Description
The biblical tree of life (Hebrew: עץ החיים; Etz haChayim) is mentioned in the book of Genesis in verse 2:9 as the tree planted by God in the Garden of Eden (Paradise) along with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whose fruit gives eternal life (immortality). After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Bible records that they were both banished from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating the fruit of the tree of life: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Now the man has become like us, knowing good and evil. Therefore, do not let him take fruit from the tree of life with me, so that he may eat of it and live forever.’” The Tree of Life is depicted in several examples of sacred geometry and forms a central point in Kabbalah (the mystical study of the Torah), where it is represented as the sefirot. The Germanic Tree of Life. The Irminsul was an important shrine for the Saxons of the eighth century CE, presumably with great symbolic significance. It is mentioned and briefly described in the Annales regni Francorum, the Translatio St. Alexandri by Rudolf of Fulda, and in the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (Book I, Chapter 8) by Adam of Bremen. Both of the latter use exactly the same words and describe the Irminsul as a large, upright wooden trunk that, according to the Saxons, supported the entire world. Adam of Bremen, however, claims to have adopted the information from Einhard (c. 770-841). His work, however, has not survived. In Einhard's words, according to Adam of Bremen: Truncum quoque ligni non parvae magnitudinis in altum erectum sub divo colebant, patria eum lingua Irminsul appellantes, quod Latine dicitur universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia. Translated, this means: They also used to venerate a wooden trunk of considerable size, erected on high under the open sky, which they called Irminsul in the language of their native land, which in Latin is called universalis columna (= all-column), as it were, supported everything. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a model used by Hermetic Kabbalists to symbolize the entire universe and its origins. This Tree of Life has a different form than the one known to the Jewish Kabbalists. The first publication to feature this tree of life was Athanasi Kircher's Oedipus Aegypticus from 1652. Robert Fludd adopted this diagram in a modified form in his Complete Works of 1617.
