13. Concerning the Lost Temple and How it is to be Restored III (In connection with the Legend of the True Cross, or Golden Legend)

In Bilder Okkulter Siegel und Säulen. Der Munchner Kongress, Pfingsten 1907, und seine Auswirkungen, Bibl. 284, there is a comprehensive note dealing with the source of the Temple Legend. It is there said that, according to the research of Otto Zockler ( Das Kreuz Christi, chapter headed: ‘Medieval Legends concerning the Wood of the Cross,’ Gutersloh 1875—preserved in the University Library, Basle) the legend about the three seeds from the Tree of Life forms part of a complicated series of legends from the twelfth century onwards. The earliest literary mention of Adam being buried on Golgotha is quoted by the Alexandrian Church Father, Origen, from a tradition out of the second century, to which was added the tradition of Seth's journey to Paradise which is recorded in the third century in the Nicodemus Gospel, which originally contained an account of the fetching of the Oil of Mercy for the healing of Seth's sick father, Adam. It was only in later centuries that the genealogical connection between the wood of the Tree of Paradise and the Cross of Christ was established in its various forms.