judgment. All things were supposed to be produced spontaneously without either labour or sorrow, and the inhabitants of this extraordinary place seem to have enjoyed a sort of immortality and felicity analogous to a paradisaical state. It was also the seat of judgment on all great occasions; and here, moreover, was found the Phoenix, answering to the symbolic Tree of Life, which grew in the midst of the garden.

The names of the real paradisaic rivers may, in fact, be traced among many, and those the most distant nations. The name of the first was Phison, or Pison, which was a title conferred by the heathen, from tradition, upon the Indus; as that of pm Gihon, the name of the second river, was upon the Nile, "Horapoι The

σε ονομαστοι Ινδος ο και Φείσων, Νειλος ὁ και Γηων.*

"two most celebrated rivers are, the Indus, the

same as the Phison, and the Nile, which is "called the Gihon." The river, also, of Colchis, rendered Phasis and Phasin, is, properly, the Phison. It is, moreover, a most ancient

*Chron. Pasch. p. 34. Zonaras, p. 16. O Tɛwv o kvkλwv πασαν γην Αιθιοπιας, ον φασιν εν τη Αιγυπτω αναφαινεσθαι» Tov kaλovμɛvov Nɛtλov. Theoph. ad Autol. lib. ii. p. 101. The LXX. render the river mentioned in Jeremiah ii. 18. 7)' which is certainly the Nile, by the title of Tnwv, the Gihon,

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opinion, that the Ganges was called Phison,* or that it at least bore one of the names of the paradisaical rivers; perhaps that of Gihon contracted into Gan, and reduplicated Gangan, or Gangen, whence Ganges. It was famed of old for the gold and gems, such as "bdellium and the onyx stone," which the land it encompassed, or was thought to have encompassed, produced: and mysterious rites, manifestly relating to traditions of the early promise given in paradise of that great atonement which was to take away all sin, were, and are even to this day, celebrated on its borders. Gan may be either, as has been said before, the contraction of Gihon; or it may be a Gan, the Hebrew word used by Moses for the garden of Eden, whence the river flowed, which parted afterwards "into "four heads."

גן

*

Philostorgius has shewn that the Hydaspes was the ancient Phison; he, moreover, tells us that a particular tree which grew on the banks was esteemed the very tree of paradise, by the inhabitants of the country, which at all events

* Hieron. Epist. iv. ad Rust. c. i. August. de Gen. lib. viii. cap. 7.

Quæst. Hebr. in Genes. Ambros. de Parad. cap.

3. Epiphan. Ancor. cap. 58. Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib. i. cap. 2.

Arrian. Exped. Alexand. lib. v. + Philostorg. lib. iii. cap. 10.

Huet. de situ Parad. p. 28.

demonstrates the existence of paradisaical traditions among them. The river Oxus, falling into the Caspian Sea, had also the appellation of the Phison, aecording to one author; though several have called it the Gihon; which last title was also conferred upon the Araxes.

Several other streams of great note were in like manner called after the rivers of paradise. The famous Pyramus,* in Cilicia, was honoured of old with the title of the Gihon, as was also one of the branches of the Tigris or Euphrates, though it appears uncertain, which. There was a river in Palestine, near Jerusalem, the old Canaanitish name of which was Gihon, the same to which King David commanded his son Solomon to be brought by Zadok, Nathan, and Benaiah. The paraphrase of Jonathan substitutes the title m Siloah for that of Gihon, its more ancient appellation; and these waters supplied the pool to which the blind man in the gospel was directed by our Lord, and "which "is, by interpretation, Sent." Both its names appear to have been derived from a paradisaical

* It was also said to wash the walls of a city called Adana, from Eden. Huet. p. 46.

+1 Kings i. 33. and 38. See also 2 Chron. xxxii. 30. xxxiii. 14.

‡ John ix. 7.

source: the former being imposed by the heathen inhabitants of the country, from the traditions which they possessed concerning the river of Eden, while the latter was probably given it by the Jews, who possessed the oracles of God, and by a more sure revelation, knew that Shiloh, or Siloe (for the characters are nearly the same in the original) was to be the Messiah sent in the fulness of time, according to the first promise so graciously given by Jehovah in paradise.

The other two rivers mentioned by Moses, are the Spin Hiddekel and the л Perath, which the Septuagint and many other versions render the Tigris and Euphrates. The last of these, like the Ganges, Nile, and Hyphasis, was thought to possess the virtue of cleansing those from guilt, who bathed in its waters after performing certain mysterious rites; and of healing all their diseases. Doubtless in all this, there are plain vestiges discoverable of the real terrestrial paradise, the Tree of Life, and the promise given of the future Healer of all distress and

sorrow.

Another extraordinary tradition relative to these rivers is worthy of notice. They were deemed to have their source in heaven itself,

K

and Plautus* declares that the Nile flowed from under the very throne of Jove. This opinion seems to have arisen, from the circumstance of paradise being considered as the residence of the gods, and the abode of the happy. Indeed Olympus is only a variation of Omphalos, being composed of the same radical elements slightly transposed. This blissful mountain, in fact, was but another memorial of Eden: its climate is represented by the

The following extract from one of the acts of his Trinummus is rather curious. The speakers are, Charmides an old man, and the Sycophanta, who is asked by the former, "Quo inde istis porro? Syc. Si animum advortas, eloquar.-Ad caput amnis quod de cælo exoritur sub solio Jovis! Char. Sub solio Jovis ? Syc. Ita dico. Char. E. cælo? Syc. Atque e medio quidem!" Plaut. Trin. Act iv. sec. 2. p. 674, Ed. Elz. 1652. Homer gives the epithet Alterns to several rivers, but especially to the Nile. Odyss. iv. 581.

i

The same may be said of Ida, and some other sacred mountains. Also from a paradisaical tradition was derived that story of the deities going for a visit every year μɛr' aμvpovas Aidionñas "to the sinless inhabitants of Ethiopia." Homer says, that the land where they dwelt was επ Kɛavov, which was certainly the Nile, and the most ancient title of it. Oceanus was of old written ynros, which was a contraction of Ogehonus, or "the noble Gehon." Salmas. upon Solin. cap. 35. Clemens. Alex. Strom. lib. vi. p. 741. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 12. Hom. Iliad. 1. ver. 422. See also BryAnd Theoph. ad Antol. ut supra.

ant, vol. 1. p. 296.