I pass over the amethyst “from which red roses seem to flow forth,” and as a closing passage from this work, I shall translate the last three symbols: those of the chrysolite, the emerald, and the jasper.

First of all, the chrysolite:—

“The communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins are obtained by the waves of the night—that is to say, by two sacraments of the Holy Church, baptism and penance. These are the waves which by faith wash that night of darkness, sin. And God has sworn, even from the time of Abraham, that He would give Himself to us and would become our familiar friend, and because of His all-embracing and overflowing love, He has willed to wash us in His blood. And in order that we might believe without doubting in the oath which He sware by Himself, He has sealed it with His own death, and has given the merits of His death to all men in the Holy Church for the remission of sins, and to the saints, for the adornment of their glory. That precious stone, the chrysolite, symbolises to us that article of the creed, ‘the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,’ for it is like the waves of the sea, translucent and green, and moreover it has gleams of gold. And so likewise all saints and just men are translucent by grace or by glory, and they are green by their holy life, and they gleam with the gold of divine love which shines through them. And these three adornments are common to all saints and to all just persons, for they are the treasure of the holy churches, here and in eternal life. And all who by penance have put away from them the colour of the Red Sea—that is, a sinful life—are like the chrysolite.

“You must know that this sea is red because of its country and the colour of its bed. It is between Jericho and Zoar, Jericho signifies ‘the moon,’ and Zoar the beast which blinds the reason. Between the moon of inconstancy and the inclination of reason towards the beast, there is always the Red Sea—that is to say, an impure life. No creature can live in the Red Sea, and whatever does not live in it sinks to the bottom; and that is why it is called the Dead Sea, because there is no movement in it, and it is like bitumen or pitch, because it seizes and slays whatever enters it, and in this way it very closely resembles sin, which seizes man and puts him to spiritual death in the sight of God, and plunges him into hell.”

Let us see, lastly, how he applies the emerald and the jasper to the third and sixth articles of the Apostles’ Creed:—

“In this article we compare to the Son of God that beautiful stone which is called the emerald, and which is so green that neither leaves nor grass nor any other green thing can compare with its viridity. And it fills and feeds with its greenness the eyes of those who behold it. Now when the eternal Word of the Father was made man, then was seen the greenest colour ever known on earth. That union of natures is so green and so lovely and so joyful, that no other colour can equal it; and so in a holy vision it has filled and fed the eyes of such men as have prepared themselves to perceive it. Nothing is more lovely and more pleasant to the eye than the emerald when it has been cut and polished, and everything that it reflects may be recognised and seen as in a mirror. And so, if we examine in detail the divine being of Him who took our nature through His love for us, we must needs admire, and we cannot sufficiently praise its sublimity. And when we consider how He became man, we must be ashamed of ourselves, remembering His humility, and we cannot abase ourselves too deeply. And when we remember what His motive was in becoming man, we cannot rejoice enough or love Him as He deserves.

“In these three ways we shall behold with eager desire, and we shall polish and lovingly examine Christ our noble emerald; and so doing, we shall find nothing more pleasant to the eyes of our reason, nothing more attractive, for we shall find Him reflected in us, and we shall find ourselves re-echoed in Him through His grace and a virtuous life, and so we shall turn away from earthly things and keep this mirror ever before our eyes.

“In another article we compare Christ to the noble jasper, which has a green colour, very pleasant to the eye; and it almost equals the emerald in its greenness. And so we compare it to the ascension of our Lord, who was green and beautiful in the eyes of the apostles, and so pleasant that they could never forget Him during all their lives. And we shall rightly have the same experience; we shall consider that the noble emerald, the eternal Word, descended into our nature because of His love for us, with an overflowing greenness, and we shall rejoice in this above all, for this vision is full of grace. We shall further consider that the glorious jasper, by which I mean our Lord Jesus, ascended to heaven wearing our nature, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and has prepared for us the state of glory—Amen.”

Next comes The Book of the Twelve Virtues, which Laurentius Surius entitles more exactly Tractatus de præcipuis quibusdam virtutibus. In it the hermit of Grönendal seems to have made a violent effort to open his bodily eyes, and all his thoughts are intertwined with the simplicity of divine children, in the green and blue rays of humility and mercy, while his prose, which is usually quite impersonal, is enlivened here with various counsels and practical matters.

Here is a fragment on humility:—