“Jasper and carnelian” or “jasper and sard” or whatever… we’re not sure exactly what’s going on with those stones. Different color associations and even gem associations can be attached to the same names.
Jasper is a kind of transparent or translucent stone, but it comes in all different colors. But we do know that the Greeks thought of “iaspis” primarily as a clear GREEN stone. Whatever “sardios” was, they thought of it as an opaque red.
The early Greek and Latin commentaries on Revelation are very sure of this. They continually compare the colors to the two big wraths of God: Noah’s flood (green like the green sea and the green iaspis) and “the fire next time” (red like fire and the red sardonyx or carnelian). The two judgments idea probably originally came from the (mostly lost) commentary by Tyconius (who was sort of the Donatist Scott Hahn, and whose interpretation was so good that St. Augustine and other orthodox writers rescued it).The two judgments idea appears in the Revelation commentaries of St. Primasius, St. Victorinus, and St. Apringius, and it shows up in Pope St. Gregory the Great’s homilies on Ezekiel. (Probably more places if I knew more.)
Since the rainbow is also green like emerald, you can see that there’s probably a relationship to the green flood thing, and certainly to the green iaspis.
Both “sardios” and “iaspis” seem to be gems used in the High Priest’s breastplate, so they also both must symbolize one of the Twelve Tribes. But I don’t know which ones.
Here’s a good picture from an early medieval commentary (St. Beatus of Liebana’s) which quotes the earlier ones. Very heavy on the green.
Another take on it. Very heavy on the red, but the Throne itself is green.
A picture of the same thing drawn in a different style. They went with rings of red and green color around the saints around the throne, with the whole thing as a sort of rainbow halo thrown off by Jesus.
A very restrained use of red and green.
