Chapter 18

¹ That the garden planted by God in Eden came to be as a type and image of the Church, it is most clearly possible for those who love learning to recognize.

² For from the earthly things one must mirror the heavenly, and from the typical recognize the spiritual, and from the temporal look forward to the eternal—as God also enjoined Moses to make the tabernacle “according to the type that had been shown to him on the mountain.”

³ And what were the things he had seen, if not images of heavenly glories and forms, in imitation of which he fashioned, after the manner of the flesh, a tabernacle of incorruptible wood, so that to those who are minded for the flesh the earthly things might be made manifest, but to the spiritual the heavenly things that are to come?

⁴ Eden, then, is said to mean a place of delight, that is, paradise; it was planted toward the east, adorned with beautiful trees and fruits of every kind, so that it is possible to understand that the assembly of the righteous is a holy place, in which the Church was planted.

⁵ For neither can a bare place be called a Church, nor a house built of stone and clay; nor can a man by himself be called a Church; for a house is demolished and a man dies.

⁶ What, then, is the Church? An assembly of saints living their life in truth.

⁷ The concord, therefore, and the common way of the saints toward one another—this becomes the Church, a spiritual house of God built upon Christ as though planted in the east, in which trees of various kinds and flourishing appear to those who enter: the generation of the fathers set apart from the beginning, and the works of the prophets, which were fulfilled after the law, the choir of the apostles who became wise through the Word, all the martyrs saved through the blood of Christ, the calling of virgins sanctified through water, the choir of teachers and the order of bishops, of priests and of Levites.

⁸ And adorned with all manner of variety, all these flourish in the Church, unable to be corrupted; and partaking of their fruits we rejoice, eating the spiritual and heavenly food that comes forth from them.

⁹ For the blessed patriarchs themselves ministered to us the oracles of God, like flourishing trees planted in paradise and ever bearing their fruit with them, so that we might know, even until now, the sweet Christ put forth from them, given to us as the fruit of life.

¹⁰ In this Eden a river of ever-flowing waters streams forth, and four rivers issuing from it water all the land of men, as is also shown in the Church; for Christ, being a river, through the fourfold saving Gospel guards all things and is present to all. And he irrigates and waters all who believe in him, as the prophet says: “Rivers shall flow from his belly.”

¹¹ So in paradise a tree of knowledge and a tree of life were shown, just as now in the Church the law and the Word are shown as two trees planted. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin, but through the Word are given life and the forgiveness of trespasses.

¹² For then too Adam, having disobeyed God and tasted of the tree of knowledge, was cast out of paradise, having been taken from the earth and dissolved again into the earth.

¹³ Likewise again, the one who has believed and has not kept the commandments is stripped of the Holy Spirit, becoming cast out of the Church, no longer receiving, but having become earth, must return to his old self.