Pearl (μαργαρίτης, Lat. margarita or -um)
In ancient as in modern times women adorned themselves with pearls (1 Timothy 2:9); the ‘woman arrayed in scarlet and purple’ was decked with them (Revelation 17:4); and they are included in the merchandise of the apocalyptic Babylon-Imperial Rome (18:12). The pearl itself is a lusus naturAE.
‘The cause of pearl-formation is in most cases, perhaps in all, the dead body of a minute parasite within the tissues of a mollusc, around which nacreous deposit is secreted … so that, as a French writer has said, the ornament associated in all ages with beauty and riches is nothing but the brilliant sarcophagus of a worm’ (EBr_11 xxi. 26, 27).
The ancient world obtained its pearls chiefly from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. For fine specimens fabulous prices were paid. The single pearl which Cleopatra is said to have dissolved and swallowed was valued at £80,000. The twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are figured as twelve pearls, each gate one pearl (Revelation 21:21).
James Strahan.