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and imitate others, were in all things so observant sectators of those masters, whom they admired and believed in, as they thought it safer to condemn their own understanding, than to examine theirs. For, saith Vadianus in his epistle of Paradise, Magnos errores, magnorum virorum auctoritate persuasi, transmittimus; "We pass over many gross errors, by the authority of great men led and persuaded.” And it is true, that many of the fathers were far wide from the understanding of this place. I speak it not, that I myself dare presume to censure them, for I reverence both their learning and their piety, and yet not bound to follow them any further than they are guided by truth: for they were men ; et humanum est errare. And to the end that no man should be proud of himself, God hath distributed unto men such a proportion of knowledge, as the wisest may behold in themselves their own weakness: Nulli unquam dedit omnia Deus; "God never gave the knowledge of all things to any St. Paul confessed that he knew not whether he were taken up into the third heaven in the flesh or out of the flesh; and Christ himself acknowledges thus much, that neither men nor angels knew of the latter day; and therefore, seeing knowledge is infinite, it is God, according to St. Jude, who is only wise. Sapientia ubi invenitur? saith eJob; But where is wisdom found? and where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; for it is not found in the land of the living. And therefore seeing God found folly in his angels f, men's judgments (which inhabit in houses of clay) cannot be without their mistakings: and so the fathers, and other learned men, excusable in particulars, especially in those whereupon our salvation dependeth not.

"one.

SECT. II.

A recital of strange opinions touching paradise.

NOW, as touching paradise, first it is to be inquired, whether there were a paradise, or no? or whether Moses's de

cription were altogether mystical and allegorical? as Origen, Philo, Fran. Georgius, with others, have affirmed; and that under the names of those four rivers, Pison, Gehon, Hiddekel, and Perath, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge, there were delivered unto us other mysteries and significations; as, that by the ffour rivers were meant the four cardinal virtues, justice, temperance, fortitude, and prudence; or (by others) oil, wine, milk, and honey. This allegorical understanding of paradise by Origen divulged, was again by Fran. Georgius received, saith Sixtus Senensis; whose frivolous imaginations Sixtus himself doth fully and learnedly answer, in the 34th annotation of his fifth book, fol. 338, the last edition.

g St. Ambrose also leaned wholly to the allegorical construction, and set paradise in the third heaven, and in the virtues of the mind, et in nostro principali, which is, as I conceive it, in mente, or in our souls: to the particulars whereof he alludeth in this sort. By the place or garden of paradise, was meant the soul or mind; by Adam, mens, or understanding; by Eve, the sense; by the serpent, delectation; by the tree of good and evil, sapience; and by the rest of the trees, the virtues of the mind, or in the mind planted, or from thence springing. Notwithstanding all which, upon 1 Corinthians vi. he in direct words alloweth both of a celestial and terrestrial paradise; the one, into which St. Paul was rapped; the other, into which Adam was put by God. Aug. Chrysamensis was of opinion, that a paradise had been; but that there was not now any mark thereof on the earth: the same being not only defaced, but withal the places now not so much as existing. To which Luther seemeth to adhere.

The Manichees also understood, that by paradise was meant the whole earth; to which opinion Vadianus inclineth, as I conceive his words, in two several places. First, upon this; Fill the earth, Gen. x. of which he gives this judgment: Hoc ipso etiam quod dixit, Replete terram, dominamini universis animantibus, subjicite terram, claris

sime docet, totam terram extantem, et omnigenis (ut tum erat) fructibus consitam, sedem et hortum illud Adæ, et posteritatis futuræ fuisse; "These words," saith he, "in " which God said, Bring forth fruit and multiply, and, Fill "the earth, and subdue it, and, Rule over every creature, do "clearly shew, that the universal earth, set or filled with all "sorts of fruits, (as then it was,) was the garden and seat of Adam, and of his future posterity." And afterward he acknowledgeth the place out of the h Acts, Apostolus ex uno sanguine omne genus humanum ideo factum docet, ut habitarent super universam faciem terræ: tota igitur terra paradisus ille erat; "The apostle," saith he, "teacheth, that "God hath made of one blood all mankind to dwell over all "the face of the earth: and therefore all the earth," saith he, "was that paradise:" which conjectures I will answer in order. Goropius Becanus differeth not much from this opinion, but yet he acknowledgeth that Adam was first planted by God in one certain place and peculiar garden; which place Goropius findeth near the river of Acesines, in the confines of India.

