2 Corinthians 12:2

οἶδα ἄνθρ. ἐν Χρ. κ. τ. λ.: I know (not “I knew” as the A.V. has it) a man in Christ, i.e., a Christian (see reff.), fourteen years ago (for the constr. πρὸ ἐτ. δεκ. cf. John 12:1) whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not (the words distinctly indicate St. Paul's belief that perception is possible for a disembodied spirit); God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven. Cf. Ezekiel 8:3. “The Spirit lifted me between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem.” The date of this trance must have been about 41 or 42 A.D., years of which we have no details so far as St. Paul's life is concerned; probably he was then at Tarsus (Acts 9:30; Acts 11:25; cf. the reference to St. Paul in the dialogue Philopatris, § 12; ἐς τρίτον οὐρανὸν ἀεροβατήσας). The mention of “the third leaven” raises interesting questions as to Jewish beliefs. There is no doubt that a plurality of “heavens” is recognised all through the O.T. (see, e.g., Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalms 68:33; Psalms 148:4); but it has been matter of dispute whether the Rabbinical schools recognised seven heavens or only three. However it is now fairly well established that, in common with other ancient peoples (e.g., the Parsees, and probably the Babylonians), the Jews recognised seven heavens. This view not only appears in the pseudepigraphical literature, but in some of the Fathers, e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Its most detailed exposition is found in the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, a Jewish apocalypse written in Greek in the first century of our era (now only extant in a Sclavonic version). In chap. viii. of this work we find that Paradise is explicitly located in the “third heaven,” which is the view recognised here by St. Paul (see Charles' Sclavonic Enoch, pp. xxxi: ff.).