Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/674

652 general position is given as " eastward," i.e., to the east of the place where tlie narrative was written. Of the four rivers mentioned the Euphrates is undoubtedly the same which is still known by that name, and the Hiddekel has been almost universally identified with the Tigris. The object of commentators who have sought to put a literal construction on the passage has, therefore, been to identify the Pison and the Gihon, by finding two rivers which together with the Euphrates and the Tigris fulfil the condition stated in Gen. ii. 10, " And a river went out of Eden to water the garden ; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads." As there is no river which forms a common source for the Euphrates, the Tigris, and two others, recourse has beeri had to a strained construction of one kind or other. Josephus, for example, supposes the river which is the common source to have been the ocean stream which surrounds the earth, and identifies the Pison with the Ganges and the Gihon with the Nile; and in this he is followed by many of the fathers. Calmet, Rosen- miiller, and others, again, suppose the river which is the common source to have been a region of springs, and, by making the Pison and the Gihon mountain streams, place the site of Eden in the highlands of Armenia. Calvin, Huet, and Bochart place Eden in lower Babylonia, on the supposition that the Pison and the Gihon are the two channels by which the united rivers Euphrates and Tigris enter the Persian Gulf. Luther and others, such as Clericus and more recently Baumgarten, have hazarded the supposi tion that the flood altered the course of the streams, and thus rendered it impossible to identify the locality of Eden from the description given in Genesis. These may suffice as specimens of the almost innumerable solutions that have been offered of what is now generally admitted to be an insoluble problem. On the theory that the narrative in Genesis is veritable history to be literally interpreted, it is impossible to fix the geographical position of Eden with any approach to certainty. This impossibility fully accounts for the immense variety of the conjectures that have been put forward. It deserves mention as a curiosity of criticism that the site of Eden has been assigned by different writers to each of the four quarters of the globe, and that the particular localities specified have ranged from Scandinavia to the South Sea Islands. The allegorical interpretations, which have been offered in great variety from the time of Philo downwards, are, of course, not hampered with any geographical difficulties. Philo supposes Eden to be a symbol of the soul that delights in virtue, the river which is the source to be generic virtue or goodness, and the four rivers to be the specific virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Origen finds in the subject an excellent opportunity for applying his favourite allegorical method, and supposes Eden to be heaven, and the rivers wisdom. Similar interpretations, with individual variations, are given by several of the fathers who are prone to allegorize. In modern times Coleridge is perhaps the most celebrated of those who have interpreted the story of Eden as an allegory. It is to be observed, however, that this mode of explaining the narra tive has found even less favour with recent interpreters than that which accepts it as literal history, meeting the obvious difficulties as best it can. The undoubted tendency of later criticism has been to discard alike the theory of literal history and the theory of allegory in favour of another, according to which the story of Eden is a mythical tradition of a kind similar to that which is to be found in the early sacred literature of most nations. According to this view the true explanation is to be sought for in a careful comparison of these various traditions as preserved in sacred scriptures, early histories, inscriptions, and otherwise. See, , and.  EDEN, (1795-1851), novelist and miscellaneous writer, was the seventh daughter of the first Lord Auckland, and was born in 1795. Happily gifted by nature, her literary faculties and tastes were fostered by a liberal education. In 1835 she accompanied her brother, Lord Auckland, to India, on his appointment as governor-general, and remained with him during his term of office, which covered the period of the Afghan war. Returning to England in 1841, she made herself favourably known as a writer by the publication, three years later, of her Portraits of the Princes and People of India. She was also author of two novels entitled the The Semi-detached House and The Semi-attached Couple, which first appeared anonymously under the editorship of Lady Theresa Lewis. In these works she gives clever and amusing delineations of Anglo-Indian life and manners as she saw them. In 1866 was published a series of her letters to her sister written from India, and entitled Up the Country. Her private journal, at present unpublished, is said to be still more attractive and full of sparkling anecdote and graphic sketches. Another volume entitled Letters from India, edited by her niece, the Hon. Eleanor Eden, was published in 1872. For many years Miss Eden lived at Kensington, and her house was one of the most frequented centres of London intellectual and fashionable life. She afterwards removed to Richmond, and there died, August 5, 1869. Her eldest sister Eleanor attracted the warn affection of William Pitt, who, however, did not feel justified in making her an offer of marriage. This was, it is supposed, the only love-passage in Pitt s history. She afterwards married Lord Hobart, and died in 1851.  EDENTATA, an order of placental mammals charac terized by the total absence of median incisor teeth. Such teeth as are found in edentate species are composed entirely of dentine and cement, without enamel ; they likewise grow for an indefinite period, and are consequently without root ; and so far as yet discovered there is no displacement of the first teeth by any second set except in a few of the armadilloes. This order contains the sloths, armadilloes, and ant-eaters.  EDESSA, the ancient capital of Macedonia, previously known as .^Egae, was situated 46 s W. of Thessalouica on the banks of a beautiful stream in the very centre of the kingdom, and at the head of a defile commanding the approaches from the sea-coast to the interior of the country. It was the original residence of the Macedonian kings; and even after the seat of government was removed to the more accessible Pella, it continued to be the burial-place of the royal family. At the celebration of his daughter s marriage in the town, was murdered by Pausanias in His greater son Alexander was buried at Memphis through the contrivance of Ptolemy ; but the bodies of his granddaughter Eurydice and her husband Arrhidams were removed by Cassandcr to the ancestral sepulchre. On the occupation of the town by Pyrrhus the royal tombs were plundered by the Gallic mercenaries. The modern city of Vodena is built on the site of Edessa, and preserves a few unimportant remains of ancient buildings. The names Mgss, and Edessa were both probably given in allusion to the full-flowing streams that form one of the principal features of the situation; and Vodena is certainly derived from the Slavonic voda, water. Full details in regard to the position of the city may be found in Tozer, The Highlands of Turkey, vol. i.  EDESSA, or, as it is now called, Urfa or Orfa, a city of Northern Mesopotamia, on the Daisun, a left-hand tributary of the Euphrates, 75 W. of Diarbekir and 59 E. of Biredjik, in 37 21 N. lat. and 39 6 E. long. It is sur rounded with walls and towers, well preserved on the northern side, has narrow but comfortable and cleanly 