Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

TREE OF LIFE

A symbol of the Divine Life which spreads through the universe and soul, and produces all forms and activities on the planes of manifestation.

“The Kingdom of God is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and cast into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the heaven lodged in the branches thereof." - MATTHEW xiii. 31.

"The primal Being is symbolized (by the Docetæ) as the seed of the Fig-tree, the mathematical point which is every-where, smaller than small, yet greater than great, containing in itself infinite potentialities. The manner of the infinite generation of things is also figured by the fig-tree, for from the seed comes the stem, then branches, then leaves, and then fruit, the fruit in its turn containing seeds, and thence other stems, and so on in infinite manner : so all things come forth" - (HIPPOLYTUS, Refutation, Bk. VIII. Ch. I).—G. R. S. MEAD, Fragments, etc., p. 218.

The "Tree" is indeed the best analogue that could be given for the "Kingdom as above and so below. For, as a diagram of the evolution of the Divine Life, the growth from the seed, the sprout, roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, typify the entire cosmic process, and serve to show how gloriously and wonderfully the Great Spiritual Universe, the archetype of the phenomenal cosmos, is contrived, energised, and sustained by the Master Builder-its Source and Centre. The "birds of the heaven " are symbolic of those individualities who have "gone before," having aspired to the things which are above. These are the Elder Brethren of humanity.

"The birds of the air' are wont to be put in a good sense, as in the Gospel of the Lord, when He was declaring a likeness of the kingdom of heaven by a grain of mustard seed, said, 'Unto what is, etc.' (LUKE xiii. 18, 19). For He is Himself a grain of mustard seed,' who, when He was planted in the burial place of the garden, rose up a great tree. For He was a grain,' through the abasement of the flesh, ‘a tree,’ through the mightiness of His Majesty. The branches of this tree are the holy preachers (apostles). In these 'boughs the birds of the air rest,' because the holy souls (the birds), which by a kind of wings of virtues, lift themselves up from earthly thinking." - ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, Morals on the Book of Job, Vol. II. p. 395.

"Without food even the gods and the illuminated ones of heaven cannot exist. In the east of heaven stands that high sycamore upon which the gods sit, the tree of life by which they live, whose fruits also feed the blessed." - A. ERMAN, Egyptian Religion, p. 93.

"As in Eastern legend, the universe-tree was venerated as something more than a mere material supporter of the world, being sometimes the giver of wisdom, and sometimes the conveyer of immortality, so in European myth it is found linked with a similar beneficence. In the legends of the Finns, its branches are represented as conferring eternal welfare' and the delight that never ceases.'" - J. H. PHILPOT, The Sacred Tree, p. 120.

"The tree of life would seem to have been in the terrestrial Paradise what the Wisdom of God is in the spiritual, of which it is written, She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her' (PROV. iii. 18)." - AUGUSTINE, City of God, Vol. I. p. 545.

“In the Tree of Life' of the Egyptians, we have perhaps the earliest, certainly the most complete and consistent representation of this most ancient and seemingly universal symbol-the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise, furnishing the divine support of immortality. And what does this tree mean? In the Scriptures we read that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' Here we have a key to the symbolical teaching, itself symbolically explained. The divine word is the support of the divine life; they who live by it shall never die. Whoso receiveth me and my word,' saith our Lord, I will raise him up again at the last day.' We have the authority of St. Augustine, that the Egyptians firmly believed in a resurrection from the dead. The 'Bread of Life,' and the fruit of the 'Tree of Life,' and the Water of Life,' are all significant of one and the same thing-the divine nourishment of the soul unto everlasting life." - H. C. BARLOW, Essays on Symbolism, p. 79.

See Also

BACKBONE
BIRDS (heaven)
BIRDS (two)
Bread
Fig-TREE
FRUIT
GATHA (Days)
HARVISPTOKHM
HOMA- TREE
IMMORTALITY
JESUS, MORTAL
KINGDOM
LEAVES
LOTE-TREE
OAK-TREE
PLANTS
RULERS (world)
SEED
SOMA PLANT
SYCAMORE
TET
TUBA-TREE
VALHALLA
VINE
WORD
YGGDRASIL