Saint Andrew

“ Andrew, a subject most difficult to treat effectively, and retain at the same time the dignity of the suffering apostle, while avoiding all resemblance to a similar scene in the life of Christ. Here he is bound down on a sort of table; one man lifts a rod, another seems to taunt the prostrate saint; a lictor drives back the people. ”

“ Where in Achaia holy Andrew dwelt,
Guiding his people in the way of life, 170
A voice was heard from out the heavens above.
To him, that steadfast saint, the Lord of hosts,
Glory of kings, Creator of mankind,
Unlocked the treasure of His heart, and thus
In words He spake:—"Thou shalt go forth and bear
My peace, and journeying shalt fare where men,
Devourers of their kind, possess the land,
And hold their home secure by murderous might. ”

“ Unto those youths who in the ocean-stream
Had lost their life within the flood's embrace,
So that their souls, forsaken by the Lord,
Shorn of their glory, had been borne away
To death and torments in the power of fiends.
Saint Andrew's prayer was pleasing unto God, 1620
Almighty One, the Counselor of men;
He bade the youths, those whom the flood had slain,
Rise up unscathed in body from the ground.
Then straightway stood there up among the throng
Many an ungrown child, as I have heard ”

“ And the priests of idols saw all these signs and wonders and did not believe, but they sought out Saint Andrew the apostle in all that country that they might kill him. Afterwards they gathered together and came and took the holy Apostle Andrew, and they beat him severely and dragged him round about the city naked, and they cast him into the prison house, so that they might kill him on the following day. Now the custom of these people was when they wanted to kill a man to take him and hang him up on a tree, and stone him until he died. ”

“ Then the most Holy Virgin washed her face and having pressed it well against a platter, she left on it her reproduction with her predicted son in her arms. Having handed the image to Saint Andrew, she said: “Yes, may the mercifulness and the overwhelming help of Him who was born of me be with thee everywhere where thou choosest to go. I myself will invisibly help to increase the complete success of thy preaching tour and my province of future enlightenment will always remain [119] under my constant, nay, never ceasing care and protection.” ”

“ The Scots honour St. Andrew as principal patron of their country, and their historians tell us, that a certain abbot called Regulus, brought thither from Constantinople in 369, certain relics of this apostle, which he deposited in a church that he built in his honour, with a monastery called Abernethy, where now the city of St. Andrew stands. Many pilgrims resorted thither from foreign countries, and the Scottish monks of that place were the first who were culdees. The Muscovites say, he preached among them, and claim him as the principal titular saint of their empire. ”

“ And John the priest came to Saint Andrew and he found him baptizing all the people. And Andrew answered and said unto him, “I cannot go with thee at this moment because of the people whom I have to baptize, but take Philemon with thee, and he shall raise for thee the boy who is dead.” So Philemon and John the priest departed from Andrew, and when he came to the city of Nawa [he found] Koros the governor searching for the murderer, for Satan had told him all that had happened, and he imagined that a grown up man [had been killed] . ”

“ Andrew has been venerated as the special protector of Scotland, and his feast, known as "Andrewmas," celebrated everywhere with great rejoicing. The legend of St. Regulus (see October 17) which attributes to that saint the bringing of {174} the apostle's relics to the country is rejected by modern historians. The origin of devotion to St. Andrew in Scotland is nevertheless due to the translation of the apostle's relics thither (probably from Hexham) during the eighth century. ”

“ And then came a company of girls strewing flowers, and fair boys blowing on trumpets, and next, on a black horse, in white armour, with a hucque of scarlet broidered with gold, the blessed Maid herself, unhelmeted, glancing every way with her happy eyes, while the women ran to touch her armour with their rings, as to a saint, and the men kissed her mailed feet.
To be alive, and to feel my life returning in a flood of strength and joy in that sweet air, with the gladness of the multitude pulsing through it as a man’s heart beats in his body, seemed to me like Paradise. ”

