Of the place of Paradise

Abstract

To the first therefore, that such a place there was vpon the 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 how-soeuer the vulgar translation, called Hieromes translation, hath conuerted this place thus, Plantauerat Dominus Deus Paradisum voluptatis à principio; The Lord God 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 in pleasure, or that a Riuer went out of pleasure to water the garden? But the seuentie Interpreters call it Paradisum Edenis, the Paradise of Eden, and so doth the Chaldœan Paraphrast truly take it for the proper name of a place, and for a Nowne appellatiue; which Region, in respect of the fertilitie of the soile, of the many beautifull riuers, and goodly woods, and that the trees (as in the Indies) doe alwaies keep their leaues, was called Eden, which signifieth in the Hebrew, pleasantnesse or delicacie, as the Spaniards call the Countrie, 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 Countrie, so called for the flourishing beautie thereof, so was Eden a Region called pleasure, or delicacie, for the pleasure, or delicacie: 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. …¹