Paradise According to St. Ephraim the Syrian
From Genesis to Revelation, we see glimpses into what Paradise looks like. Those who have achieved theosis have given us additional glimpses of that much anticipated place over the centuries – perhaps no one more beautifully than St. Ephraim the Syrian. As Orthodox Christians put his Lenten Prayer into practice, we should also reflect on where that prayer will ultimately lead us.
Dante’s “Paradiso,” John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and numerous autobiographical accounts of those who “experienced the afterlife” have been a source of fascination for believers and unbelievers alike. Those who want to experience such a state have a desire to know what Paradise looks and feels like, those who are unconvinced want to be convinced, and those who reject such a thing want to point and laugh. To each their own.
These questions will never be answered completely for us Orthodox Christians, at least in this life. Of course, we are often accused of leaving everything to mystery – that is, the mystery of our faith, which becomes known to us through the Holy Mysteries. So, to experience Paradise one must participate in Paradise. Paradise is certainly a place – we take Christ at His word in Matthew 25 and other passages – but we look to the saints who have shown us how we can also experience it here and now.
“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Gen. 2:8). This isn’t where the Scripture starts, but it’s where things start for mankind – where we are first seen having a “home.” Over the course of God’s revelation to mankind, we hear more about this place that we fell from – a place that we have forgotten and are called to return to.
As part of the Farewell Discourse leading up to the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus Christ tells His disciples in John 14, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Christ says that His disciples know both the place and the way. He follows this up with the much quoted, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” This is the beautiful paradox – Christ is both revealing this way through His Incarnation and earthly ministry, rounded off by His Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, while also reminding us of the way as the New Adam.
In one of St. Ephraim’s Hymns on the Nativity, he writes, “Blessed is He who descended, put Adam on and ascended.” Elsewhere, in one of the Nisibene Hymns, he writes, “The Most High knew that Adam wanted to become a god, so He sent His Son Who put him on in order to grant him his desire.”
Just as Christ was walking in the Garden, He “came down from the heavens” to walk among us again. The Garden – or Paradise – is our eternal past, present, and future. As we have recently celebrated Forgiveness Sunday, which also has the liturgical identification of “The Expulsion of Adam from Paradise,” we recall the words of Fr. Alexander Schmemann in his reflections on Great Lent.
“This name summarizes indeed the entire preparation for Lent,” he says of the Expulsion from Paradise. “By now we know that man was created for paradise, for knowledge of God and communion with Him. Man’s sin has deprived him of that blessed life and his existence on earth is exile. Christ, the Savior of the world, opens the door of paradise to everyone who follows Him, and the Church, by revealing to us the beauty of the Kingdom, makes our life a pilgrimage toward our heavenly fatherland.”
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God (Rev. 2:7).” St. Ephraim tells us more about this mystery.
The Correct Disposition
In the first entry from St. Ephraim’s “Hymns on Paradise,” he says that a yearning for Paradise prompted him to explore it, but “awe at its majesty” restrained him from his search.
“With wisdom, however, I reconciled the two,” he writes. “I revered what lay hidden and meditated on what was revealed.” As St. Ephraim explores the richness of Paradise, he understands that he is not perceiving it “as it really is, but insofar as humanity is granted to comprehend it.”
This is fundamental to any inquiry we may have into such things. As we hear in the Divine Liturgy, “the Holy Things are for the holy.” If we haven’t been purified, we should look to those who have – or at least those who are farther along than us – for answers. Even then, many questions will be left unanswered.
It is beneficial to ponder Paradise insofar as it brings us closer to God and prompts remembrance of death and the Day of Judgment. When Paradise becomes a foregone conclusion rather than an encouragement toward genuine repentance, we have committed the sin of pride.
The Mountain of Paradise
Throughout the Scriptures, we have numerous examples of someone ascending a mountain to interact with God. The Transfiguration is the conclusion – or rather the fulfillment – of all of these instances and shows that this theme is not simply a coincidence.
We see numerous accounts where Moses is called up to the mountain to speak with God and relay what is said to the people. Most notably, in Exodus 24, Moses is called up to receive the law and commandments. Elsewhere, in 1 Kings 19, Elijah is told to “stand on the mountain before the Lord” before he experiences the “still small voice.” The Psalms and other authors in the Old Testament make continuous references to the “mountain of the Lord.”
Sebastian Brock, who translated St. Ephraim’s “Hymns on Paradise” for SVS Press, notes the following.
