843. In that world as in the former the Jews traffic in various articles, especially in precious stones, which they obtain for themselves by unknown ways from heaven, where there are precious stones in abundance. They traffic in precious stones because they read the Word in the original tongue, and hold the sense of its letter to be holy, precious stones corresponding to that sense. That the spiritual origin of precious stones is the sense of the letter of the Word, and that from this arises their correspondence, may be seen above in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture (n. 217, 218). Moreover, the Jews are able to imitate these stones artificially, and to produce the illusion that they are genuine; but those who do so are heavily fined by their governors.
