When the Pharaoh Khufu heard this legend from Prince Khafra he enjoined that offerings should grace the sepulchres of the Pharaoh Sneferu and his great scribe, the magician. This allegorical story, like many others of the kind, is full of hidden meaning and the connection of this boat with its twenty female rowers, its two (unit of the Moon) Illustrious Ones, the Pharaoh and the Scribe, the green vegetation on the banks of the lake, the lake itself, the division of the waters and the green jewel make the meaning especially clear to students of symbology.

In astrological enumeration from the earliest time the sign Cancer was said to rule the great oceans, the deep blue of which may have influenced the Midrash Bemidbah in its allotment of colour, and in certain hermetic ceremonies connected with the soul’s entry into matter through the Gate of Cancer from the blue ocean of the incorruptible Heavens.

The zodiacal Cancer, the Mansion of the Moon, is associated with the worship of Diana in her varied forms, and Diana—at one time a plebeian goddess only—was for a long period worshipped by the plebeian populations who used to hang her image to trees to increase their growth. Cancer is the sign of the people, and the Moon “which delights in this sign” represents their varying moods. In the Acts of the Apostles it is related that Demetrius, a silversmith, and others made silver shrines of Diana (silver astrologically is the metal of the Moon) resenting the attempt of Paul to prejudice her worship, with the famous cry “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” Diana was worshipped as the goddess of Light by the Romans and whether as Artemis in her changing attributes, Selene, Luna, Leucophryne, Petamia, Munychia or Amarynthea, her influence as a moon deity remains. Her face resembles that of her twin brother Apollo to a very marked degree, and her hair like his is caught up in a knot above the forehead indicating the influence exerted by the Moon in its relation to the Sun, in the movements of the waters of the Earth.

That chrysoprase as we know it today was used in very early times is clearly proved by the Egyptian jewellery discovered in excavations. Hard as the stone is, the ancients knew how to cut it, various intagli of ancient origin existing today to prove their skill. The apple-green hue of the chrysoprase is attractive, and it is probable that it was the stone of which fifty specimens were sent to Ashkalon as part of the tribute. Its inclusion in this department of the Breastplate is the result of much research, and it harmonizes with astrological tradition. This stone was inscribed with the name of the tribe of Judah.

=The Fifth Stone of the Breastplate=

In placing Shoham in the position of Sapir in the fifth division of the Breastplate, traditional philosophy is harmonized. The fifth zodiacal sign Leo is not blue. It is the mansion of the Sun, and old almanacs symbolize it as a raging lion. The Midrash Bemidbah gives the colour as black but generally authorities agree that it is a shade of red, especially during sunrise and sunset, and a yellowish-red at noonday. The eleventh zodiacal sign Aquarius is given as sky blue by most authorities, and it is generally accepted. It has a mystic connection with the heavens, and without doubt its gem is the Sapir. In the Zodiac the signs Leo and Aquarius are exactly opposite, and on the Breastplate the stone for the former is second of the second row, and for the latter second of the last row. Accepting this view no difficulty will be experienced. It might also be considered that the tribe of Judah is the tribe of the Lion, although for reasons previously stated, the name of this tribe is engraved on the fourth stone.

Accepting the Shoham then as the fifth stone of the Breastplate we have yet to identify it. The Hebrew Bible, the Authorized Version, Josephus, the Vulgate, Marbodus, Dr. Deane all translate it as Onyx, and Dr. Ginzberg half agrees with them. Dr. Emil A. Braun, the archæologist, traced Shoham to the Arabic SACHMA, blackness. “Of such a colour,” he writes, “are the Arabian Sardonyx which have a black ground colour.” However, this species can hardly be called true Sardonyx defined by Pliny as “candor in sarda,” graphically rendered by King as “a white opaque layer superimposed upon a red transparent stratum of the true red Sard.” The ancient and modern methods of imitating this gem are identical: A Sard is put upon a red-hot iron block with the result that the part nearest the heated mass is transmuted into a white hazy layer upon which the Cameo artist works.

