The Symbolic Tree
What we are calling “the natural tree” represents the Scriptural expression of Biblical culture’s awareness of the intrinsic value of trees and of the central role played by trees in ecological balance, as well as the human use of trees for food, shelter, trade and commerce to satisfy the needs of the body. The “metaphoric tree” represents the figurative use of trees for the purpose of education, moral instruction, and the inculcation of the teachings necessary for salvation to satisfy the needs of the soul. Beyond these two levels or types of tree, a third tree-image occurs in the Bible, which we are calling the “symbolic tree.”
The Holy Spirit in Scripture employs the image of the tree to reveal and communicate truths about the cosmos, about humanity, about God’s will in creation, and thus, about the deepest principles of the order of nature and life. It is this symbolic, anagogic (that is, uplifting) function of trees in Scripture that we call The Symbolic Tree.
The most important context in which the symbolic tree appears is the story of God creating the Edenic Paradise in the center of which He planted two trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:8-17).
This passage is part of the “second creation story” of Genesis Two, which scholars agree is older than that of the creation story of Genesis One. We Christians must not let the familiarity of this story blind us to some of its remarkable features, especially as they relate to our theme. Aside from man, trees are the first living thing mentioned. It is highly significant that of all the plants and growing things that could have been mentioned, only trees are actually mentioned. This is a strong indication that Scripture singles out the tree as representative of the biosphere as a whole. This corresponds with an ecological view which recognizes trees as the organic center around which all the other parts of the ecosystem are organized. Without directly pointing it out, Scripture is bearing witness to the pre-eminent value of trees in the organic world or biosphere.
Two categories of trees are distinguished in Genesis 2: those “pleasant to the sight” and those “good for food.” Both categories link trees to human physical and psychological well-being and represent the gift-nature of trees to humanity. Trees are shown to be a gift and blessing of God to man, as Elder Amphilochios taught, bearing in themselves elements of hope, peace, beauty and love.
Without introduction or the slightest bit of explanation, the Sacred Narrative reveals the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the midst of the Garden. Here we confront the primordial symbol of the sacred World Tree, which is a universal symbol in human consciousness.
In the Genesis Two creation story, our primary concern is the image of the tree. Why the tree? Why does the Holy Spirit use the tree to symbolize life? Why is human consciousness, across the spectrum of cultures and times so congenial to, so accepting of, the tree as the universal symbol of life?
To answer this question we must ask and attempt to answer another: What is a symbol? Commonly, this word is used as a synonym for “figure” or “sign” and is opposed to what is “real,” such as when someone says that something is “only a symbol” or that such and such “symbolizes” or “represents” so and so. But symbol can mean more than this. A symbol may be distinguished from a metaphor in that the latter is a figure of speech in which we speak of one thing in terms of another; whereas a symbol is not specifically linguistic and may represent physical objects and visual representations. One may speak metaphorically about a tree, but one cannot say, for example, that the tree is a metaphor of the cross, because a tree, as a physical object, is not a metaphor. One might properly say that the tree is a symbol of the cross. Because symbols are not figures of speech, but signifying objects, the representational definition of symbol—symbol as “only” a sign—does not exhaust either the meaning or the function of symbol. Because the nature of a symbol is rooted in real objects, its meaning is not exhausted by convention and, as it were, on the “horizontal” plane.
A symbol is also capable of “vertical” significance by making visible a higher meaning. Further, a symbol, by the meaning of its form, its “transparency,” may itself be in the physical world the manifestation of a higher, invisible reality. Such was the view of the Fathers of the Church. The very physical presence of the symbol re-presents the higher reality it points to and reveals. Thus “symbol” and “reality” may not be opposites, but may coincide. As an example of this kind of “living” symbolism, Bishop Kallistos Ware cites Edward Carpenter’s (1844-1929) vision of a tree:
“Has any one of us ever seen a Tree? I certainly do not think that I have — except most superficially… Once the present writer seemed to have a partial vision of a tree. It was a beech, standing isolated and still leafless in early spring. Suddenly I was aware of its skyward-reaching arms and up-turned finger-tips, as if some vivid life (or electricity) was streaming through them far into the spaces of heaven, and of its roots plunged in the earth and drawing the same energies from below. The day was quite still and there was no movement in the branches, but in that moment the tree was no longer a separate organism, but a vast being ramifying far into space, sharing and uniting the life of Earth and Sky, and full of most amazing activity.
Bishop Ware comments, “Here is a vision of joyful wonder, inspired by an underlying sense of mystery. The tree has become a symbol pointing beyond itself, a sacrament that embodies some deep secret at the heart of the universe.
Carpenter’s experience, plus the bishop’s comment, provide insight into the tree as symbol. Something in the nature of the tree makes it a symbol of life itself. The tree’s upright form; its three-fold structure of roots-trunk-branches; its intimate connection with the four elements—roots deep in the earth, branches high in the air, its power to draw down sunlight and draw up water; its longevity and stability; its silent generosity, offering shade, shelter and sustenance to all other living things; its created capacity to “unite the life of Earth and Sky,” all these qualities of the tree-nature created by God make it a powerful, central and universal symbol of life.
Yet this capacity in the tree to be a symbol only hints at the depths of that “deep secret at the heart of the universe” embodied by the symbolic tree and glimpsed by those blessed with even a “partial vision” similar to Edward Carpenter’s. For the life we have been speaking of is created life. But the Tree of Life in Paradise confers eternal life. The tragic consequence of Adam’s sin reveals the luminous reality of the Tree of Life just at the moment that he loses all contact with it.
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever,” therefore the LORD God sent him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen.3:22-24)
The loss of access to the Tree of Life meant death and expulsion from paradise, and the way back blocked. The “deep secret at the heart of the universe” still lies beyond the flaming sword of the cherubim. Nevertheless its presence may yet be intuited and felt, as did Edward Carpenter, in the transparent symbol of a living tree, truly seen.
If a symbol is, in its highest meaning, the reflection of a higher reality, then the sin of Adam can be seen as becoming attached to the symbol instead of the higher reality. The symbol had become an idol. Choosing the created symbol over the uncreated Life it symbolized, Adam’s vision was darkened. He lost not only the Tree of Life, but the tree as the symbol of life. The fatal descent had begun, from the paradisal vision of trees “pleasant to the sight,” as transparent symbols of life, to the infernal sight of “clear-cutting”: the brutal stripping of entire mountainsides of their forests to feed the world’s appetite for wood. Nevertheless, natural things have not lost their inner nature; they still praise God their Creator. The trees along with all else in creation wait with earnest expectation for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19), that is, human beings redeemed by Christ and members of His body, so that they once again may see both the forest and the trees.
~Adapted from Vincent Rossi, Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition, RELIGION and the FORESTS magazine, June, 1999. Vincent Rossi is executive director of the Religious Education and Environment Project (REEP), London, England.
