(παράδεισος), the term which, by long and extensive use, has been employed to designate the garden of Eden, the first dwelling-place of human beings. Of this word the earliest instance that we have is in the writings of Xenophon, nearly 400 years B.C., and his use of it answers very closely to our English word park, with the addition of gardens, a managerie, and an aviary. The real origin of the word, however, is to be sought neither in the Greek nor the Hebrew, but in the languages of Eastern Asia. "Paradise," says Fürst, is "a name common to several oriental languages, and especially current among the Persians, as we learn from Xenophon and Julius Pollux; Sanscrit, pardeesha; Armenian, pardes; Arabic, firdaus; Syriac, fardaiso; Chaldee of the Targums, pardesha." (Concord. V. T., p. 920, Leipzig, 1840.)

(For an outline of the various geographical theories which have been advanced respecting the vexed and indeterminable question of the situation of Paradise, see Appendix to Rosenmüller's Biblical Geography of Central Asia, by Rev. R. Morren, 1836.)

The term soon began to be used metaphorically for the abstract idea of exquisite delight, and was transferred still higher to denote the happiness of the righteous in a future state. (See Eden.)