Lot Essay
As reported in the Golden Legend, published in the fourteenth century, Christopher, a Canaanite was a giant of frightening appearance who first decided to serve the Devil, but upon discovering that the latter was afraid of Christ and the Cross decided to serve Christ instead. A hermit instructed him in the Christian faith, and assigned him, as his Christian service, residence near a river where he would help travellers to cross. Drer's engraving illustrates the episode when a child asked Christopher to carry him across the water and proved so heavy that he was bowed down with the weight. The infant then told him that he was Jesus Christ, that the Saint had borne the weight of the world and 'him that created and made all the world upon thy shoulders'. He told Christopher to plant his staff in the ground and that the following day it would bear dates and flowers as a sign of the truth of the message he had received.