In some of the old prints and pictures, which represent St. John as writing the gospel, his eyes are turned on the Virgin with the Infant Christ in her arms, who appear as a vision in the skies above; underneath, or on his book, is inscribed,—‘The Word was made flesh,’ or some other text of the same import. The eagle at his side has sometimes the nimbus or a crown of stars,[127] and is then perhaps intended to figure the Holy Ghost.
I remember an instance in which the devil, intent on intercepting the message of reconcilement and ‘goodwill towards men,’ which was destined to destroy his empire on earth, appears behind St. John, and is oversetting the ink upon the pages; another, in which he is stealing away the inkhorn.
2. As one of the series of apostles, St. John is always, in Western Art, young, or in the prime of life; with little or no beard; flowing or curling hair, generally of a pale brown or golden hue, to express the delicacy of his nature; and in his countenance an expression of benignity and candour. His drapery is, or ought to be, red, with a blue or green tunic. He bears in his hand the sacramental cup, from which a serpent is seen to issue. St. Isidore relates that, at Rome, an attempt was made to poison St. John in the cup of the sacrament: he drank of the same and administered it to the communicants without injury, the poison having by a miracle issued from the cup in the form of a serpent, while the hired assassin fell down dead at his feet. According to another version of this story, the poisoned cup was administered by order of the Emperor Domitian. According to a third version, Aristodemus, the high-priest of Diana, at Ephesus, defied him to drink of the poisoned chalice, as a test of the truth of his mission; St. John drank unharmed,—the priest fell dead. Others say, and this seems the more probable interpretation, that the cup in the hand of St. John alludes to the reply given by our Saviour, when the mother of James and John requested for her sons the place of honour in heaven,—‘Ye shall drink indeed of my cup.’ As in other instances, the legend was invented to explain the symbol. When the cup has the consecrated wafer instead of the serpent, it signifies the institution of the Eucharist.
Some of the old German representations of St. John are of singular beauty: for example, one by Hans Hemling, one by Isaac von Melem,[128] standing figures; simple, graceful, majestic; in the prime of youth, with a charming expression of devotion in the heads: both hold the sacramental cup with the serpent; no eagle; therefore St. John is here to be considered as the apostle only: when, with the cup, the eagle is placed by his side, he is represented in the double character of apostle and evangelist (61).
In the early Siena school, and in some old illuminations, I have seen St. John carrying in his hand a radiant circle, inscribed ‘In primo est verbum,’ and within the circle an eagle with outspread wings: but this is uncommon.
3. St. John as the prophet, the writer of the Revelation, is usually an aged man, with a white flowing beard, seated in a rocky desert; the sea in the distance, or flowing round him, to represent the island of Patmos; the eagle at his side. In the old frescoes, and the illuminated MSS. of the Apocalypse, this is the usual representation.