Folio 95v - the adamas stone, continued.
godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory' (1 Timothy, 3:16).
Moreover, Physiologus says of the adamant stone that iron does has no effect on it, just as, death will not rule Christ. For he destroyed death and trampled on it, as the apostle bore witness, saying: 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?' (1 Corinthians, 16:54-55).
Nor is this stone affected by fire, meaning the devil who with his blazing darts burns the whole earth, its cities and its wanton, drunken and raging inhabitants; of these Isaiah says: 'Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire' (Isaiah, 1:7). 'The Lord Jesus Christ shall consume him with the breath from his mouth' (see 2 Thessalonians, 2:8).
No other stone can damage adamant, that is, no man at all, nor any creature, can oppose Christ. 'All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made' (John, 1:3).
Adamant is a small and unsightly stone, with a dusky colour and the brightness of crystal, and is about the size of an Abelline nut. It yields to no other matter, not iron, nor indeed fire, and it never grows hot; for this reason its name, translated from Greek, means 'invincible force'.
While adamant remains unconquered by iron, however, and scorns fire, it can broken by the fresh blood of a goat, softened by heat and thus crushed with repeated blows of iron. Engravers use fragments of it for engraving and cutting gemstones.
Adamant is at odds with the magnet stone in so much as, placed near iron, it will not suffer the metal to be drawn to the magnet; if the adamant is removed, however, the magnet seizes