The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life" is not only a symbol, but also an image, an icon. The "tree of life" cannot be understood literally, as just a tree growing in the middle of the garden, although this is part of the image, but only a part of it. The "Tree of Life" was first mentioned in the Holy Scriptures at the very beginning of the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2:9). It appears again at the very end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation of St. John the Theologian - the Apocalypse (Revelation 22:1-2). "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of its street (the heavenly "New Jerusalem", the symbol of Paradise), and on both sides of the river, the tree of life, bearing fruit twelve times, yielding its fruit for each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." After the fall, the rupture, the flight into the abyss, the salvific reverse process - to the lost perfection, and, finally, the victory, the "new creation": "Behold, I make all things new" - "New Jerusalem". But this is still the same Paradise: the same pure river with the holy water of life, bright, flowing in all four directions, turning into four rivers, and on both sides, among the four streams, is the victorious Tree of Life, absorbing the holy water of life - grace-filled, emanating from the "throne" of God and the Lamb - the Holy Spirit.

In connection with the story of the already notorious "archaeological search" for the Four Rivers, let us recall the conversation between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob near the city of Sychar in Samaria: "Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.' [...] The Samaritan woman said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, to drink? [...] Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and Who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water.' The woman said to him, "Sir! you have nothing to draw with, but the well is deep; Where did you get living water? Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks the water that I give him will never thirst. but the water that I give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. The woman said to Him, "Lord! Give me this water, that I may not be thirsty, and come hither to draw" (John 4:7,9-15). In the whole conversation there is not a single point of contact: the words do not meet, the words diverge from one another, for the woman speaks of the water of this world, and Christ speaks of the living water of the Kingdom of Heaven - the image of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

The tree of life is also mentioned in the following scriptures. In the parables of Solomon: "[...] (Wisdom) is the tree of life for those who acquire it, and blessed are those who keep it..." (Proverbs 3:18). "The fruit of the righteous is the tree of life, and the wise one wins souls..." (Proverbs 11:30). "A fulfilled wish is the tree of life..." (Proverbs 13:12). "A gentle tongue is the tree of life..." (Proverbs 15:4). For the all-wise King Solomon, the "Tree of Life" is also an image, an image of the Wisdom of God and the wisdom of man, its fruit and its good deeds. The Apostle Paul says that the Wisdom of God is Christ, the Son of God, His Divine Word, the "Logos," of which St. John the Theologian writes with inspiration in the Prologue to his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). In the patristic tradition of the Orthodox Church, Christ is the Tree of Life; The Tree of Life is Christ. In the canon of the Akathist to the Mother of God, St. Joseph the Hymn-Writer addressed the following inspired poetic words to the Most Holy Virgin: "O fiery chariot of the Word, rejoice, O Lady, animated by Paradise, the Tree in the midst of the possessors of Life - the Lord, His sweetness quickens by faith those who partake of Communion and those who bow down to corruption..." In a poetically inspired brief flash of the verse, the hymn-writer compares the Mother of God with a fiery chariot carrying the Word of God, which, having been conceived in Her, turns Her not only into a chariot, but also into an "animated Paradise" that has in Him the Tree of Life – the Lord, Who by His sweetness gives life to the faithful who have fallen into corruption, but now partake of the fruits of the Holy Tree of Life, that is, the Body and Blood of Christ. Such are the images - Biblical, patristic and liturgical. This is not just beautiful poetry, it is the deepest mysterious meaning revealed by Christ Himself to His disciples in these words: "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch of Me that does not bear fruit He cuts off; and every one that beareth fruit, He cleanses, that it may bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed through the word I have preached to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. [...] I am the vine, and you are the branches; [...] for without Me you can do nothing..." (John 15:1-5).

This is the essence and meaning of the Tree of Life in the Biblical Paradise.

Christ's word about the vine on the night before His sufferings should be read in the context of the entire night of Gethsemane and all His words said there, and before that at the Last Supper, which were briefly expressed in a prayer to the Heavenly Father: "Holy Father! keep them in Thy Name, those whom Thou hast given Me [...] I have delivered to them Thy word; and the world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world [...] Sanctify them with Thy truth; Thy word is truth [...] Not only for them I pray, but also for those who believe in Me according to their word, that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us..." (John 17:11-26).

This is the Tree of Life: the image and symbol and essence of the Trinitarian Unity in God and in creation, in the Holy Trinity and in the children of God – the image of the entire One Humanity, the all-begotten Adam, the Church of Christ, created in Paradise, illumined by the "Trinitarian unity of the sacred mystery." In the Tree of Life, in the primordial Church of Heavenly Paradise, there was no evil, no knowledge of evil, no fruit of evil, no sickness, no death, no enmity, because Love reigned in everything. Nor was there any eating of another life for the sake of one's own survival, the struggle for existence. Because the inexhaustible food is Christ, "the Bread of Heaven, the food of the whole world," as it is said in the main prayer of the proskomedia before the Liturgy in the Orthodox Church.

But in the shade of the Garden of Eden there was another tree...

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

"And the Lord God brought forth out of the earth every tree that was pleasant to look at, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:9), the fruit of which God forbade man to eat. One of the editors of the book "Mysteries of the Bible" writes: "The book of Genesis does not explain why it was necessary to forbid man to know good and evil. Could it be that the unfortunate tree simply expressed God's dominion over His creation and man's duty to obey Him?" And here we see the key to clarifying the difference between the Western and Eastern understandings of creation and the Fall.

The Hebrew word yada, rendered by the quoted author as "knowledge," is deeper in its content: the Russian translation of "knowledge" is undoubtedly more accurate, although it does not exhaust the entire depth of the original. Yada expresses not merely intellectual, theoretical, or abstract knowledge of the subject, not the "detached knowledge" of the mathematician, but rather experiential knowledge in personal experience, for example: "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain" (Gen. 4:1). The question was not legal, but essential, existential: experienced personal participation not only in good, but also in evil.

Let us pay attention to the devil's argument of temptation: Did God really say, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden"?

"And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden (the tree of knowledge), said God, you shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, No, you will not die..." (Gen. 3:2-4).

The commentator in Bible Today, after running ahead and making sure that both husband and wife did not die after eating the forbidden fruit, asks: "So, was the serpent right?" and continues: "According to the book of Genesis, God never promised immortality to man. However, it has often been suggested that it was as a result of this act of disobedience that man became mortal." On such arguments, which for a large part have passed to us in the East, the entire history of creation and the Fall in the Western Christian world is built. Thought does not depart from the "worldly", "legal".