The image of the soul as a deserted or infertile land or as a beautiful garden has been a prevalent theme in Eastern ascetic theology since its beginnings. This paper examines the semantic and theological evolution of the garden image in Byzantine spirituality. Starting from the Garden of Eden as a space of uncontaminated purity, it examines this image in relation to the garden of the monastery (in contrast to the city and the desert), finally arriving at the fertile land of the heart. The image of the garden will be investigated in Byzantine spiritual sources in relation to other vegetal images, such as the tree, the vine and the seed. The anthropological and soteriological implications of these images will be explored, as well as their eucharistical and eschatological meanings.
Georgiana Huian (Fri,) studied this question.