Originally an enclosed park, or pleasure-ground. Xenophon uses it of the parks of the Persian kings and nobles. “There (at Celaenae) Cyrus had a palace and a great park (παράδεισος), full of wild animals, which he hunted on horseback....Through the midst of the park flows the river Maeander (“Anabasis,” i., 2, 7). And again' “The Greeks encamped near a great and beautiful park, thickly grown with all kinds of trees” (ii., 4, 14.) In the Septuagint, Genesis 2:8, of the garden of Eden. In the Jewish theology, the department of Hades where the blessed souls await the resurrection; and therefore equivalent to Abraham's bosom (Luk 16:22, Luk 16:23). It occurs three times in the New Testament: here; 2Co 12:4; Rev 2:7; and always of the abode of the blessed.