2 Corinthians 12:4

how that he was caught up into paradise Was this a second vision, or only an extension of the first? St Paul's language makes the latter more probable. Early tradition is not very clear upon the subject, but the general opinion seems to have been that St Paul was not only caught up to the highest heaven, and there saw visions of God like those of Isaiah and St John, but that he was transported among the saints departed to that particular region of heaven called Paradise, and was permitted to hear the words there uttered. The word Paradise is probably an Aryan word, and is found in Sanscrit and Persian as well as in Greek. But it is also found in Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac. It signifies originally a park or pleasure-ground. It is used apparently in this sense in Revelation 2:7. But in St Luke 23:43 it clearly means the place (or rather state, since it is difficult to predicate placeof a disembodied spirit) of rest and refreshment to which the Lord conducted the soul of the penitent thief as well as (1Pe 3:19; 1 Peter 4:6, cf. Iren. Adv. Haer. iv. 27) the souls of those who were waiting in the unseen world for the revelation of Him. So says Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 2 Corinthians 12:5), who, quoting as he often does the words of the Elders who had seen the Apostles, with whom he had often conversed, describes Paradise as a state of things "prepared for righteous men and men led by the Spirit, who remain there until the consummation, as a preparation for immortality." Some have thought that Paradise is a yet more exalted place than the third heaven. But if we are right in regarding the third as the highest heaven, it is scarcely possible to see in Paradise something higher still. For visions of this kind cf. Isaiah 6:1; Ezekiel 3:14; Ezekiel 3:22; Ezekiel 3:24; Ezekiel 8:1; Ezekiel 11:1; Ezekiel 11:24; Ezekiel 37:1; Ezekiel 40:1-3; Ezekiel 43:5; Revelation 1:10, and in a lesser degree Acts 8:39.

unspeakable words Literally, unspoken words, which may in this case have been the fact, since if St Paul were out of the body, as he himself tells us he may have been, the words could not have been spokenin our sense of the word. But the epithet usually has the sense which the context attaches to it here, words not to be uttered. Calvin asks to what purpose then were they uttered to St Paul, and replies that he needed such spiritual consolation to sustain him in the heavy load of afflictions and cares which was laid upon him. We may also hence learn, he continues, that there are depths in the counsels of God which we must not hope or even wish to penetrate while here on earth. Dean Stanley contrasts the reticence of St Paul with the full details of his supposed visions given by Mahomet, and he might have added many others who have given detailed accounts of things seen in their ecstasies.