some modern Poets have the notion of the Elysian fields which Homer and the Ancients plac'd remote on the extremities of the Earth and these would make a little green Meadow in Campania Felix to be the fam'd Elysium Thus much concerning the Fathers negatively but to discover as far as we can what their positive Assertions were in this Argument we may observe that though their opinions be differently exprest they generally concenter in this that the Southern Hemisphere was the Seat of Paradise This I say seems manifestly to be the sence of Christian Antiquity and Tradition so far as there is any thing definitive in the remains we have upon that subject Some of the Fathers did not believe Paradise to be Corporeal and Local and those are to be laid aside in the first place as to this point Others that thought it Local did not determine any thing as most of them indeed did not concerning the particular place of it But the rest that did though they have exprest themselves in various ways and under various forms yet upon a due interpretation they all meet in one common and general conclusion That Paradise was seated beyond the Aequinoctial or in the other Hemisphere And to understand this aright we must reflect in the first place upon the form of the Primaeval Earth and of the two Hemispheres of which it consisted altogether incommunicable one with another by reason of the Torrid Zone betwixt them so as those two Hemispheres were then as two distinct Worlds or distinct Earths that had no commerce with one another And this Notion or Tradition we find among Heathen Authors as well as Christian this Opposite Earth being call'd by them Antichthon and its Inhabitants Antichthones For those words comprehend both the Antipodes and Antoeci or all beyond the Line as is manifest from their best Authors as Achilles Tatius and Caesar Germanicus upon Aratus Probus Grammaticus Censorinus Pomponius Mela and Pliny And these were call'd another World and lookt upon as another stock and race of Mankind as appears from Cicero and Macrobius But as the latter part was their mistake so the former is acknowledg'd by Christian Authors as well as others and particularly S. Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians mentions a World or Worlds beyond the Ocean subject to Divine Providence and the great Lord of Nature as well as ours This passage of S. Clement is also cited by S. Ierom in his Commentary upon Ephes. 2. 2. and by Origen Periarchon where the Inhabitants of that other World are call'd Antichthones I make this remark in the first place that we may understand the true sence and importance of those phrases and expressions amongst the Ancients when they say Paradise was in another World Which are not to be so understood as if they thought Paradise was in the Moon or in Iupiter or hung above like a Cloud or a Meteor they were not so extravagant but that Paradise was in another Hemisphere which was call'd Antichthon another Earth or another World from Ours and justly reputed so because of an impossibility of commerce or intercourse betwixt their respective Inhabitants And this remark being premis'd we will now distribute the Christian Authors and Fathers that have deliver'd their opinion concerning the place of Paradise into three or four ranks or orders and though they express themselves differently you will see when duly examin'd and expounded they all conspire and concur in the forementioned conclusion That the Seat of Paradise was in the other Hemisphere In the first rank then we will place and reckon those that have set Paradise in another World or in another Earth seeing according to the foregoing Explication that is the same thing as to affirm it seated beyond the Torrid Zone in the other Hemisphere In this number are Ephrem Syrus Moses Bar Cepha Tatianus and of later date Iacobus de Valentia To these are to be added again such Authors as say that Adam when he was turn'd out of Paradise was brought into our Earth or into our Region of the Earth for this is tantamount with the former And this seems to be the sence of S. Ierom in several places against Iovinian as also of Constantine in his Oration in Eusebius and is positively asserted by Sulpitius Severus And lastly Those Authors that represent Paradise as remote from our World and inaccessible so S. Austin Procopius Gazeus Beda Strabus Fuldensis Historia Scholiastica and others these I say pursue the same notion of Antiquity for what is remote from our World that is from our Continent as we before explain'd it is to be understood to be that Antichthon or Anti-hemisphere which the Ancients oppos'd to ours Another sett of Authors that interpret the Flaming Sword that guarded Paradise to be the Torrid Zone do plainly intimate that Paradise in their opinion lay beyond the Torrid Zone or in the Antihemisphere And thus Tertullian interprets the Flaming Sword and in such words as fully confirm our sence Paradise He says by the Torrid Zone as by a wall of Fire was sever'd from the communication and knowledge of our World It lay then on the