arboris vitae praestabat homini; de arbore scientiae boni et mali; de origine quatuor fluminum ex uno paradisi flumine; de sermocinatione serpentis cum Eva eiusque maledictione; de inambulatione Dei post meridiem in paradiso ad auram; de tunicis pelliceis quibus Adamum et Evam peccati convictos Deus induit; de Cherubim cum gladio versatili et flammeo ad custodiam paradisi collocato. Verum haec omnia proprie atque historice intelligenda et interpretanda esse, nos infra suo quodque loco interpretantes docebimus.

But why the Authors whom I mentioned above—outstanding in the authority of learning and of antiquity—denied that paradise was a terrestrial place: I, for my part, think that this is the cause: that they thought the things which Moses teaches could be understood only figuratively and mystically—concerning the immortality which the eating of the tree of life conferred on man; concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; concerning the origin of the four rivers from the one river of paradise; concerning the conversation of the serpent with Eve and its cursing; concerning God's walking in paradise after midday in the breeze; concerning the tunics of skin with which God clothed Adam and Eve convicted of sin; concerning the Cherubim, with the turning and flaming sword, placed for the guarding of paradise. But that all these things are to be understood and interpreted properly and historically, we shall teach below, interpreting each in its own place.¹³

FUIT quorundam nostri temporis sententia (quam fuisse tamen antiquiorem arguit commemoratio eius apud Hugonem de S. Victore in libro suarum Annotationum in Genesim): Paradisum quem descripsit Moses non fuisse definitam aliquam regionem aut certum quempiam terrae locum, sed nomine paradisi denotari universam terram, quae in primaeva conditione ac statu suo, ob eximiam bonitatem, amoenitatem et fecunditatem, erat tota quasi hortus quidam amoenissimus et tanquam paradisus; quemadmodum infra cap. 13 dicitur Sodoma et Gomorrha fuisse quasi paradisus Dei. Illum autem fluvium quo paradisus irrigabatur aiunt intelli[gendum]...

There was an opinion of some of our time (which, however, was older, as its mention in Hugh of St. Victor, in the book of his Annotations on Genesis, proves): that the paradise which Moses described was not some definite region or any certain place of the earth, but that by the name of paradise is denoted the whole earth, which in its primeval condition and state, on account of its exceptional goodness, pleasantness, and fecundity, was wholly like a certain most pleasant garden and as it were a paradise; just as below, in chapter 13, Sodom and Gomorrah are said to have been like the paradise of God. But that river by which paradise was watered, they say is to be under[stood]...¹⁴

...[intelli]gendum esse ipsum Oceanum, quem nomine fluvii Hesiodus in Theogonia et in Odyssea Homerus appellant. Oceanus vero irrigare dicitur universam terram, quod omnes dulces aquae quibus terra irrigatur ex Oceano (ut vetus fuit Philosophorum et Poëtarum opinio, nec sane aliena divinae Scripturae) per subterraneos et occultos terrae meatus promanant. Oceanus porro quatuor illa flumina fundere dicitur, non quod cetera ex eo non habeant originem, sed quia haec, tanquam maxima et nobilissima atque celebratissima, visa sunt praecipue memoratu digna. Verum hanc opinionem vel simplex ipsa narratio Mosis et vehementer et evidenter confutat. Quomodo enim intelligi potest Paradisum quem descripsit Moses fuisse universam terram, cum diserte Moses doceat fuisse eum in regione Heden versus plagam Orientalem? extra quem cum factus esset homo, est in eum postea introductus, et mox propter peccatum admissum ex eo eiectus, posito ad eius aditum custodiendum terribili Cherubino: haec enim et alia quae ex eadem narratione colligere licet, de universo terrarum orbe dici nullo modo possunt.

...to be understood to be the Ocean itself, which Hesiod in the Theogony, and Homer in the Odyssey, call by the name of a river. And the Ocean is said to water the whole earth, because all the sweet waters by which the earth is watered flow out of the Ocean (as was the old opinion of the Philosophers and the Poets, nor indeed alien to the divine Scripture) through the subterranean and hidden passages of the earth. The Ocean, moreover, is said to pour forth those four rivers, not because the others do not have their origin from it, but because these, as the greatest and noblest and most celebrated, seemed especially worthy of mention. But this opinion the simple narration of Moses itself both vehemently and evidently confutes. For how can the Paradise which Moses described be understood to have been the whole earth, when Moses distinctly teaches that it was in the region Heden, toward the Eastern part?—outside which, when man had been made, he was afterward led into it, and soon, on account of the sin he committed, cast out of it, a terrible Cherub being set to guard its entrance: for these things, and others which one may gather from the same narration, can in no way be said of the whole world.¹⁵

