the sons of Adam in Seyllan stand up, and also regarding the plantain (though it is highly probable that our parents made their aprons of its leaves, seeing that they be so big) . As for the olive and the date, though they are `good for food' nobody ever suggested their being the forbidden fruit. Yet there was palm wood in the cross, as is clearly seen in the reliques belonging to the Emperor ; at least that is my opinion. Yet that can hardly be if the story be true that Godfrey of Viterbo tells in his Pantheon.' For he says that when Adam was waxing old and infirm, he sent his son Seth to Paradise to seek the promised oil of mercy. The angel warden of Paradise said : `The time is not yet ; but take thou these branches of olive, citron, and cypress, and plant them ; and when oil shall be got from them thy father shall get up safe and sound.' So Seth returned, and found his father dead in Hebron. Wherefore he twisted together those three branches, and planted them above the body of Adam, and straightway they became one tree. And when that tree grew great it was transplanted, first to Mount Lebanon, and afterwards to Jerusalem. And at Jerusalem to this day exists a monastery of the Greeks on the spot where that tree was cut down. The hole whence it was cut is under the altar, and the monastery is called in Hebrew `The Mother of the Cross' from this circumstance. The tree was made known to Solomon by means of the Queen of Saba, and he caused it to be buried under the deep foundations of a tower. But by the earthquake that took place on the birth of Christ, the foundations of the tower were rent, and the tree discovered. It was from it that the pool called Probatica acquired its virtues.
1 The story here related of Seth is told in some of Godfrey's verses of a younger son of Noah called Hiontius."
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