PARADISE, the term which by long and ex tensive use has been employed to designate the GARDEN of Eden, the first dwelling-place of human beings. Of this word (rapciSEtcros.), the earliest in stance that we have is in the Cyropedia and other writings of Xenophon, nearly 400 years B.C. ; but his use of it has that appearance of ease and fami liarity which leads us to suppose that it was current among his countrymen. We find it also used by Plutarch, who lived in the 1st and 2d century of our era. It was by those authors evidently em ployed to signify an extensive plot of ground, en closed with a strong fence or wall, abounding in trees, shrubs, plants, and garden culture, and in which choice animals were kept in different ways of restraint or freedom, according as they were ferocious or peaceable ; thus answering very closely to our English word park, with the addition of gardens, a menagerie, and an aviary.
The circumstance which has given to this term its extensive and popular use, is its having been taken by the Greek translators of the Pentateuch, in the 3d century B.C., and following them, in the ancient Syriac version, and by Jerome in the Latin Vulgate, as the translation of the garden (I) gam) which the benignant providence of the Creator prepared for the abode of innocent and happy man. Those translators also use it, not only in the twelve places of Gen. ii. and iii., but in eight others, and two in which the feminine form (gannak) occurs ; whereas, in other instances of those two words they employ ei'pros, the usual Greek word for a garden or an enclosure of fruit trees. But there are three places in which the Hebrew text itself has the very word, giving it the form pardees. These are, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber' (Neh. ii. 8) ; 'orchards' (Eccles. ii. 5) ; an or chard of pomegranates' (Song of Solomon, iv. 13). Evidently the word is not proper Hebrew, but is an exotic, imported from a more eastern tongue, probably the Persian, from which source also Xenophon derived it. But the best authorities carry the derivation farther back. 'The word is regarded by most learned men as Persian, of the same signification as the Hebrew Kan. Certainly it was used by the Persians in this sense, corre sponding to their darchen ; but that it is an Arme nian word is shown both from its constant use in that language, and from its formation, it being com pounded of two Armenian simple words, part and ses, meaning necessary grains or edible herbs. The Armenians apply this word, parries, to denote a garden adjoining to the dwelling, and replenished with the different sorts of grain, herbs, and flowers for use and ornament' (Schrcederi Thesaur. Ling. Armen. Dissert., p. 56, Amst. 1711). With this E. F. C. Rosenmuller accords (Bib?. Alterthumsk., vol. i., part i., p. i74). 'It corresponds to the Greek rapciaelovs, a word appropriated to the pleasure-gardens and parks with wild animals around the palace of the Persian monarchs. The
origin of the word, however, is to be sought with neither the Greeks nor the Hebrews, but in the languages of Eastern Asia. We find it in Sanscrit paradeesha, a region of surpassing beauty ; and the Armenian parries, a park or garden adjoining to the house, planted with trees for use and orna• ment ' (Gesenius and Robinson, combining the Leipzig and the American editions of the Hebr. Lex.) ' A paradise, i.e., an orchard, an arboretum, particularly of pomegranates, a park, a fruit-gar den ; a name common to several Oriental lan guages, and especially current among the Persians, as we learn from Xenophon and Julius Pollux. Sanscrit, pardeesha ; Armenian, parries; Arabic, firdaus ; Syriac, farclaiso ; Chaldee of the Tar gums, pardeesa' (Furst, Concord. V. T., p. 920, Leipzig 14o).
In the apocryphal book of Susanna (a moral tale or little novel, possibly founded on some genuine tradition), the word paradise is constantly used for the garden. It occurs also in three pas sages of the Son of Sirach, the first of which is in the description of Wisdom : I came forth as a canal dug from a river, and as a waterpipe into a paradise' (ch. xxiv. 3o). In the other two it is the objective term of comparisons : kindness is as a paradise in blessings, and mercifulness abideth for ever—the fear of the Lord is as a paradise of blessing, and it adorns above all pomp' (ch. xl. 17, 27). Josephus calls the gardens of Solomon, in the plural number, paradises' (,4ntiq. viii. 7. 3). Berosus (cent. iv. s.c.), quoted by Josephus (e. Apion. i. 2o), says that the lofty garden-platforms, erected at Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, were called the Suspended Paradise.
The term, having thus become a metaphor for the abstract idea of exquisite delight, was trans ferred still higher to denote the happiness of the righteous in the future state. The origin of this application must be assigned to the Jews of the middle period between the O. and the N. T. ;n the Chaldee Targums, 'the garden of Eden' is put as the exposition of heavenly blessedness (Ps. xc. 17, and other places). The Talmudical writings, cited by the elder Buxtorf Vex. Chalet'. et Talm., p. 1802), and John James Wetstem (N. 7'. Gr., I vol. i. p. 819), contain frequent references to Para dise as the immortal heaven, to which the spirits ' of the just are admitted immediately upon the liber ation from the body. The book Solar speaks of an earthly and a heavenly Paradise, of which the latter excels the former 'as much as darkness does light' (Schoetgen. Hor. Hebr., vol. i., p. 1o96).
Hence we see that it was in the acceptation of the current Jewish phraseology that the expression was used by our Lord and the apostles : ` To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise ; " He was caught up into Paradise ;" The tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God' (Luke xxiii. 43 ; 2 Cor. xii. 4 ; Rev. ii. 7).