We have compared the joys of this world with the joys of the kingdom of heaven; let us now briefly compare the joys of the earthly paradise with the joys of the heavenly paradise. How great the joys of the earthly paradise were can be known even from this: that it was, as it were, a garden of delights given to men, who had been created in the image and likeness of God, while the rest of the earth was given to brute animals. Hence also, when Adam by sinning lost the honor in which God had set him, and was made like to senseless beasts (Ps. 48), he was cast out of that place and sent away to this land. The earthly paradise is described by St. Alcimus Avitus in his poems on Genesis, and by others, as a most lovely and most temperate region, where the heat of summer did not scorch nor the cold of winter hurt; but perpetual spring gladdened it with flowers, and autumn overflowed with fruits of every kind. But let us hear his own words:
Here endless spring the clemency of heaven preserves; the murky South Wind is far away, and all is ever beneath an unclouded sky.
Nor does the nature of the place ask for the rains it does not have; but the young shoots, content, are nourished by its own dew.
Thus while winter is wanting and scorching summer does not burn, autumn with fruits and spring with flowers fill the year.
St. Basil, in his book on paradise, says: "There," he says, "God planted a paradise where there is no violence of winds, no unruliness of the seasons, no hail, no lightnings, no whirlwinds, no wintry freezing, no dampness of spring, no summer heat, no autumn drought; but a temperate and peaceable concord of the seasons with one another. For around that place the seasons dance — nay, they even run together in a throng with their gifts: the delights of spring, the sustenance of summer, the gladness of autumn, the rest of winter. Its waters are clear and transparent, affording much delight to the sight, yet showing still more usefulness than delight. God therefore first created that place itself, worthy to receive the plantings of God; then He planted in it trees of every kind in their beauty, and bestowed through them a most pleasing sight and a most delightful fruition." St. Augustine in the books of the City of God speaks thus of the earthly paradise (City of God, Book 14, ch. 40): "What could those men fear or grieve, amid such abundance of so many good things, where neither death was dreaded nor any ill health of body, where nothing was wanting that a good will could obtain, and nothing present that could offend the flesh or the spirit of man living happily? There was undisturbed love toward God, and between husband and wife a faithful and sincere fellowship of life, and from that love a great joy, since what was loved did not fail to be enjoyed. There was a tranquil avoidance of sin; and while this remained, no evil at all rushed in from any other quarter to sadden them." And further on: "How happy then were those first men, who were neither agitated by any disturbances of soul nor hurt by any discomforts of body! And how happy the whole human fellowship would have been, had neither those first parents committed the evil which they would pass on to posterity, nor anyone of their stock committed an iniquity that would incur condemnation." So says St. Augustine. I pass over what Claudius Marius Victor writes of the incredible loveliness and fruitfulness of the earthly paradise in the first book of his Poems on Genesis, St. John Damascene in On the Orthodox Faith, Book 2, ch. 11, St. Isidore in the Etymologies, Book 14, ch. 11, and Rupert of Deutz in his commentary on Genesis, Book 1, ch. 37.
But whatever be the case with these particulars, we gather from Scripture itself, beyond any doubt, that that place was more blessed than this dwelling of ours; for as a punishment for sin it is said to Adam: "Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee" (Gen. 3). And to the woman it is said: "I will multiply thy sorrows and thy conceptions; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee." In paradise therefore there would have been no barrenness of the earth, nor would men have had to toil in tilling it, nor would it have brought forth thorns and thistles; and women would never have conceived in vain, but every conception would have come to its birth, and a happy one; and though wives would have been subject to their husbands, it would not have been by a despotic rule, but a civil and moderate one. And so those men would have led a happy life without fear and pain, without toil and distress.
And if the earthly paradise had been free from every evil, and had abounded in many great goods: what must we think of the heavenly Paradise, which ought to be so much the happier as it is loftier, and so much the better as it was established for better inhabitants? The height of the heaven of the blessed is beyond all comparison loftier than the paradise of Adam: and the blessed men in heaven, who can neither sin nor die, are far, far better than the inhabitants of the earthly paradise, who could sin and die. It was fitting, therefore, that the heavenly paradise should not only be free from every evil, but should overflow with all good things, beyond all comparison more numerous and greater than those with which the earthly paradise overflowed. Since this is so, let us give thanks to God, because through the redemption of His Son, in place of the earthly paradise which the envy of the Devil snatched from us, we have obtained a far more blessed heavenly paradise: and both that we may not be ungrateful to so great a Liberator, and that we may not appear to be enemies to ourselves, let us strive with all our strength to find the entrance into the heavenly paradise, and to open it for ourselves by an undivided faith, a sincere hope, a perfect charity, and good works.