To continue further might lead outside the province of this book, and the plea for this digression is the endeavour to elucidate the hidden import of the various departments of the sacred Breastplate by the searchlight of the philosophical stories of our antique fathers. Thoth or Hermes engraved all knowledge on two pillars or columns, and the Hermetic schools say that all knowledge is contained in the words, letters and continuations engraved on the two tables of stone. This writing of God graven upon the tables constituted the Commandments, five of which, and five is the number of Mercury, were written on each stone, the complete ten indicating the Hidden Power of God—identified in the Sepher Yetzirah as the Path of Resplendent Intelligence and the Light which, too intense for the material eye of man, is around the Throne of the Supreme. The association of marble with Hermes, the Guide of the Human Race, is traditional, and evidence favours it as the third stone of the Breastplate engraved with the name of the tribe of Levi. =The Fourth Stone of the Breastplate= Nofek the fourth stone of the Breastplate, has been identified with the emerald, carbuncle, jasper, red garnet, ruby carbuncle, almandine garnet and ruby. Two of the Targums classify it as emerald, possibly referring to a stone similar in colour to the emerald. It is well known that all green stones were called emeralds by a large section of the ancient public, just as all red stones were called rubies, etc., hence much confusion followed. Dr. Emil Hirsch says that Nofek (the correctness of which word has been doubted in some quarters) must have belonged to the green stones. In corresponding chrysoprase with “celestial love of truth” Emanuel Swedenborg draws attention to Exodus XXVIII. 18, indicating his identification of that gem as the fourth stone of the Plate. This gem which is of a soft green colour resembles the tender hue of moonlight. The Midrash Bemidbah gives the colour of Nofek as sky blue, the Egyptians according to Müller as green, and the astrological, in considering Cancer the Mansion of the Moon, a moonlight green. The chrysoprase was anciently translated as “austerity directed against vice” which harmonizes agreeably with the traditional attitude of chaste Diana against evil-doers. The Boat of the Moon in ancient Egypt is pictured as a disc within a crescent, and the association of the moon (which was said to be in its Mansion in the watery Cancer) with the waters of the Earth was well known to the ancients and is referred to frequently in works on magic and astrology. In this connection may be mentioned the Egyptian story of a few thousands of years ago which is known as “The Legend of the Green Jewel” told to the Pharaoh Khufu by the Prince Khafra: