1. To the idealistic school of Alexandria, of which Philo the Jew is the representative, paradise was noth- ing more than a symbol and an allegory. That writer (De Mundi Opif. § 54) is the first who ventured upon an allegorical interpretation. To him the thought of the narrative as one of fact was unendurable. The primeval history spoke of no garden such as men plant and water. Spiritual perfection {/(ptrii) was the only paradise. The trees that grew in it were the thoughts of the spiritual man. The fruits which thej' bore were life and knowledge and immortality. The four rivers flowing from one source are the four virtues of the later Platonists, each derived from the same source of goodness (Philo, De Alleg. i). Philo conceived that by paradise is darkl}' shadowed forth the governing faculty of the soul ; that the tree of life signifies re- ligion, whereby the soul is immortalized ; and b}' the faculty of knowing good and evil the middle sense, bj' which are discerned things contrary to nature. In another passage (Z>e Plantat. § 9) he explains Eden, which signifies "pleasure," as a s3'mbol of the soul, that sees what is right, exults in virtue, and prefers one enjoyment, the worship of the only wise, to myr- iads of men's chief delights. Again (Ler/w A llegor. i, § 14) he saj-s, "Now virtue is tropically called paradise, and the site of paradise is Eden, that is, pleasure." The four rivers he explains (§ 19) of the several virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice ; while the main stream of which they are branches is the generic virtue, goodness, which goeth forth from Eden, the wisdom of God. It is obvious that a system of interpretation such as this was not likely to become popular. It was confined to a single school, possibl}' to a single teacher. It has little or nothing corre- sponding to it in the N. T. The opinions of Philo, therefore, would not be so much worthy of considera- tion, were it not that (as we shall see) he has been followed b_v many of the Christian fathers.
2. The rabbinical schools of Palestine presented a phase of thought the verv opposite of that of the Al- exandrian writer. They had their descriptions, defi- nite and detailed, a complete topography of the unseen world. Paradise, the garden of Eden, existed still, and they discussed the question of its locality. The answers were not always consistent with each other. It was far off in the distant East, farther than the foot of man had trod. It was a region of the world of the dead, of Sheol, in the heart of the earth. Gehenna w-as on one side, with its flames and torments. Para- dise on the other, the intermediate home of the blessed.
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(Comp.Wetstein,Grotius, and Schottgen, In Lnc. xsiii.) The patriarchs were there, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, ready to receive their faithful descendants into their bosoms (Joseph. De Mace. c. 13). The highest place of honor at the feast of the blessed souls was Abraham's bosom (Luke xvi, 23), on which the new heir of immortality reclined as the favored and hon- ored guest. Or, again, paradise was neither on the earth nor within it, but above it, in the third heaven, or in some higher orb. See Heaven. Or there were two paradises, the upper and the lower — one in heav- en, for those who had attained the heights of holiness — one in earth, for those who had lived but decently (Schottgen, Hor. Ileb. in Apoc. ii, 7), and the heavenly paradise was sixty times as large as the whole lower earth (Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenth. ii, 297). Each had seven palaces, and in each palace were its appro- priate dwellers (ibid. p. 302). As the righteous dead entered paradise, angels stripped them of their grave- clothes, arrayed them in new robes of glory, and placed on their heads diadems of gold and pearls {ibid. p. 310). There was no night there. Its pavement was of pre- cious stones. Plants of healing power and wondrous fragrance grew on the banks of its streams {ibid. p. 313). From this lower paradise the souls of the dead rose on sabbaths and on feast-daj's to the higher (Jbid. p. 318), where every day there was the presence of Je- hovah holding council with his saints (ib'd. p. 320). (Comp. also Schottgen, Ilor. Ileb. in Luc. xxiii.) Among the Hebrew traditions enumerated by Jerome (Trad. Ilehr. in Gen.) is one that paradise was created before the world was formed, and is therefore beyond its limits. Moses bar-Cepha (De Parad.) assigns it a middle place between the earth and the firmament. Some aflirm that paradise was on a mountain, which reached nearly to the moon ; while others, struck by the manifest absurditj- of such an opinion, held that it was situated in the third region of the air, and was higher than all the mountains of the earth by twentj' cubits, so that the waters of the flood could not reach it. Others again have thought that paradise was two- fold, one corporeal and the other incorporeal; others that it was formerly on earth, but had been taken awaj' by the judgment of God (Hopkinson, Descr. Parad. m Ugolino, Thesaur. vol. vii).
3. Out of the discussions and theories of the rabbins there grew a broad popular belief, fixed in the hearts of men, accepted without discussion, blending with their best hopes. Their prayer for the dying or the dead was that his soul might rest in paradise, in the garden of Eden (Maimonides, Porta Mosis, quoted by Wetstein, In Lnc. xxiii ; Taylor, Funeral Sermon on Sir G. Dalsfoti). The belief of the Essenes, as reported by Josephus ( War, ii, 8, 11), may be accepted as a fair rep- resentation of the thoughts of those who, like them, were not trained in the rabbinical schools, living in a simple and more childlike faith. To them accordingly paradise was a far-off land, a region where there was no scorching heat, no consuming cold, where the soft west wind from the ocean blew forevermore. The vi- sions of the second "Cook of Esdras, though not without an admixture of Christian thoughts and phrases, may be looked upon as representing this phase of feeling. There also we have the picture of a fair garden, streams of milk and honey, twelve trees laden with divers fruits, mighty mountains whereon grow lilies and roses (ii, 19) — a place into which the wicked shall not enter.