“ Andrew, where the relics should be enshrined. St. Rule is said to have carried out the command in company with many fellow voyagers, and to have founded the church of St. Andrew's, where he lived more than thirty years after his landing. A cave on the sea coast hard by still bears his name. He is said to have retired there for prayer. The old church of St. Rule, with its quaint, slender tower, was the first cathedral of the city, which formerly bore the saint's name.
Most modern historians identify St. Rule with an Irish abbot of similar name who is honoured on this day. ”

“ Andrew, St., one of the Apostles, suffered martyrdom by crucifixion, became patron saint of Scotland; represented in art as an old man with long white hair and a beard, holding the Gospel in his right hand, and leaning on a transverse cross.
Andrew, St., Russian Order of, the highest Order in Russia.
Andrew, St., the Cross of, cross like a X, such having, it is said, been the form of the cross on which St. Andrew suffered.
Andrewes, Lancelot, an English prelate, born in Essex, and zealous High Churchman in the reign of Elizabeth and James I.; eminent as a scholar, a theologian, and a preacher ”

“ On the signet-ring of Mary Queen of Scots the white Cross of St. Andrew is not shown on its usual blue ground, but on a ground striped blue and yellow, the royal colours; in the same way that the St. George's Cross is shown in Fig. 71, not on a white ground, but on a ground striped white and green, the Tudor colours.
Why St. Andrew was selected to be the Patron Saint of Scotland has never been satisfactorily settled. [13] Some uncharitable enquirer has hazarded the explanation that it was because it was this Apostle who discovered the lad who had the loaves and fishes. ”

“ Andrew, and receiving the relics of the apostle brought there by one of its bishops; and, sixty years later, the Picts expelling the Columban monks, introducing the secular clergy, placing the kingdom under the patronage of St. Peter, and then receiving from some unknown quarter the relics of St. Andrew, and founding a church in honour of that apostle, who becomes the national patron saint. The second legend concludes with this statement:—‘These are the names of those holy men who brought the sacred relics of St. Andrew the apostle into Scotia—St. Regulus himself ”

“ It is left to one now only to repeat what has been said by better men; at the best, one may but paraphrase the words of another. There is nothing new to be said of Yarrow, no fresh beauty to be pointed out. Its charm affects each one differently; each must see and feel for himself. But whether the season be sweetest summer-tide, or that when winter's blast comes black and roaring down the glens, fiercely driving before it sheets of water snatched from the tortured bosom of lone Saint Mary's,—there, still, abides the indescribable charm of Yarrow. ”

“ She promised that all the days of life that remained to her should be dedicated to carrying out his will, and that she would stay in the country of his adoption and walk in his footsteps as far as her weakness allowed. Then brilliant lights and sweet odours announced the ascent of the soul of Andrew, and all the people came and venerated their dead saint. Brigid left the monastery and settled near the source of the Sieci, high up in the Val d’Arno, where she founded a church in honour of St. ”

“ BARTHOLOMEW, Saint (d. 1193) , was a Northumbrian hermit of some celebrity, who flourished in the twelfth century. His life was most probably written by Galfrid, the author of the biography of St. Godric, and a monk of Bartholomew's own monastery of St. Mary at Durham. In any case, it professes to be written in the lifetime of the saint's contemporaries. According to this life, Bartholomew was born at Witeb or Whitby. ”

“ This is done, amongst other places, at Kirton-in-Lindsey; the writer heard 1893 tolled out and 1894 ushered in with a peal on those beautiful bells; and we know that it was the custom there in 1632, for we find under that date in the churchwardens’ accounts:—“Item to the ringers of new yeare day morninge xijd.” The church of this parish is dedicated to S. Andrew, and in 1658, there is an entry as follows:—“It’ to the ringers on St. Andrewes day 0 1 0.” The patron saint of Scotland seems [Pg 41] in some parts of England to be held in high esteem ”