other side of this Zone And S. Cyprian or the ancient Author that passeth under his name in his Comment upon Genesis expresseth himself to the same effect so also S. Austin and Isidore Hispalensis are thought to interpret it And Aquinas who makes Paradise inaccessible gives this reason for it Propter vehementiam aestûs in locis intermediis ex propinquitate Solis hoc significatur per Flammeum Gladium Because of that vehement heat in the parts betwixt us and that arising from the nearness of the Sun and this is signified by the Flaming Sword And this interpretation of the Flaming Sword receives a remarkable force and Emphasis from our Theory and description of the Primaeval Earth for there the Torrid Zone was as a wall of Fire indeed or a Region of flame which none could pass or subsist in no more than in a Furnace There is another form of expression amongst the Ancients concerning Paradise which if decyphered is of the same force and signification with this we have already instanc'd in They say sometimes Paradise was beyond the Ocean or that the Rivers of Paradise came from beyond the Ocean This is of the same import with the former Head and points still at the other Hemisphere for as we noted before some of them fixt their Antichthon and Antichthâ—nes beyond the Ocean that is since there was an Ocean Since the form of the Earth was chang'd and the Torrid Zone become habitable and cosequently could not be a boundary or separation betwixt the two Worlds Wherefore as some run still upon the old division by the Torrid Zone others took the new division by the Ocean Which Ocean they suppos'd to lie from East to West betwixt the Tropicks as may be seen in Ancient Authors Geminus Herodotus Cicero de republicâ and Clemens
Romanus whom we cited before S. Austin also speaks upon the same supposition when he would confute the doctrine of the Antipodes or Antichthâ—nes and Macrobius I remember makes it an argument of Providence that the Sun and the Planets in what part of their course soever they are betwixt the two Tropicks have still the Ocean under them that they may be cool'd and nourisht by its moisture They thought the Sea like a Girdle went round the Earth and the temperate Zones on either side were the habitable Regions whereof this was call'd the Oicouméne and the other Antichthon This being observ'd 't is not material whether their Notion was true or false it shews us what their meaning was and what part of the Earth they design'd when they spoke of any thing beyond the Ocean namely that they meant beyond the Line in the other Hemisphere or in the Antichthon and accordingly when they say Paradise or the Fountains of its Rivers were beyond the Ocean they say the same thing in other terms with the rest of those Authors we have cited In Moses Bar Cepha above mention'd we find a Chapter upon this subject Qucmodo trajecerint Mortales inde ex Paradisi terrâ in hanc Terram How Mankind past out of that Earth or Coâ—tinent where Paradise was into that where we are Namely how they past the Ocean that lay betwixt them as the answer there given explains it And so Ephrem Syrus is cited often in that Treatise placing Paradise beyond the Ocean The Essenes also who were the most Philosophick Sect of the Iews plac'd Paradise according to Iosephus beyond the Ocean under a perfect temperature of Air. And that passage in Eusebius in the Oration of Constantine being corrected and restor'd to the true reading represents Paradise in like manner as in another Continent from whence Adam was brought after his transgression into this And lastly there are some Authors whose testimony and authority may deserve to be consider'd not for their own Antiquity but because they are profess'dly transcribers of Antiquity and Traditions such as Strabus Comestor and the like who are known to give this account or report of Paradise from the Ancients that it was interposito Oceano ab Orbe nostro vel à Zonâ nostrâ habitabili secretus Separated from our Orb or Hemisphere by the interposition of the Ocean It is also observable that many of the Ancients that took Tigris Euphrates Nile and Ganges for the Rivers of Paradise said that those Heads or Fountains of them which we have in our Continent are but their Capita secunda their second Sources and that their first Sources were in another Orb where Paradise was and thus Hugo de Sancto Victore says Sanctos communiter sensisse That the Holy Men of old were generally of that opinion To this sence also Moses Bar Cepha often expresseth himself as also Epiphanius Procopius Gazaeus and Severianus in Catenâ Which notion amongst the Ancients concerning the trajection or passage of the Paradisiacal Rivers under-ground or under-Sea from one Continent into another is to me I confess unintelligible either in the first or second Earth but however it discovers their sence and opinion of the Seat of Paradise that it was not to be sought for in Asia or in Africk where those Rivers rise to us but in some remoter parts of the World where they suppos'd their first Sources to be This is a short