“St. Ephraim, like Dante many centuries later, envisaged Paradise as a mountain. Although the Genesis narrative itself has nothing to suggest this, there are hints elsewhere in the Old Testament which point to such a conception, notably in Ezekiel 28:13-14, where ‘Eden, the Garden [Paradise] of God’ is described as ‘the holy mountain of God.’ The prophet makes use here of an idea, well attested throughout the ancient Near East, of a cosmic mountain upon which the deity resided (elsewhere in the Old Testament this holy mountain is sometimes identified with Sion, as in Psalm 47(48):1-2).”
In the hymns themselves, St. Ephraim draws on this symbolism, showing the various heights attained on Mount Sinai and also using illustrations of Noah’s Ark. And as we understand in the Orthodox tradition, the Church is the Ark of Salvation.
Noah made the animals live in the lowest part of the Ark; in the middle part he lodged the birds,
while Noah himself, like the Deity, resided on the upper deck.
On Mount Sinai it was the people who dwelt below,
the priests round about it, and Aaron halfway up,
while Moses was on its heights, and the Glorious One on the summit.
A symbol of the divisions in that Garden of Life
did Moses trace out in the Ark and on Mount Sinai too;
he depicted for us the types of Paradise with all its arrangements: harmonious, fair and desirable in all things
in its height, its beauty, its fragrance, and its different species.
Here is the harbor of all riches, whereby the Church is depicted.
Brock notes that “the Church now corresponds to Paradise” which can be understood in two different ways.
The first is that we are living through a trial akin to that of Adam and Eve. They were called to obey the commandment not to eat from the Tree; we are called to obey Christ, whose fruit we are now invited to receive daily. Everything depends, as it did then, on the inner disposition of the heart and the right use of free will.
Second, those who respond to Christ in freedom and obedience already begin to taste the reality of the age to come. In doing so, they not only enter into the life of Paradise but themselves become living fruits – more radiant even than the trees of the first garden.
Paradise: State of Being or Concrete Place?
Paradise has both a present reality and an eschatological reality.
St. Ephraim writes that, “God planted the fair Garden, He built the pure Church; upon the Tree of Knowledge he established the injunction.” He continues:
He gave joy, but they took no delight,
He gave admonition, but they were unafraid.
In the Church He implanted the Word
which causes rejoicing with its promises, which causes fear with its warnings: he who despises the Word, perishes, he who takes warning, lives.
The assembly of saints bears resemblance to Paradise:
in it each day is plucked
the fruit of Him who gives life to all; in it, my brethren, is trodden
the cluster of grapes, to be the Medicine of Life.
Among the saints none is naked, for they have put on glory,nor is any clad in those leaves or standing in shame,
for they have found, through our Lord,
the robe that belongs to Adam and Eve.
As the Church
purges her ears of the serpent's poison,
those who had lost their garments, having listened to it and become diseased, have now been renewed and whitened.
The passage presents the Church as the true and restored Paradise. Just as God planted the Garden and gave a commandment concerning the Tree, He has established the Church and implanted within it His life-giving Word, which brings both promise and warning. In Paradise humanity fell through disobedience; in the Church, those who heed the Word live, while those who reject it perish.
The community of saints resembles Paradise: there the fruit of the Life-Giver is received daily, and the “cluster of grapes” is pressed as the Medicine of Life – a Eucharistic image. Unlike Adam and Eve after the Fall, the saints are not naked or ashamed; they are clothed again in glory, restored through Christ. Cleansed from the serpent’s deceit, they are renewed and made whole within the Church.
Due to this, we can say that the saints provide revelation of Paradise to us in this life. We expect to see them there one day, after everything is made new, but we also see them there now. Those of us who have been blessed to spend time with holy people know that they are experiencing a different place – a place that surely isn’t here, but by God’s grace they are able to convey that place to us.
“Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).
Christ didn’t lie – the kingdom of God can reside within us. But do we believe it? If we did, we would strive to become holy – to know God. The saints believe this, and they have proven it through their “violence.”
Our Lord also says, “For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.” This points to the Second Coming, which will happen suddenly. Until that time, we have the initial flash of the Incarnation, and the saints who have put on Christ shining His light.
In short, Paradise is not just a reward we get after the fact, and it isn’t just something we can experience now. When Christ says, “Enter into the joy of your Lord,” or “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” He is offering something new. Yet when He tells the penitent thief, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise,” He is offering that place and that state today. In continuation of this theme, the hymns of our church often begin with that present statement: today.
