Chapter 3 - Andrew the Apostle

If Herod and his son Antipas were bad news for the mission of Jesus, Agrippa was an even more dangerous enemy from within the Jewish people itself. He had grown up in Rome, effectively ingratiating himself with the Roman elite, and when Caligula became emperor in AD 37 he was given Herod Antipas's old kingdom to ran. In AD 41 Judea, Samaria and Idumea followed, thus restoring the former kingdom of Herod the Great to one king.

Agrippa had acquired that habit of courtiers throughout the ages of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He represented himself to the Jews as a devout Jew, humouring the Pharisees. To the Hellenists he behaved like a Greek, undertaking grandiose building projects. To the Romans he toadied, like the quisling he was. And it was all a huge success. When required, he showed that he could be as tough as his predecessors. One of the victims of his crackdowns was James, son of Zebedee the Galilean fisherman, now a leading figure in the Christian community in Jerusalem, who was executed in AD 44. Peter fled Jerusalem to escape being next in line.

It was obvious that life was not going to be easy for the disciples in their new role as 'apostles'. James's role as leader was taken over by James, the brother of Jesus, whom Paul seems to have treated as an apostle.

Paul himself, of course, had famously switched sympathies and joined the Christians (in AD 38) and quickly acquired the status of apostle. The title 'apostle' was therefore not confined to the original disciples but embraced the leadership of the emerging Church. (In Greek apostolos means 'one who is sent forth'.) Some argue that there were as many as seventy disciples but that twelve were highlighted in the Gospels in order to correspond symbolically with the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve apostles were their successors, and Andrew figures among lists of apostles compiled generations later.

Peter, his brother, had assumed a leadership role but already there was tension between Peter and Paul, with Paul promoting Gentile Christian converts and Peter seeing the Church as a Jewish movement. The letter of Barnabas describes the apostles as 'ruffians of the deepest dye', and the Gospels are not exactly flattering either about the twelve, who are constantly portrayed as getting hold of the wrong end of the stick or falling short of the teaching of Jesus.

Where would Andrew have stood in all this? Would he have been content to play second fiddle to Peter, or would he have seen his impetuous brother as a poor substitute for Jesus? Did they part company, Peter staying in Jerusalem while Andrew returned to Galilee to run the family business? Of his doings in the immediate post-Pentecost period we know nothing. Acts and the letters of Paul do not mention him at all. However, the mission to Scythia which was mentioned by Origen is the subject of a book of its own, the Acts of Andrew, which supplies an answer to the question: what happened to Andrew? Whether we can rely on its veracity is another matter.

The Acts of Andrew is not the only work to feature the adventures of our hero. It was probably the first to chronicle his exploits and had a decidedly Gnostic flavour to it, which accounts for the fact that Pope Gelasius (AD 492-6) placed it in the 'unacceptable' category when compiling a list of books that the faithful might or might not read. Nor is the Acts of Andrew a single work. New stories and legends seem to have been added and different versions of this and other works were in circulation in the different language/culture zones of the early Christian Church - Greek, Syriac, Coptic and Latin.

In the next chapter we will see that many of these stories overlap or are derivative versions of the same story. Before we do a little detective work on these, exploring why and when they were written - and by whom - it is worth looking at what they contain. Those expecting something very similar to the New Testament will be disappointed and will begin, perhaps, to sympathise with Pope Gelasius. Although written from pious motives and containing allusions to biblical incidents, the Andrew who emerges is far from the tight-lipped bit player of the canonical Gospels. Here we find storylines akin to the plots of grand opera and a hero more like Baron Munchhausen or Don Quixote, an adventurer who slays dragons, banishes demons and rescues women from the lusts of the flesh. Enter, Andrew - the superhero.

The first of our legends is a Byzantine text called the Narratio, which incorporates material from several sources. It begins with Andrew crossing 'like a falling star' from east to west. Leaving Bithynia, he entered Nicaea (scene in AD 325 of the conference to hammer out a creed that would exclude the followers of Arms, who taught that Jesus was not God). The east gate of the city was haunted by evil spirits who ambushed travellers, and Andrew exorcised the place, making it safe for visitors.

