“Precious gems are lavishly introduced in the works of the primitive painters,” observed the Abbe Plomb.  “They are set in the borders of dresses, in the necklets and rings of the female saints, and are piled in triangles of flame on the diadems with which painters of yore were wont to crown the Virgin.  Logically, I believe we ought to seek a meaning in every gem as well as in the hues of the dresses.”

“No doubt,” said Durtal, “but the symbolism of gems is much confused.  The reasons which led to the choice of certain stones to be the emblems, by their colour, water, and brilliancy, of special virtues, are so far-fetched and so little proven, that one gem might be substituted for another without greatly modifying the interpretation of the allegory they present.  They form a series of synonyms, each replacing the other with scarcely a shade of difference.

“In the treasury of the Apocalypse, however, they seem to have been selected, if not with stricter meaning, with a more impressive breadth of application, for expositors regard them as coincident with a virtue, and likewise with the person endowed with it.  Nay, these jewellers of the Bible have gone further; they have given every gem a double symbolism, making each embody a figure from the Old Testament and one from the New.  They carry out the parallel of the two Books by selecting in each case a Patriarch and an Apostle, symbolizing them by the character more especially marked in both.

“Thus, the amethyst, the mirror of humility and almost childlike simplicity, is applied in the Bible to Zebulon, a man obedient and devoid of pride, and in the Gospel to St. Matthias, who also was gentle and guileless; the chalcedony, as an emblem of charity, was ascribed to Joseph, who was so merciful and pitiful to his brethren, and to St. James the Great, the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom for the love of Christ; the jasper, emblematical of faith and eternity, was the attribute of Gad and of St. Peter; the sard, meaning faith and martyrdom, was given to Reuben and St. Bartholomew; the sapphire, for hope and contemplation, to Naphtali and St. Andrew, and sometimes, according to Aretas, to St. Paul; the beryl, meaning sound doctrine, learning, and long-suffering, to Benjamin and to St. Thomas, and so forth.  There is, indeed, a table of the harmony of gems and their application to patriarchs, apostles, and virtues, drawn up by Madame Felicie d’Ayzac, who has written an elaborate paper on the figurative meaning of gems.”

“The avatar of some other Scriptural personages might be equally well carried out by these emblematical minerals,” observed the Abbe Gevresin.

“Obviously; and as I warned you, the analogies are very far-fetched.  The hermeneutics of gems are uncertain, and founded on mere fanciful resemblances, on the harmonies of ideas hard to assimilate.  In mediaeval times this science was principally cultivated by poets.”

“Against whom we must be on our guard,” said the Abbe Plomb, “since their interpretations are for the most part heathenish.  Marbode, for example, though he was a Bishop, has left us but a very pagan interpretation of the language of gems.”