Twelve Stones, Twelve Names: The High Priest's Breastplate and the Foundations of the City
Old Testament: Exodus 28:17-21, 29
And thou shalt set in it four rows of stones: in the first row shall be a sardius stone, and a topaz, and an emerald: In the second a carbuncle, a sapphire and a jasper. In the third a ligurius, an agate, and an amethyst: In the fourth a chrysolite, an onyx, and a beryl. They shall be set in gold by their rows. And they shall have the names of the children of Israel: with twelve names shall they be engraved, each stone with the name of one according to the twelve tribes. ... And Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the rational of judgment upon his breast, when he shall enter into the sanctuary, a memorial before the Lord for ever.
Old Testament, also: Isaias 54:11-12
O poor little one, tossed with tempest, without all comfort, behold I will lay thy stones in order, and will lay thy foundations with sapphires, And I will make thy bulwarks of jasper: and thy gates of graven stones, and all thy borders of desirable stones.
New Testament: Apocalypse 21:14, 19-20
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them, the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. ... And the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper: the second, sapphire: the third, a chalcedony: the fourth, an emerald: The fifth, sardonyx: the sixth, sardius: the seventh, chrysolite: the eighth, beryl: the ninth, a topaz: the tenth, a chrysoprasus: the eleventh, a jacinth: the twelfth, an amethyst.
The connection
The high priest's breastplate, the rational of judgment, held twelve stones in four rows, and each stone carried a name, "each stone with the name of one according to the twelve tribes" (Exodus 28:21). It was made to be carried in: "Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel in the rational of judgment upon his breast, when he shall enter into the sanctuary, a memorial before the Lord for ever" (28:29). The Hebrew says upon his heart. The City comes down with the same arrangement. Its twelve gates carry "the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel" (Apocalypse 21:12), and its wall has "twelve foundations, and in them, the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (21:14). Its foundation stones are named one by one, and eight of the twelve are the breastplate's own: jasper, sapphire, emerald, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz and amethyst (21:19-20). Isaias had promised the city tossed with tempest foundations of sapphire and bulwarks of jasper (Isaias 54:11-12). What Aaron carried into the sanctuary made with hands, Christ carries into the true one: not into "the holies made with hands" but "into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24). And the names the priest bore on his heart become the ground the City stands on, a household "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" (Ephesians 2:20). Tertullian finds the twelve apostles foretold "in the twelve gems of Aaron's priestly vestment", as "gems to shed lustre upon the church's sacred robe, which Christ, the High Priest of the Father, puts on" (Against Marcion IV.13). St Jerome reads the twelve stones Josue took from the Jordan as figures of the same foundations (Letter 108). The Catechism, citing the twelve foundations, calls the Church apostolic because she is built on the apostles (CCC 857, 865).
Moral sense
A stone does not choose the name it carries; the name is cut into it. The Bride asks for the same: "Put me as a seal upon thy heart" (Canticles 8:6). Every name is carried by a High Priest "always living to make intercession for us" (Hebrews 7:25), and each is called into the building: "Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5). The disciple whom Jesus loved leaned "on the breast of Jesus" (John 13:25), where the true High Priest carries His people; the same John was shown the names in the foundations.
Anagogical sense
Aaron's breastplate went in and came out again. The names in the City's foundations do not come out; "a memorial before the Lord for ever" (Exodus 28:29) is kept there to the letter. Twelve tribes on the gates and twelve apostles beneath the wall: the People of the old covenant and of the new are one City, and every stone of it is a name the High Priest carried in.
The Fathers
Tertullian, Against Marcion IV.13: "For of this number I find figurative hints up and down the Creator's dispensation in the twelve springs of Elim; in the twelve gems of Aaron's priestly vestment; and in the twelve stones appointed by Joshua to be taken out of the Jordan, and set up for the ark of the covenant. Now, the same number of apostles was thus portended, ... as if they were to be gems to shed lustre upon the church's sacred robe, which Christ, the High Priest of the Father, puts on." St Jerome, Letter 108: "she gazed at the twelve stones brought thither out of the bed of Jordan to be symbols of those twelve foundations on which are written the names of the twelve apostles."
Warrant
Patristic. Apocalypse 21 does not name Aaron or Exodus 28, but it names the foundations for the apostles itself (21:14), and Tertullian reads the gems of Aaron's vestment as the apostles (Against Marcion IV.13). St Jerome joins Josue's twelve stones to the apostolic foundations (Letter 108, to Eustochium). Checked in the Greek: the Septuagint of Exodus 28:17-20 and Apocalypse 21:19-20 share eight stones, sardion, topazion, smaragdos, sappheiros, iaspis, amethystos and chrysolithos, with beryl as berullion and berullos; anthrax, ligyrion, achates and onychion are the breastplate's alone, and chalkedon, sardonyx, chrysoprasos and hyakinthos the City's. The Douay's English keeps the same eight. The ancient identities of several stones are uncertain, so the entry counts names rather than claiming the minerals match. The Septuagint calls the breastplate logion tes kriseos, and Aaron bears the names epi tou stethous, on the breast (its 28:23, the Douay's 28:29); the Hebrew reads al libbo, upon his heart. Stethos is also the word at John 13:25, where the beloved disciple leans on the breast of Jesus; setting that verse here is the entry's own reading. The breastplate and the foundations were brought together by Dunk. The Ezechiel 28 list of stones, worn by the king of Tyre, belongs to the entry on stones worn as a covering and laid as a foundation. St Epiphanius, in his work On the Twelve Stones, which survives whole only in Georgian, reads the stones of Juda and of Dan in the rational with Isaias 54:11, the foundations laid with sapphires, and calls the holy Church the foundation of Sion; he gives each stone to its tribe and does not set the twelve stones beside the twelve apostles.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 865.
The verses
Exodus 28:17 · Exodus 28:18 · Exodus 28:19 · Exodus 28:20 · Exodus 28:21 · Exodus 28:29 · Isaias 54:11 · Isaias 54:12 · Apocalypse 21:14 · Apocalypse 21:19 · Apocalypse 21:20
