It is with this popular belief, rather than with that of either school of Jewish thought, that the language of the N. T. connects itself. In this as in other instances it is made the starting-point for an education which leads men to rise from it to higher thoughts. The old word is kept, and is raised to a new dignity or power. It is significant, indeed, that the word " paradise" no- where occurs in the public teaching of our Lord, or in his intercourse with his own disciples. Connected as it had been with the thoughts of a sensuous happiness, it
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was not the fittest or the best word for those whom he was training to rise out of sensuous thoughts to the higher regions of the spiritual Hfe. For thetn, accord- inglv. the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, are the words most dwelt on. The blessedness of the pure in licart is that they shall see God. If language bor- rowed from their common speech is used at other times, if they hear of the marriage-supper and the new wine, it is not till they have been taught to understand para- bles and to separate the figure from the reality. With the thief dj'ing on the cross the case was different. We can assume nothing in the robber-outlaw but the most rudimentary forms of popular belief. We may well be- lieve that the word used here, and here only, in the whole course of the Gospel history, had a special fitness for him. His reverence, sympathy, repentance, hope, uttered themselves in the prayer, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom !" What were the thoughts of the sufferer as to that kingdom we do not know. Unless they were supernaturally raised above the level which the disciples had reached by slow and painful steps, they must have been mingled with visions of an earthly glory, of pomp and victory and triumph. The answer to his prayer gave him what he needed most, the assurance of immediate rest and peace. The word paradise spoke to him, as to other Jews, of repose, shelter, joy — the greatest contrast possible to the thirst and agony and shame of the hours upon the cross. liu- dimentary as his previous thoughts of it might be, this was the word fittest for the education of his spirit.
There is a like significance in the general absence of the word from the language of the Epistles. Here also it is found nowhere in the direct teaching. It occurs only in passages that are apocalyptic, and therefore al- most of necessity symbolic. Paul speaks of one, appar- ently of himself, as ha\'ing been " caught up into para- dise," as having there heard things that might not be uttered (2 Cor. xii, 3). In the message to the first of the Seven Churches of Asia, " the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God," appears as the re- ward of him that overcometh, the symbol of an eternal blessedness (comp. Dean Trench, Comm. on ihe Epistles to the Seven Churches, ad loc). The thing, though not the word, appears in the closing visions of Kev. xxii.
4. The eager curiosity which prompts men to press on into the things behind the veil has led them to con- struct hypotheses more or less definite as to the inter- mediate state, and these have affected the thoughts which Christian writers have connected with the word paradise. Patristic and later interpreters follow, as has been noticed, in the footsteps of the Jewish schools. To Origen, and others of a like spiritual insight, paradise is but a syiion3'm for a region of life and immortality — one and the same with the third heaven (Jerome, Ep. ad Joh. llieros. in Wordsworth on 2 Cor. xii). So far as it is a place, it is as a school in which the souls of men are trained and learn to judge rightly of the things they have done and seen on earth (Origen. De Princ. ii, 12). Origen, according to Luther {Comm. in Gen.), imagined paradise to be heaven, the trees angels, and the rivers wisdom. Papias, Irenasus, Panta;nus, and Clemens Al- exandrinus have all favored the mystical interpretation (Ihiet. Oriijeniana, ii, 107). Ambrosius fallowed the example of Origen, and placed the terrestrial paradise in tlie third heaven, in consequence of the expression of Paul (2 Cor. xii, 2, 4) ; but elsewhere he distinguishes between the terrestrial paradise and that to which the apostle was caught up {De Parad. c. 3). In another passage {Ep. ad Suhinum) all this is explained as alle- gory. The sermon of Hasil, De Paradise, gives an elo- quent representation of the common belief of Christians who were neither mystical nor speculative. Minds at once logical and sensuous ask questions as to the local- ity, and the answers are wildly conjectural. It is not in Hades, and is therefore different from Abraham's bosom (Tcrtull. De Idol. c. 13). It is above and beyond ■the world, separated from it by a wall of fire (id. Ajyol.
c. 47). It is the " refrigerium" for all faithful souls, where they have the vision of saints and angels, and of Christ himself (Just. Mart. Resjmns. ad Orthodox. 75 and 85), or for those only who are entitled, as martyrs, fresh from the baptism of blood, to a special reward above their fellows (Tertull. De Anim. c. 55). It is in the fourth heaven (Clem. Alex. Fragm. § 51). It is in some unkno^vn region of the earth, where the seas and skies meet, higher than any earthly mountain (Joann. Damasc. De Orthod. Fid. ii, 11), and had thus escaped the waters of the flood (P. Lombard. Senfenf. ii, 17, E.). It has been identified with the (pvXaicii of 1 I'et. iii, 19, and the spirits in it are those of the antediluvian races who repented before the great destruction overtook them (Bishop Horsley, Sermons, xx). (Comp. an elab- orate note in Thilo, Codex Apoc7\!/ph. N. T. p. 754.) The Avord enters largely, as might be expected, into the apocryphal literature of the early Church. Where the true Gospels are most reticent, the mythical are most exuberant. The Gospel of Nicodemus, in narrating Christ's victory over Hades (the " harrowing of hell" of our early English mysteries), tells how, till then, Enoch and Elijah had been its sole inhabitants — how the penitent robber was there with his cross on the night of the crucifixion — how the souls of the patriarchs were led thither by Christ, and were received by the archangel Michael, as he kept watch with the flaming swords at the gate. In the apocryphal Acta I'hilippi (Tischendorf, Act. Apoc?: p. 89), the apostle is sentenced to remain for forty days outside the circle of paradise, because he had given way to anger and cursed the peo- ple of Hierapolis for their unbelief. Among the opin- ions enumerated by ^lorinus {Diss, de Parad. Tcrrest. in Ugolino, Thesaur. vol. vii) is one that, before the fall, the whole earth was a paradise, and was really situated in Eden, in the midst of all kinds of dehghts. Ephraem Syrus {Comm, in Gen.) expresses himself doubtfully upon this point. Whether the trees of paradise, being spiritual, drank of spiritual water, he does not under- take to decide ; but he seems to be of opinion that the four rivers have lost their original virtue in consequence of the curse pronounced upon the earth for Adam's transgression.