Creation

Of the diamond stone which the high priest wore when he entered the Holy of Holies three times a year.

A diamond stone is similar in color to air. It was worn by the high priest when he entered the Holy of Holies. And he entered three times a year: on the feast of the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Tabernacle. He then rested on the breast of the high priest, when he put on the podium, and on top of the podium he put on the upper robe (epomid). The epomide descended a little below the breast: for its length was a span and a half. And on the right and left sides, above the nipples, where two shields were sewn, hung two smaragds. In the midst of them was a phenomenon [1], which was nothing else but the aforementioned diamond, likened to the air in color. Then above the shoulders [2] were the above-mentioned 12 stones. Three times a year, as it is said, the high priest showed himself to the people with a golden tablet on his forehead (Exodus 28:36 ff.). And if people were in sins, and did not walk according to the commandments which God had given, then the color of that stone changed, they say, and became black. From this they knew that death was sent by the Lord. And when He sent death upon them by the sword, the color of the stone was made bloody, as it is said in the book of Jeremiah: "Cast out his people, and let them go out unto death, unto death: who to the sword, to the sword, and who to the famine, to the famine: and who to captivity, to captivity" (Jeremiah 15:1-2). But if it was as bright as snow, then the people knew that there was no sin in it. And then they kept a feast, as the prophet says, Celebrate, O Judah, thy feasts, and render thy vows. The Lord hath taken away thy iniquity, hath delivered thee out of the hand of thy enemy: the Lord shall reign in thy midst, thou shalt not see evil thereunto (Nahum 1:15; Zeph. 8:15). Therefore, during the time of Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, during his next service, at Pascha, the stone was bright. In that year, Zachariah had only just begun to serve as a priest. And in the next turn the other took the podir. And when Zachariah tarried in the Holy of Holies, the people were in turmoil, that the stone would not serve as a rebuke of their sins. And when he went out, and the people knew that he had seen a vision of great glory, he rejoiced exceedingly. For John was born, an angel of Christ. That is why the golden daughter was brilliant [3].

But since those twelve stones were commanded to be attached to the breastplate according to the twelve tribes of Israel, so that each stone corresponded to a separate tribe, then, according to the division made before, let us now pass on to the order of the sons born of Jacob. For in this way it is more convenient to bring the two into harmony.

The sons of Leah are four: Reuben, Sardia; Simeon, topaz; Levi, smaragd; Judas, anthrax.

And there are two sons of Bilhah. Bilha was Rachel's maidservant. And because Rachel did not bear her, she gave her to Jacob for a wife, that she might bear children. And her children are: Dan, sapphire; Naphtali, jaspis.

There are two sons of Zilpah. Zilpah was Leah's maidservant, who gave her to Jacob as a wife to bear children. And her children are: Gad, Ligirii; Asher, agate.

The sons of Leah are two: Isachar, an amethyst; Zebulon, Chrysolite.

The sons of Rachel are two: Joseph the beryl; Benjamin, onychius.

These are the twelve stones, which correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel.

About the Seventy Interpreters and Those Who Misinterpreted the Holy Scriptures

Ptolemy II, surnamed Philadelphus, having built a library in the city of Alexandria, in the so-called Vruchia, a region located in the same city, entrusted this very library to the care of a certain Demetrius of Phalereus, ordering him to collect in it from everywhere the books of poets and other writers. When the books were collected to fifty-four thousand, then the king sent to the Jerusalemites a letter and a golden table weighing one hundred talents instead of the table taken from the holy place in Jerusalem, asking them to send him all the Holy Scriptures of the Jews. And they, gladly and without delay, copied the books in golden Hebrew letters, and sent him exactly twenty-one books, and according to their calculations, twenty-two canonical books and seventy-two apocryphal books. But the king, having received the books and opened them, could not read them, and therefore he was forced to write them another letter, asking them to send him interpreters who could translate for him what was written in Hebrew into Greek. Then the teachers of the Jews, having chosen seventy-two interpreters from among the men from each tribe, send them to the king, following the example of Moses, who went up to the mountain at the command of the Lord and heard the words: "Take with you seventy men and go up to the mountain" (Exodus 24:1, 12). And he took six from each tribe, and seventy-two of them all together. And so they did, and sent seventy-two men, who slept with the king in pairs on thirty-six beds, so as not to be shaken in thought by the agreement with the others, and thus did their work. For Ptolemy, having built the houses mentioned above, and dividing each of them into two, enclosed two in each from morning to evening, and with them he enclosed two youths for service and for cooking, and also scribes. And not in the walls of those houses he made window doors, but on top, in the roof, he made holes called anaphotids. Thus, spending time from morning to evening, locked up, they made the transfer. Each pair of interpreters was given one book to translate, as, for example, the Book of Genesis to one pair, the Exodus of the children of Israel to another pair, Leviticus to a third, and others like this. And thus came the Scripture, translated thirty-six times. When the translation of all the books was finished, the king sat down on a high throne, and thirty-six readers sat down on the floor, having the books before them. And when one read, there was no disagreement. Such a miraculous work of God makes it clear that these men had the gift of the Holy Spirit. Where something was subtracted from them, there was subtracted from all together, and there was no need for what was subtracted, but an increase was necessary. Thus, the books translated into Greek were placed in the first library. And after her another library was built, called by the daughter of the first, in Serapium.

And the time of Ptolemy and Cleopatra passed, as long as the kings of the Lagidian dynasty reigned. And then came the Roman emperors. Augustus reigned for 56 years. In the 42nd year of his reign, Christ Tiberius was born at the age of 23. In the 18th year of his reign, the Lord was crucified. From the crucifixion to the devastation of Jerusalem, 40 years and several days passed. From Augustus to Hadrian - 180 years. In the 12th year of the reign of Hadrian, Aquila became famous, so that from the time of the translation of the 72 interpreters to the translator of Aquila, or to the 12th year of the reign of Hadrian, 430 years, 4 months and about 9 days passed. This Hadrian came to Jerusalem and, intending to recreate it, took the aforesaid Aquila, a Greek by birth, just as Hadrian himself was a Greek. Aquila was the father-in-law of the emperor, descended from Sinope of Pontus. It was the emperor who placed him in Jerusalem to supervise the work, giving the city his name and the title of royal name. As he himself was called Aelius Hadrian, so he called the city Eliae.