Translator’s notes

The heading of a formal disputation on Paradise's location, size, undiscoverability, and continued existence—comprising several numbered questions. ↩
Marginal gloss: "An Paradisus fuerit locus corporalis terrestris. Philo." The FIRST QUESTION of the disputation: is the Mosaic Paradise a real corporeal/terrestrial place, or a figurative spiritual reality? Philo the Jew (De Mundi opificio, end; De Allegoriis legis) reads Moses's account only mystically/allegorically. Continues onto the next page (catchword ‘diso’). ↩
Origen, following Philo, ‘perverts the whole history of paradise,’ reading it only figuratively: he places paradise not on earth but in the third heaven (to which Paul was caught up, 2 Cor 12); the trees = angelic virtues, the rivers = the waters above the firmament. Some defend Origen by his 31st homily on Numbers (‘Adam thrust into the dry land... paradise is not in the dry land but in the earth’), but this avails little—he was condemned by many Fathers. Epiphanius argues against it (in the Ancoratus and his Letter to John of Jerusalem). ↩
Ambrose, in his De Paradiso, follows Philo and Origen; in Epistle 42 (to Sabinus)—‘now a veteran priest’—he concludes that paradise was not terrestrial but something spiritual, pertaining to delighting Adam's mind. Some cite the Commentary on 1 Cor 6 (‘as Jerusalem is twofold... so paradise is twofold, one terrestrial where Adam was placed, one heavenly where Paul was caught up’) to prove Ambrose held the literal view—but that Commentary is (by many conjectures) not genuinely Ambrose's (i.e., ‘Ambrosiaster’). ↩
Even Jerome might seem to err, since in his Hebrew Traditions he says Paradise was made before heaven and earth (which cannot fit a terrestrial paradise). But (Pererius answers) those words must be read as above, or as spoken from others' sense—for Jerome clearly abhorred the Philo/Origen view: in his Letter to Pammachius (on the errors of John of Jerusalem) he lists this Origen opinion among the errors, and in his Commentary on Daniel 10 he inveighs with the gravest words against the allegorical interpreters of paradise. Continues onto the next page (catchword ‘paradisi’; signature O). ↩
Continuing from the previous page: Jerome, in his Commentary on Daniel (ch. 10), inveighs against the allegorizing interpreters of paradise. ↩
Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (ch. 10), against those who would dissolve the literal paradise, rivers, and trees into allegory. ↩
Augustine (De Haeresibus 59) lists denying a visible paradise among the errors of the Seleuciani/Hermogeniani. Josephus (Antiquities 1), Basil (Hom. 11 on Genesis), and nearly all the Fathers held a corporeal, terrestrial paradise—while allowing added mystical senses. Augustine (De Gen. ad litt. 8, opening) reports three views (spiritual-only, corporeal-only, both) and prefers the last—meaning not a half-corporeal/half-spiritual history (the whole is literal/corporeal), but that one rightly expounds the literal first, then applies the mystical. His view on the literal is clearest in City of God 13.21: ↩
Augustine, City of God 13.21: spiritual interpretations of paradise are permitted, provided the historical truth (a faithful account of real events) is still believed. ↩
Lead-in to a quotation of Chrysostom, Homily 13 on Genesis, on the literal exactness of Moses's paradise-account. ↩
Chrysostom, Homily 13 on Genesis: Moses described paradise so exactly (its name Eden, its eastern situation, the named rivers) precisely to forestall those who would deceive the simple by relocating it to heaven or spinning fables. If, despite such diligence, some still fabled paradise out of the earth, what would have happened had he been less precise? The block quote spans printed pp. 290–291. Continues onto the next page (catchword ‘Ita’). ↩
The close of Chrysostom's homily; Sophronius of Jerusalem taught the same (in the epistle read at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, sessions 11 and 13). Pererius's own affirmation: Moses's narration plainly shows paradise was a corporeal, visible place on earth—being no less historical than his other accounts, its true sense is the proper, literal one. Many details confirm it: paradise in the eastern part of Heden; man made outside, led in to till and keep it; trees fair and sweet; one river dividing into four (incl. Tigris and Euphrates); Adam cast out for disobedience, the Cherubim barring entry; Eve's seeing, plucking, eating, and giving the fruit. ↩
Why the eminent Fathers denied a terrestrial paradise: Pererius judges it was because they thought certain elements could only be read figuratively—the immortality from the tree of life; the tree of knowledge; the four rivers from one; the serpent's speech and curse; God's walking in the afternoon breeze; the tunics of skin; the Cherubim with the turning flaming sword. But (Pererius will argue below, in each place) all these are to be understood properly and historically. ↩
Marginal gloss: "Refellitur quorundam opinio. Paradisum scribit Moses fuisse universum terrarum orbem, qui in exordio mundi erat amoenissimus." An opinion (older than its appearance in Hugh of St. Victor's Annotations on Genesis): that ‘paradise’ does not denote a definite place but the WHOLE EARTH, which in its primeval state was like one vast pleasant garden (as Sodom's land was ‘like the paradise of God,’ Gen 13:10). The river watering paradise, they say, is the Ocean. Continues onto the next page (catchword ‘gendum’). ↩
The ‘whole-earth’ view: the watering river is the Ocean (which Hesiod, Theogony, and Homer, Odyssey, call a ‘river’), since all sweet waters flow from the Ocean through hidden passages (an old philosophical/poetic view, not alien to Scripture); the four rivers are named only as the greatest. But Moses's plain narration refutes this: paradise was in the eastern part of Heden, man was made outside it and led in, then cast out with a Cherub guarding the entrance—none of which can be said of the whole world. ↩