Similar to how the thief was suspended on a cross next to Christ, St. Euphrosynos was scorned by his brethren at their monastery. Yet when a hieromonk asked God to reveal to him what is prepared for those who love Him, he saw the simple cook in a garden partaking of the "good things."
As we read in an account of his life:
As he approached the cook, he asked to whom the garden belonged, and how he came to be there.
St. Euphrosynos replied, "This garden is reserved for God's elect, and by His great goodness, I also dwell here."
Then the priest asked him what he did in the garden. The Saint told him, "I have authority over all the things you see here. I rejoice and am filled with gladness and the spiritual enjoyment of them."
After the priest awoke and rushed to church at the sound of the semantron, he saw St. Euphrosynos and asked him where he had been that night.
"Forgive me, Father, I have not been anywhere tonight. I have just come to church for the service," the saint replied. After being urged to reveal the truth by the priest, he finally admitted that he was, in fact, in the garden partaking of those good things "which those who love God shall inherit."
And yet, he still went to the Divine Services. He was granted the inheritance but held the "treasure in earthen vessels." He was allowed to pick of the fruit of the Garden but continued to partake of the fruit of Christ found in the Church.
The heavenly worship and further revelation of Paradise in the Divine Liturgy is pointing us to the eschaton. We participate now while hoping we will one day be granted to participate. We still “expect the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.”
This age to come is not simply a return to the Paradise of old, but something new and greater. St. John the Theologian sees “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev. 21:1). We see that God once again dwells in the Garden with His creation – “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” – but this is followed by the declaration, “Behold, I make all things new.”
New and different, yet familiar. All of creation, now, becomes the Mountain of the Lord. We are all transfigured.
This Lent, may we discover that the kingdom of God is within us, so that we may experience the kingdom of God on “the day of Jesus Christ” (Phillipians 1:6).
Quotations to Reflect on During Great Lent
Below are several beautiful passages from St. Ephraim’s “Hymns on Paradise.”
Forget here on earth and take the key to Paradise; the Door that welcomes you smiles radiantly upon you; the Door, all discerning, conforms its measure to those who enter it; in its wisdom it shrinks and it grows. According to the stature and rank attained by each person, it shows by its dimensions whether they are perfect or lacking in something.
I saw that place, my brethren, and I sat down and wept, for myself and for those like me,
at how my days have reached their fill,
dissipated one by one, faded out, stolen away without my noticing;
remorse seizes hold of me because I have lost crown, name and glory, robe and bridal chamber of light.
How blessed is the person
who of that heavenly table is held worthy!
May all the children of light make supplication for me there, that our Lord may grant them the gift of a single soul.
May He who gives
both in justice and in grace give to me, in His mercy, of the treasure store of His mercies.
And if none who is defiled can enter that place,
then allow me to live by its enclosure, residing in its shade.
Since Paradise resembles
that table,
let me, through Your grace, eat of the "crumbs" of its fruit which fall outside, so that I too may join those dogs who had their fill
from the crumbs of their masters' tables.
Adam's Lord came out to seek him;
He entered Sheol and found him there, then led and brought him out to set him once more in Paradise.
Thus in the delightful mansions on the borders of Paradise do the souls of the just and righteous reside, awaiting there
the bodies they love, so that, at the opening of the Garden's gate,
both bodies and souls might proclaim, amidst Hosannas,
"Blessed is He who has brought Adam from Sheol and returned him to Paradise in the company of many."
Because Adam touched the Tree he had to run to the fig; he became like the fig tree, being clothed in its vesture:
Adam, like some tree, blossomed with leaves. Then he came to that glorious tree of the Cross, put on glory from it,
acquired radiance from it, heard from it the truth
that he would return to Eden once more.
This week we have been praying through the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, where we hear that Adam was expelled from Paradise for breaking just one commandment, while we constantly reject “Thy words of life.” How, then, can it be possible for us to enter that place?
One of St. Ephraim’s refrains states, “Blessed is He who was pierced and so removed the sword from the entry to Paradise.” The door is open. Christ’s arms are spread wide, waiting to embrace us.
“We must always remember that we are not condemned for the multitude of our evils, but because we do not want to repent and learn,” St. Mark the Ascetic teaches. “And those who have sinned must not despair. Let that never be.”
Amen.
