s in the
spandrils above the arch, but these are separate from the subjects of
the medallions. The medallions, Mr. Waller explains, represent certain
scenes in the lives of John the Baptist, and John the Evangelist, though
only two of the stories depicted belong to the Bible. One of them, next
to the "Majesty," shows the Evangelist seated in a caldron of boiling
oil, in which he is being held by a hideous tormentor with a pitchfork,
while a seated figure of Christ confers protection upon the Saint. In
another medallion the Evangelist is seen raising to life the dead
Drusiana, a lady of Ephesus who died just before the Apostle came to the
city; he is also shown turning sticks and stones into gold and jewels,
which he did in illustration of a sermon preached against riches. In a
third medallion the Saint drinks harmlessly from a chalice of poison
which has just killed two malefactors dead at his feet; and in a fourth
the other John, the Baptist, is painted with a rope round his neck,
dragged by an executioner before Herod. The executioner next beheads the
saint, and evidently sees some terrible portent on doing so, for his
hair stands on end, and his hand flies up in horror. The two other
medallions are separate subjects. In one, a figure with a rope round his
neck is dragged before Christ by demons; other demons, one red and one
white, scream and hold out threatening claws; perhaps their question is
"Art Thou come hitherto torment us before the time?" The other subject
is obscure. A Jew, apparently, is being baptised; and a deed with seals
is being examined by another figure, over a stream of water and blood.
Mr. Waller thinks that the reference is to a legend of a Jew who
desecrated an image of Christ with a spear, in imitation of the story of
the crucifixion, when out of the wound there gushed a stream of blood
and water. This miracle converted the Jew and his friends, who
immediately made over their synagogue to the Christian Church. That
would explain the sealed deed.

Other paintings in the spandrils--pictures of Soul-weighing and
Punishment--belong to other theologies. St. Michael holds the balance,
and a demon tries to press down one of the scales so that the soul being
weighed may kick the beam. But the subject of the painting is, of
course, older than St. Michael. The doctrine that souls are weighed, and
that devils and angels strive for the possession of them, is one of the
oldest in the history of the world's