Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas at Lystra

During Paul and Barnabas’s missionary journey around Asia Minor, a lame man, crippled from birth, was cured in Lystra – a Roman colony in Anatolia, now part of Turkey (Acts 14: 8−18). 

Here the lame man has been healed and has tossed away his crutches, much to his fellow citizens’ amazement. The crowd assembled in the forum gathers around the miracle-worker and his companion – Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas – believing them to be Jupiter and Mercury, whose bronze sculpture stands on a pedestal. 
The priests have uttered the sacramental words and are about to honour the disciples and offer them a sacrifice as divinities descended from Olympus. One boy plays the double flute of sacrificial ceremonies and another bears the chest of incense and perfumes to be burned on the altar of libations. The executioner raises his axe above one of the oxen, adorned with ribbons and garlands, but a young man reaches out his arm to hold him back. Saint Paul exasperatedly tears his robes in indignation at these idolatrous practices.

Borders: The borders depict Hercules and his feats. At the sides, beneath the personifications of Fame and Victory, are Hercules and Atlas with the earthly and heavenly spheres, Hercules and the centaur Nessus, Hercules and Juno, and Hercules with the birds of lake Stymphalia. In the centre of the lower border the mythological hero sits on a throne beneath a tempietto like Alciato’s Hercules Gallicus, a convincing orator and personification of Eloquence. From his mouth emerge subtle chains attached to the ears of the people who approach him, flanked on the left and right by Hercules and the Lernaean hydra, and Hercules and the Nemean lion.

Texts: Concha Herrero Carretero