This was St. John the Evangelist, though his name stands with _Ante
Port. Lat._ annexed to it in the church of England calendar. The
description is founded on a Roman Catholic legend that St. John the
Evangelist in his old age was accused of atheism to Domitian, who sent
him to Rome, and there, before the gate called _Porta Latina_, caused
him to be put into a cauldron of boiling oil, from whence he suffered no
pain, and came forth without harm. This miracle is fabled to have
occurred before the exile of St. John to the desert isle of Patmos, in
the Archipelago, where he is supposed to have written the Apocalypse, or
book of “Revelations.”
[Illustration: ~St. John in the Isle of Patmos.~]
There is no evidence that St. John suffered martyrdom; on the contrary,
he is said to have returned to Ephesus in the reign of Nerva, who
succeeded Domitian in the imperial dignity. Painters usually represent
him in Patmos with an eagle by his side; though, as St. John Port
Latin, there are many engravings of him in the legendary oil cauldron.
Other representations of him put a chalice in his hand, with a serpent
issuing from it, founded on another legend, that being constrained to
drink poison, he swallowed it without sustaining injury.
There is a further legend, that while St. Edward the Confessor was
dedicating a church to St. John, a pilgrim demanded alms of him in the
saint’s name, whereupon the king gave him the ring from his finger. This
pilgrim was St. John, who discovered himself to two English pilgrims in
the Holy Land, bidding them bear the ring to the king in his name, and
require him to make ready to depart this world; after this they went to
sleep. On awakening they found themselves among flocks of sheep and
shepherds in a strange place, which turned out to be Barham Downs in
Kent, wherefore they thanked God and St. John for their good speed, and
coming to St. Edward on Christmas-day, delivered to him the ring with
the warning; these the king received in a suitable manner, “And on the
vigyll of the Epyphanye, next after, he dyed and departed holyly out of
this worlde, and is buryed in the Abbey of Westmester by London, where
as is yet unto this daye that same rynge.” Again it is said, that
Isidore affirms of St. John, that he transformed branches of trees into
fine gold, and sea-gravel into precious stones, with other like
incredibilities.[132]