From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordParadise names the original blessed habitation and, by extension, a present manner of inhabiting the world in knowledge, charity, and enjoyment.
- In TraherneTraherne does not leave paradise entirely behind the fall or beyond death.
- In this editionParadise shifts between the scriptural original and a present mode of life.
- A place to beginReciprocal love makes the world a paradise and the gate of heaven.
Meaning
Paradise names the original blessed habitation and, by extension, a present manner of inhabiting the world in knowledge, charity, and enjoyment.
Use in the book
Traherne does not leave paradise entirely behind the fall or beyond death. The world remains capable of being recognized as God’s paradise, although human blindness and conflict make it function as a prison. Its recovery concerns perception and relationship as well as place.
IV.22 gives this claim an exact social test. To enjoy paradise one must put on its charity. The house becomes a house of Paradise when strangers are welcomed and its goods treated as theirs as well as the host’s. Sharing knowledge and grace belongs to the hospitality. The image therefore corrects a merely private reading of Edenic enjoyment: a world seen as one’s inheritance must become a world offered to others.
Places to read
In this edition
Paradise shifts between the scriptural original and a present mode of life. In IV.22 the household application is practical, not only figurative scenery.