The Tree of Life, from which dangle the forbidden fruits of knowledge, is one of the most potent of all religious symbols. The enduring fascination of this archetype, manifest as the Christmas Tree, make it worthy of study. Why is it that we feel moved to each year pay out good pounds (or dollar$) to buy a rootless conifer, that we know is going to shed needles all over the carpet before we chuck it away on 12th night? Why do we dress it up with fairy-lights and baubles? What is the allure of the family Christmas tree that makes its presence mandatory even in hot countries where snow is not only unlikely but even well nigh impossible? Why do we, rational people as we like to think we are, indulge in what is, after all, not even a Christian but rather a pagan ritual? What possible relevance can these trees have to the festival we are supposedly celebrating: the birthday of the infant Jesus?
To begin to understand this phenomenon we need to realise that the Tree of Life is a universal symbols that is to be encountered all over the world. We not only meet with it in the first (and last) pages of the Bible but also in European mythology as Yggdrasil ("the Holy Ash"), amongst the Maya as the Wacah-chan"(raised-up sky-tree"), or in India as the sacred Bodhi, (the tree of enlightenment). That the idea of the sacred tree is not a new invention is clear when we look at ancient sculpture. For example a number of the splendid, marble reliefs from Assyria that we can today view in the British Museum feature the Tree of life; often being ceremonially abluted by genii with eagle heads. In Greek art we see the tree attended by a bare breasted goddess. Unlike Eve, whose first bite of its forbidden fruits condemns all mankind to death, she seems at ease both with herself and her sexuality.
Less sensuous but equally interesting is the "Kabbalistic Tree of Life". This diagramis said to represent the hidden doctrine of esoteric Judaism. At its most rudimentary it consists of a network of 10 circles (called sephiroth and 22 "pathways". The origins of this diagram are obscure but according to some its origins go back to Babylon and the Jewish captivity following the sack of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Alterntively the diagram as we have it may be much more recent. It seems likely that it was developed by the Sephardic Jews of Spain in the Middle Ages as a mnemonic device. However, even if this is so, it seems to have been developed from much older traditions. These may well go back to Babylon and be connected with the same corpus of knowledge as inspired the "Tree of Life" symbols that we see on Assyrian reliefs. This, as I shall now show, is in reality a cosmological diagram.
The origins of the Kabbalist Tree of Life go back to a remarkable book which in in Hebrew is called Sepher Yetzirah. This book was probably written down around the 2nd century AD but its authorship is attributed to Abraham, who probably lived around 1800 BC. This seems unlikely but be that as it may, it is clear that Sepher Yetzirah is a work of illuminated scholarship on a par with the collected works known as the Hermetica. These are similarly attributed to Thoth, the legendary "father" of the Egyptian mysteries, who the Hebrews equated with the anti-diluvian patriarch Enoch.
The elaborations of the kabbalah on the meaning behind the tree of life diagram, deeply meaningful as they are, tend to obscure its simpler interpretation. This is made clearer from other sources such as this quotation from the Kalevala:
"Sang aloft a wondrous pine tree
Till it pierced the clouds in growing
With its golden top and branches,
Till it touched the very heavens
Spread its branches in the ether,
Sings the moon to shine for ever.
In the fir tree's emerald branches,
In its top he sings the Great Bear.
[Quoted from Architecture, Mysticism and Myth by William Lethaby.]
The reference to the Great Bear tells us that this 'tree', or rather its trunk, is really the axis mundi. It is the pole around which the heavens rotate. From this tree our Christmas trees are descended. The lights we hang on their branches symbolise the lights of heaven: the stars. The brightly coloured baubles or balls symbolise the fruits of the tree: the planets. This being so, where is the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve and what really is this story all about.
Well a clue to this is given in the Hermetica, the collection of Egyptian writings attributed to Thoth/Hermes or Enoch. According to the first of these documents, the Poimandres ("Shepherd of men"), God created the universe and at the same time the souls of men out of light. The light condensed to make various substances: fire, air, water and finally earth. The Light itself is identified with the Mind of God and also gives rise to the first Logos or "Word". The "Mind" also gives rise to another Mind, which is a "Maker of things" (known to Gnostics as the "Demiurge" and identified with the intelligence driving the Solar System). This second Mind creates the planets, called here "Administrators".
'And the first Mind, that Mind which is Life and Light, being bisexual, gave birth to another Mind, a Maker of things; and this second Mind made out of fire and air seven Administrators, who encompass with their orbits the world perceived by sense; and their administration is called Destiny' [Hermetica, p.49].
The Administrators, together with "Nature", now creates all the birds, fish and animals.God meanwhile makes Man, at this time an incorporeal soul, who at first watches all this creative activity from a position "above".
But Mind the Father of all, he who is Life and Light, gave birth to Man, a Being like to Himself and He took delight in Man, as being His own offspring; for Man was very goodly to look on, bearing the likeness of his Father. With good reason then did God take delight in Man; for it was God's own form that God took delight in. And God delivered over to Man all things that had been made.[ibid.]
This is very similar to the situation as presented in the Book of Genesis where Adam and Eve are created by God and given jurisdiction over the physical creation. However, in the Hermetica as in the Bible, Man was not content to remain a bystander but wanted to join in the fun:
'And Man took station in the Maker's sphere, and observed the things made by his brother [viz. the demiurge, or second Mind], who was set over the region of fire; and having observed the Maker's creation in the region of fire, he willed to make things for his own part also; and his Father gave permission, having in himself all the working of the Administrators; and the Administrators took delight in him, and each of them gave a share of his own nature.'
This creative urge in Man was to have significant consequences, for the story goes on:
'And having learnt to know the being of the Administrators, and received a share of their nature, he willed to break through the bounding circle of their orbits; and he looked down through the structure of the heavens, having broken through the sphere and showed to downward-tending Nature the beautiful form of God. And Nature, seeing the beauty of the form of God, smiled with insatiate love for Man, showing the reflection of that most beautiful form in the water, and its shadow on the earth. And he, seeing this form, z form like to his own, in earth and water, loved it and willed to dwell there. And the deed followed close on the design; and he took up his abode in matter devoid of reason. And Nature, when she had got him with whom she was in love, wrapped him in her clasp, and they were mingled in one; for they were in love with one another.
This fall of man is the Hermetic equivalent to the Biblical story of Adam [Man] and Eve [Life]. The "Tree" from which the fateful fruit was picked symbolises the created universe; the 'fruit' itself is planet Earth on which mankind has come to dwell in close embrace with nature. The serpent that tempted man to eat of the fruit symbolises the ecliptic, which because it marks the passage of the sun through the year, symbolises time. The Fall of Man therefore is an allegorical story concerning the descent of timeless spirit into the realms of physicality and time. Because of this descent the human race, which as souls knew only eternity, became subject to birth and death.
What then of the Christmas Tree? It is a reminder of the universal tree of creation but also of our need to get back beyond time to the regions of timeless possibility that is the higher heaven from which we, as souls, descended.
Happy Christmas and don't eat too much fruit!
Copyright © 2003 Adrian G Gilbert