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CANON J. A. MacCULLOCH, D.D., ON 



V. 



Another curious doctrine of tlie Cross connected it with the 

 Tree of Life, or with an oil- tree in Paradise, and so with the use 

 of oil in baptismal and initiatory ceremonies. This was not 

 exclusively Gnostic, but it fitted in with Gnostic ideas. The 

 source of the doctrine of the Oil Tree must be sought in Jewish 

 tradition, which apparently still regarded the Paradise from which 

 Adam was exiled as lying on the confines of the world, or as 

 existing in one of the heavens, perhaps in the behef that men 

 had been ejected from a Paradise in heaven to this earth. In 

 that Paradise was still the Tree of Life. In the Slavonic version 

 of the Booh of the Secrets of Enoch, the Tree grows in Paradise 

 in the third heaven, and God rests on it when He comes there. 

 Four streams — of honey, milk, wine, and oil — flow from its roots. 

 There is also an olive-tree, always distilling oil.* In the Ethiopian 

 version of the Booh of Enoch, the marvels of the tree are fully 

 described, and its fruit is to be given to the righteous after the 

 judgment."}* These are Jewish notions, as we see from 4 Ezra 

 viii, 52 : " For unto you is Paradise opened and the Tree of Life 

 is planted " ; but they also occur in the Apocalypse, where the 

 Tree of Life grows in the Paradise of God, its leaves for the 

 healing of the nations, itself a reward for the righteous. J Chris- 

 tian apocryphal literature followed this tradition, and the presence 

 of this glorious tree in Paradise is constantly asserted in the visions 

 of the Other- world. § A curious tradition is that found in the 

 Gospel of Nicodemus, where Adam bids Seth go to the gates of 

 Paradise, and beg oil from the Tree of Mercy to anoint him in 

 his sickness. But this cannot be given him till 5500 years have 

 passed, when Christ will anoint both Adam and all behevers 

 with this oil of His mercy, and Adam will be led into Paradise 

 to the tree. 1 1 There is an obvious reference here to the use of 

 oil in baptism, and to the current tradition of a mystic connection 

 of the oil with the Tree. In the Clementine Recognitions, the 

 Son of God is said to be called Christ because he was anointed 

 with oil from the Tree of Life, and He now anoints with similar 



* Ed. R. H. Charles and W. R. MorfiU, Oxford, 1896, viii, 1 f. 

 t Ed. R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1893, ch. 24, 25. 

 X Apoc, ii, 7, xxii, 2, 14, 19. 



§ See my Early Christian Visions of the Other W orld, passim. 

 II A similar tradition is found in the Apocalypse of Moses, and in Vita 

 Adae, 36 f. 



