w.[149] Hence the church of S. Andrew stood to the
north of the Studion, the situation occupied by Hoja Mustapha Pasha
Mesjedi. Once more, the site of the mosque corresponds to the position
assigned to the church of S. Andrew on the map of Bondelmontius (1420),
to the east of the Gate of Selivria. Finally, the old church is more
definitely identified by the legend of the judicial procedure which
clings to the building. In the picturesque courtyard of the mosque,
where the colour of the East is still rich and vivid, there stands an
old cypress tree around whose bare and withered branches a slender iron
chain is entwined like the skeleton of some extinct serpent. As
tradition would have it, the chain was once endowed with the gift of
judgment, and in cases of dispute could indicate which of the parties
concerned told the truth. One day a Jew who had borrowed money from a
Turk, on being summoned to pay his debt, replied that he had done so
already. To that statement the Turk gave the lie direct, and
accordingly, debtor and creditor were brought to the chain for the
settlement of the question at issue. Before submitting to the ordeal,
however, the Jew placed a cane into the hands of the Turk, and then
stood under the cypress confident that his honour for truthfulness and
honesty would be vindicated. His expectation proved correct, for the
chain touched his head to intimate that he had returned the money he
owed. Whereupon taking back his cane he left the scene in triumph.
Literally, the verdict accorded with fact; for the cane which the Jew
had handed to his creditor was hollow and contained the sum due to the
latter. But the verdict displayed such a lack of insight, and involved
so gross a miscarriage of justice, that from that day forth the chain
lost its reputation and has hung ever since a dishonoured oracle on the
dead arms of the cypress, like a criminal on a gibbet. Although this
tale cannot be traced to its Byzantine source, it is manifestly an echo
of the renown which the precincts of the mosque once enjoyed as a throne
of judgment before Turkish times, and serves to prove that Hoja Mustapha
Pasha Mesjedi is indeed the old church of S. Andrew in Krisei.

[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.
S. ANDREW IN KRISEI. EAST END.
(From a Photograph by A. E. Henderson, Esq.)
_To face page 106._]

The earliest reference to the locality known as Krisis occurs in the
narrative of the martyrdom of S. Andrew of Crete given by Sym