gobekli tepe - genesis of the gods (51 page)

Yet double-checking what exactly a fragment of the Tree of Life actually means in Armenian Church tradition made me realize that the holy relic at Yeghrdut was slightly more complicated than I had first imagined, for it is also described as the “Stick of Life” (Armenian
),
¹²
or a “piece of the Wood or Timber of (the Tree of) Life (Armenian
).”
¹³
It is a term that derives from a gradually evolving legend that has its inception in the first century AD and revolves around what happened to Adam and Eve following their expulsion from Paradise.

After departing the Garden of Eden, the couple settle down somewhere on its fringes, and here they raise two sons, Cain, a crop grower, and Abel, a shepherd. As the book of Genesis tells us, Cain kills Abel, creating the first murder and death in human history. As a consequence, Cain is cast out and lives the rest of his life in the enigmatically named land of Nod, while Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth, is born. He becomes Adam’s rightful successor and the inheritor of his heavenly wisdom and knowledge.

THE OIL OF MERCY

So far, this is the basic story in the book of Genesis. However, Jewish and later Christian works compiled between the third century AD and medieval times—containing what scholars refer to as Primary Adam Literature—continue where the Bible account leaves off. The most well-known of these are the Latin
Vita Adae et Evae
(“Life of Adam and Eve”) and the Greek
Apocalypsis Mosis
(“Apocalypse or Revelation of Moses”). Both these texts, and others like them, relate the story of how when Adam was on his deathbed he asks his son Seth to approach the gates of Paradise and beseech God to part with a little of the “Oil of Mercy” that flows from the Tree of Life, in order that this might sustain his life. Obeying his father, Seth departs for Paradise in the company of Eve and implores God to give him some of the oil from the “tree of his mercy” in order that he might anoint his sick father (see figure 35.1).

After some time, an angel appears (usually this is Michael, although not always). He refuses their request, saying that the Oil of Mercy is reserved for the final days, adding that in five and a half thousand years a savior will come who will be baptized in the River Jordan. Thereafter he will “anoint from the oil of mercy all that believe in Him. And the oil of mercy shall be for generation to generation for those who are ready to be born again of water and the Holy Spirit to life eternal. Then the most beloved Son of God, Christ, descending on earth shall lead thy father Adam to Paradise to the tree of mercy”
¹⁴
; that is, the Tree of Life (see figure 35.2).

HOLY ANOINTING OIL

In other words, the text prophesized that, following his baptism in the River Jordan at the hands of John the Baptist, Jesus would somehow become the vessel of the Oil of Mercy, which would be spread by the Holy Spirit. The Armenian Church believes that this power was given originally to Moses, who was instructed by God to make something called the holy anointing oil (Ex. 30:22–33). This was afterward used to anoint many generations of Old Testament prophets, and eventually it found its way into the hands of John the Baptist. Following his death it was given to Mary Magdalene, who used it to anoint Jesus’s feet before his entry into Jerusalem prior to his arrest and crucifixion. He is said to have blessed it, after which time the oil was used to anoint apostles. Thaddeus of Edessa then carried the oil’s container to Edessa, where the anointing oil was used to restore King Abgar’s health and vitality. Thereafter the disciple continued his journey and buried the shish bottle “in Daron under an evergreen tree.”
¹⁵

The “Daron” mentioned here is an alternative rendering of “Taron,” the plain of Mush, with the location of the “evergreen tree” being Yeghrdut (the Tree of Life was anciently considered to be an olive tree, which is an evergreen
¹⁶
). There is nothing about Jesus anointing the apostles in the New Testament—this is considered to have been bestowed on all 120 disciples of Christ by the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem.
¹⁷
However, the Yeghrdut legend states that the holy anointing oil deposited there by Thaddeus had been used to anoint “prophets and apostles.”
¹⁸

Figure 35.1. Section of the Death of Adam by Italian artist Piero Della Francesca (1416–1492), from a painted fresco in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, Italy. It shows Adam, on his death bed, telling Eve and Seth, who stands to her right, to go and ask the angel that guards the entrance to the Garden of Eden for some of the Oil of Mercy that oozes from the Tree of Life. In the background Seth is seen making this request to the angel Michael.

