CHAPTER VII

PARADISE

Varieties of the tradition: (1) as the seat of the gods; (2) as the home of the first parents; (3) as the abode of the blessed—All associated with the conception of a mystical tree, in itself an idealisation of the spirit-inhabited tree worshipped on earth—The paradise of the gods in Indian tradition; its five miraculous trees—The paradise of Genesis and of the Persian sacred books—The tree of paradise compared with sacred cedar of Chaldaea—paradise as the abode of the blessed, a post-exilic tradition amongst the Jews—The paradise of the Talmud; and of the Koran—The confusion in the ancient traditions of paradise partly due to a limited conception of space and to a belief in the propinquity of heaven—Greek conceptions of paradise—Milton’s description influenced by ancient traditions of an elevated paradise.

The earthly paradise—Persistence of the tradition; Sir John Maundeville’s version—Icelandic tradition—The lost Atlantis of Plato a variant of the paradise legend—St. Brandan and the Isle of Avalon—Christopher Columbus—Japanese tradition of an island of eternal youth, with its marvellous tree—Developments of the idea of the tree of paradise—Its representation in art 128

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