From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

But it is not my purpose in this chapter to give more than a cursory glance at the present condition of Babylonia and its people. For, during my wanderings in this historic land, my thoughts were rather occupied with its myths and legends and, above all, with that interesting and persistent tradition which, from time immemorial, has here located the Garden of Eden—what the “Vulgate” calls the Paradise of Pleasure and what is frequently known as the Terrestrial Paradise.

Of the many interesting subjects treated of in the book of Genesis, few have received more attention from scholars and interpreters than that which relates to the Terrestrial Paradise. Even in the early days of Christianity men began to dispute about it. Some, among them Origen[459] and St. Ambrose, not to mention others, inclined to the opinion that the Genesiac account of the cradle of our race was to be interpreted allegorically. Others, however, like St. Jerome and St. Augustine,[460] maintained that the Scriptural narrative regarding the Garden of Eden was to be interpreted literally. Even at the present time Biblical students exhibit the same difference of opinion respecting the words of the Sacred Text which relate to the Garden of Paradise as was displayed by the writers and Fathers of the primitive Church. Some favor an allegorical interpretation of the much discussed narrative while others contend that we must adopt a literal interpretation. “So concrete,” they hold with St. Augustine, “is the description of the Terrestrial Paradise that one cannot allegorize it without doing violence to the text.”

The eminent Assyriologist, Frederick Delitzsch, in an elaborate study of this long vexed question, insists that “the Biblical record of the Garden of Eden contains no indication of being fabulous or extravagant, or enveloped in semi-obscurity. Neither need one hesitate as to the sense, nor is one, for lack of clearness, obliged to read between the lines. For the narrator the Garden of Eden, with its four rivers, the Phison, the Gehon, the Tigris and the Euphrates, is a manifest and well-known reality. He is in nowise obscure respecting the meaning of the names of the Phison and the Gehon. Not only does he know exactly their signification—as exactly as that of the Tigris and the Euphrates—but he wishes to instruct his readers concerning the subject. It is for this reason that he gives explanations and elucidations which his readers can control.”[461]

But, notwithstanding the explicitness of the author of the second chapter of Genesis, the localization of the Garden of Eden bristles with many and grave difficulties. Ever since the days of Philo Judæus, scholars have been seeking a solution of the problem, and, although they have written countless books on the subject, the actual site of the Terrestrial Paradise still remains a matter of uncertainty.

How diverse have been the views of learned men respecting the site of Paradise is evinced by the fact that they have located it almost everywhere on the earth, above the earth, and under the earth. Some, following the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, have contended that the home of the first parents was in the third heaven; others that it was in the fourth; others still that it was in the heaven of the moon, or in the middle region of the air, or in some hidden place far removed from the knowledge of mortals. Others again with a great display of erudition have attempted to prove that it was situated in Syria, or Palestine, or Arabia, or Persia, or Armenia, or Assyria, or India, or China, or Tartary. Still others, who were a little more specific in their speculations, placed the Garden of Eden on the banks of the Ganges, in the Canaries, or in Ceylon, or on the Mountains of the Moon, where the Nile was supposed to have its source. Hebron, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Babylon have each been considered as being on the identical spot where our first parents were created and where they fell from their high estate.

The Benedictine, Ralph Higden, who follows the opinion of some of the Fathers of the Church, tells us in his Polychronicon that the Terrestrial Paradise is in an inaccessible region in Eastern Asia. Gautier de Metz, in his Image du Monde, is in essential agreement with the learned Benedictine as to the location of the Garden of Eden. It is, he avers, surrounded by flames, and access to it through its single gate is precluded by an armed angel who is always on guard. Lambertus Floridus describes the primeval home of our race as an island in the Eastern ocean—Paradisus insula in oceano in oriente. But, like Gautier de Metz, he declares it to be inaccessible because it is surrounded by a wall of fire.

Peter Lombard, the famous Master of the Sentences, who is followed by other mediæval writers, teaches that Paradise is located on a very high mountain in Eastern Asia—so high that the waters of the Deluge, which rose above the summit of Ararat, submerged only its base.[462] Another author informs us that “Paradise is neither in heaven nor on earth.... It is forty fathoms higher than Noah’s flood was and it hangeth between heaven and earth wonderfully, as the Ruler of all things made it.... There is there neither hollow nor hill; nor is there frost nor snow, hail or rain, but there is fons vitæ, that is, the well of life.... There is there neither heat nor hunger, nor is there ever night, but always day. The sun there shines seven times brighter than on this earth. Therein dwell innumerable angels of God with the holy souls till doomsday.”[463]

Of similar import is the description of Paradise contained in an Anglo-Saxon poem—a translation of the “De Phœnice” of the Pseudo-Lactantius—in which the poet declares:

I have heard tell

That there is far hence