American Academy of Religion
Western Region 2016 conference presentation by John R. Leech, D.Min.
Living Traditions and Dead Wood: How Tree-rings inform
the value of nature in religious devotions and illuminate the perseverance of
pilgrimage traditions
“Living traditions and dead wood” is about ancient wood in
Palestine/Israel and the religious significance of its careful preservation,
maintenance, and even propagation.
Questions this inquiry may prompt include:
- What
does it say about our care for the earth and each other that we take such
care of the ancient timbers of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
(brought, some of them, from mountains in the Balkan provinces of the
Byzantine Empire) and of the ancient olive trees in the Garden of
Gethsemane?
- What
does it say about social justice and hope for reconciliation among
peoples, that these ancient places, so long fought over, yet are
preserved?
- How
does that impact pilgrims and local people?
This paper draws on sources including tree-ring research,
accounts in sacred writings (Hebrew Bible and New Testament), pilgrimage
accounts, and personal observation, to illuminate the relationship between
ecology and religion in relationship between living things and devotional
practices. It uses as examples the roof timbers of the Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem, ancient in origin and currently in renovation, and the ancient
olive trees growing in the Garden of Gethsemane. The olive trees represent a
living tradition indeed, a memory of sacred events passed down in the context
of cultivated organisms. The timbers of the roof of the church, some being
upgraded or replaced this year, include some remnants that hearken back to the
sixth century of the common era, in times of Byzantine hegemony, when elaborate
efforts were made to locate, harvest, and transport the best timbers in the
empire to serve as supports in the sacred structure.
Tree-ring research shows us the age, variety, experience,
and perseverance, of trees whether alive and growing or already dead. Evaluating
timber in sacred buildings helps us understand when the lumber was cut, where,
what its strength was, what kind of living it endured – including climate
conditions, and possibly clues to its value and purpose to those who harvested,
transported, treated, used, and preserved it. The study of living trees that
have devotional or sacral associations similarly helps us understand their
religious significance, meaning, and purpose. How living trees are kept, cared
for, and made use of, indicate their present value and lingering historical
associations. The preservation of living things as foci or loci of spiritual
attention connect devotion, veneration, and living association beyond the
artificial (the built environment, symbolical associations and activities) to
the natural, if cultivated or lumbered, existence of these ancient living or
once-living things.
This past month, on Thursday of Holy Week, many Christian
worshippers remembered the Agony of Christ in the Garden – the Garden of
Gethsemane, where he waited and watched with his disciples, as the Gospels
relate it, and there, after prostrating himself (or kneeling) before the divine
to beg release from what he felt was coming, accepted betrayal and arrest
(which led to his appearance before authorities and eventual execution). This
commemoration connects the present to the past, making the past, as William
Faulkner put it, not even past. This anamnestic moment, bringing the past into
the present, is a key part of the value of the ancient trees.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor sets the stage:
Jesus’ familiarity with the Mount
of Olives stemmed from the fact that, when in the Jerusalem area, he stayed
with his friends at Bethany (Luke 10:38; Mark 11:11). At pilgrimage time the
population of Jerusalem tripled. The cost of lodging within the city became
exorbitant and the poor had to make arrangements in the surrounding villages.
Thus each day he walked over the hill to the city and returned at nightfall
(Luke 21:37)… At the bottom of the slope is the garden of Gethsemane where he
was arrested… (Mark 14:26-52). (Murphy-O’Connor. 139)
Having eaten the Paschal meal
somewhere in the city (Luke 22:10), Jesus ‘went forth with his disciples across
the Kidron valley, where there was a garden’ (John 18:1) on the Mount of Olives
called Gethsemane (Mark 14:26, 32). The place was known to Judas, ‘for Jesus
often met there with his disciples’ (John 18:2), perhaps to take a rest (while
reflecting on the experiences of the day) before starting the climb up the
steep steps en route to Bethany. Jesus knew his life to be in danger (John
11:8, 16); he suspected Judas of treachery (Mark 14:17-21)… His enemies would
come from the city, but ten minutes’ fast walking would bring him to the top of
the Mount of Olives with the open desert before him. Escape would be easy; he
could postpone the inevitable. Only in prayer could he find the answer to the
agonizing question of whether to stand or retreat. (Murphy-O’Connor. 146)
[My friend Ibrahim Gamard has pointed out that this garden narrative also appears in Islamic tradition. Its theme of submission to the divine will ("Not my will but Thine") also echoes the Genesis story of the Binding of Isaac, Abraham's moment of submission to the divine will. (Personal conversation, 18 March 2016.]
The eight existing trees are of the same genotype – that is,
they have a common parent. Estimates of their age vary from 900 to over 2000
years.
