TREE of the CROSS: V. CROSS, TREE of the CROSS.
TREE of the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. — The plant in the earthly paradise, destined by the Creator to allow the first parents to experience experimentally the good of obedience and the evil of rebellion against the divine command. God had forbidden its fruit under pain of death. The cunning tempter, equivocating on the meaning of the name, urged the woman with the promise: “When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Eve, deceived, disobeyed and induced Adam to sin. The guilty pair experienced the disorder of fallen nature (Gen. 2:9, 17; 3:5–8).
Although the literary character of the first three chapters of Genesis does not oblige one to understand every detail in a strictly literal sense, it is entirely foreign to the text the interpretation of certain rabbis and Alexandrian allegorists who saw in the forbidden fruit the use of marriage (cf. St Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, XI, ch. 41); this theory is today advocated by F. Mayrhofer in Theologie und Glaube, 28 (1936), pp. 133–162, but it is well refuted by J. Miklik. As to the nature of the tree, R. Nehemiah, Theodore and Procopius identify it with the fig tree (cf. Gen. 3:7). Tradition contrasts the living tree of the earthly paradise that brought death with the dead tree of Calvary that gave life: Ipse lignum tunc notavit damna ligni ut solveret (Venantius Fortunatus, Hymn Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis, etc.).
TREE of LIFE. — The plant “in the midst of the earthly paradise,” to which the Creator had given the power to preserve human life and preserve man from death (Gen. 2:9).
According to St Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 97, a. 4), it was a natural power: “habebat virtutem fortificandi virtutem speciei contra debilitatem provenientem ex admixtione extranei,” and its fruit was to be eaten frequently for this purpose. But according to the majority of the Fathers, it conferred a quasi-sacramental supernatural immortality; the fruit was to be tasted once in the passage from the state of wayfarer to the state of the blessed; it was to be the reward of obedience to the prohibition against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the sanction of disobedience was death (St Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 23, 6; cf. St Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XIII, 20; XIV, 26; St Cyril of Alexandria, Adversus Iulianum, 3). After the sin, God drove the first parents from paradise and placed cherubim “to the east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.” The priests still retained the power to prolong mortal life.
Historical reality is generally admitted in Catholic exegesis, as it is for the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (q.v.), with which P. Mayrhofer (in Theologie und Glaube, 28 [1936], pp. 133–62), following others, wrongly identifies it, seeing in it a prohibition of the use of the procreative faculty; this interpretation was first proposed by Clement of Alexandria, who held that the sin was against chastity (Stromata, III, 14, 17; PG 8, 1193 sqq., 1260), and J. Coppens today renews II. Many Catholics today, along with J. Feldmann, H. Junker, J. Coppens, give a symbolic colouring to the glory of the two trees of paradise or connect them with popular traditions; so too do modern Protestants (H. Th. Obbink).
In Scripture and tradition the tree of life has also received symbolic meanings. In the Book of Proverbs wisdom is compared to the tree of life (3:18), as are the deeds of the just (11:30), the fulfilment of a desire for life (13:12), and the tongue that brings peace (15:4). In the Apocalypse the tree of life is placed in the heavenly paradise: its fruits will be granted by the Spirit to the victor (2:7); “in the midst of the street of the city, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, yielding twelve kinds of fruit [perennial]” (preferred translation: Rev. 22:2, 14; Ezek. 47:7, 12).
Jewish apocalyptic writers transplant it to heaven (Apocalypse of Moses 28) or to the world to come (Slavonic Enoch 8:3–5; 22:8–10) or to the messianic kingdom where the saints will eat its fruit (Ethiopic Enoch 25:4–7; 32:3–6; Testament of Levi 18:10 sqq.; 4 Ezra 8:52), referring to the messianic tree of Isa. 11:1 and describing the future “plant of justice” (Ethiopic Enoch 10:16; 62:8; 84:6; 93:2, 5). In rabbinic writings the tree of life represents blessed immortality (Midrash on Cant. 6:9). The rabbis have spun fables about the enormous size of this plant (Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 1:1).
The Fathers often see in the tree of life a figure of the Cross on which the new Adam restores to us the life lost by the old Adam, or a symbol of the Eucharist. In the Epistle to Diognetus (final section by a later author) the two trees figure the true Christian (cf. Dante, Purgatorio, XXXII, 37–60).
Among many peoples there are traditions concerning life-giving trees or “sacred” trees. P. Dhorme, J. Feldmann, A. Ungnad and others see hints of the two paradise trees in Assyro-Babylonian documents. The Babylonian parallels are mostly connected with the myth of Gilgamesh (q.v.). One of the prevailing motifs on Assyrian seals is the sacred tree flanked symmetrically by two figures, animals or monsters.
In Jewish art: Z. Ameisenowa, The Tree of Life in Jewish Iconography, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1939, pp. 326–45; H. G. May, The Sacred Tree on Palestine Painted Pottery, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 59 (1939), pp. 251–50.
For traditions of the Eastern peoples: A. Deimel, Genesis 2–3 cum monumentis assyriis comparata, in Verbum Domini, 4 (1924), pp. 281–87, 312–15; A. Ungnad, Die Paradiesbäume, in Zeitschr. der deutschen morgenl. Ges., 79 (1929), p. 111; J. Plessis, Babylone et la Bible, in DBS, I, cols. 757 sqq.; Z. Mayani, L'arbre sacré et le rite de l'alliance chez les anciens Sémites, Paris 1935; N. Perrot, Les représentations de l'arbre sacré sur les monuments de la Mésopotamie et de l'Elam, Paris 1937; H. Danthine, Le Palmier-dattier et les arbres sacrés dans l'iconographie de l'Asie ancienne, Paris 1937; S. N. Kramer, Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree, Chicago 1938.
Apart from any hypothetical connections with similar Eastern conceptions, the author of the article, placed according to Gen. 2,9 in the midst of Paradise, was in patristic exegesis from early times compared, if not identified, with the Cross of Christ. The omnipresence of this symbolism meant that the recent tendency to recognize the tree of life in certain signs discovered on baptismal fonts and sepulchral slabs of the early Middle Ages, as well as in the heraldic stylization of letters, remained somewhat problematic. There is no doubt, however, that those forms of the crucifix which still betray something of their arboreal origin go back to the idea of the *lignum vitae*.
Tree of Life — Drawing in the manner of Fra Angelico (mid-15th century) — Paris, Louvre.
(v. ALBERO della). If the crosses on the Eastern ampullae of Bobbio (7th century) recall the bark of a palm, in Western types one finds the cross depicted with rudimentary branches (Astkreuz) or the forked "crude" cross, chosen by German mystics of the 14th century, or the anchored cross or even the tree-cross (Baumkreuz).