Picking up where I left off, it is within the context of Roman oppression that we find clarity on Matthew and Mark’s use of the fig tree.

To fully understand this, we must rewind all the way back to the dawn of the Roman Empire. According to Roman History, Romulus and Remus were to be killed, but due to their “beauty and innocence”, the servant instead placed their cradle in the (then flooded) Tiber river. They were saved from the river when the god Tibernius made their cradle catch in the roots of a fig tree. He then brought the infant twins up onto the Palatine Hill.

That fig tree, found at the base of the Palatine Hill, was referred to as the Ficus Ruminalis. It was held up as sacred within the Roman culture, and was pivotal in the Roman Imperial Cult’s divination practices. There were priests of the Imperial Cult whose sole job was to read the portents the gods were revealing through the Ficus Ruminalis. The tree was so intertwined with Rome itself that it was believed that the very future of the empire could be told by its health and fruitfulness.

Essentially, to those living in Rome the image of the fig tree was a symbol of the Roman Empire itself. It was representative of the very foundations - the very roots - of the Roman Empire.

I’ll pick up here again tomorrow. Hug someone today, but not in a creepy way.