WHEN Daniel heard about the sentence passed on Susannah, he ran to her house and amid all the hubbub called out, ‘I am innocent of this woman’s blood!’
Asked to explain himself, he began by roundly scolding the Jews of that quarter of the city for passing judgment without due process in Jewish law. He then insisted on interviewing the two judges in the garden where it all happened, one at a time.
The first judge was brought in, grumbling, and Daniel said to him, ‘Under which tree did you see the young man?’. The judge pointed and replied, ‘Under that mastic tree’.* Daniel then sent him away, and put the same question to the other judge. ‘Under that holm oak’, was his lordship’s sworn testimony.*
When the people heard the two judges condemn themselves out of their own mouths, they changed their verdict. Susannah was discharged, but the two judges suffered the penalty laid down in the Law of Moses for bearing false witness.
The mastic tree (pistacia lentiscus) is native to the Mediterranean, and cultivated on the Greek island of Chios for its sweet-scented gum. Although it can be grown in England, it is not truly hardy. The mastic can grow to a height of around thirteen feet.
The holm oak (quercus ilex), sometimes called the evergreen or holly oak, is native to the Mediterranean, but has settled happily in Britain. Holm oaks have a grand, rounded crown and can grow to sixty feet.