[Published in The Greek Australian Vema, March 2010, 6]

Glimpses of a Symbolic Anthropology

Part Seven: People Like Trees
Revd Dr Doru Costache

The intention of this series is to prove from within the ecclesial tradition that
Orthodoxy has no share in what secular people today designate as the Christian
aversion to the body; furthermore, that from the viewpoint of our tradition there is
more to be said about the body than any secular mind can conceive.

We walk now toward a different horizon of symbolic imagery. In a book whose

reference I long forgot, Jean Kovalevsky, that fascinating bishop and mystical
theologian, rendered a definitely scriptural metaphor along these lines: human
beings are uprooted trees and the trees are rooted human beings.

By such a beautiful association, I presume he conveyed a range of meanings.

First, that there is a striking physiognomic symmetry between the architecture of
the human body and that of the trees; this symmetry seems to be best exploited
by the kabbalistic Sephiroth tree representing the body as a tree whose parts
symbolically map the whole reality. Second, that there is an existential similitude
between people and trees, if we think of the expectations for both trees and
people to bear the appropriate fruits. Third, that unlike the trees that cannot free
themselves from the soil and the earthly things, we do have that capacity. Fourth,
that beyond the fascination they exercise by their splendour, trees remind us of
an existential failure: that of being reduced to our definition as earthlings
(consider the signification of the Hebrew word ‘Adam’ i.e. the relative of the
earth) instead of attaining – like Jonathan Livingstone the seagull – our celestial
stature.

Are all these meanings biblical? In other words, are they familiar to God’s
people? I believe they are. Reading the passage about the healing of a blind man
(Mark 8:24), we come across the statement of the man saying: “I can see people,
but they look like trees, walking.” This at least indicates that within the common
‘imaginal’ world of the Jews the metaphor was well established. Let us check the
accuracy of this claim.

In a prophetic address on the divine judgment upon the quality of human

deeds, St John the Baptist employs the metaphor in a straightforward manner,
without bothering to interpret it: “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the
trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown
into the fire” (Matthew 3:10; Luke 3:9). Obviously, it is not the trees that will be
judged and cut down from the face of the Lord; it is us, the withered and fruitless
trees that fail to undertake a virtuous life. In the same context, the prophet urged
the arrogant Pharisees to “bear fruit worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8),
reinforcing the meaning of the metaphor.

On people bearing fruits, we see also the Lord exhorting us to exercise our
discernment by evaluating the human deeds in order to avoid being fooled by
their plausible but hypocritical statements (see Matthew 7:15-20). Furthermore,
like in the story of the dry fig tree (cf. Matthew 21:19), the wicked among God’s
people are likened to the “autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted” (Jude
1:12). Here, the state of being uprooted does not bear any positive connotation
(as in “attaining some measure of detachment from the earthly things”) but
rather represents the sign of a departure from tradition.
 The source of this imagery is the Old Testament. I will provide the reader with
just a few examples. Perhaps the most interesting use of the tree metaphor is the
one referring to the cedars of Lebanon. As majestic as they are, the cedars of
Lebanon play a double role in the Scriptures, on the one hand as images of the
arrogant people who stand against God’s plan, and on the other hand as images
of the righteous who are blessed by the grace of the Lord. The first meaning is
illustrated by Psalm 28:5 (LXX), which reads: “the Lord will crush the cedars of
Lebanon.” Although the phrase might be taken by the environmentalists as one of
the ‘grey’ passages in the Bible, it definitely refers to God’s reprimanding of the
arrogant sinners and not the destruction of the Lebanese biosphere. The second
meaning is allegorically conveyed e.g. by Song of Songs 5:15, where the beloved
is presented as handsome as the cedars of Lebanon; a non-literal interpretation
(like that of Origen and St Gregory of Nyssa) might see here the crown of beauty
associated with virtue and the state of being deified.

The second meaning is indirectly confirmed by Psalm 1:3 (LXX), which refers
to the righteous person as an unspecified yet definitely fruitful tree: “he will be
like the tree that was planted by the channels of waters, which will yield its fruit in
its season, and its leaf will not fall off.” Here, the righteous one is likened to the
paradisiacal tree of life from Genesis 2, opening a very interesting hermeneutical
avenue: the story of the garden ultimately represents a parable of the spiritual life
and becoming. Furthermore, the same image of the tree of life is applied to Christ
in Revelation 22:2 (with some echoes from John 15:1-6), where we read: “On
either side of the river [or the “water of life,” in the previous verse] is the tree of
life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of
the tree are for the healing of the nations.” This final image casts a stronger light
upon the metaphor under consideration, suggesting that as God’s people we are
called to become increasingly Christ-like, bountiful trees, lush gardens – or, to
paraphrase the saintly theologian Fr Dumitru Staniloae, “spiritual bread for
others.”

Christians, at least in the Byzantine tradition, truthfully follow these lines of

thought, demonstrating appreciation for the multilayered structure of the human
being, including the body. Embellished through virtues, the human being is
ascetically reconstituted as a personal paradise, so to speak, restored to its divine
vocation that was termed by the ancients Greeks as καλοκἀγαθία, beauty and
goodness, the splendour of nobility. This ideal is magnificently expounded by our
iconography, the ecclesial architecture and hymnography, being practically
conveyed through a distinct ethos of balance and creativity within the parameters
of tradition.

There is nothing “spiritualistic” with us, and no mineral stillness characterise

our rhythms. Even when we take a break, that is just in order to prepare ourselves
for new undertakings that will lead us to be like the fruitful trees of the Kingdom.