Angels and Ministers of Grace Kunz: Magic of Jewels Page 320



	278 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS There are some traces in the Bible of the use of precious stones as amulets. In Proverbs xvii, 8, we read that "a gift is like a precious stone in the eyes of the owner ; whithersoever he turneth he proepereth." This passage is rendered somewhat differently in the Authorized Version, but the above translation is evidently more correct. The stones of the breastplate were of course amulets in a certain sense, and possibly oracles also, and it is therefore quite probable that the Hebrews shared in the belief common to all the peoples around them, although opposition of the orthodox to all magical practices prevented them from going into particulars in regard to such superstitious fancies. In support of his theory that the Urim and Thummim of the Hebrew high-priest signified the stones of the breastplate worn on the sacred ephod, and should be rendered "perfectly brilliant," Bellermann cites the passage in Ezekiel (chap, xxviii, verse 14), where he writes of "fiery stones" in treating of the royal splendors of the ruler of the great commercial city of Tyre. As to the oracular utterances of the high-priest when, clad in the ephod and wearing the glittering breastplate, he sought for the counsel of the Almighty, this author rejects the idea that the divine will was revealed by changes in the brilliancy of the stones, by casting of lots, or by a mysterious use of the ineffable name, the Tetragrammaton, J h w h (Jahweh), but believes that the answer to the questions was communicated to the high-priest by an inner voice, an inspiration similar to that vouchsafed to the great prophets of Israel.¹ / A curious analogy to the use by Christians of fragments supposed to have come from the True Cross as amulets, was the employment by the Talmudic Jews of chips from an ¹ Johann Joachim Bellermann, " Die Urim und Thummim, die ältesten Gemmen," Berlin, 1824, pp. 21, 22. For a full account of the breastplate see the present writer's " The Curious Lore of Precious Stones," Philadelphia and London, 1913, chap, viii, pp. 275-306.