56 WALL-PAINTINGS, AT LUDGVAN, MYLOR, &C. 
(Christ being the Light of the world) may have been intended—or 
the medizval teaching was perhaps elaborated by the introduction 
of the Priest carrying the Body of Christ—(the Transubstanti- 
ated Host in its Cista or Tabernacle). 
Each of the figures will then appear, in some sense, a Christo- 
pher ; and the whole (according to the mind of the early designers) 
will have become a comprehensive and expressive symbol of the 
Christian Church. 
In this light we know the great Christopher group was 
regarded. The Church was personified, struggling amidst the 
waves of this troublesome world to bear all in safety to a better 
shore—mightily upholding the truth, meanwhile, that Christ— 
come in the flesh—is the Divine Redeeming Lord. 
But the masses of the people, knowing little of the real sig- 
nificance, would, on beholding the accustomed figures, very soon 
be led to invent some story or other connected with a particular 
man, to account for the appearances presented. A guiding Hermit, 
a reclaimed reprobate, &c., would thus be imagined, and tradition 
would grow. <A certain Saint, named Christopher, would be 
shadowed forth as having actually carried the Infant Saviour 
across the stream, and, although impersonal at first, he would 
rapidly acquire a distinct individuality. 
Thus the strange material anachronism of such a group would 
gradually become established. 
Which of the two forms was originally adopted,—a lighted 
lantern or a host-cista, a comparison of the earliest examples 
would determine. There being a similarity of form between 
them, the one might easily have been substituted for the other by 
the ancient Artists. 
With regard to the other devices, such as the fishing, the 
stealing of the fish, the hanging of the fox, &c., in the Ludgvan 
Fresco, we may suppose there were religious lessons underlying 
them, for instance—the commission or promise to the Apostles, 
752 
“Faciam vos fieri Piscutores hominum—’* and a foreshadowing 
* Over Bishop FisHur’s Tomb, in the Chantry, which he built in the old 
Chapel of St. John’s Coll., Cambridge, was THIS SENTENCE, and in the stall 
ends of the choir were a risH and an HAR of wheat. ‘‘My Lord Cromwell 
commanded the same arms to be defaced and monstrous ugly articles to be 
put in their place.” (Life of Fisher). 