account of what the Christian Fathers have left us concerning the Seat of Paradise and the truth is 't is but a short and broken account yet 't is no wonder it should be so if we consider as we noted before that several of them did not believe Paradise to be Local and Corporeal Others that did believe it so yet did not offer to determine the place of it but left that matter wholly untoucht and undecided and the rest that did speak to that point did it commonly both in general terms and in expressions that were disguis'd and needed interpretation but all these differences and obscurities of expression you see when duly stated and expounded may signifie one and the same thing and terminate all in this common Conclusion That Paradise was without our Continent accordâ—ng to the general opinion and Tradition of Antiquity And I do not doubt but the Tradition would have been both more express and more universal if the Ancients had understood Geography better for those of the Ancients that did not admit or believe that there were Antipodes or Antichthones as Lactantius S. Austin and some others these could not joyn in the common opinion about the place of Paradise because they thought there was no Land nor any thing habitable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or besides this Continent And yet S. Austin was so cautious that as he was bounded on the one hand by his false Idea of the Earth that he could not joyn with Antiquity as to the place of Paradise so on the other hand he had that respect for it that he would not say any thing to the contrary therefore being to give his opinion he says only Terrestrem esse Paradisum locum ejus ab hominum cognitione esse remotissimum That it is somewhere upon the Earth but the place of it very remote from the knowledge of Men. And as their ignorance of the Globe of the Earth was one reason why the doctrine of Paradise was so broken and obscure so another reason why it is much more so at present is because the chief ancient Books writ upon that subiect are lost Ephrem Syrus who liv'd in the Fourth Century writ a Commentary in Genesin five de Ortu rerum concerning the Origin of the Earth and by those remains that are cited from it we have reason to believe that it contain'd many things remarkable concerning the first Earth and concerning Paradise Tertullian also writ a Book de Paradiso which is wholly lost and we see to what effect it would have been by his making the Torrid Zone to be the Flaming Sword and the partition betwixt this Earth and Paradise which two Earths he more than once distinguisheth as very different from one another The most ancient Author that I know upon this subject at least of those that writ of it literally is Moses Bar Cepha a Syrian Bishop who liv'd about seven hundred years since and his Book is translated into Latin by that Learned and Judicious Man Andreas Masius Bar Cepha writes upon the same Views of Paradise that we have here presented that it was beyond the Ocean in another tract of Land or another Continent from that which we inhabit As appears from the very Titles of his Eighth Tenth and Fourteenth Chapters But we must allow him for his mistaken Notions about the form of the Earth for he seems to have sansied the Earth plain not only as oppos'd to rough and Mountainous for so it was plain but as oppos'd to Spherical and the Ocean to
renew'd like the Eagles which the Chaldee Paraphrast renders In mundo venturo renovabis sicut Aquilae juventutem tuam These things to me seem plainly to be Symbolical representing that World to come which the Paraphrast mentions and the firing of this And this is after the manner of the Eastern Wisdom which always lov'd to go fine cleath'd in figures and fancies And not only the Eastern Barbarians but the Northern and Western also had this doctrine of the Conflagration amongst them The Scythians in their dispute with the Aegyptians about Antiquity argue upon both suppositions of Fire or Water destroying the Last World or beginning This. And in the West the Celts the most Ancient People there had the same Tradition for the Druids who were their Priests and Philosophers deriv'd not from the Greeks but of the old race of Wise Men that had their Learning traditionally and as it were hereditary from the First Ages These as Strabo tells us gave the World a kind of Immortality by repeated renovations and the principle that destroy'd it according to them was always Fire or Water I had forgot to mention in this List the Chaldeans whose opinion we have from Berosus in Seneca They did not only teach the Conflagration but also fixt it to a certain period of time when there should happen a great Conjunction of the Planets in Cancer Lastly We may add to close the account the Modern Indian Philosophers the reliques of the old Bragmans These as Maffeus tells us declare that the World will be renew'd after an Universal Conflagration You see of what extent and universality throughout all Nations this doctrine of the Conflagration hath been Let us now consider what defects or excesses there