Texts in Conversation
Daniel describes a cosmic tree at the center of the earth whose top reaches the sky and is visible to its ends. The Christian author Pseudo-Hippolytus uses this world tree imagery for the cross, whose top touches heaven and feet are in the earth.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Daniel 4:11
Hebrew Bible
10 Here are the visions of my mind while I was on my bed. “While I was watching, there was a tree in the middle of the land. It was enormously tall. 11 The tree grew large and strong. Its top reached far into the sky; it could be seen from the borders of all the land. 12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful; on it there was food enough for all. Under it the wild animals used to seek shade, and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest. All creatures used to feed themselves from it.
Pseudo Hippolytus Easter Homily 1:5
Early Christian
1 This tree is heavenly. It sprouted from earth toward heaven, an immortal plant set fast between heaven and earth. 2 It is the support of all things and the resting place of all things, the foundation of the inhabited world, the bond that binds the cosmos. 3 It holds together within itself every variation of human nature. 4 It is fastened by the invisible nails of the Spirit, that it may not break away from the divine. 5 Its top touches the heights of heaven; its feet are fixed in the earth; its measureless arms embrace the air between. 6 It was wholly in all places and through all things.
Date: 200-300 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Let us return for a moment to the pagan allusion, so as to see better the way that pagan and scriptural associations are played off one another. Phenomenologists of religion point out that the arbor mundi, the tree that brings life, is found in the mythology of many cultures of the world. (The early church capitalizes on this association in its references to the cross as the arbor vitae.) Daniel deploys these pagan associations to expand the power and reach of his message (compare the emergence of the beasts from the sea in Daniel 7 and Daniel 9; Goldingay 1989: 87-88). The arbor mundi as the pagans understand it falls down and is reduced to a stump; a second tree, offering more life to the world, is yet to come. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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