April, 1903.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



89 



land walls of Coustantinople : Uvpyo's Oso^iXov koi Mi^nriX 

 TtitrTuv IV KpKTTU) AiTOKpaTopoov, or " Tower of Theophilns 

 and Michael, eniiierors faithful to Christ." 



As amended by Messrs. Curtis and Aristarches, the 

 inscription remains, however, in the jdural j;?nitive. 

 Such sentences are hardly sensible in English ; but in 

 Greek they are known as forms of the possessive gsnitive, 

 with eliuiinatioa of the associated substantive. That such 

 eliniiuatiou was actually resorted to before the words 

 ©EO-tlAOTKAI, is anything but certain. It will be seen, 

 on the contrary — 



(a) Thai the words added by the authors in question 

 fill a much smaller space than the remaining part of the 

 inscription, especially if the conjunction KAI, " and,'" was, 

 as usual, abbnjviated into a mere K ; and 



(6) That in the inscription of the same emperors, quoted 

 from Byzantios, the plural possessive case is preceded by 

 an all-importaut nominative, vvpyo^, "tower." 



The writer suggests, therefore, that the missing nomina- 

 tive in the south porch of St. Sophia was IITAH, " Gate," 

 when, instead of the elliptical genitive " Of Theophilus and 

 M ichael Victors," the inscription would run in the 

 cartouches 



nTAH0EO*lAOrK 



MIXAHANIKHTON 



or " Entrance of the Victorious [Emperors] Theophilus 

 and Michael." The reason of the absence of Theophilus's 

 name from the western panel is perhaps not difficult to 

 find out. By the synod of 842, Iconoclasm was declared 

 to be a heresy, so that we should hardly expect the name 

 of the last Iconoclastic emperor to have been tolerated in 

 the very entrance of Orthodoxy. 



In addition to this inscription and to the monograms, 

 the panels bear the date 838 a.d., which may be rendered 

 instrumental in establishing that the south porch existed 

 already in 838, and that it was probably erected, with the 

 four ascents to the galleries, by the emperor Theophilus, 

 with a view to buttressing the angles of the church. 



Just before one reaches the north exit of the porch, a 

 little door, leading to a recess of the eastern wall, should 

 be noted ; for it was here that the emperor had his crown 

 removed on entering the church in great ceremony. 



The Grand Vestibule or Narthex of the west front now 

 claims our attention. It is shorter than the church is 

 broad, and there is no evidence showing that it was 

 originally larger, so that the Silentiary's statement to the 

 effect that it occupied the whole bi-eadth of the building is 

 a slii), the only one, however, which it is ]>os8ible to find 

 in that wonderfully accurate description. 



At st)me distance over the lintel of the great central 

 door, to the west, the writer has been shown foiu- marble 

 guns, which the Turks report to have belonged to the last 

 Constantine. " They were not always of marble, but in 

 metal ; having been petrified at the fall of the City." 



Like those of the south ]ioreh, the vaults of the Narthex 

 are still glittering with mosaic, that most powerful element 

 of decoration.* The identity of the fine image of the 

 emperor kneeling before Christ, above the Royal Gate, is 

 not known. Antony of Novgorod well says that " above 

 the door is depicted, on a large ])anel, the emperor Leo the 

 Wise," but whether allusion is here made to this door, or 

 not, is uncertain. The medallion to the left represents 



* Tn his Facts and Comments, Mr. Herbert l^pencer complains of 

 the nuisaio litiiiis of St. Paul's t'alhcdral, "s mosaic is eonsidercd by 

 him iiiidoi' the licailing " Harbai-io Art." Now evcryboily visiting 

 Venice prel'ers the mosaic decoration of St. Mark's to the wliitowash 

 vaults of other Venetian churches, so that to depreciate mosaic 

 decoration is an extravagance most distinctly antagonistic to the 

 artistic ideas of mankind. 



the Virgin, the one to the right the Ajchangel Michael, 

 and not " a winged Prodomos," as assumed by Grelot, 

 Byzantios, and Canon Curtis. During a recent visit to St. 

 Mark's, Venice, the writer was struck by a golden Greek 

 eikoii of Michael,' with the inscription MIXAHA, said to 

 come from St. Sophia, and which is practically identical 

 to the medallion in question. 



A restoration of the Narthex has been undertaken in 

 Fig. 6. The appearance of the Vestibule does not seem to 



Fig. 6.— The Grand Vestibule. 



have been much altered since Byzantine times. No doubt 

 the number of lamps hung from the vaults must have been 

 incomparably greater than shown in the picture, and it is 

 also strongly to be suspected that stalls used to stand 

 here, at least along the western wall. It has been thought 

 preferable, however, not to overcrowd the view with these 

 accessories, so as to avoid seriously interfering with the 

 perspective. 



The central Eoyal Gate is. a symbol of Christ, as the 

 inscription above reads as follows : — •' Our Lord hath said, 

 I am the door of the sheo|« ; by Me if any man enter in, 

 he shall go in and out, and find pasture." A comparison 

 of this passage with St. John's Gospel, ch. x., will show 

 that we have here no exact transcript from the latter, but 

 merely a combination of paragraphs 7 and 9, whore the 

 words " he shall be saved " are omitted.* 



• Fig. 7 is a photograph by the writer of one of two Gospels coming 

 from St. Sophia, a?id now kept in a llilner's safe at the Gi-eek church 

 of St. Ocorge. near Edirueh Kapu, Constjintinople. The inside is a 

 grand piece of penmanship with illuniinaled lettens. The photograph 

 shows the purple velvet cover, on which is lixed a noble crucifix in 

 repoiisf metjil, as well as four discs representing the Evangelists 

 symbolically by the beasts of the Apocalypse {Revelation it., 6-7). 



