Now when God was about to fashion man out of the visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign as king and ruler over all the earth and all that it contains, He first made for him, so to speak, a kingdom in which he should live a life of happiness and prosperity Greg. Nyss., De opif. Hom., ch. 2.. And this is the divine paradise See the treatise of Anastas. II. Antiochen., on the Hexaëmeron, bk. vii., planted in Eden by the hands of God, a very storehouse of joy and gladness of heart (for “Eden” ᾽Εδεμ, Edem, in the text. Basil, Hom. de Parad. means luxuriousness See 2 Kings xix. 12; Isai. xxxvii. 12; Ezek. xxvii. 23.). Its site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate and the air that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen plants are its pride, sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with light, and in sensuous freshness and beauty it transcends imagination: in truth the place is divine, a meet home for him who was created in God’s image: no creature lacking reason made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God’s own hands.