Apocalypse Epilogue: The Tree of Life

One of the best-known representations of the Cross as the ‘Tree of Life’ is the 12th century mosaic in the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome
The cross is decorated with white doves, taken to represent the Apostles who will soon fly to all corners of the world carrying the message of Christ’s victory (Psalm 19:4; Acts 1:8).
At the foot of the Cross four rivers flow out  (Genesis 2:10) and two deer drink deeply of the river of the water of life (Ezekiel 47:1-12; Revelation 22:1-2); the deer that yearns for running streams (Psalm 42:1-3) quenches its thirst  at the fountain of living water that is Christ (Zechariah 12:10; 13:1; John 4:10; 7:37-39; 19:33-37).

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so as to have the right of the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs, sorcerers, and fornicators, the murderers and idolators, and all who love and practice deceit. (Apocalypse 22:14-15)

This epilogue of the Apocalypse summarizes the message of the book: Christ is coming soon to judge the world and vindicate his saints. The text concludes with the usual threats against anyone who would tamper with the book as the seer has written or dictated it.

Those who wash their robes (in the blood of the lamb) and have access to the tree of life are the faithful members of the Church. They remain faithful despite the persecution described throughout the Apocalypse. The “tree of life” is both a reference to the Cross and Christ himself who transformed the Cross into the antidote for the Tree of Knowledge by which Adam and Eve sinned in Eden. Blood, which typically stains clothing, here washes clothing clean; in the Old Testament, blood both purifies (the sacrifices in the Temple, especially the Day of Atonement) and makes those who touch it unclean.

The list of those “outside the gates” of the New Jerusalem are an interesting summary of all those who personify opposition to God. “Dogs” were a common nickname for the priests of the Cybele, the “great mother” goddess; these “dogs” would castrate themselves in a fit of ecstasy and then wander the streets in groups, singing and praying and asking for alms. In many ways, they sound like the first century equivalent of the Hare Krishna groups that were so common in the 1970s (except the self-castration, of course).

Sorcerers practiced “magic,” which was the usual way to describe illicit religious practices. “Fornicators” practiced porneia (lit. “dirty living”), which included fornication but also could mean a wide variety of other behavior or activities, not all of which we would consider sexual. But it was a quick and easy way to refer to those who misbehaved sexually. Murderers and idolators clearly misapprehended the image of God inherent in each human person. All those who love or practice deceit? That sums up all evil-doing nicely, doesn’t it?

The world is neatly divided into those who have washed their robes vs. those who love and practice deceit. If only life situations and predicaments pre-apocalypse could be so clearly and easily identified!

New Jerusalem

A Russian icon of the New Jerusalem, showing the apostles–the Twelve–surrounding the Mother of God in the midst of the city. She is the personification of Zion-Jerusalem-the Temple. Christ is immediately above the Holy Virgin, blessing the world. St. John the Divine is dictating to his disciple-secretary, who is writing down what St. John sees and the words of the angel speaking with him.

So [the angel] carried me away in the spirit … and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, possessing the glory of God. It had the radiance of a precious jewel…. (Apoc. 21:10-11)

The new heaven and the new earth are complete when the new Jerusalem descends from God. The city is described as being in a constant state of descending; it is always “coming down.” It is not static. It is always arriving. This movement indicates the city itself is alive. It is itself the Temple of the new heaven and new earth and therefore encapsulates the new creation which is intensely alive, just as the Temple built by Solomon was thought to encapsulate the world–the old world which, although it was currently alive, was always in the process of dying. The new Jerusalem is always coming down, always new, always becoming.

The new city has twelve foundation stones. Each is a precious jewel. These twelve stones are associated with the apostles, the Twelve; in Ephesians we read about the Church “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being himself the chief cornerstone.” (Eph. 2:20) If Peter is the rock (Matt. 16:17-19), the Twelve are the foundation.

The new city has twelve gates. Each gate is fashioned from pearl. Pearls in the ancient world were thought to be the result of lightning striking an oyster; the translucent pearl was born of fire and water, uniting these two opposite elements.

