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SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
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MAY, 1896.]
owner's guardian. The designs on most Assyrian cylinders shew they were talismans.26 The Caribeans of the West Indies use jade-amulets in the shape of hollow engraved cylinders like the Assyrians.27 According to the Greek writer, Onomacritus (B. C. 500), the agate, topaz, spring-green jasper, amber, chrysolite, coral, and opal had all supernatural powers.38 During the whole of their history the faith and experience of the Greeks in the supernatural power of gems remained unshaken. The Greeks and Romans held that gems had a spiritual as well as a material potency.29 They cared diseases, kept off calamities, and both during life and after death scared the demons of the earth and air.30 That the kindly influences of the different gems might serve as an unbroken guard against evil influences, they arranged twelve of them to form a zodiac amulet, assigning to each gem the month during which the power of the gem was at its highest.31 The Water-pot or January spirit lodged in the jacinth or garnet, the Fishes or February spirit in the amethyst, the Ram or March spirit in the bloodstone, the Bull or April spirit in the sapphire, the Twins or May spirit in the agate, the Crab or June spirit in the emerald, the Lion or July spirit in the onyx, the Virgin or August spirit in the carnelian, the Balance or September spirit in the chrysolite. the Scorpion or October spirit in the aqua marine, the Archer or November spirit in the topaz, and the Goat or December spirit in the ruby. In accordance with the wholesome law that a new religion continues old experiences under a new name, during the first centuries of Christianity, the zodiacal gems were turned into the twelve apostolic jewels. The Peter spirit was housed in the jasper, the Andrew spirit in the sapphire, James the Greater in the chalcedony, John in the emerald, Philip in the sardonyx, Mathew in the chrysolite, Thomas in the beryl, Thaddeus in the chrysophrase, James the Less in the topaz, Simeon in the jacinth, and Matthias in the amethyst.32 This arrangement may in part have been due to the knowledge and talent of Dioscorides, who, in the second century after Christ, formulated the virtues of gems with a skill which agrees with all subsequent experience. In the seventh century A. D., the magic powers of gems were, like other magic powers, greater than they had been during the -season of science and philosophy in Greece and Rome in the century before the Christian Era. Gems secured the wearer health, beauty, riches, honour, good fortune, and influente. They had special connection with planets and seasons. In spite of the claims of the Apostles each month had still its gem.34 It was the Middle-Age experience that in each variety of gem a special spirit had its abode. The gem was alive, as according to received Christian theories, the vile body of man was alive because in it lived a spirit. In the beginning of the sixteenth century Cardan wrote:-" Not only do precious stones live but they suffer illness, old age, and death."35 Since Cardan the antique worship' of gems has continued to be based on their proved magical and talismanic powers rather than on the pleasure derived from their beauty, endurance or rarity.36 In A. D. 1652, Thomas Nichols, perhaps the greatest authority on gems, noted that the descriptions of the healing and guarding influences of gems recorded by
26 Compare Ency. Brit. "Gems." Talisman is the Arabic tiliem, pl. filisma Tilism is not a native Arab word. King (Antique Gems, p. 434) is probably correct in tracing filism to the Greek (apo) telesma or influence. 28 Streeter's Precious Stones and Gems, p. 17.
27 Dieulafait's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 179. 29 Emanuel's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 23.
50 Dieulafait's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 32. Gnostic gems were placed in tombs to guard the dead against demons. King's Antique Gems, p. 349. This practice was observed by Christians as well as by the followers of the earlier faiths. So the Christian Maria, wife of Honorius, had gnostic gems buried with her as amulets (King's Antique Gems, p. 304). So in the Middle Ages, bishops were buried wearing their sapphire rings (King's Antique Gems, p. 297).
31 Emanuel's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 28; Hone's Table Book, Vol. I. p. 320. Similarly, it was probably more from their power of excluding evil of every shape than from the pleasing gradation of colours that the writers of Tobias' Dream and of the Revelations built the walls of the New Jerusalem with precious stones in the following order working up from the foundation, amethyst, hyacinth, chrysoprase, topasion or peridot, beryl, chrysolite that is topaz, sardius, sardonyx, smaragdus, chalcedony, sapphire and jasper. Compare King's Antique Gems, p. 429. 32 Emanuel's Diamonds asul Precious Stones, p. 30. 35 Dieulafait's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 44. 54 Streeter's Precious Stones and Gems, p. 19. The common belief, that a spirit or soul lives in gems, explains Blue John, the local Derby name for Fluor spar.
38 Dieulafait's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 48.
se Emanuel's Diamonds and Precious Stones, p. 31
