CHAPTER V INTERPRETATION OF THE BREASTPLATE ACCORDING TO ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY✦

It is apparent that the identification of the stones in the Breastplate must present many difficulties. Lord Arthur C. Hervey in his Dictionary of the Bible, says: “Whether the order followed the ages of the sons of Israel or, as seems most probable, the order of the encampment, may be doubted; but unless any appropriate distinct symbolism of the different tribes be found in the names of the precious stones, the question can scarcely be decided.” Dr. C. Keil in “Biblical Archaeology” says: “The order of the rows of the precious stones is given in Exodus 28:17-20 and 39:10-13, but owing to the vacillating manner in which the early writers designate and describe the stones we are at a loss to know how it should be explained.” Dr. Deane is of the opinion that in many cases it is a difficult task to identify the Hebrew and Greek names used in these passages with the names of modern mineralogy. The Rev. J. R. Dummelow comments on the difficulties of identifying the stones, the meaning of the Hebrew words being doubtful. Josephus saw the Breastplate frequently in his day, and in his description the position of certain stones is changed. The Hebrew Bible translation also presents differences. Rosenmuller, the Orientalist, argues as to the position of the 6th and 12th stones, placing the 12th in the 6th and the 6th in the 12th. It may easily be assumed that in its wanderings stones were lost from the Breastplate and that the replacing of these stones was not always carried out by men with a knowledge of the quabalistical import of Urim and Thummim or even of the stones themselves.

To quote from Dr. Deane: “The variation in the order of the stones prompts the enquiry whether the Breastplate which Josephus repeatedly saw and which Jerome might have seen in the Temple of Concord was identical with that of ancient times. If the whole of the original stones were preserved, the order must have been kept in consequence of the names engraved upon them. But it is not by any means unlikely that in the great vicissitudes of the Hebrew nation some of the original stones may have been lost and have been replaced by others.” More evidences of this kind would be superfluous.

=The First Stone of the Breastplate=

Now, the first stone of the Breastplate is a Red stone. According to astrology the Red stone vibrates to the planet Mars and the zodiacal Aries, therefore its position as the first stone of the Breastplate is natural. In the mystic philosophy of the Hebrews the Ram “caught in a thicket by his horns,” the blood of the lamb upon the lintel and side-posts, etc., and in mystic Christian philosophy the blood of the Lamb which redeems from worldly sin are expressed symbolically by the sign Aries, into which the Sun enters in the month of Nisan, approximately 21st March, the time of the Passover and of Easter. Not only then must the stone be a red one, it must be red of the colour of blood. But again one must not lose sight of the fact that the first stone on the Plate was engraved not with the name of the tribe of Benjamin, the true Aries tribe, but with the name Reuben, a tribe under the lordship of the second sign of the Zodiac, Taurus. This may be explained by the fact that the earlier Breastplate of the two began with the sign Taurus. Agnes Mary Clerke, writing on the Old Zodiac, says: “So far as positive records go Aries was always the first sign. But the arrangement is, on the face of it, a comparatively modern one. None of the brighter stars of the constellation could be said even roughly to mark the Equinox much before 1800 B.C.; therefore during a long stretch of previous time the leading position belongs to the stars of Taurus. Numerous indications accordingly point to a corresponding primate zodiac. Setting aside as doubtful, evidence derived from interpretation of cuniform inscriptions we meet in connection with Mithraic and Mylittic legends reminiscences of a Zodiac and religious calendar in which the Bull led the way. Virgil’s “Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus anum Taurus” perpetuates the tradition, and the Pleiades continued within historical memory to be the first asterism of the lunar zodiac.”