¡Tertullian, Bonaventure, and Durandus, make paradise under the equinoctial; and Postellus, quite contrary, under the north pole: the Chaldeans also for the most part, and all their sectators, followed the opinion of Origen, or rather Origen theirs; who would either make paradise a figure, or sacrament only, or else would have it seated out of this sensible world, or raised into some high and remote region of the air. Strabus and Rabanus were both sick of this vanity, with Origen and Philo: so was our venerable k Beda, and Peter Comestor, and m Moses Barcephas the Syrian, translated by Masius. But, as Hopkins says of Philo Judæus, that he wondered, quo malo genio afflatus, " by what evil "angel he was blown up into this error;" so can I not but greatly marvel at the learned men who so grossly and blindly wandered; seeing Moses, and after him the pro

hActs xvii. 26. i Bart. 16. 126. Bed. in Gen.

1 Pet. Comest. 1. 1. cap. 3.

m Moses Barc. de Par.

phets, do so plainly describe this place by the region in which it was planted, by the kingdoms and provinces bordering it, by the rivers which watered it, and by the points of the compass upon which it lay, in respect of Judea, or Canaan.

Noviomagus also upon Beda, De natura rerum, believeth that all the earth was taken for paradise, and not any one place. For the whole earth, saith he, hath the same beauty ascribed to paradise. He addeth, that the ocean was that fountain from whence the four rivers, Pison, Gehon, Tigris, and Euphrates, had their beginning; for he could not think it possible that these rivers of Ganges, Nilus, Tigris, and Euphrates (whereof the one ran through India, the other through Egypt, and the other two through Mesopotamia and Armenia) could rise out of one fountain, were it not out of the fountain of the ocean.

SECT. III.

That there was a true local paradise eastward in the country of

Eden.

the

TO the first therefore, that such a place there was upon earth, the words of Moses make it manifest, where it is written, " And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had made: and howsoever the vulgar translation, called Jerome's translation, hath converted this place thus, Plantaverit Dominus Deus paradisum voluptatis a principio, "The Lord God

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planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning ;" putting the word pleasure for Eden, and from the beginning for eastward; it is manifest, that in this place Eden is the proper name of a region. For what sense hath this translation, (saith our Hopkins, in his Treatise of Paradise,) that he planted a garden of pleasure, or, that a river went out of pleasure to water the garden? But the Seventy Interpreters call it paradisum Edenis, "the paradise of "Eden;" and so doth the Chaldean paraphrast truly take it for the proper name of a place, and for a noun appellative;

n Gen. ii. 8.

which region, in respect of the fertility of the soil, of the many beautiful rivers and goodly woods, and that the trees (as in the Indies) do always keep their leaves, was called Eden, which signifieth in the Hebrew, pleasantness, or delicacy; as the Spaniards call the country opposite to the isle of Cuba, Florida: and this is the mistaking, which may end the dispute, as touching the double sense of the word, that as Florida was a country, so called for the flourishing beauty thereof; so was Eden a region, called pleasure or delicacy, for its pleasure or delicacy: and as Florida signifieth flourishing; so Eden signifieth pleasure: and yet both are the proper names of countries; for Eden being the proper name of a region, (called pleasure in the Hebrew,) and paradise being the choice seat of all that region, paradise was truly the garden of Eden, and truly the garden of pleasure.

Now for eastward, to translate it from the beginning, it is also contrary to the translation of the Seventy; to the ancient Greek fathers, as Basil, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gregory; and to the rabbins, as Ramban, Rabbi Solomon, R. Abraham, and Chimchi; and of the Latins, Severinus, Damascenus, &c. who plainly take Eden for the proper name of a region, and set the word eastward for ab initio: for Damascene's own words are these, Paradisus est locus Dei manibus in Eden ad orientem mirabiliter consitus ; "Paradise is a place marvellously planted by the hands of "God in Eden, towards the east."

And after all these fathers, Guilhelmus Parisiensis, a great learned man, and Sixtus Senensis, of latter times, do both understand these words of Eden and of the east, contrary to the vulgar translation; Parisiensis, as indifferent to both; and Sixtus Senensis, directly against the vulgar: of which these are their own words; "After this "I will begin to speak of paradise terrestrial, which God "planted from the beginning, or eastward," &c. Post hæc incipiam loqui de paradiso terrestri, quem plantasse Deum ab initio vel ad orientem, &c. And then Senensis; Moses enim clarissime prodit, paradisum a Deo con

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