The Four Rivers of Paradise and the Four Gospels
Old Testament: Genesis 2:10
And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads.
New Testament: John 7:38
He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
The connection
One river goes out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, and from there it divides into four heads and carries the water of the garden out across the earth. On the last day of the feast Christ cries out that rivers of living water will flow from the one who believes in Him, and the Evangelist adds that He was speaking of the Spirit. Cyprian joins the two: the Church sets forth the likeness of paradise, and the four rivers with which she waters her trees are the four Gospels, through which she gives the grace of saving Baptism. One source, one garden, and the water going out four ways to every land.
Moral sense
Cyprian draws the figure to make a point about unity: the saving water rises in the one garden, and whoever would drink must come to the fountain where it rises. The soul is watered by remaining within the Church, not by seeking streams outside it.
Anagogical sense
At the end the river appears once more, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Apocalypse 22:1). The paradise watered by four heads returns as the city watered by one.
The Fathers
St Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 72 (73 in the modern numbering), To Jubaianus, 10: "The Church, setting forth the likeness of paradise, includes within her walls fruit-bearing trees... These trees she waters with four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels, wherewith, by a celestial inundation, she bestows the grace of saving baptism." He goes straight on (11) to the Lord's cry "that whosoever thirsts should come and drink of the rivers of living water that flowed out of His bosom." St Augustine, City of God XIII.21, reads the garden the same way: "Thus Paradise is the Church, as it is called in the Canticles; the four rivers of Paradise are the four gospels; the fruit-trees the saints, and the fruit their works."
Warrant
Cyprian reads the four rivers as the four Gospels and in the next breath gives the rivers of living water, so the pairing of these two texts is his. Checked in the Greek: the Septuagint's river at Genesis 2:10, potamos, dividing into four heads, is the word of Christ's rivers of living water at John 7:38. John's "as the scripture saith" points to no single verse, and this entry does not claim that John 7:38 cites Genesis 2:10.
