Quaestio illustris: an'ne renati de sua ipsorum et de aliorum Piorum aeterna electione, certo pronunciare, & per fidem, in Domino, de eadem gloriari debeant

of holy men. Zech. 14.4. Therefore, the Prophet and King piously boasts that he is and will be an Olive tree in the house of God.

It behooves the ministers of the Church to ἐλαίειν cultivate olive trees: because it is their task to plant and to water, and to ask for growth from the Lord. 1. Cor. 3.6.

The Olive tree flourishes with perpetual foliage, like the palm, the laurel, and the myrtle. To the same, according to the testimony of Theophrastus, this happens, which occurs to the linden, the elm, and the poplar, which turn the underside of their leaves soon after the summer solstice. The saints also flourish with the perpetual glory of sanctification, and they look from the earth toward heaven, and refer all things to the glory of God.

But just as an Olive tree grafted onto an oak dies: so, too much familiarity with the children of this world results badly for the Saints. Therefore, this Parable must be considered again and again by them: Just as the oak and the Olive tree disagree with such persistent hatred that one planted in the furrow of the other dies: so the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whoever, therefore, having set roots in the earth, wishes to be a friend of the world, is constituted an enemy of God. James 4.4.

Regarding the συμπάθεια sympathy and friendship of the Olive tree and the Myrtle, Theophrastus writes in book 3 of the Causes of Plants, ch. 15: I add also those things which are joined together by mutual love, as in the genus of trees, the Olive and the Myrtle. For Androtion reports that these live by a mutual embrace of roots,