The Egyptian worship of Serapis who is frequently symbolized by the head of a bull surmounted by a uræus and disc, and whose colour was of a blood red, may be noted. The worship of this god was introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies, but his name is derived from Ausar-Hapi (Osiris-Apis) and he represents a blending of the older worship of Osiris with the Bull Apis which, says Herodotus, is a fair and sublime reflection of the soul of Osiris. In this connection Diodorus says that the soul of Osiris migrated into Apis and thus revealed himself to men through the ages. Attention is drawn to this worship to show that in Egypt a bull god was associated with the colour red, and the “holding a red rag to a bull” may have its origin in the bull-fights of old, in which case however it is clear that the Martial Red is the colour of irritation.

We can see in the placing of Taurus, the Bull—or the tribal name Reuben—in the first section of the Breastplate a desire to harmonize it as far as possible with an older one, whilst the gem and its colour represented the sign Aries—the sign of the Ram—symbolically the tribe of Benjamin, engraved as of old in the last division of the Plate.

The Hebrew word ODEM, signifying redness, is connected with the Hebrew word DOM, blood, and the stone to meet these requirements is the Red Hæmatite, the true bloodstone of antiquity, which is further described in the section of this book dealing more generally with the scientific and romantic aspects of precious stones.

The Hæmatite is a true iron stone and in old astrology Iron is a metal placed directly under the rulership of the planet Mars and the sign Aries. We have direct evidence of the use of this stone by the ancient Babylonians, who wore it as an engraved signet cut in cylinder form. We therefore identify the first stone of the Breastplate as the Red Hæmatite on which was engraved the name of the first tribe, Reuben.

=The Second Stone of the Breastplate=

The second stone of the Breastplate is given as PITDAH, variously interpreted as a Topaz, Peridot, Yellowish-green Serpentine, Diamond and Chrysolite. The Targums agree that a green stone is implied and some authorities seek to clear the mystery by advancing that the stone was of a yellowish-green.

The topaz of the ancients is not the topaz of today, but is identified with the stone known to us as the chrysolite or peridot. Traditionally the emerald is associated with the second sign of the zodiac, and Apion who wrote much concerning ancient Egypt and whose story of Androclus and the Lion echoes through the ages, tells of a gigantic figure of Serapis seen at Alexandra; this figure, the height of which was about fifteen feet, was probably composed of glass resembling emerald. The emerald was sacred to Serapis who—as indicated in the previous chapter—was a Bull god associated naturally with the zodiacal Taurus. This sign and the colour green blend truly for green is the symbol of life, of agriculture and of abundant nature, and amongst nations of antiquity holy festivals heralded the return of Spring whose praises are sung by the poets in the magical language of mythology. The many references to “green trees” in the Bible need only be noticed in passing.

The Veneralia of old was held once a year amidst budding plants and flowers, in gardens and on green lawns in honour of Venus to welcome Adonis returning in radiant beauty from the under-world. The ceremony took place towards the end of April, when the Sun had entered the Earth sign of Venus, Taurus, and it survives in the later May Day rejoicings.

The gem needed is therefore a green one, and this is traditionally the correct one for the sign Shor or Taurus in which Nogah or Venus delights and in which Lavanah or the Moon exalts. The emerald was sacred to this period of the year. This gem was well-known amongst ancient nations, especially those of Egypt and Ethiopia where the chief emerald mines were. The children of Israel must certainly have known of the existence of the emerald which is mentioned in the Wisdom of Ptah-Hotep who lived ages before the time of Solomon and more than 1000 years before Hammurabi, the Wise, of Babylon. “Courtesy in Speech,” says this sage, “is rarer than the emeralds which slave girls find in the stones.”

It is recorded that the Egyptians employed many women at the emerald mines on account of the keenness of their vision, and it is highly probable that Israelitish women were selected for this work with captives of other nations. Specimens of emeralds collected by Sir G. Wilkinson from Mount Zabarah in Upper Egypt now lie in the British Museum. Evidence is not wanting to prove that the ancients knew well how to engrave on an emerald, Pliny states that Ptolemy offered Lucullus at Alexandra an emerald with his portrait engraved on it.