Much that is fantastic and unreliable has been written by Assj'riologists concerning the tree of life. Two facts, however, stand out as incontest- able : there was throughout the ancient world a worship of trees, and man's de])endence on par- ticular trees for support of life oll'ered the basis for a profound religious suggestion. 'The tree had always been the seat of Divine life and the inter- mediary between Divine and human nature. . . . In the holy tree the Divine life is bringing itself closer to man ' CW. M. Eanisay, The Letters to t/ie Sere?i Churches of Asia, London, 1904, p. 248).
2. In Revelation. — The dependence of the idea of the tree of life in Revelation (2' 22-- '*) upon earlier, especially Jewish, conceptions is evident. The legend h.as been traced to an .Arabian or North African oasis, thence to Babylon, where the habitat of the tree became a garden ; thence the Hebrews derived it (G. A. Barton, A Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, p. 95 f.). With the shifting fortunes of Jerusalem, the garden was transformed into a city. The apocalyptists show this transformation under way. They picture the future as a garden (Enoch, xxiv., xxv.) ; then as a city — Jerusalem (Pss.-Sol. xvii. 33 f. ; J. R. Harris, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon,Ca,mhxid',^e, 1909) ; finally, it is a city indeed, but with a garden en- dosed (Rev 21 22^ ; cf. also R. H. Charles, The Bonk of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford, 1912, p. 53). Ezk 47'- has been inlluential here. In the prophet's vision, on each side of the river grow all trees bearing new fruits according to their months, which shall be for food, an<i their leaves for heal- ing. The picture in the Revelation is of a city, in the midst of which is a g.arden ; through this flows a river, on each bank of which is the tree of life (a word used collectively) — a row of trees
bearing either twelve manner of fruits (AV, RV) or twelve crops (RV'm). In the garden of God, then, grows the tree of life. For those who have been purilicd by faitli, the doom man brought on himself in Kden, of ]iroliil>itiun from its food, is repealed. All that .ludaism had lost, or myth- ology dreamed of, or Chri>tianity awakened in tho soul in the way of ijnmortal longing was restored and fullilled in the world to come. Not only is the fruit for food, but even tlie leaves have heal- ing virtue. How this therapeutic jiroperty of the leaves is to bo available for the ' nations ' (cf. Rev 21«-', Is GO' ; Enoch, xxv. 4-6)— those not yet be- longing to the New .lerusalem — is prolileinatic. It may suggest the present functions ot the Church in respect of social ills, or imply that after the Parousia the citizens of the city will have a min- istry towards those outside, or, yet again, indicate that tho writer had not fully assimilated the ideal proposed by Ezekiel (cf. C. A. Scott, Revelation [Century Bible], London, n.d., p. 297).
C. A. BiCCKWITH.
TRIAL.— See Suffering, Temptation, Trial- at-Law.
TRIAL-AT-LAW. — 1. Primitive justice. — The
earliest form of justice was personal redress. An injury sustained by any primitive tribe, or indi- vidual member of the tribe, must be requited by those to whom the hono\ir of the tribe was sacred. No account was taken of the motive ; nor was it necessary to bring home crimes like murder to the actual [lerpetrator of the deed, still less to mete out vengeance by the exact measure of the wrong. The wliole family or tribe of the criminal was held as guilty as himself, and had often to pay ten-fold the price of blood. Among the heathen Arabs the most honoured tribes were such as could boast, '.Never is blood of us poured forth without vengeance' [Hamdsa, ed. F. Riickert, Berlin, 1846, p. 15), and ' Never shall the avengers cease without their tifty'(JA., p. 328). But murder was not the only crime thatcallediforvengeance in blood. Everything that prejudiced the honour of the tribe — adultery, insult, wounds, and even robbery — was an otl'ence worthy of death. Tho sensitive tribesman would not hesitate to shed blood ' but for the shoe's latchet' of his friend (C. J. Lyall, TranMations of Ancient Arabic Poetry, London, 1885, p. 6f.).
In this system of reprisals there were at least the germs of social justice ; for the ver3' ferocity of the vengeance deterred men from wrong-doing. But, once set in motion, tribal feuds were the source of interminable bloodshed. Thus society was driven in self-defence to seek a way out of them. It was hardly possible, indeed, to restrain the avenger of blood from exacting the due penalty of deliberate wrong. But compensation might be made for unpremeditated crimes by their price in cattle or monej". Thus arose the wide- spread custom of submitting such cases to an arbiter or umpire chosen by tlie parties, with the full ajijiroval of the people. A suggestive exaniide is foimd in tho well-Known picture on the shield of Achilles (Homer, //. xviii. 49711".), where two men are rejiresented 'striving about the blood-price of a man slain,' the one maintaining that he has paid the price in full, the other refusmg to take anglit (for to him there is no case for compensation), but both desirous of placing the issue in the li-and of a daysman, and to this end demanding judgment of the elders, having first deposited in the midst the two talents of gold ' to give to him among them that spake the justest doom ' (cf. Leaf s note sub loco).