[109] Next after these, the master prepared for the future high priest a vesture, the fabric of which had a texture of great and marvellous beauty. It consisted of two garments, one of which he calls the robe and the other the ephod.
[110] The robe was of a comparatively uniform make, for it was all of the dark red colour, except at the lowest extremities, where it was variegated with golden pomegranates and bells and intertwined flowers.
[111] The ephod, a work of special magnificence and artistry, was wrought with perfect knowledge in the kinds of materials mentioned above, namely dark red and purple and bright white and scarlet, with gold thread intertwined. For gold leaf cut into fine threads was woven with all the yarn.
[112] On the shoulder-tops were fitted two highly precious stones of the costly emerald kind, and on them were graven the names of the patriarchs, six for each shoulder, twelve in all. On the breast were twelve other costly stones of different colours, like seals, in four rows of three each. These were fitted into what he calls the “place of reason.”
[113] This was made four-square and doubled, forming a ground to enshrine the two virtues, clear showing and truth. The whole was attached by golden chainlets to the ephod, fastened strongly to it so as not to come loose.
[114] A piece of gold plate, too, was wrought into the form of a crown with four incisions, showing a name which only those whose ears and tongues are purified may hear or speak in the holy place, and no other person, nor in any other place at all.
[115] That name has four letters, so says that master learned in divine verities, who, it may be, gives them as symbols of the first numbers, one, two, three and four; since the geometrical categories under which all things fall, point, line, superficies, solid, are all embraced in four. So, too, with the best harmonies in music, the fourth, fifth, octave and double octave intervals, where the ratios are respectively four to three, three to two, two to one and four to one. Four, too, has countless other virtues, most of which I have set forth in detail in my treatise on numbers.
[116] Under the crown, to prevent the plate touching the head, was a headband. A turban also was provided, for the turban is regularly worn by eastern monarchs instead of a diadem.