Eden

(delight, sweetness) (Gen. 2:8) — a region in Asia in which God Himself planted the garden of Eden (Paradise) for the dwelling of the first humans, and which was situated in the East. This word is also generally used to denote any locality remarkable for its beauty and fertility. The location of the garden of Eden is very difficult to determine with precision today. In pointing to it, the sacred writer mentions a river that flowed out of Eden to water Paradise, and afterward divided into four rivers, namely: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Hiddekel (Tigris), and the Euphrates (Gen. 2:10–14).

The last two of these rivers are known, while the first two are the subject of the most divergent conjecture and speculation. Not finding rivers corresponding to them on earth, some have transferred Eden to heaven, others have given it an allegorical meaning; some have placed Eden in Africa (Ethiopia and Abyssinia), others in Armenia and the Caucasus, others in Syria and Palestine, others in Mesopotamia and Babylonia, and some have sought it even in India, in the valleys of the Himalayas and on the island of Ceylon.

But all this is mere conjecture and supposition; the only thing that remains certain is that the land of Eden and Paradise lay in the region near the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Among various peoples, even pagan ones, many different traditions concerning Eden and the blessedness of the people who once enjoyed it have been preserved, and are preserved still. “Soon after the creation of man,” sings Hesiod, “there began a golden age, the imperishable gift of the immortals, who acknowledged Cronus as their lord.

The human race then led the life of gods, free from grievous cares, strangers to toil and sorrow. Old age was unknown to men, nor any sickness. When the hour of death came, death took upon itself the peaceful form of sleep, and there was no terror in the moment of the soul’s parting from the body. Men enjoyed complete blessedness; the fruits of the earth grew in abundance and in every variety. Universal peace reigned, and its constant companions were happiness and delight.” The human race has always, and at all times, retained some dim notion of that happiness which it lost through the sin of its forefather Adam, and has always cherished in its soul some longing for the return of this primordial blessedness; but is not a higher, a special Eden — one far surpassing that which once flourished in the East — being prepared for all who believe in Christ and do good? Shall they not all inherit, in the life to come, an “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, for ever”?