In Genesis 2, we are told that gold and jewels were found near the river Pishon. Often translated as “aromatic resin” or “pearls,” as well as “carbuncle” (a generic term meaning “a small, precious stone”), this is generally understood to refer to frankincense. (Frankincense was a particular resin/incense whose import and sale was a monopoly of the Franks in early medieval Europe, hence “the Frank’s incense.”) The resin was obtained by scoring—making slices in—the bark of certain trees. Sap would ooze from these wounds in the bark and congeal into the resin which would be scraped away and then these chunks of resin would be broken up to be used as incense. When the resin is sprinkled on hot charcoal, it melts and releases the fragrant smoke. The resins from various sorts of trees would produce a variety of fragrances which could be combined in different mixtures; myrrh, an especially bitter scent, was obtained in the same manner as frankincense but from another species of tree.

The particles of frankincense are customarily referred to as “pearls,” so that identifying Havilah–the land watered by the river Pishon–as the source of both frankincense and pearls is not necessarily a contradiction. There is also the later medieval Christian association of the round, white host at the Mass as a “pearl” as well as the eastern Christian practice of referring to the communion-particle as a “coal” (similar to the coal used by the seraphim to touch Isaiah’s lips to purify the prophet).

The jewels, pearls, and incense associated with the new city underscore its role as the temple of the new creation, the house of God in which the sacrificial worship of the Lamb is consummated.

There is a “New Jerusalem” monastery in Russia, built directly north of Jerusalem and an exact imitation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre for pilgrims who could not travel to the Middle East. It was closed by the communists and heavily damaged by the Nazis. I saw it in the early 1990s when it was still in ruins before the current restoration began.

New Heaven and New Earth

Beatus of Liébana
Las Huelgas Apocalypse
Spain
1220

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. (Apocalypse 20:1-2)

St. John has seen Hell and Satan bound with Death. Now he sees a new world emerge, clean and free of all stain. It is all that Isaiah hoped for: “Behold, I create new heavens and new earth” (Is. 65:17 and 66:2). It is everything that Enoch described: “The first heaven shall depart and pass away; a new heaven shall appear” (1 Enoch 91:16).

Some say that “there was no more sea” because the sea is the primaeval abyss, the chaos out of which matter emerged and there is no more chaos when judgement is complete. Some readers point out that seven markers of the fallen world are “no more” in the concluding chapters of the Apocalypse: the sea, death, mourning, crying, pain, every accursed thing, night. In the City of God, St. Augustine favors the idea that “the sea” is a euphemism for Death–cold, dark, deep, where a crowd can still be a vast collection of individuals in isolation. It is this Death that is no more in the new world adorned like a bride for her bridegroom and so the sea is “no more.”

In the Old Testament, the city Jerusalem is both a mourning virgin and a glorious bride. Now the time of her mourning has passed and her final victory and beauty are revealed. The bride of the Song of Songs takes her place alongside her heavenly bridegroom; during the Middle Ages, most sermons about the Song were also sermons about the Apocalypse and most sermons about the APocalypse were also sermons about the Song. The two texts go hand-in-hand. The Old Testament dreams of her glory and her dazzling garments are commonly read in church at Epiphany and Holy Saturday: the two days that most clearly anticipate the coming End and ultimate triumph of God.

Epiphany (the revelation of God’s glory in the darkness, the baptism of Christ when he descends into the water to slay the dragons hidden there as a dress rehearsal of his Passion) and Holy Saturday (Christ’s descent into the dark land of the dead–the sea mentioned earlier–to shatter the darkness with light and break the chains of those in prison there) are reflections in time of the eternal reality that is now revealed at the conclusion of the Apocalypse.

Epiphany. Holy Saturday. The conclusion of the Apocalypse. Jerusalem is adorned like a bride for her groom, the old context and environment of death and sin being swept away as the new context and environment of God’s glory is hidden no longer but emerges clearly for all to see.