The twelfth and last tribe, Asher, has the jasper for its gem. This would also gain an auspicious significance from its association with Asher, which means “happy.” To the other meanings assigned to jasper might be added that of “happiness.” As we have elsewhere remarked, there seems good reason to suppose that jade was frequently designated jasper in ancient times, and this stone was everywhere believed to possess wonderful magic powers. The jasper[513] as an emblem of strength and fortitude is noted by St. Jerome in his commentary on Isaiah (liv, 11, 12), where he writes that the bulwarks or walls of the Holy City were strengthened by jasper. These bulwarks served “to overthrow and refute every proud attack against the knowledge of God, and to subject falsehood to truth. Whoever, therefore, is most convincing in debate and best fortified with texts of Holy Scripture is a bulwark of the Church.”[514] Jerome also alludes to the variety of jasper called _grammatias_, because of the peculiar markings, suggesting letters of the alphabet. This was believed to possess great talismanic virtue, especially in putting to flight phantoms and apparitions, since the markings were thought to signify some potent spell, written on the stone by nature’s hand. Of another kind of jasper, “white as snow or sea-foam,”[515] and having reddish stains, we are told that it symbolizes the spiritual graces, which preserve those endowed with them from vain terrors; and the learned Father quotes as descriptive of this stone the words of Solomon’s Song (v, 10): “My beloved is white and ruddy.”[516] Writing of the sapphire (lapis lazuli), one of the foundation stones of the Holy City, St. Jerome likens it to heaven and to the air above us, adding, somewhat fancifully, that we might apply to the sapphire the words of Socrates in the “Clouds” of Aristophanes: “I walk upon air and look down upon the Sun.” Turning then to Holy Scripture, Jerome notes the well-known passage in Ezekiel (i, 26) where the Throne of God is said to have “the appearance of a sapphire stone,” and finds in this text a proof that blue denoted the glory of God.[517] The ingenuity of the ancient commentators in finding hidden meanings in the simplest things is well shown by the assertion of Thomas de Cantimpré that St. John placed the emerald fourth in the list of foundation stones, because the _four_ evangelists are constant in their praise of chastity.[518]