next, whether he meant us to understand Paradise as being there, or whether after
Book X11
On the Heavenly Paradise: different kinds of vision
On Paul being snatched up to the third heaven, and to Paradise
1,1. From the starting point of holy scripture, which is entitled Genesis, until the first man was sent away from Paradise, l have discussed the text and written down as best l could in eleven books what seemed certain to me, and have affirmed and defended it; and about its many uncertainties I have inquired, hesi tated, balanced different opinions, not to prescribe to anyone what they should think about obscure points, but rather to show how we have to be willing to be instructed wherever we have been in doubt about the meaning, and to discourage the reader from the making of rash assertions where we have been unable to establish solid grounds for a definite decision.1
In this twelfth book, however, no longer engaged in the business of inter preting the sacred text which has claimed our attention hitherto, we will be freer to tackle in more detail the question of Paradise, because we do not wish to give the impression that we have shirked the problem raised by the apostle's appar ently locating Paradise in the third heaven. He does this where he says: l know a man in Christfourteen years ago, whether in the body ldo not know, orout of the body ldo not know, Godknows, such a one snatchedup to the third heaven. And l know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body l do not know, God knows, that he was snatched up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not permissiblefor a man to speak (2 Cor 12:2-4).
2. The first question usually asked here is: what is it he calls the third heaven; next, whether he meant us to understand Paradise as being there, or whether after being snatched up to the third heaven he was also snatched up to Paradise, wher ever Paradise might be; so being snatched up to the third heaven and into Para dise would not be the same thing, but first into the third heaven, and later on from
1 . Reading sententiae with the Mauri Ms and one manuscript instead of scientiae with CSEL and the other manuscripts. My translation really covers either reading; the second, more literally, would be rendered "any solid basis of knowledge."
Book XII 465 there into Paradise. His words are in fact so ambiguous that it does not seem to me the question can be solved, unless somebody finds something, not in this passage from the apostle, but possibly in other passages of scripture or else in a convincing rational argument, which would show us that Paradise either is or is not in the third heaven. lt is not, in any case, entirely clear what the third heaven is, whether it is to be understood as existing in the material or the spiritual sphere.
It could indeed be said that a person could only be snatched with the body into some bodily place. But as he stated the matter in such a way as to say that he did not know whether he was snatched up in the body or out of the body, would any have the nerve to say that they in fact know what the apostle says he did not know? However, if spirit cannot be snatched up to bodily places without body, and body cannot be snatched up to spiritual places at all, this very hesitation of his practically compels us to conclude that it is impossible to discern whether what he was snatched up to was something bodily or spiritual. No one, of course has the slightest doubt that he said this about himself.
On various ways ofdreaming and different kinds ofecstasy
2, 3. You see, when bodily images are exhibited in dreams or in ecstasy, they are not distinguished at all from real bodies, except when we return to conscious ness and realize that we were in a world of images which we had not imbibed through the senses of the body. Do any of us, after all, on waking up from sleep, fail immediately to realize that the things we were seeing were simply imagi nary, though when we were seeing them while asleep we were unable to distin guish them from bodily sights seen by us when awake?
Though as a matter of fact there is something which I know has happened to me, and which consequently I have no doubt can also have happened or still happen to others; that is that when I have been seeing things in a dream I have been aware that I was seeing them in a dream, and even while still asleep have been aware and absolutely sure that those images, which have habitually gained my consent by false pretenses, were not real bodies but were being put before me in a dream.
However, I was once duped and tied up in knots in this kind of dream; I was trying hard to persuade a friend of mine, whom I was also seeing in the dream, that the things we were seeing were not bodies but the fantasies of dreamers, while he of course was also appearing to me in the same way as they were. But still l was also telling him that it was not really true that we were talking together, but that he too was also seeing something quite different in his sleep and was totally unaware that I in my sleep was seeing these things. Yet while I was exerting myself to persuade this very same man that he was not really there, l was also being driven to suppose that he really was, because naturally l would not be talking to him if l were absolutely sure without a shadow of doubt that he