Paradise is a name of pleasure and delight: for it signifies a garden, or rather an orchard and pleasure-ground together, most lovely, and most apt to afford recreation and delight. In the book of Genesis (Gen. 2 and 3) it is more than once called the "paradise of pleasure", where the earthly paradise is spoken of. In Ezekiel, moreover, it is said of the heavenly paradise to the chief Angel, who afterwards fell and became the Devil: "Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God" (Ezek. 28:13). And since in holy Scripture we have nothing about paradise except that there were in it many trees and a fountain of living water, it has seemed good to me, on the occasion of this name, to explain the pleasures and joys which the blessed enjoy in heaven. And this contemplation will, unless I am mistaken, be useful for stirring up our minds to seek and ponder the things that are above, and thereby for so ordering our life that, when we must depart hence, we may with God's help pass not to sorrow and darkness, but to light and everlasting gladness. For men, with few exceptions, are wont to be drawn more by pleasure than by any other good; and the Church says in a certain prayer: "there may our hearts be fixed, where true joys are." And first we shall consider what the holy Scriptures teach us about the heavenly paradise, whence we may prove that there truly are joys in the heavenly paradise; then we shall try to explain what those joys are; lastly we shall demonstrate by various arguments, or rather comparisons, that those joys are far greater than we can grasp, or conceive, or even suspect.
First then, the very name "paradise" sounds of pleasure and delight, as we showed a little before from the book of Genesis. That there is a paradise in heaven, Ezekiel bears witness, who wrote of the first Angel: "Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise of God" (Ezek. 28:13). The Lord bears witness in the Gospel, when He said to the thief hanging with Him: "This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). For he took paradise to mean the kingdom of God and of essential beatitude; for the good thief had said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom," and the Lord, promising him a share in His kingdom, answered, "Today you shall be with Me in paradise." St. Paul bears witness in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, when he says, "I know a man in Christ, caught up even to the third heaven, and that he was caught up into paradise" (2 Cor. 12:2-4); St. John bears witness in the Apocalypse, where he introduces the Lord speaking, "To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of My God" (Rev. 2:7). From these passages it is evident that the region of the blessed is a place of delights and pleasure. Then, when the Lord says to the good and faithful servant, "Enter into the joy of your Lord" (Matt. 25:21), does He not most plainly declare that the house of God, or the city of God, into which good and faithful servants are admitted when they depart from this world, is a place of joy? And when the same Lord in many places compares the kingdom of God to a supper — as in Luke, when He says, "A certain man made a great supper" (Luke 14:16); and when He says elsewhere, "And I appoint to you, as My Father has appointed to Me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom" (Luke 22:29-30); and finally when it is said in the Apocalypse, "Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:9) — surely Scripture, through the metaphor of a supper, signifies delight and pleasure, unless one would deny that there is any pleasure in the sense of taste. Moreover, in the Gospels and in the Apocalypse the kingdom of God is compared to a royal wedding feast, as is known from the parable of the king who made a wedding feast for his son (Matt. 22:2), and from the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, of whom the wise went in with the bridegroom to the wedding feast, while the foolish remained outside (Matt. 25:10); and from the Apocalypse, where many things are said of the wedding feast of the Lamb celebrated in the kingdom of God with the greatest magnificence (Rev. 19). Furthermore, the beatitude of the blessed is compared to a royal wedding feast, because in such feasts every kind of pleasure is experienced and enjoyed; but of this we shall speak in the following book.
Finally, in the Apocalypse St. John saw choirs of virgins who followed the Lamb wherever He went, and who sang a new song which no one else could sing. St. Augustine explains this passage in his book On Holy Virginity (chap. 27) as referring to certain joys and holy pleasures which virgins alone will fully enjoy; his words are these: "You will bring to the wedding feast of the Lamb a new song, which you will sing upon your harps, that is, upon hearts dedicated to divine praises — a song such as none but you will be able to utter." And further on: "Where do we think this Lamb is going, where no one is able or dares to follow Him except you? Where do we think He is going? Into what pastures and meadows? Where, I believe, the very grasses are joys — not the vain joys of this world, deceitful with madness; nor such joys as even in the kingdom of God itself will belong to the others who are not virgins, but joys distinguished from the lot of all the rest." And further on: "The rest of the multitude of the faithful, who cannot follow the Lamb thus far, will see you; they will see you, and will not envy you; and rejoicing with you, what they do not have in themselves they will have in you. For that new song which is yours alone they will not be able to sing, but they will be able to hear it, and to delight in your so excellent good. But you, who will both sing it and hear it — for what you sing you will hear from yourselves — will exult more happily and reign more joyfully." (On Holy Virginity, chap. 30) From all this, then, it is clearly established that in the heavenly kingdom and city, or house, there are many true joys, and the truest and greatest pleasures.