Figure 35.2. American lithograph of the Tree of Life in the terrestrial Paradise by the Currier and Ives company (1857–1907).Figure 35.2. American lithograph of the Tree of Life in the terrestrial Paradise by the Currier and Ives company (1857–1907).

THE ANGEL’S GIFT

In the story contained in the Latin
Vita Adae et Evae,
composed sometime between the third and seventh century using earlier source material, Seth and Eve depart from the Garden empty-handed. However, in alternative, and arguably later, accounts the angel gives Seth seeds or saplings from the Tree of Life to take away with him.
¹⁹
He and Eve then return to Adam, revealing what the angel said and what has been given to them. Thereafter Adam dies, and his body is laid to rest with the help of angels.

Prior to Adam’s final interment, Eve and Seth place the seeds from the Tree of Life in his mouth, or alternatively, they plant the saplings over the position of Adam’s skull (the accounts vary). These grow into either a single tree or three trees that wrap around each other to become one. Eventually the tree is cut down and the timber utilized for a number of quite fantastic purposes. It is used to fashion the rod of Moses. It becomes a beam in King Solomon’s Temple, or it is used to make a bridge, over which the Queen of Sheba passes. As this happens, she realizes the sanctity of the wood and demands that it be taken up and placed inside Solomon’s Temple as a sacred relic.

THE TRUE AND LIVING CROSS

Afterward, the Holy Wood, or Holy Timber, of Life, as it is called in the Western Church, finds its way into a carpenter’s shop, where it is used to fashion the Cross of Calvary, known in medieval tradition as the Holy Rood. After Christ’s crucifixion on Golgotha, the cross is buried nearby. Here also is Adam’s skull, concealed during a much earlier age either by Shem, Noah’s son and heir, and/or by Melchizedek, the first king of Salem; that is, Jerusalem. The blood trickling down the cross from Christ’s body reaches Adam’s skull, finally bringing redemption to Adam for causing the original sin. The symbolism between the burial of Adam’s skull and Golgotha, which means the Place of the Skull, is purposeful. It is for this reason that we see a skull at the foot of the cross in Crucifixion scenes, and also on crucifixes.

Accordingly, the elderly Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, the first Roman emperor to adopt and legalize Christianity, visits Jerusalem in AD 327 or AD 328 and is led by miraculous means to discover the remains of the Cross of Calvary beneath a Roman temple of Venus now occupying Golgotha Hill. As fragments of the holy cross are found to constantly sprout forth new green shoots (due to the wood originating from the earthly Tree of Life), it becomes known as the True and Living Cross. It is because of this regenerative power that fragments of the True Cross are thought to have the power to restore life in a sickly person.

Clearly, the fragment of the Tree of Life possessed by the Yeghrdut monastery must have come from a separate branch to the one used to create the Cross of Calvary, as this piece is said to have reached Armenia in either AD 43 or AD 45, a mere decade after the Crucifixion and nearly three centuries before the Empress Helena discovered the Cross of Calvary. The only other thing I could discover was that Yeghrdut’s precious holy relic was kept in a reliquary box (see chapter 39) and, I could only assume, was brought out and elevated during special ceremonies in the absolute conviction that here was a true fragment of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.

Yet there was more to this story than simply the existence at Yeghrdut of the Tree of Life fragment and the vessel containing the holy anointing oil, for after the foundation of the monastery in the fourth century, the monks would manufacture their own Myron, or holy anointing oil, always mixing it in the bottle that had contained the original oil created by Moses. This was done so that the new anointing oil would forever contain the essence of the original holy anointing oil used to bless “prophets and apostles.” Apparently, Yeghrdut’s sacred oil would be transported to the Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin in Vagharshapat, Armenia, where it was used in the inauguration of the Catholicos, the head of the Armenian Church.
²⁰