are in these ancient opinions concerning this fate of the World and how they may be rectified That we may admit them no further into our belief than they are warranted by reason or by the authority of Christian Religion The first fault they seem to have committed about this point is this That they made these revolutions and renovations of Nature indefinite or endless as if there would be such a succession of Deluges and Conflagrations to all eternity This the Stoicks seem plainly to have asserted as appears from Numenius Philo Simplicius and others S. Ierome imputes this Opinion also to Origen but he does not always hit the ture sence of that Father or is not fair and just in the representation of it Whosoever held this Opinion 't is a manifest errour and may be easily rectified by the Christian Revelation which teaches us plainly that there is a final period and consummation of all things that belong to this Sublunary or Terrestrial World When the Kingdom shall be deliver'd up to the Father and Time shall be no more Another Errour they committed in this doctrine is the Identity or sameness if I may so say of the Worlds succeeding one another They are made indeed of the same Lump of Matter but they suppos'd them to return also in the same Form And which is worse that there would be the same face of humane affairs The same Persons and the same actions over again So as the Second World would be but a bare repetition of the former without any variety or diversity Such a revolution is commonly call'd the Platonick Year A period when all things return to the same posture they had some thousands of years before As a Play acted over again upon the same Stage and to the Same Auditory This is a groundless and injudicious supposition For whether we consider the Nature of things The Earth after a dissolution by Fire or by Water could not return into the same form and fashion it had before Or whether we consider Providence it would no ways suit with the Divine Wisdom and Justice to bring upon the stage again those very Scenes and that very course of humane affairs which it had so lately condemn'd and destroy'd We may be assured therefore that upon the dissolution of a World a new order of things both as to Nature and Providence always appears And what that new order will be in both respects after the Conflagration I hope we shall in the following Book give a satisfactory account These are the Opinions true or false of the Ancients and chiefly of the Stoicks concerning the mystery of the Conflagration It will not be improper to enquire in the last place how the Stoicks came by this doctrine whether it was their discovery and invention or from whom they learned it That it was not their own invention we have given sufficient ground to believe by shewing the antiquity of it beyond the times of the Stoicks Besides what a man invents himself he can give the reasons and causes of it as things upon which he founded his invention But the Stoicks do not this but according to the ancient traditional way deliver the conclusion without proof or premisses We nam'd Heraclitus and Empedocles amongst the Greeks to have taught this doctrine before the Stoicks And according to Plutarch Hesiod and Hesiod and Orpheus authors of the highest antiquity sung of this last Fire in their Philosophick Poetry But I suspect the Stoicks had this doctrine from the Phoenicians for if we enquire into the original of that Sect we shall find that their Founder Zeno was a Barbarian or Semi-barbarian deriv'd from the Phoenicians as Laertius and Cicero give an account of him And the Phoenicians had a great share in the Oriental knowledge as we see by Sanchoniathon's remains in Eusebius And by their mystical Books which Suidas mentions from whence Pherecydes Pythagoras his Master had his learning We may therefore reasonably presume that it might be from his Country-men the Phoenicians that Zeno had the doctrine of the Conflagration Not that he brought it first into Greece but strongly reviv'd it and made it almost peculiar to his Sect. So much for the Stoicks in particular and the Greeks in general We have also you see trac'd these Opinions higher to the first Barbarick Philosophers who were the first race of Philosophers after the Flood But Iosephus tells a formal story of Pillars set up by Seth before the Flood implying the foreknowledge of this Fiery destruction of the World even from the beginning of it His words are to this effect give what credit to them you think fit Seth and his fellow students having found out the knowledge of the caelestial Bodies and the order and disposition of the Universe and having also receiv'd from Adam a Prophecy that the World should have a double destruction one by Water another by Fire To preserve and transmit their knowledge in either case to posterity They raised two Pillars one of Brick another of Stone and ingrav'd upon them their Philosophy and inventions And one of these pillars the Author says was standing in Syria even to his time I do not press the belief of this story there being