Paradise of Delights (Book of Prophet Ezekiel 28)

Homily 13, 2.11 (pages 162-3) in Origen: Homilies 1-14

on Ezekiel, ACW vol. 62, transl. by Thomas P. Sheck,

(2010, Newman Press).

You committed iniquity among the delights of the

paradise of your God (Ezek. 28:13 - 15).

He does not simply say "in paradise," but "in the

paradise of Delights."  My question is whether there

are different types of paradise and, though someone

may have been in the paradise of God, yet he may

not have been in the paradise of Delights; as for example,

the thief, when in the first hour he entered into

paradise with Jesus [Luke 23: 39, 43].  Suppose

I ask you: Do you think he entered into paradise

or not?  No doubt you would respond that he entered

it.  Then, if I again ask you: What then, when he

entered paradise, was he immediately excluded from

the paradise of Delights?  Perhaps you would say:

Since he entered in the first hour, he did not come

into the paradise of God's delights.  But if you now

see him taking from the TREE of LIFE [Revelation

2:7], and from all the trees that God has not forbidden,

so that you see him feeding from every tree of 

paradise and eating food from all that were not 

prohibited at the time, and I would ask you:

Do you think that he came not only into paradise

but even into the paradise of God's delights?  What

else would you respond but that he was in the

paradise of Delights? [LATIN beatitudo / final

goal of supreme perfection & bliss]

You who seem to lament are hastening to this

blessedness.  But he who is lamented was once in

the delights of God.