earth; the souls of the dead, after all, deserve hell by having sinned out of love of
Book XII 503
Back to the question of the third heaven and Paradise once more
34, 65. But now, while we are looking for this scriptural text and either finding it or not, the length of this book is urging us to bring it at some time or other to a close. Now we set out at the beginning of it to talk about Paradise, because of what the apostle said, that he knew a man snatched up as far as the third heaven, but did not know whether it was in the body or out of the body, and that he was snatched up into Paradise, and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak.62 But we are not going rashly to assert either that Paradise is in the third heaven, or that he was snatched up first to the third heaven and then again from there into Paradise. Paradise,63 you see, is properly the name for a place of shady groves, but by a stretching of terms every spiritual region, as it were, where it is good for the soul to be, may also rightly be called Paradise.
So it is not only the third heaven, whatever that is, assuredly something great and superbly glorious, but also the joy of a good conscience in a person that is a paradise.64 Thus the Church too is rightly called a paradise for holy people living sober, just and godly lives, being endowed with an abundance of graces and chaste delights, seeing that she glories in tribulations, rejoicing exceedingly in her very patience, because God's consolations cheer her soul according to the multitude of sorrows in her heart.65 How much more therefore after this life can the bosom of Abraham also be called a paradise, where there are now no trials or temptations, where there is such perfect rest after all the pains and sorrows of this life! There is light too there, properly so called of its own kind, and assuredly of immense brilliance, considering that the rich man could still see it from the torments and darkness of hell, so far away, with the huge chasm in between, and could there recognize the poor man he had once held in such contempt.
66. All this being so, we can see why hell is said or believed to be under the earth; the souls of the dead, after all, deserve hell by having sinned out of love of the flesh, and it is customary for this flesh when it is dead to be buried under the earth. So souls are very suitably shown hell in spirit as being under the earth in an exhibition of such likenesses of bodies. Finally, hell is called the netherworld because it is underneath the world, inferi in Latin because it is infra, below. Now just as in the sphere of material bodies all the heavier things, if they keep to the natural order of their weight, are at the lower, inferior level, so in the sphere of spirit all the sadder things are at the lower, inferior level. Thus it is that in the Greek language the origin of their name for hell or the netherworld sounds, so we are told, as if it means "What has nothing pleasant or sweet about it."66
62. See 2 Cor 12:2-4. 63. 1t is just the Persian word for a park, after all. 64. See Sir 40:27. 65. See Rom 5:5; Ps 94:19. 66. A charming etymology for Hades: as if it came from a + hedys, "un-sweet."