There is no word whose meaning is more remote from its etymology. It is well known that it originally meant a place planted with fruit trees; and afterwards, the name was given to gardens planted with trees for shade. Such, in distant antiquity, were those of Saana, near Eden, in Arabia Felix, known long before the hordes of the Hebrews had invaded a part of the territory of Palestine.

This word “paradise” is not celebrated among the Jews, except in the Book of Genesis. Some Jewish canonical writers speak of gardens; but not one of them has mentioned a word about the garden denominated the “earthly paradise.” How could it happen that no Jewish writer, no Jewish prophet, or Jewish psalmodist, should have once cited that terrestrial paradise which we are talking of every day of our lives? This is almost incomprehensible. It has induced many daring critics to believe that Genesis was not written till a very late period.

The Jews never took this orchard or plantation of trees — this garden, whether of plants or flowers — for heaven. St. Luke is the first who uses the word “paradise,” as signifying heaven, when Jesus Christ says to the good thief: “This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.”

The ancients gave the name of “heaven” to the clouds. That name would not have been exactly appropriate, as the clouds actually touch the earth by the vapors of which they are formed, and as heaven is a vague word signifying an immense space in which exist innumerable suns, planets, and comets, which has certainly but little resemblance to an orchard.

St. Thomas says that there are three paradises — the terrestrial, the celestial, and the spiritual. I do not, I acknowledge, perfectly understand the difference between the spiritual an............