Sailing for Scythia, he came to Sevastapol and the Crimea, where he evangelised, before returning to Sinope on the southern coast of the Black Sea (modern Turkey). At the beginning of the Christian era Sinope was the most important trading centre between Asia Minor, Parthia and the north. Under the king of Pontus, Mithridates, a century previously it had acquired strategic importance, which it still retained. Constantinople had yet to eclipse it as pre-eminent port of the region.

Andrew's reason for visiting Sinope was to rescue the apostle Matthias, who was in prison with other Christians. Killing the guards 'by prayer', Andrew opened the doors of the prison and rescued Matthias. Before they could make their escape, however, the savage inhabitants seized Andrew, tortured him and threw him into prison. The apostle laid hands on the statue of a man and told it, Tear the sign of the cross and pour water on these harsh people until they turn to the true God.' A huge jet of water soared higher and higher from the statue and the trembling populace begged Andrew to relent. He stopped the jet, walked free from prison and began to preach to the people, baptising many and founding a church before sailing off along the coast towards Byzantium (Constantinople).

Settling in Argyropolis (Silver City), a suburb of Byzantium, he founded a church and laid hands on Stachys, who is described as one of the seventy disciples, and ordained him as Bishop of Byzantium. The prevailing godlessness of the people and cruelty of the ruler Zeuxippos persuaded him to leave and go west. (This incident is regarded by most scholars as a forgery inserted in the text in a later era to bolster the claims of the apostolic foundation of Byzantium: see next chapter.)

Continuing through Thessalonia and Greece, Andrew went south-west to Achaea, arriving in the city of Patras. He was successful in persuading the people to reject 'Hellenism's darkness' for the 'bath of immortality' and to be 'born again through God's baptism'. Among his converts was Maximilla, wife of the proconsul Aegeates, a man of 'cruel and bestial temper'. Andrew persuaded her to spit on the Greek gods and, together with her relative Ephidamia, she became a Christian and gave up sleeping with her husband. Enraged, Aegeates had Andrew thrown into prison and threatened to have him tortured. Maximilla visited Andrew in prison, where he continued prophesying hell and damnation for Aegeates and those who clung to things 'as transitory as a spider's web'. After one visit the proconsul confronted his wife, reminded her of her marriage vows and said that he had done nothing to harm her. Warming to his theme, he promised that if they could only resume the intimacy they once enjoyed, he could release Andrew. Even if she did not accept him back, he could never harm her, he promised; but should she reject him, he would have no other option but to torture Andrew in the most horrible way. Think over the advantages for everyone concerned, he added, and tell me what you have decided in the morning...

It was a clever piece of emotional blackmail, and when Maximilla went straight round to Andrew and confessed all, the apostle was implacable. She must not yield to the 'flattery and deceitful hypocrisy', nor give herself in 'copulation with that worshipper of idols'. The apostle was defiant: 'Let him deliver me to the beasts of the north, or burn me in the fire, or drown me in the deep, or cut me with a saw or hang me upon a cross - let him know how much is our love because of Christ who has loved us in excess.

We shall endure all because of fear of him and share in his true kingdom.'

Overhearing this testimony was Stratokles, Aegeates' brother, who was deeply moved. 'Your words are like arrows of fire shot in my heart,' he afterwards told Andrew. 'My thorny and dried-up soul is levelled and prepared for the seeds of your saving words.' Andrew replied that he was happy his words had met with this response but that Stratokles should know that tomorrow he would be crucified when Aegeates, the 'homicidal serpent', heard that his wife would not submit to his blackmail. Sure enough, Aegeates pronounced a death sentence, first ordering Andrew to be flogged. As he was being dragged to the place of execution, Stratokles overtook the guards and ripped their clothes off their backs before walking hand in hand with Andrew to his cross. The apostle told his new convert that he wanted him not to give evil for evil but to turn the other cheek.

The execution was due to take place by the seashore, and when he saw the cross on which he was to die, Andrew uttered a hymn in its praise because it would enable him to share the fate of his master. The guards did not break his legs when they hung him up, so that his agony would be prolonged and dogs might feed on his flesh in the night. But Andrew was far from finished. Preaching from his cross, he mesmerised the crowd, and their anger rose against Aegeates. 'Be merciful to a pious man,' they pleaded. 'He has been hanging for two days without food and yet he refreshes us with his words.' Aegeates brushed aside their pleas, but when a riot ensued that looked like ending in an uprising, Aegeates rushed off to give the order to cut down the apostle.

