Over time, the apple image has accrued a rich cluster of associations in Christian literature particularly because of its locus amoenus in The Song of Solomon as providing refreshment for the soul, as a few passages from this work might illustrate. The beloved (the Bride-groom or Christ) is repeatedly compared to apples or the apple tree by the speaker (the soul): “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste” (2:3). Lewis’s description of the shadowy places of the apple tree seems to have its source in the Song. The speaker then complains of her lovesickness saying, “[s]tay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love” (2:5). In canticle 8:5 the speaker addresses the beloved: “I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bear thee.” Such verses gave rise in biblical commentaries to the metaphor of Christ as tree and fruit as well as gardener. In one of his poems in Pia Desideria (1628), Herman Hugo renders a verse paraphrase of the image of the apple tree as a healer of a soul caught in “the burning sand of spiritual wilderness.” She hears the voice of God saying,
I know you see Jerusalem above
Thither your life and your endeavors move:
But with the tedious Pilgrimage dismay’d,
Implore refreshment from the Apple’s shade.
See, see, I come to bring your pains relief!
Beneath my shadow ease your weary grief.
Behold my arms stretch’d on the fatal Tree,
With these extended boughs I’ll cover thee.
Behold my bleeding feet, my gaping side,
In these free Coverts thou thy self maist hide
This shade will grant thee thy desir’d repose,
This Tree alone for that kind purpose grows.
(22-33 qtd. by Stewart 87-88)
Under one of his emblems, Hugo writes the following epigram: “The Tree of Life, to wit, the Apple, is the holy Cross; its Fruit is Christ, its shadow the refreshment and defense of mankind” (qtd. by Stewart 88). The parched soul, the Bride in The Songs, turns to the apple tree for refreshment and regeneration, “allowing a garden to spring where all had been desert” (Stewart 168). Stewart concludes, “[w]hether in poetry or painting, the fruit of the apple tree of the Songs symbolizes the Eucharist” (85). In Paradise Lost, abundant grace is represented by the Tree of Life.
This sacramental meaning of the apple applies, to a certain extent, to the apples in Aslan’s garden, for through them, Aslan inspires Digory with strength to defeat the Witch and keep Narnia safe. In Narnia, the apple is also a healing apple if plucked and eaten properly at the right time, and by the right person. Aslan’s role as a healer, like Christ in the passages from the Song, is clear in that he later uses the apple to heal Digory’s mother. Aslan’s role as a gardener, like Christ in our world based on John 15, is shown through the planting of the apple by having Digory throw it towards the river soil. After the coronation of the King and Queen of Narnia, the silver apple tree shoots up from the soil: “[i]ts spreading branches seemed to cast a light rather than shade, and the silver apples peeped out like stars from under every leaf. But it was the smell which came from it, even more than the sight that had made everyone draw in their breath” (206). The smell breaks one’s heart. In a passage that alludes to the apple tree in The Song of Solomon, Aslan tells Digory, who is a type of a soul in pilgrimage, “[f]or this fruit you have hungered and thirsted and wept” (198) and, later, he commands, “[g]uard this tree, for it is your shield [….] While that Tree flourishes she [the Witch] will never come down to Narnia” (206). Aslan is thus tree, fruit, and gardener, a figure of Christ. Accordingly, like Jesus in John 13:26-38 he foresees his own martyrdom, which will occur at the hands of the Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He tells his followers, “Evil will come of that evil [the Witch], but it is still a long way off, and I will see to it that the worst falls upon myself” (Nephew 161). But as long as the apple tree flourishes in Narnia, the Witch will stay away.