De paradiso

Homily on Paradise. And indeed God planted a paradise in Eden toward the east and placed there the man whom he had formed. Let us understand a planting worthy of God and a paradise befitting the love of beauty of such and so great a creator. In what follows it is said, "Let the earth bring forth grass and fruit-bearing tree, sowing seed, producing fruit." If the paradise were made of ordinary trees, it would evidently have been included in the first generation of plants, and the trees now planted in the paradise by God himself would have had no need of a special planting by God. Now, however, the account shows that the system of trees skillfully wrought in the paradise by God himself is different from the already existing kinds of plants. For just as he deemed the human being worthy of a special formation beyond the other animals, so also he made the dwelling place of the human being a work of his own hand, a place surpassing the whole creation, marvelous in beauty, situated in a conspicuous location, unshadowed because of its height, illuminated from all sides by all the risings of the stars, having the most pleasant blending of the seasons, surrounded by the most translucent air. There, then, he planted, where there are no violent winds, no immoderate seasons, no hail, no fiery storms, no hurricanes, no thunderbolts, no wintry frost, no dampness of spring, no summer heat, no autumnal dryness, but a temperate and peaceful harmony of the seasons with each other, each one adorned with its own beauty and not plotted against by its neighbor.

neither does summer spoil the beauties of spring, nor are the fruits of summer or autumn tarnished by old age. For the seasons danced together around that place, and all at once they ran together, attending with their own special gifts: the delights of spring, the nourishments of summer, the joys of autumn, the rests of winter. The earth was rich, soft, truly flowing with milk and honey, fit for fruit-bearing, entirely watered by the most fertile waters, which provide a kind of inexpressible beauty. For the waters are fine and transparent, having much delight for the eye, and providing more benefit than delight. First, then, he created the place itself worthy of receiving the plantings of God, and then he planted in it all kinds of beauties of trees, which through themselves grant both a most graceful appearance and a most pleasant enjoyment. How could I bring the fatherland vividly before your eyes, so that you might recall yourself from this exile? The blooming meadows are a most pleasant sight; imagine something more graceful than these in your mind. Here the rose is with the thorn, having its unpleasantness mixed with grace, almost testifying to us that pleasant things for you, O men, are mixed with painful things. For truly none of human goods is pure, but pains are immediately attached to joys: widowhood to marriage, anxiety to child-rearing, losses to good children, disgraces to distinctions, damages to successes, surfeits to luxuries, sicknesses to health. The rose is blooming, but it produces dejection in me.

For whenever I see a flower, I am reminded of my own sin, because of which the earth was condemned to bring forth thorns and thistles. And here the grace of spring flowers is short-lived, leaving us longing, for we have not yet plucked them and they have withered in our hands. There, however, the flower does not shine for a brief moment, but possesses a lasting delight: a graceful appearance, an unending enjoyment, an insatiable fragrance, a radiant bloom. Violent winds do not trouble them, new moons do not cause them to wither, frost does not freeze them, the sun's heat does not parch them, but a moderate breeze, providing a gentle and pleasant breath, blowing lightly and kindly upon them, preserves their beauty unconquered by time. And the beauties of the plants are themselves worthy of the creation and planting of the Creator: both the shrubby and the bushy, the single-stemmed and the many-branched, the tall and the luxuriant on both sides, the deciduous and the evergreen, the bare and the ever-blooming, the fruit-bearing and the fruitless—some seen for use, others contributing to enjoyment—all excelling in size and beauty, shaded by their branches, luxuriant in their foliage, abounding in fruits, each made for a different use and delight. For of each fruit, much is the charm, and more than the pleasure is the usefulness.

How shall I set before you the surpassing quality of that pleasure? If I compare it to things here, I rather insult it by the juxtaposition than present you with any clear evidence from the image. All things are perfect, all things are ripe, not having grown little by little; for they do not increase from flower to maturity, but appear at their own maturity, products of nature, not of human artifice. There too are kinds of all sorts of birds, providing some wonderful enjoyment through the bloom of their wings and their natural music; so that man feasts through all his senses, seeing some, hearing others, touching others, smelling others, tasting others. And there are spectacles of various animals, all tame, all of like disposition to one another, and both hearing and uttering sounds that are easily understood. The serpent was not frightful then, but gentle and tame, not rolling fearfully on the ground and crawling, but standing upright on its feet. There he placed the man whom he formed. He formed him elsewhere and introduced him there. Just as God made the luminaries and placed them in the firmament, so he formed man from the dust of the earth and placed him in paradise. Note that it is not said "whom he made," but "whom he formed." For "whom he made" is that which is according to the image; and this is incorporeal. But the incorporeal is not circumscribed by place. For the product follows the formation, that is, the soul follows the body. For the composite is simultaneous, but place is primarily of bodies, while the soul is in place only as a consequence, through its relation to the body, not from its own nature being circumscribed by places [the body].

