und (Ges. Thes. ii. 1124; Max Miller, Chips, iv. 22; τιν Langues Sémiti
, I. i. 153; Justi, rea 180; rde, Ges. Abh. p. 75; Haug in Ewald’s Jahrb. v. 162; Spiegel in Delitzsch’s Hoheslied under ch. 413 ; Néldeke, ZDMG xxxvi. 182; Skeat, Etymol. Dict. of Eng. Lang. 8.v.). The old Greek etymologists also explained the word as of Persian origin. So Pollux (Onom. ix. ch. 8) expresses himself thus: οἱ δὲ παράδεισοι, βαρβαρικὸν ναι τοὔνομα, ἥκει καὶ μετὰ συνήθμαν εἰς χρῆσιν ἱλληνικῆν, ὡς χαὶ ἄλλα πόλλὰ τῶν «ερσικῶν.
The word came very early into use in English, ¢.g. in Laya- mon, 1. 24,122. It was adopted by Wyclif in his rendering of Rev 27; ‘ To hym that overcometh Y Schal ve to ete of the tre of lijf that is in the paradis of my ’ The different forms in which it has appeared, and the different things for which it has served as a name, make a curious story. It has been used to designate the magnificent parks of Persian monarchs, the original abode of man in his integrity and happiness, the residence of righteous souls in the intermediate state, and the heaven of the future. It has been employed asa figure of the Word of God by some of the Fathers (e.g. Chrys.
om. I. ad pop. Antioch. t. vi. p. 448; Hom., Quod Scriptu- rarum lectio utilis sit, t. viii. p. 111); and from these higher uses it has descended to be the name of humbler things— courts, porches, altars, berths, etc. The word parvis, de- noting the outer court of a great house or palace, and more pean the porch of a church, is supposed to be paradise
the Low Latin form paravisus, a Neapolitan paraviso being iso as a variety of the Italian paradiso(Skeat, Etym. Dict. of ng. Lang. 8.v.). The church-porch is said to have been taken to represent paradise when the old mystery-plays were enacted in the yard. (Of. Littré, s.v., and Tyrwhitt’s ed. Cant. Tales, y. 183). The word (paruis, parvis, parvys) occurs in Chaucer— * There was no wight in all Parys Before our ladie at parvys That he ne mighte bye the book To copy, if him talent took.’ —(Rom. of Rose, 7108).
* Cf. ‘demon’ of RV for AV ‘ devil’ (δαιμόνιον).
PARADISE
PARADISE
669
Among the Persians the term meant a royal park, the enclosed pleasure-ground of king or of noble, richly wooded, well watered, and amply stocked with game, comprehending at once the vivarium and the viridarium of the Romans. Classical Latin did not possess the word, and Roman writers of the classical period had to ex- press the thing in a roundabout way (οἵ. Cicero, de Senect. 17). From Persia it passed over into later Hebrew and into Greek. It appears to have been introduced into the latter by Xenophon, and it occurs frequently in Greek writers from his period onwards. In these it is applied mostly to the great parks of the Persian kings. Numerous references are made to these, and large descrip- tions are given of them (cf. Xen. Anab. i. 2. 7, iii. 4. 14, Cyr. i. 3. 14, viil. 1. 38, @c. iv. 13, 14, Hell. iv. 1. 15; Diodor. Sic. xvi. 41; Plut. Artaz. 25; Theophr. Hist. Plant. v. 8.1; Lucian, Ver. Hist. ii. 23; lian, Var. Hist. i. 33, etc.). The word seems to have been used sometimes also of smaller gesdens or enclosures (Inscript. Car. in C/G 26946).
the sense of ‘ park’ it occurs also in Josephus and some of the Apocryphal books (Jos. Ant. vil. xiv. 4, VIII. vii. 8, Ix. x. 4, X. iii. 2, etc., Bell. Jud. Vi. i. 1; Sus v.‘ etc. ; Sir 24). It is ex- usina! to the same effect by Hesychius, Olympio- orus (Eccles. ch. ii. p. 611), Greg. Nyss. (Hom. IX. in Cantic. t. i. p. 611), ete.
It was taken over into the OT in the Hebrew form omp (LXX παράδεισος), and with the literal sense. It occurs thus in Ca 4! (RV ‘orchard,’ with marginal note, ‘or, a paradise’); Ee 2° (AV ‘gardens and orchards, RV ‘gardens and parks’); Neh 28 (‘keeper of the king’s forest,’ Where the reference is explicitly to the royal Persian park, in the primary sense. But the OT occurrences (in the Greek form) are not con- fined to these three cases. The word is exalted to a higher use, the Seventy having adopted it as their translation of the 1πὼ 1} in which man was pce at first by his Creator. The 71} is sometimes eft as a proper name “Edeu ; sometimes it is repro- duced in its etymological sense as τῆς τρυφῆς. So in the LXX (and a similar form is used in the Peshitta) παράδεισος, παράδεισος τῆς τρυφῆς, is the Garden of Eden (Gn 2° 10. 16. 33. 8. 33.) Outside the record of man’s creation and fall it was also used by the LXX where the Heb. has ‘ garden,’ especi y in figurative passages, or when the idea of the glory of man’s first abode was in any way in view. In Gn 13", e.g., the plain of Jordan is said to be ‘as the paradise of God’ (ὡς ὁ παρά- δεισος τοῦ θεοῦ); Nu 24° Balaam describes the tents of Jacob and the tabernacles of Israel (ὡς νάπαι σκιάζουσαι καὶ ὡσεὶ παράδεισος ἐπὶ ποταμῶν). See also Is 139. Jl] 23, Jer 29°, and especially Ezk 315", where it is said of the Assyrian under the figure of a great cedar tree in Lebanon that ‘the cedars in the garden of God could not hide him’. . . ‘nor any tree in the garden of God (ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τοῦ θεοῦ) was like unto him in his beauty,’ and that he was made so fair that ‘all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God (ra ξύλα τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς τοῦ θεοῦ) envied him.’