Andrew would have none of it. 'Let no man free me from these bonds, for it is so fated that I now depart the body and be present with the Lord, with whom I am being crucified This shall be accomplished!' Turning to Aegeates, Andrew told the crowd he would receive his just reward in the fires of hell.

They roared at the proconsul to save Andrew, and as he stood stunned, at the foot of the cross, Andrew delivered a dying 'aria'. 'Take me in peace to Thy eternal tents. May my going out become a going into Thee by the many, akin to me, who rest in Thy majesty.' The date was the thirtieth of November. Maximilla stepped forward and took down his body and had it buried by the seashore ('where the prison is'). She left Aegeates to live separately as a Christian. Andrew's death proved the final breaking-point not only for their marriage but for the proconsul's sanity. Soon afterwards, he flung himself from the roof of his praetorium.

The next chronicle of Andrew's exploits is the Acts of Andrew and Matthias. Some have argued it is based on the rescue of Matthias described above but is given a different setting and details. The book begins with the apostles drawing lots to decide which mission field should be allocated to them Matthias (in some texts mistakenly changed to Matthew' is given the 'City of the Cannibals' as his lot. In some texts this city is not given a name; in others it is the 'Land of Dogs' in yet others, Scythia, the northern side of the Black Sea Herodotus wrote of Scythian 'man-eating' tribes, and Aristotle refers to cannibals around the Black Sea area. In later versions the city is named as Myrmidona and therefore identified as Myrmekion, in Crimea.

Matthias, on arrival, is blinded, drugged and thrown in prison. Jesus appears and promises Andrew will rescue him within a month. As the time draws near, Jesus appears to Andrew and tells him to hurry to the City of the Cannibals, where Matthias is about to be killed and eaten. 'How can I possibly get there in time?' Andrew asks. Jesus replies that he and his disciples will find a ship if they go down to the shore next morning. Sure enough, a boat is waiting and the three men in it (actually Jesus and two guardian angels) announce that they are going to the City of the Cannibals. Andrew's request for passage is granted, but when he announces that he and his companions have no money or food, he is permitted to travel only when he discloses that as Christians they take no money themselves. Three loaves are produced for the passengers but by this time Andrew's disciples have become seasick - even though the ship has yet to set sail!

He offers them a chance to go ashore but they decline ('Away from you we become strangers to the good things the Lord has given us'). Jesus suggests to Andrew that if they are really Christians, they will lose their fear if they are reminded of the miracles done by Jesus, whereupon Andrew recounts the stilling of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. He is now aware that the ship is under way but the sea is amazingly placid. He asks the pilot (Jesus) for his nautical secret, which he himself has failed to learn in seventeen years at sea. 'It is because you are Christians,' says the pilot, and asks Andrew to explain why the Jews do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, 'for we hear this was revealed to his disciples'.

This is followed by a somewhat artificial dialogue in which Andrew recounts the New Testament miracles of Jesus to the pilot, whom he still fails to recognise as Jesus himself. Planted in this section is a somewhat anti-Semitic section written in a different style of Greek, in which a stone sphinx in a heathen temple begins to talk and accuses the high priests of denying the divinity of Jesus ('Do not say to me that I am only a carved idol, for I tell you that our temples are better than your synagogue').

The pilot then makes Andrew fall asleep and when he wakes up, he and his disciples are lying on the ground in front of the City of the Cannibals. In their dreams they have realised that Jesus brought them here, and when Jesus appears again, this time in the form of a beautiful young boy, Andrew asks what sin he committed that he did not recognise him at sea. Jesus replies it was because they doubted being able to complete the journey in three days. Andrew then enters the city and goes to the prison, where the guards fall dead as he utters a prayer At the sign of the cross the doors open and Matthias is rescued: and the eyes of blind prisoners are opened. The pathetic sight of naked men eating grass like dumb animals meets their eyes. Over two hundred escape, but the rulers' blood-lust ha; been aroused. They demand that the guards' bodies should be eaten and order ships to bring back young men for food. It the city centre there is a vat for blood and a furnace to cook the flesh.

However, as the knives are raised to kill their prey, Andrew causes the killers' hands to turn to stone. The rulers are amazed, but their insatiable hunger for human flesh makes them decree a cull of senior citizens. Two hundred and fifteen are rounded up and seven chosen by lot. One of them offers the life of his small son instead of his own, which is accepted only after his daughter has been added. As the knives are raised for a second time, Andrew's prayers are again effective. The rulers are incensed and the devil appears to incite the crowd to take revenge on Andrew. 'What is making you into sheep and cattle?

Get up and kill the stranger! He is the man who freed the prisoners. Now go and look for him so you can eat the rest of your food!'

Andrew comes out to confront the crowd (to allow the evil in them to be shown). They seize him and, deciding that roasting him is not painful enough punishment, drag him through the streets with a rope until his flesh is torn and his blood 'flowed like water on the ground'. They throw him, tied up, into prison, where the devil and seven demons arrive to taunt him - 'Where now is your power, your fearlessness, your glory?' The next day the torture begins again, as Andrew is dragged around the city at the end of a rope tied around his neck, until he cries out, 'Lord Jesus the Anointed, these tortures are enough, for I am exhausted. Thou hast seen how the enemy has mocked me with his demons and thou art mindful of thy three days upon the cross when, being little-souled, thou said, "My Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" ' (This passage referring to the torture of Andrew and Jesus and their human reactions contrasts with the Gnostic Acts of Andrew in which the non-human, divine side of Christ is emphasised.)

In despair, Andrew cries out that Jesus promised that 'they shall not touch one hair of your heads' (Luke 21:18). At last the Lord appears. Fruit-bearing trees spring up where Andrew's flesh and blood have touched the ground. Jesus touches his hand, and he stands up, restored to health. Turning to the alabaster statue of a man in the prison, Jesus spreads out his hands seven times, makes the sign of the cross and a flood pours out of it. The citizens flee. Their children and cattle drown, and they rush to the prison to free Andrew. Among them is the man who offered his son to the cannibals, now begging forgiveness. Andrew rebukes him, 'How can you say, "Have mercy on me", when you did not have mercy on your; children? You and the executioners will remain in Hell until I return and bring you back up.'

Andrew then restores the dead to life, plans a church and baptises, but as he is planning to leave, Jesus (again as the little boy) appears to persuade him to stay on and complete his mission, which ends happily as the damned men are brought up from Hell.

The Acts of Peter and Andrew is a kind of sequel to both the Acts of Andrew and the Acts of Andrew and Matthias. Upon the arrival of the two apostle brothers at the Land of the Barbarians, the devil exclaims, 'Woe to us, for here are some of the twelve Galileans who practise magic on men, for they separate women from their husbands.' The devil puts a lecherous lady! in the gateway to stop them as they enter the city. Andrew! prays and the Archangel Michael lifts her into the air until they pass. A rich man, Onesiphorus, forces the apostles to make| a camel go through the eye of a needle, and he is converted,;! giving his money to the poor. The wanton woman comes down| to earth as a convert and sets up a nunnery.

The Acts of Andrew and Philemon is a sequel to the Peter j and Andrew story. Some versions set it in the lands of the Kurds and the city of Lydda. Peter has already converted half the city, and Andrew and Philemon are to accomplish the rest. The latter sings so sweetly in church that even some pagan priests who have come to kill the Christians are converted. While Andrew is baptising five thousand people, the devil causes a nobleman's son (in some versions he is a sheikh) to be killed by John. This man holds John's son hostage while he goes to look for Andrew. Andrew sends Philemon, who is arrested by the governor, Rufus, at the devil's instigation. His sweet voice cannot gain his release even if he brings tears to the soldiers' eyes.

But his chaste principles have not deserted him. A sparrow offers to carry a message to Andrew on Philemon's behalf. He refuses on the grounds that 'You are a fornicator, and you will not hasten your return, for if you meet a hen of your own kind, you will stay with her.' A raven is also refused (on the grounds that the raven which Noah sent on a scouting mission didn't return), but eventually a dove is deemed an acceptable carrier.

Rufus is converted, but the devil prompts his wife to kill their children. On learning this, Rufus goes to stay with Philemon, who, at the appearance of Andrew, is able to resurrect the dead children. The boy tells of a visit to Hell (Gehenna), where a house was being built for his father to burn in after his death. Jesus (in the form of a young boy) pardons the father and orders the house to be destroyed and another one built in Heaven. Rufus, now aware the house was for him, is converted on the spot. His homicidal wife is found holding in her hand a Negro who confesses to being the demon Magana. Andrew promptly banishes him to Hell, heals the woman and is set to leave. Rufus becomes his disciple, assisting at the cure of a man possessed by demons, giving his wealth to the poor and laughing at the emperor's messengers who arrive too late to confiscate his riches.

The Acts of Andrew and Bartholomew is clearly another version of the Andrew and Matthias legend. Rufus is now one of Andrew's disciples and joins the expedition to the Land of the Barbarians. In this version Jesus flies them there rather than taking the sea journey. Gallic, the governor of the city, organises a contest between the apostles and the pagan priests.

The apostles make the idols fly to the top of the temple, where they confess they are not gods. The devil incites the crowd to burn the apostles, which they fail to do. Finally they are stoned and thrown from the walls unconscious. Jesus provides a convert - a man with a dog's head - by surrounding him with fire, and he returns to the city with the apostles, killing eleven lions and two tigers which attack them. The Lord surrounds the city with fire and the people, afraid of Dog's Head and the fire, surrender and become Christians. Andrew kicks a statue, which pours forth water for the baptisms.

The Acts of Andrew and Paul continue the anti-Semitism of Acts of Andrew and Andrew and Matthias that is absent in the shorter and derivative versions. They survive only in a Coptic fragment.

Accompanying Andrew on his missions, Paul dives into the sea to visit Amente (the Land of the Dead). The captain of their ship, Appolonius, cures his blind mother accidentally with Paul's cloak, while Andrew goes off at the request of a father to cure his twelve-year-old son. But the Jews refuse him entry to the city, and the boy dies. Andrew tells the father not to bury him yet and returns to the ship.

Paul is still missing in the Land of the Dead. Shown where he entered the water, Andrew prays and throws a cup of fresh water, which splits the sea, and Paul returns with a piece of wood from Amente.

His report on who was left in the punishment cells of the Underworld gives interesting insights into who were the heroes and villains for the Copts of the time. Judas Iscariot was almost alone, except for some murderers, magicians and throwers of little children into water! The rest have been rescued by Jesus. Judas was still being punished because of his suicide and for having a pact with Satan.

Still refused entry to the city, the apostles send a scarab (beetle) to the dead boy's father. (This is a pun, as the Greek words for 'scarab' and 'righteous' are very similar.) The Jews are under pressure to allow them entry but persuade the governor to suggest to the apostles that they open the gates themselves if their mission is God-given. Paul hits the gates with his Amente wood and they disappear. The dead boy has been restored to life, but the Jews have prepared a fraudulent resuscitation of their own. However, the 'dead' man confesses to the apostles. Andrew accuses the Jews of trickery and a mass conversion of 27,000 takes place. In another fragment an incident involving a woman killing her child and feeding it to her dog is included. A happy ending ensues when the pieces of the child are reassembled, laughing and weeping.

There remains one further fragment to be revealed. The story is brief: Andrew goes to Scythia and preaches in the city of Axis. Messengers are sent to persuade him to leave but are converted by the apostle. The rulers threaten to burn Andrew alive but are themselves burned by heavenly fire. Some evildoers survive and throw Andrew into prison. He prays for their destruction, but the Lord tells Andrew his work is finished. The next day the people take him out to be crucified and throw stones at him until he dies.

Is this simply an aberration, which kills off Andrew in Scythia and omits the lengthy traditional martyrdom in Achaea (at Patras)? Scythia is not named in the Egyptian texts of Andrew and Matthias, but here we have the earliest tradition of a mission to Scythia by Andrew combined with a martyrdom story. Are all the rest embellishments, and is the simple truth to be found here, that Andrew went north to the Black Sea and died there as a martyr? We will be in a better position to give an answer to that question when we have done our detective work on the texts and examined the motives of those who wrote them.

Back

TOC

Next