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Thus Arjuna was shewn over the heavens, and there saw Indra's palace, its
garden with rivers and fruits, and a tree of which if one eats, he never dies,
but lives in delight and enjoys all his heart desires.1
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Many such tales are to be found not only in Zoroastrian books, but also in
works of heretical Christian sects, such as "The Testament of Abraham"
already noticed. The Apostle is there said to have ascended, at the bidding of
one of the Cherubim, to the heavens, and there to have seen all the sights
around him. Of Abraham also we have the following account:
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The Archangel Michael having descended to the earth, took Abraham in a
Cherub's car, raised him aloft on the cloud, with sixty angels; and from the
same car shewed him the whole world beneath.
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This is no doubt the origin of the Burāc (ethereal horse) tradition;
something like which is to be found in the book of Enoch, where also is notice
of the heavenly tree, and the four rivers of Paradise. The Jews hold that the
Tree of Life in Eden is so high as to take five hundred years to reach its top,2
and tell us numberless other stories of a similar kind.
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The Muslims believe that the Garden of Eden was in the heavens above, an idea
taken from many of these fictitious writings, specially that called "Visio
Pauli." Perhaps also such stories may have been derived from Zoroastrian or
Hindu sources, or these from them; at any rate they are altogether imaginary. If
it be asked whether there is any foundation for
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such tales, the answer must be that there is none whatever, They may have
arisen from ignorant and imaginative people seeking to amplify what we find in
the Bible of the ascent of Enoch and Elias, and also of our Saviour Christ, and
also what Paul saw in his sleep, or Peter in his vision at Caesarea. But anyone
reading these in our Scriptures will see that to compare them with the wild and
fanciful tales of the East would be as sensible as to compare heaven with earth,
or the fabulous Shahnameh with the history of the great Nadir. The origin of the
Jewish and Christian fancy about the heavenly tree, the four rivers, etc., has
evidently been the passage in Genesis about the Garden of Eden,1 which the wild
imagination of these people pictured as if in Heaven, not knowing that the spot
lay near to Babylon and Baghdad; and thus they changed the truth of God into a
lie, and the divine history into childish, foolish fancies of their own.
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II. What the Qur'an and Tradition tell us regarding Paradise, with its Houries
and youths, the King of Death, etc. As our Muslim friends know well about all
such matters, it is unnecessary to go into any detail about them here. Their
origin is to be found altogether in Zoroastrian Sources. Not a syllable is
mentioned about them in the Bible, which tells us simply of the rest and peace
provided for the true believer on the breast of Abraham, and the blessed place
named Paradise in heaven; but not a word have we in the pages of any Jewish
Prophet, or New Testament writer, of Houries or Youths of pleasure there. The
books of the Zoroastrians
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