©Ifte @Jree of oK^am. 19 



to him a branch of the Olive planted on the tomb of Adam. Noah 

 religiously {Guarded the two precious branches which were destined 

 to be instrumental in redeeming the human race by furnishing the 

 wood of the Cross. 



A second German legend states that Adam, when at the point 

 of death, sent Seth to Paradise to gather there for him some of the 

 forbidden fruit (probably this is a mistake for " some of the fruit 

 of the Tree of Life"). Seth hesitated, saying as an excuse that 

 he did not know the way. Adam directed him to follow a tracl of 

 country entirely bare of vegetation. Arrived safely at Paradise, 

 Seth persuaded the angel to give him, not the Apple, but simply 

 the core of the Apple tasted by Eve. On Seth returning home, 

 he found his father dead ; so extra(fling from the Apple-core three 

 pips, he placed them in Adam's mouth. From them sprang three 

 plants that Solomon cut down in order to form a cross — the self- 

 same cross afterwards borne by our Saviour, and on which He 

 was crucified — and a rod of justice, which, split in the middle, 

 eventually served to hold the superscription written by Pilate, 

 and placed at the head of the Cross. 



A legend, current in the Greek Church, claims the Olive as 

 the Tree of Adam : this, perhaps, is not suprising considering in 

 what high esteem the Greeks have always held the Olive. The 

 legend tells how Seth, going to seek the oil of mercy in Paradise, 

 in consequence of his father's illness, was told by the angel that 

 the time had not arrived. The angel then presented him with 

 three branches — the Olive, Cedar, and Cypress : these Seth was 

 ordered to plant over Adam's grave, and the promise was given 

 him that when they produced oil, Adam should rise restored to 

 health. Seth, following these instructions, plaited the three 

 branches together and planted them over the grave of his father, 

 where they soon became united as one tree. After a time this tree 

 was transplanted, in the first place to Mount Lebanon, and after- 

 wards to the outskirts of Jerusalem, and it is there to this day in the 

 Greek Monastery, having been cut down and the timber placed 

 beneath the altar. P'rom this circumstance the Monastery was 

 called, in Hebrew, the Mother of the Cross. This same wood was 

 revealed to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, and Solomon therefore 

 ordered it to be used in the foundation of a tower; but the tower 

 having been rent in twain by an earthquake which occurred at our 

 Saviour's birth, the wood was cast into a pool called the probatica 

 piscina, to which it imparted wonderful healing qualities.''' 



* Sir John Maundevile, who visited Jerusalem about the middle of the fourteenth 

 century, states that to the north of the Temple stood the Church of St. Anne, "oure 

 Ladyes modre : and there was our Lady conceyved. And before that chirche is a 

 gret tree, that began to growe the same nyght. . . . And in that chirche is a 

 welle, in manere of a cisterne, that is clept Frodatiia Piscina, that hath 5 entreez. 

 Into that welle aungeles were wont to come from Hevene, and bathen hem with inne : 

 and what man that first bathed him aftre the mevynge of the watre, was made hool of 

 what maner sykenes that he hadde." 



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