(8) And he knew that the Garden of Eden is the holy of holies, and the dwelling of the Lord, and Mount Sinai the centre of the desert, and Mount Zion — the centre of the navel of the earth : these three were created as holy places facing each other.

(25) Reason (which is gone forth with Adam out of Paradise) asks, Where is Paradise to be had [or found?] Is it far off, or near? Or when the Souls go into Paradise, whither do they go? Is it in this World, or without the Place of this World above the Stars? Where is it that God dwells with the Angels? And where is that desirable native Country where there is no Death? Seeing there is no Sun nor Stars in it, therefore it cannot be in this World, or else it would have been found long ago.

[God planted] a garden, and humans [lived in the] garden. There are some [who dwell] with…God…. This garden [is where] it will be said to me, “…[eat] this and do not eat that, [as you] wish.” This is where I shall eat everything, where the tree of knowledge is. That tree killed Adam, but here the tree of knowledge has brought people back to life. That tree was the law. It can give knowledge of good and evil, but it neither freed Adam from evil nor made him good, and it brought death to those who ate of it. For when it was said, “Eat this and do not eat that,” death began.

(25) And he said unto me: 'Enoch, why dost thou ask me regarding the fragrance of the tree, and ⌈why⌉ dost thou wish to learn the truth?' Then I answered him ⌈⌈saying⌉⌉: 'I wish to know about everything, but especially about this tree.' And he answered saying: 'This high mountain ⌈⌈which thou hast seen⌉⌉, whose summit is like the throne of God, is His throne, where the Holy Great One, the Lord of Glory, the Eternal King, will sit, when He shall come down to visit the earth with goodness.

(2) A pupil asked his Master: 'Why was Adam obliged to leave paradise?' The Master replied: 'When Adam, the noblest of creatures, entered paradise he heard a resounding voice from the invisible world: "O you who are attached to the earthly paradise by a hundred bonds, know that whoever in the two worlds is identified with that which comes between him and me, I deprive of all that exists visibly, so that he may become attached only to me, his true friend." To a lover, a hundred thousand lives are nothing without the beloved. He who has lived for something other than Him, were it Adam himself, has been driven out. The dwellers in Paradise know that the first thing they must give up is their heart.'

(27) Then said I: 'For what object is this blessed land, which is entirely filled with trees, and this accursed valley ⌈⌈between⌉⌉?'

(3) O beloved Man, that is not Paradise, neither does Moses say so; but that was the Garden of Eden, where they were tempted; the Explanation whereof you may find about the Fall of Adam. The Paradise is the divine Joy; and that was in their Mind, when they were [standing] in the Love of God. But when Disobedience entered, they were driven out, and saw that they were naked; for at that Instant the Spirit of the World caught them, in which there was mere Anguish, Necessity, Trouble and Misery, and in the End Corruptibility and Death. Therefore it was of Necessity that the eternal World did become Flesh, and bring them into the paradisical Rest again; whereof you shall find [the Explanation] in its due Place, about the Fall of Adam.

(6) When God had created the Beasts, he brought them to Adam, that he should give them their Names, every one according to their Essence and Kind, as they [the beasts] were qualified, [or according to the Quality and Condition they were of.] Now Adam was in the Garden of Eden in Hebron, and also in Paradise at once, yet no Beast can come into Paradise; for it is the divine [or transitory] Life; much less is there the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet Moses writes of it, that in the Garden of Eden there was the Tree of Temptation, which bore the Knowledge of Good and Evil; which indeed was no other Tree, than like the Trees we now eat of, in the Corruptibility; neither was it any other Garden, than such as we now have, wherein earthly Fruits (Good and Evil) grow; as is before our Eyes,

(3) And he tilled (the garden), and was naked and knew it not, and was not ashamed, and he protected the garden from the birds and beasts and cattle, and gathered tables are conceived of as the divine statute book of which the Mosaic Law is the earthly reproduction; but they also contain records of events and predictions. The underlying idea is predestinanan. 1 According to Bet. rabba xviii., Sank. 386, Adam was only six hours in the Garden ; cf. Ptrke de R. Eliezer xviii. (Adam entered the garden at the seventh hour and was driven forth at 'twilight, i. e. the twelfth hour on Friday the eve of the Sabbath). its fruit, and ate, and put aside the residue for him- self and for his wife [and put aside that which was bein£ kept].

(50) What is Paradise? All things that are; for all are goodly and pleasant, and therefore may fitly be called a Paradise. It is said also, that Paradise is an outer court of Heaven. Even so this world is verily an outer court of the Eternal, or of Eternity, and specially whatever in Time, or any temporal things or creatures, manifesteth or remindeth us of God or Eternity; for the creatures are a guide and a path unto God and Eternity. Thus this world is an outer court of Eternity, and therefore it may well be called a Paradise, for it is such in truth. And in this Paradise, all things are lawful, save one tree and the fruits thereof. That is to say: of all things that are, nothing is forbidden and nothing is contrary to God but one thing only: that is, Self-will, or to will otherwise than as the Eternal Will would have it. Remember this. For God saith to Adam, that is, to every man, “Whatever thou art, or doest, or leavest undone, or whatever cometh to pass, is all lawful and not forbidden if it be not done from or according to thy will, but for the sake of and according to My will. But all that is done from thine own Will is contrary to the Eternal Will.” It is not that every work which is thus wrought is in itself contrary to the Eternal Will, but in so far as it is wrought from a different will, or otherwise than from the Eternal and Divine Will.

