Paulo Reis /// WHAT TIME IS IN THE PARADISE?

According to Biblical narrations, Paradise – known as the Garden of Eden, was a terrestrial site situated in some remote ancestral locus. In this atemporal location, Man, made in the image of his creator, lived in communion with nature, sheltered from all manner of evil and affliction, since immortal. With original sin Man becomes mortal and with his act shifts the earthly paradise into the realm of metaphysics, descending it into an immaterial and remote locale, where He would only be sanctioned to enter if expiated by the Creator of his sins. Paradise, with the fault of Adam and Eve, would be converted into a mythical place, reachable only to the good, transmuting itself into a metaphor for the possibility of righteousness and beauty. Paradise occupies a privileged position in all belief-systems and religions. However, this does not take place only in religion but also in the arts and philosophy, for the most distinguished authors have made use of the image of Paradise in their works; ever since Dante Alighieri – in literature, Hieronymus Bosch, in painting – Thomas Hobbes, in philosophy – Machiavelli, in politics, among many others, it has been utilized as a moral tale.