Historical memories on
the Garden of Gethsemane and the description of the eight olive trees that are
preserved in the garden have provided the first results for the characterization
of these ‘‘notable trees’’. They are special trees because they are very old,
probably among the oldest of the species in the world, and because they have
witnessed important historical events. The natural ecosystem of the Garden of
Gethsemane and the olive trees are full part of the culture and spirituality of
many peoples.
Combining the results
of the different analyses carried out with the present work, we could conclude
that the eight olive trees of the Gethsemane Garden in Jerusalem have been propagated
from a single genotype, and the differences displayed at the morphological and
morphometric analyses are either due to mutations accumulated during the trees’
long standing (approximately nine centuries, Dr. Mauro Bernabei, pers. comm.)
or to their position in the garden.
(Petrucelli
et al., C. R. Biologies 337 (2014) 311–317.)
References in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark indicate that
the beginning of the drama of Jesus’ passion took place in the olive grove at
Gethsemane, where an oil press was located. That it was a working orchard, not
a pleasure garden, may highlight the identification of Jesus with the common
people of his time. The disciples and he sought shelter in a place that was
humble, out of the way, at the edge of town.
By the third century of the Common Era, the garden was
among the customary sites for remembering the passion of Christ. Eusebius of
Caesarea mentions it in the Onomasticon (295 AD), as does the 4th
century pilgrim Egeria – who observed: “On Maundy Thursday the faithful meet at
Gethsemane.” (Holloway). Medieval and
late-medieval sources, such as the 15th century Dominican friar Felix Fabri,
follow. By the 17th century the grove and surrounding shrines were
in the custody of the Order of Friars Minor. (Petrucelli)
A typical prayer offered in the presence of the olive trees
is:
Most
merciful God, who by the death and resurrection
of
your Son Jesus Christ delivered and saved the world.
Grant
that by faith in the One
who
suffered such anguish and who died upon the cross,
we
may triumph in the power of his victory. Amen.
(From a contemporary pilgrimage worship booklet, collected
on-site January 2015.)
To be present to living things that may have witnessed the
events of the Passion of Christ is a blessing sought by many pilgrims,
especially in Holy Week. “Each year on the evening of Holy Thursday the
Franciscan community joins together with all the faithful who come to Jerusalem
for Easter ‘to watch and pray’ for an hour along with Jesus.” (
http://www.gethsemane-en.custodia.org/default.asp?id=5666
March 23, 2016)
The careful preservation, tending – and perhaps propagation
from earlier individuals – of the grove show the importance of the place of the
passion to a stream of believers and pilgrims that connects the recounted
events of the Gospel organically to the present day.
The long lines awaiting entrance into the sub-basement area
of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, to touch the place where Jesus was
born (or his birth is commemorated), is a similar observance … and the whole
church, dating back to the time of Constantine I, is a reminder of the
importance of the Birth of Christ to this strain of monotheistic religion.
The
first church was dedicated on 31 May 339…. According to Eutychus of Alexandria,
after the Samaritan uprising of ad
529, ‘The Emperor Justinian ordered his envoy to pull down the church of
Bethlehem, which was a small one, and to build it again of such splendor, size,
and beauty than none even in the Holy City should surpass it.’ … This building
has remained in use until the present day… In an extraordinary display of
tolerance the Franks and Byzantines cooperated in the restoration of the church
between 1165 and 1169… Despite an earthquake in 1834, and a fire in 1869 which
destroyed the furnishings of the cave, the church survives; its dignity, though
battered, is not tarnished. (Murphy-O’Connor. 232, 233, 234.)
During my own pilgrimage to the Holy Land in January 2015,
in the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as I entered I looked up – at
scaffolding. The ceiling beams were covered – as renovations were in progress.
And I asked myself: have tree-ring researchers been at work here, to determine
the age and provenance of the wood in the ceiling? Yes.
Charlotte Pearson and Katie Hirschboeck of the Tree-Ring
research laboratory at the University of Arizona, along with Dan Miles from
Oxford Dendrochronological Laboratory, have been kind enough to give me
guidance in understanding their work. Charlotte provided me with research on
the garden and the church in the Holy Land, and with Katie gave me a tour of
the laboratory on the Tucson campus. From them I learned something of the
techniques that provide information not only about the dating of a piece of
wood but its provenance and its, if you will, life story. These include
radiocarbon dating and examining the record preserved in the annual growth
rings of some trees.