(22) And when God had created Man, then he planted a Garden in Eden towards the East, and placed him therein, and caused to spring up and grow all Manner of Fruit, delightful to behold, and all Sorts of Trees good to eat of; and the Tree of Life in the Midst of the Garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And when God had placed Man in the Garden, he commanded him, and said; You shall eat of every Tree in the Garden, but of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil thou shalt not eat; for in the Day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the Death. Here the Vail lies upon Moses, and they must be sharp [or piercing] Eyes that can behold the Face of Moses. God has not without Cause let Moses write this so very mystically, [hiddenly and obscurely.]

(23) The followers of Mohammed apparently sensed more accurately than the uninitiated of other sects the true mystic import of Paradise, for they realized that prior to his fall the dwelling place of man was not in a physical garden in any particular part of the earth but rather in a higher sphere (the angelic world) watered by four mystical streams of life. After his banishment from Paradise, Adam alighted on the Island of Ceylon, and this spot is sacred to certain Hindu sects who recognize the old Island of Lanka--once presumably connected with the mainland by a bridge--as the actual site of the Garden of Eden from which the human race migrated. According to the Arabian Nights (Sir Richard Burton's translation), Adam's footprint may still be seen on the top of a Ceylonese mountain. In the Islamic legends, Adam was later reunited with his wife and after his death his body was brought to Jerusalem subsequent to the Flood for burial by Melchizedek. (See the Koran.)

(26) And Isaac answered and said unto him : " Behold, far from the dew of the earth shall be thy dwelling, And far from the dew of heaven from above.

(4) For the Lord hath four places^ on the earth, the Garden of Eden, and the Mount of the East. and this mountain on which thou arFthis day, Mount Sinai, and Munt Zion (which) will be -sanctified in the new creation for a sanctifica- tion of the earth ; through it will the earth be sanctified from all (its) guilt and its uncleanness throughout the generations of the world.

(19) Now Man was to dwell upon the Earth as long as it was to stand, and manage [rule and order] the Beasts, and have his Illustrious or shining, Delight and Recreation therein: But he ought not to have eaten any earthly Fruit, wherein the Corruptibility [or Transitoriness] did stick. It is true he should have eaten, but only with the Mouth, and not into the Body; for he had no [Entrails, Stomach, or] Guts, nor any such hard dark Flesh, it was all perfect; for there grew paradisical Fruit for him, which afterwards went away, when he went out of Paradise: And then God cursed the Earth, and the heavenly Limbus was drawn from him, together with that Fruit, and he lost Paradise, God, and the Kingdom of Heaven. For before Sin, when Paradise was upon the Earth, the Earth was not bad [or evil, as now it is.]

(6) But that God said, Thou shalt turn to Earth from whence thou wast taken, that is also very true; but the Understanding is [hidden] in the Word, and the earthly Vail hangs before it, we must look under the Vail. For Adam was taken out of the Earth, not out of the four Productions of the Elements, [but he was] an Extract out of the Element, which qualified [or mingled] with the Earth. But when he fell into the four Elements, then he became Earth, as also Fire, Air, and Water. And now what should the bestial Man do [with] the heavenly paradisical Fruit? He could not a eat of it; and therefore God does not cast his heavenly Kingdom to Beasts and Swine, but it belongs to Angels.

(39) In this ritualistic drama--possibly derived from the Egyptians--Adam, banished from the Garden of Eden, represents man philosophically exiled from the sphere of Truth. Through ignorance man falls; through wisdom he redeems himself. The Garden of Eden represents the House of the Mysteries (see The Vision of Enoch) in the midst of which grew both the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

(24) Thus it is shown us in the Light of Nature, that when Adam was thus impregnated [or possessed] from the Spirit of this World, then God built [or made] a Garden in Eden upon Earth, in the Paradise, and caused to grow up all Sorts of paradisical Fruit, pleasant to behold, and good to eat, and the Tree of Temptation in the Midst [of the Garden of Eden,] which had its Essences from the Spirit of this World; and the other [Trees and Fruits] had paradisical Essences.

(32) Then Raphael the holy angel, who was with me, answered me ⌈⌈and said⌉⌉: 'This is the tree of wisdom, of which thy father old (in years) and thy aged mother, who were before thee, have eaten, and they learnt wisdom and their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked and they were driven out of the garden.'

(3) For after the Fall God said also to Adam and Eve; Earth thou art, and to Earth thou shalt return again: And if I had not considered the nLimbus, (out of which the Earth was,) I should have been so blind still: That [Limbus] showed me the Ground of what Adam was before and after the Fall.