[De contemptu mundi]

tholomew the Englishman, in the book De naturis rerum On the Natures of Things in the chapter concerning paradise, at the beginning of the same chapter, leans upon the words of Isidore. But he also later imitates other authors. First, the Master in Historia scholastica Scholastic History, chapter 2, upon Genesis, who says thus: God planted from the beginning of creation, that is, he prepared a place of delights with herbs and trees, and this at the beginning of the world, namely, in the east. And that place is most pleasant, separated from our habitable land by a long tract of land and sea, so elevated, that is, high, that it reaches as far as the lunar sphere, where also, because of the height of the site, the waters of the flood did not reach, as the same says. Concerning paradise, however, John Damascene says: Because God was about to create man from visible and invisible creation according to his own proper image and likeness, just like a certain king and prince of all the earth and of all things that are in it, he constructed beforehand a certain region in which, once placed, he might lead a blessed life. And this divine place is paradise, planted by the hands of God in Eden, that is, in delights and pleasure. In the east, indeed, higher than all the earth, shining around with a deeply temperate and most thin air, adorned with plants always flowering, and full of good odor, with light