Some of them are interpreted in other senses, as spikenard, cassia, and cinnamon.

The first represents strength of soul; the second, sound doctrine; and the third, the sweet savour of virtue.

Then there is the essence of cedar, which in the thirteenth century symbolized the Doctors of the Church; and there are three specifically liturgical perfumes: incense, balm, and myrrh; besides the odour of sanctity, which in the case of some saints could be analyzed; and the demoniacal stench, from a mere animal smell to the horrible nastiness of rotten eggs and sulphur.
"We must now inquire whether the personal fragrance of the Elect is in harmony with the qualities or acts of which each was, on earth, the example or the doer; and it would seem to have been so, when we remark that Saint Thomas Aquinas, who composed the admirable sequence on the Holy Sacrament, exhaled a perfume of incense, and that Saint Catherine of Ricci, who was a model of humility, smelt of violets, the emblem of that virtue, but--" The Abbe Plomb now came in, and being informed by Durtal of the subject under discussion, he said,-- "But you have omitted from your diabolical flavours the most conspicuous." "How is that, Monsieur l'Abbe ?" "Certainly, for you have taken no account of the false fragrance which Satan can diffuse.

In fact, his baleful effluvia are of two kinds: one characterized by the stench of sulphurous waters and drains; the other by a false odour of sanctity, delicious gusts of sweetness and temptation.

This is how the Evil One tried to seduce Dominico de Gusman; he bathed him in delicious vapours, hoping thus to inspire him with notions of vain-glory; thus, too, did he to Jourdain of Saxony, who exhaled a sweet odour when saying Mass.