The trees that are represented in the ceiling beams of the
church of the Nativity begin with native cedar that was harvested for the
construction of the ‘new’ building in the 6th-7th century
(replacing Constantine’s 4th century original structure). “The
oldest wood within the Church are the lintels used to construct its trabeated
timber framework. They are all cedar … dated by radiocarbon analysis to the
year 605, with a confidence limit of ± 60 years (95.4%).” (Bernabei, Journal of Cultural Heritage 13 (2012) e54–e60)
In later years other woods were used. In these cases,
tree-ring research techniques yielded information on the dating and provenance
of the timbers. The importance of the structure is highlighted by the trouble
taken in its renovations; for example, in transporting European larch lumber from
high in the Eastern Alps across the Mediterranean and up to Jerusalem – in the
15th century. (As a southwestern parallel, builders of the Great
Houses of Chaco Canyon, during the time period 850 to 1140, drew timber from
two sources, each about fifty miles from the site; the Chacoans developed the
second source after the first was exhausted and the pace of construction
stepped up.) Oak was the most recently added of the materials in the Nativity
ceiling, during a mid-19th century effort in later Ottoman times.
That renovation work was done in Byzantine, Crusader, and
Ottoman times provides an indication of the care and custodianship of several
faith groups, all respecting the value – and perhaps the numinous quality – of
these ancient shrines. One living trees, the other dead wood, both sacred sites
represent living traditions of piety and vicarious participation in the
presence of the in-breaking divine in actual ordinary existence.
Holy sites, such as these, that have been both fought over
and cared for by numerous groups, are places where the foibles and the
generosities of human experience can show themselves. The key to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, for example, is held in trust by a Muslim family, and the
duty of opening the door each morning belongs to another. Take it how you will,
is it a sign of human propensity to conflict, or does it not show the irenical
impulse to find a way forward? “The frailty of humanity is nowhere more
apparent than here; it epitomizes the human condition. The empty who come to be
filled will leave desolate; those who permit the church to question them may
begin to understand why hundreds of thousands thought it worthwhile to risk
death or slavery in order to pray here.” (Murphy-O’Connor. 49)
Holy sites also remind us of the interplay between the
material and the numinous. In these spaces human beings have sought a
transcendent connection. They may bring it with them. They may find it here,
unexpectedly. In my own experience, the numinous cannot be sought and captured
where it is expected to be; it finds you out in its own time.
In the roof and in the garden, as Gildas Hamel observes,
“the wood is the material sign of a continuous incarnation. The wood beams and
trees are witnesses of the faith communities (including their politics and
military adventures!) that allow us to think of an on-going creation.” (Hamel,
Gildas. Personal communication. March 26, 2016.) Both harvested timbers and
still-growing trees embody traditions that are not dead but alive.
Over the centuries the care that has been given in tending
the ancient Gethsemane grove, and in repairing and caring for the olden
building of the Bethlehem church, are examples of how venerable trees, or even
dead wood, can inform and propagate living traditions.
______________________________
Tree-ring researchers whose
work informed this study include, from the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at
the University of Arizona, Charlotte Pearson, Katherine Hirschboeck, and
Malcolm Hughes, and from the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, Daniel Miles.
Thanks to Robert P. Erickson, M.D., of the University of Arizona for
encouraging the pursuit of this inquiry. Gildas Hamel of the University of
California at Santa Cruz contributed bibliographical suggestions and local knowledge
of Jerusalem.
Bernabei, Mauro, and Jarno
Bontadi. “Dendrochronological analysis of the timber structure of the Church of
the Nativity in Bethlehem.” (Journal of Cultural Heritage 13 (2012) e54–e60).
Kaniewski, David, and Elise
Van Campo, Tom Boiy, Jean-Frédéric Terral, Bouchaïb Khadari, Guillaume Besnard.
“Primary domestication and early uses of the emblematic olive tree:
palaeobotanical, historical and molecular evidence from the Middle East.” Biological
Reviews. Cambridge Philosophical
Society. (Biol. Rev. (2012), 87, pp. 885–899. 885doi:
10.1111/j.1469-185X.2012.00229.x).
Petruccelli, Raffaella, and
Cristiana Giordano, Maria Cristina Salvatici, Laura Capozzoli, Leonardo
Ciaccheri, Massimo Pazzini, Orietta Lain, Raffaele Testolin, Antonio Cimato. “Observation
of eight ancient olive trees (Olea europaea L.) growing in the Garden of
Gethsemane.” Comptes Rendus Biologies.
(C. R. Biologies 337 (2014) 311–317).
Armstrong, Karen. Jerusalem:
One City, Three Faiths. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. 1996.
Francis. Laudato Si’ [On Care for Our Common Home]. Vatican: Catholic Truth
Society. 2015.
Hamel, Gildas. Poverty and
Charity in Roman Palestine. Berkeley:
University of California Press. 1990.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. The
Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2008.
Nicholl, Donald. The
Testing of Hearts: A Pilgrim’s Journal.
London: Lamp Press. 1989.
