Chapter 102 - Of Man's Place, Which Was Paradise

Some understand Paradise materially, others spiritually, while Augustine admits of both acceptations. Thus it was a place situated in the region of the East; the noblest place being assigned to the noblest part of the heavens; for according to Aristotle the East is on the right of the heavens. Holy Doctors compare it to the orb of the moon, not as regards altitude, but in respect of its physical properties; the air being always temperate, as in the Heavenly Bodies, which exist without contrarieties, among which bodies the moon is nearest to the earth.

And Paradise was suited for human habitation. Incorruptibility belonged to it; not as belonging to the nature of the body, but through a virtue attached to the soul for its preservation; and since the body is subject to dissolution both within and without, food was given for the conservation of moisture, and a temperate air for the prevention of exterior waste.

Man was placed in Paradise to keep it, and to work therein; a work which would not have been laborious but pleasing, as an exercise of the natural faculties. Man would also have kept himself lest he should lose it; and God worked in him and kept him lest he should be corrupted by evil. Man, however, was not made in Paradise, in order that he might recognize his incorruptibility to be a gift of God, not due to Nature; hence after his creation he was placed there for the term of his animal life, to be transferred finally to Heaven for the possession of a spiritual life.

But woman was made in Paradise; not for her own dignity but on account of the dignity of the principle whence her body was taken; and children would have been born in Paradise, where their parents had been already placed.