The Twelve Gems

On the twelve gems. By our holy father Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, to Diodorus, Bishop of Tyre, concerning the book of the twelve stones that are in the ornaments of Aaron. Prologue.

The first stone is sardius, so called the Babylonian; but it is fiery in kind and blood-like, resembling the sardine fish; therefore it is called sardius, taking the name from its kind. It is found in Babylon, toward Assyria. The stone is bright; and it is powerful for healing, which doctors use for swellings and other wounds caused by iron. There is also another sardonyx which is called Molochas; it is soft of texture, and it has the same appearance, turning pale, and it is most much-blooming near the beginning of spring, when the passions begin.

The stone is topaz, red in kind beyond coal; and it is found in Topaz, a city of India, by those who once mined stones there, in the heart of another stone which the miners, having seen to be bright, and having indicated an alabastron to some, departed for a small price. The Thebans brought it to the queen of that time; and she, receiving it, placed it in the middle of her forehead in her diadem. The stone has such a test: being rubbed with a medical probe, it does not give a red juice according to its color, but a milky one; and the vessels are filled as much as the one rubbing desires, and the previous weight is not diminished at all. This juice from it is also useful for an eye ailment; and being drunk, it opposes dropsy and the sea-storms caused by grapes.

The stone is emerald. This is also called green; and it is pale in kind, and there is a certain difference among them; for some call them Neronian, others Domitian. The Neronian is bitter, very pale in kind, and also of a shining nature. Whether it is called Neronian or Domitian for such a reason, is because they say that Nero or Domitian poured enough oil into vessels, and from the oil the oil turns green with time, and by this, the stone being soaked, becomes more bright in color. Others say that a certain Nero, a craftsman of the old painters, or a stone-worker, discovered the most necessary thing of the emerald, and from this it is called Neronian, and the others Domitian. But there are also other emeralds: the first in Judea is very much like the Neronian, and the other in Ethiopia, which is said to have come into being in the Phasis river. Phasis is what the Greeks call the Indus, but the barbarians call the Ganges. They also say that coal is found in it; for there, Moses says, is the coal and the stone...