It seems that the name Onyx amongst ancient peoples was indifferently applied to both Onyx and Sardonyx, but in the case of the fifth stone of the Breastplate there seems to be no doubt that the Sardonyx is the Stone. The sign Leo astrologically rules the Heart in the human body, which in the Grand Man is symbolically the Sun, and the Sard is of the colour of the Heart. By ancient correspondence then the Heart, Leo, the Sun, the Sard, the Sardonyx, and the fifth department of the Breastplate are clearly connected.

The Carnelian, Sard, and Sardonyx were most extensively used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other peoples of antiquity, and many specimens have been found engraved with various devices: finely worked Egyptian scarabei, antique Intagli and Camei. The Sardonyx has been called a “royal stone,” and the sign of the Lion is intimately connected with royalty. The winged, human-headed lions of Nineveh are emblematical of the Sun, and Daniel describing his vision connects the Winged Lion with the heart of Man:—(Ch. VII. 4).

In the Egyptian texts frequent allusion is made to the heart or HATI of Osiris. The HATI represented vitality, warmth, control, and silently within it were impressed the actions of its owner during his earth-life. It was to his HATI, lying on the Balance before the “Shining God,” the attendant deities and the forty and two gods in the great Judgment Hall, that the shuddering soul cried out of the intense silence: “O heart of mine, testify not against me,” words frequently impressed on Scarabei and regarded as magically potent.

A symbolic image constructed by the Magi at the period of the Sun’s passage through the sign of the Lion, took the form of a crowned king enthroned, wearing a deep yellow robe, a globe at his feet and a raven by his heart. The crowned king, his yellow robe, the raven and the globe symbolize the Sun and its manifestations, and the Heart—the Sun of Man—symbolizes the Solar sign Leo. Another symbol of the Magi, shows a crowned woman in a four-horsed chariot (four being the negative or female side of the Sun), a mirror in her right hand, a staff in her left, and a burning flame on her head. These emblems were directed to be engraved in the Hour of the Sun, the Sun being in Leo, on a carnelian stone. The famous seal of Solomon and David—the Mogan Dovid—was most potent when engraved on a Sardonyx, a Carnelian or a plate of gold (metal of the Sun).

All conditions necessary for this stone of the breastplate are fulfilled in the Sardonyx stone which, engraved with the tribe of Zebulun, filled the fifth place.

=The Sixth Stone of the Breastplate=

The sixth stone of the Breastplate is, without doubt, the Jashpeh accepted by the Vulgate, Marbodus, Dr. Emil Hirsch and Dr. G. Deane. Translated correctly enough as Jasper, it is placed in the twelfth division in the Hebrew and Authorized Versions.

From an astrological point of view the Yaholom has no claim on the sixth House whilst Jashpeh undoubtedly has. The latter is the third stone of the second row of the Breastplate and the former is the third stone of the fourth row. In astrological science they are opposite in the Zodiac, the Jashpeh belonging to the celestial Virgo and the Yahalom to the celestial Pisces. The colours are given in the Midrash Bemidbah as “Mixed,” and this is more correct than the “black speckled with blue,” set down sometimes for the sign Virgo, but which scarcely expresses the aspect of Nature personified in the goddess Ceres. The Jasper stone has not lost its identity in the march of time, and there is no reason to doubt that the Aspu of the Assyrians, the Jashpeh of the Hebrews, the Jaspis of the Greek, or the Yash of the Arabs is any other than the Jasper, as we know it today. The Panther stone of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan is the well-known and very beautiful Egyptian Mottled Jasper so greatly esteemed in the ancient world. The Jasper takes a very brilliant polish and is quite of the crystal brilliance indicated in the sacred books. It was the gem of the angel Raphael, emblematic of strength, courage, virtue and wisdom, and it is associated with a variety called the Graminatias, the markings of which resemble—to a very marked degree in some specimens—the letters of the Alphabet. Thus, it is the stone of Hermes or Thoth, the mercurial god who, possessed of illimitable knowledge, communicated it to the earth-bound spirit known as Man, by signs in the Heavens, in the air, in the sea, on the earth, in the flowers and stones of the earth, by omens, by hints and by incidents, but never—on account of his promise to Apollo—by spoken words. Jerome calls the Jasper “the stone of spiritual graces,” and from Hermes to Christ called Son of the Virgin, this stone descends with all its spiritual attributes. It is associated with the Virgins of Egypt who provoked the words set down in the eighth chapter of Jeremiah: “The children gather wood and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven.”