Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Seventh Sunday of Easter

Christ, the Tree of Life

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever. Then he said to me, “These words are faithful and true.” And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place. (Rev 22:1-6)

The river flowing out from the Church in the present life hints at a baptism of regeneration being activated through the Spirit, those cleaned and washed, polished up, surpassing snow and crystal. The river of God, having been filled with waters running through the heavenly Jerusalem, is the Life-giving Spirit which proceeds from God the Father and through the Lamb, through the midst of the most supreme powers which are called throne of divinity, filling the wide streets of the holy city, that is, the multitude in her being “increased more than the grains of sand,” according to the Psalmist.… By the river, as has been said, the gifts of the Life-giving Spirit, those which through the throne of the Father and the Son, that is, the cherubic ranks upon whom God is enthroned, go out into the wide street of the city, that is, the thickly populated crowd of the saints, as out from the first into the second, being derived according to the harmonious arrangement of the heavenly hierarchies. by Tree of Life is meant Christ, whom we apprehend in the Holy Spirit and in relation to the Spirit. For the Spirit is in him, and he is worshiped in the Spirit and is the Bestower of the Spirit, and through him the twelve fruits of the apostolic choral assembly are granted to us, the unfailing fruit of the knowledge of God through whom the “acceptable year of the Lord and the day of recompense” are proclaimed to us, having been foretold by the prophet.

Leaves of the tree, that is, of Christ, are the most superficial understandings of the divine decrees, as his fruits are the more perfect knowledge being revealed in the future. These leaves will be for healing, that is, for the purging of ignorance of those pagans inferior in the activity of virtues, because “the glory of the sun is one thing, the glory of the moon is another, and the glory of the stars is something else,” and “there are many mansions in the Father’s house.” They will be worthy, the one of a lesser brightness and the other of greater, according to the correspondence of the deeds of each. And one must also understand this differently. The Tree of Life producing twelve fruits is the apostolic assembly according to their participation in the true Tree of Life, who, by his communion with the flesh, bestowed upon us participation in his divinity. Their fruits are those which have produced a “harvest one hundredfold.” The leaves are those bore harvest of “sixtyfold and thirtyfold,” those who will bring forth healing of the nations, those lesser, transmitting the radiance of the divine lights which they received through those who bore a fruit harvest one hundredfold. For whatever difference there is between the leaves and fruit, then such is the difference between those who were saved then, some being glorified less and some glorified more, as has been written.

Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse