A crowd of little human figures take the space round the figure of Christ. All are crowned, and most of them are carrying books or scrolls, but all have their eyes fixed upon Christ. These represent the citizens of the Holy City, of Isaiah, who have been redeemed by Christ; or the Ten Thousand times ten thousand, who are singing a new song. Their crowns are symbols of glory.
On either extreme of the tympanum are two angels, lifting in their arms and presenting to Christ each a little naked figure representing a human soul, which holds in its little hands its “title clear to mansions in the skies.” The faces of the angels are full of tender and passionate sympathy. Those to the left are bringing in the Jews, those to the right the Gentiles, an illustration of the words, “And He shall give His angels charge concerning thee.” The number of figures on the Gentile side is double that on the side of the Jews, according to Isaiah’s prophecy that the barren woman should have more children than she who had a husband. The archivolt or face of this marvellous arch is decorated with exquisitely sculptured foliage, which forms a graceful background to the heads of the four-and-twenty elders.
The lateral arch to the right has also a statue of Christ, but a very small one, on the keystone of its archivolt. In His left hand he holds a sealed book representing Eternal Truth. Eve is seen to His right and Adam to His left; then in the next semi-circle come Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah on the right, and Moses, Aaron, Samuel, and David on the left. A thick and exuberant foliage partially conceals these figures; the upper band of sculpture in this arch also appears, at the first glance, to represent nothing more than a semi-circle of foliage behind a tore or large round moulding such as is commonly used in the bases of columns. Looking more closely, however, and with the aid of an opera-glass, we clearly distinguish the arms and heads of little naked human beings at intervals between the foliage peeping over the tore, with their legs and feet on the lower side of it. Lopez Ferreiro and Eladio Oviedo believe that the tore represents the old Jewish Divorce Law, and the figures--the Jews who are still bound by it (they nearly all hold scrolls in their hands stretched over the tore)--Bills of Divorce; the thick foliage represents sin. The Jews are being rescued, two and two, naked (so that no sin may remain on them), by tender angels. The first angel, with a cloth, bears them in his arms, and the second hands them still naked into the Christian Church (which is represented by the tympanum of the central arch already described).