Paradise and handed down successively to Enoch and the line of Patriarchs.
After the death of Joseph it was set in Jethro's garden, and there grew
untouched, till Moses came and got his rod from it. In another form of the
legend it is Seth who gets a branch of the Tree of Life, and from this
Moses afterwards obtains his rod of power. These Rabbinical stories seem
in later times to have been developed into the Christian legends of the
wood destined to form the Cross, such as they are told in the Golden
Legend or by Godfrey of Viterbo, and elaborated in Calderon's Sibila del
Oriente. Indeed, as a valued friend who has consulted the latter for me
suggests, probably all the Arbre Sec Legends of Christendom bore mystic
reference to the Cross. In Calderon's play the Holy Rood, seen in vision,
is described as a Tree: -
- - "cuyas hojas,
Secas mustias y marchitas,
Desnudo el tronco dejaban
Que, entre mil copas floridas
De los arboles, el solo
Sin pompa y sin bizaria
Era cadaver del prado."
There are several Dry-Tree stories among the wonders of Buddhism; one is
that of a sacred tree visited by the Chinese pilgrims to India, which had
grown from the twig which Sakya, in Hindu fashion, had used as a
tooth-brush; and I think there is a like story in our own country of the
Glastonbury Thorn having grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.
