still prevails. To the date is ascribed divine honors. This
tree is said to have its regular priests, services, rites, and
festivals, and is as zealously worshipped as are the gods of any
other country. We are not informed as to whether the Jewish Tree
of Life was borrowed from the Chaldeans or the Egyptians, but, as
the significance is the same in all countries, it is of little
consequence which furnished a copy for the writer in Genesis.
In Dr. Inman's Ancient Faiths, is a drawing from the original,
by Colonel Coombs, of the "Temptation," or of the ancient
tree-and-serpent myth in Genesis. This drawing, in which it is
observed that the Jewish idea of woman as tempter is reversed,
was copied from the inner walls of a cave in Southern India. The
picture is said to be a faithful representation of the version of
the story as accepted in the East.
Of the myrtle, Payne Knight says that it "was a symbol both of
Venus and Neptune, the male and female personifications of the
productive powers of the waters, which appear to have been
occasionally employed in the same sense as the fig and fig leaf."
The same writer refers to the fact that instead of beads, wreaths
of foliage, generally of laurel, olive, myrtle, ivy, or oak,
appear upon coins; sometimes encircling the symbolical figures,
and sometimes as chaplets on their heads. According to Strabo,
each of these is sacred to some particular personification of the
Deity, and "significant of some particular attribute, and in
general, all evergreens were Dionysiac plants, that is, symbols
of the generative power, signifying perpetuity of youth and
vigor." The crowns of laurel, olive, etc., with which the
victors in the Roman triumphs and Grecian games were honored,
were emblems of immortality, and not merely transitory marks of
occasional distinction.[18]
[18] Payne Knight, Symbolism of Ancient Art. We are informed
that this book was never sold, but only given away. Although a
copy of it was formerly in the British Museum, care was taken by
the trustees to keep it out of the catalogues.
The tree and serpent, according to Ferguson, are symbolized in
all religious systems which the world has ever known. The two
together are typical of the processes of reproduction or
generation. They also symbolize good and evil and the cause
which underlies the decline of virtue.
