Abstract
The image of the tree has been powerful in the human imagination and therefore fruitful as a source of metaphor. In ancient mythologies it appears as a cosmic symbol and it is entwined, root and branch, in Christian thought. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil overshadows Man's fall; the ‘Tree’ of the Cross dominates his salvation; the Tree of Life, which sheltered him in the Garden of Eden, heals him in the New Jerusalem. In the great prophetic image of Isaiah, the turning-point of history becomes the young shoot of an ancient tree:And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.In course of time, too, the great crisis of wickedness also appears in Jewish thought under the same figure:And there came forth out of them a sinful root, Antiochus Epiphanes. Again, in Jewish thought good men are trees that flourish:And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither.
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