reaching to the spiritsin prison. But this is surely in defiance of the Greek usage.
It has been held, too, that the ‘ Paradise’ of Lk 23 is identical with the ‘Abraham’s bosom’ of Lk 1655. 5, both being designations of a par- ticular division of the under-world. But in the Parable it is only the rich man that is described as in Hades, while of Lazarus it is said simply that dying he was carried into ‘ Abraham’s bosom.’ Even granting that the Parable is meant to repre- sent the rich man and the beggar as both in Hades, the one in the division οὗ retribution and the other in that of reward, it would not follow that ‘Paradise’ and ‘Abraham’s bosom’ are synonymous. The point would be, that being in
aradise the beggar is received into the fellowship of Abraham (see Meyer on Lk 16”; also art. ABRAHAM’s Bosom).
In 2 Co 19 it is the heavenly Paradise, not the lower or earthly, obviously, that is in view. It is impossible to understand it, in this case of rapture, of the intermediate state or any place in Hades. Neither does it satisfy the terms to say that παράδεισος here is pee more than an abstraction or a figure of speech for ‘the present communion of the blessed pad with God as it is on this side of the end of things’ (Hofm. Schrift- deweis, It. i. p. 489). It denotes the heaven that is the dwelling- place of God. The question of the relation in which the ‘ Paradise’ of v.* stands
to the ‘third heaven’ of v.?, however, is much debated. It has been supposed that St. Paul ha the doctrine of a threefold heaven in view here, and identifies Paradise with the third or highest heaven. There is abundant evidence indeed that the belief in a plurality of heavens prevailed among the Jews. But it is doubtful a8 ees it was a belief in a threefold heaven. The doctrine of a threefold division of heaven, it is true, ob- tained at one time a considerable place in the Christian Church (Suicer, Thes. ii. p. 520, ete.). and it has been asserted by some even to be the doctrine of the Bible (Estius, le Clere, ete.), But the evidence is rather to the effect that the pre- vailing, if not the only, conception among the Jews of our Lord’s time was that of a sevenfold heaven. (See articleon HEAVEN). It is improb- able, therefore, that St. Paul speaks with reference to a triple order of heavens. The main reason for questioning whether in this passage he identilies ‘Paradise’ with the ‘third heaven’ is that he seems rather to be indicating distinct stages in his rapture—up to the third heaven, and even to Para- dise. The chief argument in favour of the identi- fication is the fact that in the Pseudepigraphical literature Paradise is sometimes ned in the third heaven. In the Slavonic Enoch, ¢.g., it is said that in the third heaven the seer beheld, in the midst thereof, ‘the tree of life, in that place on which God rests, when He comes into Paradise ’ (ch. 8)—a passage in which an attempt seems to
made to reduce to one the older idea of an poder | Paradise and the later idea of a heavenly (cf. Morfill and Charles, Book 4 the Secrets of Enoch, p. xxxvii and pp. 7, 8). The words of St. Paul do not themselves define how the ‘third heaven’ and ‘ Paradise’ are related.
In Rev 2’, where the reading ‘in the Paradise of God’ is to be preferred, it is the heavenly Paradise that is in view. The imagery is taken again from the picture of Eden in Genesis. The terms recall Ezk 28%. In briefer form they ex- press what is given with greater fulness of descrip- tion in 22)%, The promise being to him that overcometh, is a promise of the final recompense and blessedness under the figure of a restored Eden. Some, however (e.g. Bleek), have taken it to be founded on the idea that the primeval Para- dise of Adam still exists somewhere.
The idea expressed by the word Paradise has revailed widely. Many different peoples have 1ad the conception of a Paradise in the sense of a home of innocence and peace and blessedness on earth or its confines. The Hindus have had their visions of Meru, the mountain of the gods, whence flow the great streams into all the world. The Arabs have dreamt of the garden of bliss on the summit of the hill of jacinth, in the East. Tranian thought has dwelt upon the stream Arvanda, that went out of the throne of Ahura- mazda to water the earth, and on Airyanavaejo, the land in the extreme East, among the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes—in later Persian ideas a fabulous land. The term Pardésu is reported to have been found on some Babylonian cuneiform tablets, coupled with the land of Bit-Napsanu as the name of a country, apparently mythological ; and the resemblance to the word Paradise o™9 is noticed. (See art. EDEN, vol. i. p. 644). The Chinese and many ruder races have also had the same idea, and have clothed it in many strange forms.
Theologinns have also piven the rein to fancy and speculation on the subject. They have often overlooked the restraint ot Scripture, and have gone in the way of Rabbinical definition and refine ments. The Patristic writings give much attention to Paradise. Some of the Fathers spoke of it asa resting-place or refrigerium, in which the righteous