Green, the emerald, the color of spring, expressed hope and victory.
Yellow or gold was the emblem of the sun, the goodness of God, marriage and fruitfulness. St. Joseph and St. Peter wear yellow. Yellow has also a bad signification when it has a dirty, dingy hue, such as the usual dress of Judas, and then signifies jealousy, inconstancy, and deceit.
Violet or amethyst signified passion and suffering or love and truth. Penitents, as the Magdalene, wear it. The Madonna wears it after the crucifixion, and Christ after the resurrection.
Gray is the color of penance, mourning, humility, or accused innocence.
Black with white signified humility, mourning, and purity of life. Alone, it spoke of darkness, wickedness, and death, and belonged to Satan. In pictures of the Temptation Jesus sometimes wears black.
The associations with the several colors above mentioned differ widely from those in modern folk-lore; for instance, those with green and yellow, the same colors being stigmatized in the old song that “green’s forsaken and yellow’s forsworn.”
The Hist. de Dieu, by Didron (d), contains the following:
The hierarchy of colors could well, in the ideas of the Middle Ages, have been allied at the same time to symbolism. The most brilliant color is gold, and here it is given to the greatest saints. Silver, color of the moon, which is inferior to the sun, but its companion, however, should follow; then red, or the color of fire, attribute of those who struggle against passion, and which is inferior to the two metals, gold and silver, to the sun and moon, of which it is but an emanation; next green, which symbolizes hope, and which is appropriate to married people; lastly, the uncertain yellowish color, half white and half yellow, a modified color, which is given to saints who were formerly sinners, but who have succeeded in reforming themselves and are made somewhat bright in the sight of God by penitence.
A note in the Am. Journal of Psychology, Vol. I, November, 1887, p. 190, gives another list substantially as follows: