PARADISE. A Persian word, meaning a royal park or en closed pleasure garden, found in three late passages of the He brew Old Testament, Neh. ii. 8, Cant. iv. 13, Eccles. ii. 5, in much the same sense. The Greek Old Testament uses it much more freely, especially as a name for the Garden of Eden in Genesis, and in other passages where the Hebrew has "garden of God" or simply "garden." The name has thus passed into use as the title of the happy garden in which our first parents lived. Other forms of the myth may be traced in the Old Testament. Behind the dirge of Ezekiel on the king of Tyre (Ezek. xxviii.) lies a myth which pictures the primeval man as dwelling in the garden of God, situate not in a desert plain but on the mountain of God. He wears glorious apparel, studded with gems. He is originally blame less, but sins, and is banished from the mountain, which, like the garden in Genesis, is the dwelling-place of God. These myths are not of Hebrew origin, but belong to the common stock of Semitic tradition.
Among the Sumerians there were myths about the Paradise in which man had lived before the Flood, and his loss of this primi tive bliss. While certain features of the Babylonian myths are found in the Hebrew stories no close parallel to the latter has yet been discovered in cuneiform, and it is unlikely that they were borrowed directly from Babylon. Many peoples had myths telling of a golden age when men dwelt happily with the gods in some fair isle or happy garden : sometimes this Paradise was thought still to exist. If only the way to it might be re-discovered ! So Gilgamesh, the hero of the Babylonian epic, travelled a perilous journey to the island where Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, dwelt with the gods; there he indeed obtained the plant which conferred immortal life, but a serpent stole it from him as he re turned. But though man might not in this life find the road to Paradise might not the dead return there ? The Semites generally, and the Hebrews in particular, thought of the dead as maintain ing a shadowy existence in a gloomy cavern of the underworld.
When, however, the hope of a Messianic kingdom upon earth dawned there was developed also the idea that the righteous dead might be raised to share its bliss. It is noteworthy that the Mes sianic kingdom renews on earth some of the felicities of the Gar den of Eden : the land becomes miraculously fertile, even the desert blossoming as the rose, and the beasts live in idyllic amity. The conception is developed by the Jewish apocalyptic writers, especially the author of Enoch, who wrote in the early second century B.C.
Later this Paradise of hope becomes more supernatural, and is situated not on earth but in heaven. The book of Enoch (q.v.) divides the underworld into four parts, tenanted severally by the wicked, the moderately wicked, the moderately good, and the supremely good ; the good even there enjoy some measure of fe licity ere they are raised to share the happiness of the Messianic kingdom. Paul gives the name Paradise to the third of the seven heavens recognized by the Rabbinic schools. In Rev. ii. 7 Paradise would seem to be the final state of bliss attained by the saints. The visions of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to the earth (Rev. xxi., xxii.) recall in several features the Paradise from which the earliest man was driven : in it are mirac ulous trees, giving food and healing; through it flows the river of water of life ; and there, free from sorrow, pain and death, dwell the saints in the presence of God.
See EDEN, and particularly the articles Blest, Abode of the in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. (W. L. W.)