Did I delight you with the pleasures of paradise, or did I grieve you more by the mention of perishable things? For surely the mind, thinking high and lofty and supramundane thoughts, having its citizenship in the heavens and looking to that higher dignity, was expecting to hear something of the promised goods announced to us, which neither eye has seen nor ear heard nor has entered into the heart of man. If the eye has not seen, who is the narrator? If the ear has not heard, how will your ear receive it? If it has not entered into the heart of man, how can our mind grasp it? We do not reject the bodily things, and we seek the spiritual things. For just as in the case of the law there was the sensible, but it served as a type of the intelligible, so also we understand paradise in a bodily way, but we allegorize it spiritually. God planted a paradise in Eden towards the east. The names of the plants have been passed over in silence, but the place in which he planted has been handed down: In Eden, it says, he planted, that is, in delight; for Eden is called delight. Does he then call delight the enjoyment through the mouth, delivered to the belly, whose end is the latrine, and has he handed down delight that perishes, and is this the grace from God, a filling of the stomach and a well-being of the body and a diffusion producing pleasure? Or is it not even pious to say this? For it is of licentiousness and

and of all that is forbidden, to fatten the body and drown the soul, making it prone to sin. Therefore, let us conceive of a delight worthy of God, so that we may also learn of the planting befitting God's cultivation. What delight, then, can be fitting for the saints? "Delight in the Lord, and he will grant you the requests of your heart." Since the beauty of virtue is infinite, having its origin from the variegated wisdom of God, for this reason it is written that "God planted a paradise not toward the east, but toward the east." For each of the plants planted by the Lord, adorned with its own light, shone forth. There, the river's streams gladden the city of God; elsewhere, it is called a torrent of delight, nourishing and increasing the heavenly beauties of the plants, which in what follows is called a river flowing from Eden to water the paradise. Now, in the earlier passages it was said that, having first filled creation, he then introduced man into rule and dominion; but now the opposite: he first formed man and then planted the paradise. The reason is that there, in order to introduce the master into a full house and not, having created him poor, later bestow wealth upon him; here, granting him perfection through progress, he built elsewhere and later settled him in the paradise, so that, learning the difference between life outside and life in the paradise from the comparison of both, he might recognize the superiority of beauty and fear the loss from falling away.

Now, to conceive of a planting worthy of the hand of God, recall what was said by the Lord in the Gospel: "Every planting which my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted." From that planting are those who are planted in the house of the Lord and blossom in the courts of God. And again in the prophet: "I planted you as a fruit-bearing vine, wholly true." The imitator of Christ even dares to say: "We are co-workers of God; you are God's tillage; I planted, Apollos watered, and God caused to grow." And the righteous man has been likened to a tree planted by the outflows of waters, which will give its fruit in its season and its leaf will not fall off; and "The righteous man will blossom like a palm tree"; and "You transplanted a vine from Egypt, you cast out nations and planted it." Try, therefore, through such teachings to come into a conception of that place, so that you may be in accordance with the rays of divine light, where the light of knowledge rises as the paradise of delight is planted. And if you conceive of some region receptive of the saints, in which all who have shone on earth in good works, enjoying the grace of God and the divine and intelligible pleasantness, dwell, you do not fall short of the fitting image concerning it. For there, certain good powers, rooted and firmly established, ministers of the saints, to whom man was entrusted when newly born and in need of much training for perfection. In that place where the assembly of the saints is, where the risings of light are, where the delight of the soul is, there God placed man.

If you are fleshly, you have the pattern of that bodily planting and its most pleasant satiety; if you consider great the enjoyment of sensible things, hasten to this, in which the supply of delight is unceasing. If you are spiritual and think of things higher than bodily pleasures, ascend in thought to the beauties of the angels and learn the fruits of righteousness among them, behold the river of God filled with waters, whose streams gladden the city of God, that city whose craftsman and creator is God. That city is traversed by this river of God, which begins from Eden and waters paradise. Having learned all this in thought, glorify God, because glory is fitting for him unto the ages of ages. Amen.