The Tree

Trees have peopled the imagination of the Christian West. Several images have been used, reappearing in different versions, having to do with language or with visual aspects. Everybody knows the tree of life.¹ We meet this cosmic symbol from Mesopotamian antiquity, in the four corners of the world, and sometimes in much more elaborate forms than in Europe.² But the tree of life is not – except in some of its Christianized forms – specific to the popular culture of Europe’s ancient societies. The trees of Eden, versions of the cosmic tree of life, open and close the Bible; their