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The Syrian Church Father Ephrem pictures the mountain of paradise with terraced levels, which he relates to different states of life in the Church. This idea certainly does not stem from the paradise described by the Yahwist writer in Genesis 2:3. A majority of interpreters see the rivers there as secondary, and have supposed Eden to be a level place on, or at least like, the Mesopotamian plain, which may even have provided the name (Sumerian edin ‘open country’). The Mesopotamian paradise Dilmun is shown to refer to the island Bahrain, and in the literary sources it is not a mountain. El’s abode in Ugaritic mythology was ‘at the source of the rivers’ and in Mesopotamia the ‘mouth of the rivers’ was the dwelling-place of the flood hero Utnapištim, and the Sumerian flood-hero Ziusudra was settled in ‘a foreign land, the land of Dilmun in the East’.
The Old Testament source of the mountainous paradise might be found in Ezekiel’s taunting lament for the prince of Tyre (28:12-18): ‘You were in Eden, the garden of God; … you were on the holy mountain of God’. No trees are mentioned, only gems; and a guardian cherub is said to have expelled the figure with whom the prince is symbolically identified.
Not until the intertestamental literature is there an explicit picture of paradise as a mountain. The theme is elaborated in 1 Enoch (ca. 160 BCE), where Enoch being at the ‘ends of the earth’, apparently in the north-west, ‘saw a place which burns day and night, where there are seven mountains of magnificent stones, three towards the east, and three towards the south’ (18.6). These are later described in detail, with the seventh mountain, tallest of all and resembling the seat of a throne, encircled by fragrant trees, among them the Tree of Life.
In Ephrem’s account, Adam ‘descends’ after the Fall from the mountain of paradise to live just outside its fence, on the foothills, where the Sethites continued to live, as is also reflected in the midrashic tradition. In the Syriac Book of the Cave of Treasures the paradise is situated on a high range of hills, and it surrounded the whole earth. Ephrem’s paradise is likewise ‘a ring, and the sea and dry land are enclosed within it’ (HParad. 1.8). The sea mentioned is rather the abyss enclosed by the cosmic mountain, which ‘girds the loins of the world, confines the mighty sea, is neighbour to those on high’ (ibid. 2.6).
One can find here echoes of the ancient mythology of the world-mountain which was symbolized by the Mesopotamian ziqqurratu and, at least in some respects, by the temple of Solomon and more clearly by Ezekiel’s plan for the altar in his ideal temple (Ezekiel 43:15-16). Then it is also possible that Ephrem’s terraces, symbolizing degrees in the Church, are remotely influenced by the steps of the ziggurats. Ezekiel’s altar was to rise in steps to the ariel or har’el, which term probably derives from Akkadian arallû, the netherworld from which the world-mountain rose. Ephrem does not know of this link, and in his midrashic method it is the three decks of the ark and the ranks of the people at Mount Sinai which provide his types.
Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Book of the Cave of Treasures
1 Enoch 18.6
Ephrem Syrus, Hymns on Paradise 1.8
Ephrem Syrus, Hymns on Paradise 2.6
Ezekiel 28:12-18
Ezekiel 43:15-16
Genesis 2:3
Bibliography
| Murray 1975, 306-309 | Murray, Robert. Symbols of Church and Kingdom. A Study in Early Syriac Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975. |
Amar Annus
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