“ Hast thou no store of bread
To comfort thee upon the ocean-road,
Or pure drink for thy thirst? The life is hard
For him who journeys far upon the flood."
In answer then did Andrew, wise in wit,
Unlock to him the treasure of his words:—
"It is not seemly that with arrogance
And words of taunting thou demand reply,
When God hath given thee abundant wealth
And worldly fortune; better for each man 320
That with humility he kindly greet
A traveler bound to other lands far off,
As Christ commanded, Lord most glorious.
We are His thanes, chosen as champions ”

“ We see the conversion of England in the very process of its accomplishment. We see the beauties of Paganism and those of Christianity blending with each other, much as the Medieval and the Renaissance are blended in Spenser. In the one aspect Andrew is the valiant hero, like Beowulf, crossing the sea to accomplish a mighty deed of deliverance; in the other he is the saintly confessor, the patient sufferer, whose whole trust is in the Lord.
If we compare the poem with the other epics of its class, its most formidable competitors are the anonymous Judith and Cynewulf's Christ. ”

“ Then spake the Lord of hosts, Almighty God,
And said these words unto His valiant thane:—
"O Andrew, thou shalt do a deed of might;
Shrink not before this host, but thy brave heart
Strengthen against the strong! The hour is nigh 1210
When these blood-thirsty men shall weigh thee down
With torments and cold chains. Reveal thyself,
Make firm thy soul, and strengthen thy brave heart,
That they may recognize My power in thee!
They cannot and they may not, crime-stained men,
Deal death unto thy body 'gainst My will,
Though thou shalt suffer many evil blows
From murderers. ”

“ I have said, too, that he was a devout churchman. Many of the noble hymns and prayers with which the poem abounds are largely original, expanded from a mere line or two in the Greek. Many and beautiful are the epithets or kennings which he applies to God, taken in part from the Bible, and in part from the imagery of the not wholly extinct heathen mythology.
Thoroughly English is his love of violent action, of war and bloodshed. Andrew is a "warrior brave in the battle"; the apostles are Thanes of the Lord, whose courage for the fight Failed never, e'en when helmets crashed in war. ”

“ When Andrew had located Jesus in company with the three, he said: “Master, why do you leave us alone with the multitude? Behold, all men seek you; never before have so many sought after your teaching. Even now the house is surrounded by those who have come from near and far because of your mighty works. Will you not return with us to minister to them?”
When Jesus heard this, he answered: “Andrew, have I not taught you and these others that my mission on earth is the revelation of the Father, and my message the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven? ”

“ Brand adds, that “singed sheep’s heads are borne in the procession before the Scots in London, on St. Andrew’s day.”
There is a marvellous pleasant story in the “Golden Legend,” of a bishop that loved St. Andrew, and worshipped him above all other saints, and remembered him every day, and said prayers in honour of God and St. Andrew, insomuch that the devil spitefully determined to do him mischief. Wherefore, on a certain day, the devil transformed himself “in to the fourme of a ryght fayre woman,” and came to the bishop’s palace, and desired in that “fourme” to confess, as women do. ”

“ Maker of angels, answered from His ship:—
"Wide-faring foreigners can never dwell
There in that country, nor enjoy the land; 280
But in that city they must suffer death
Who thither bring their lives from distant shores.
And dost thou wish to traverse the wide main,
That thou mayst spill thy life in bitter war?"
To him did Andrew answer give again:—
"Our hearts' strong hope and yearning drives us forth
To seek that country and that far-famed town,
If thou, most noble sir, wilt show to us
Thy gracious kindness on the wave-tossed deep." ”

“ That home most blessèd, where thou mayst enjoy
Glory and bliss to everlasting life.
Suffer this people's cruelty; not long
Can faithless men afflict thee sinfully
With chains of torment by their crafty wiles.
Straight will I send unto this heathen town 110
Andrew to be thy comfort and defense;
He will release thee from thine enemies.
Thou hast not long to wait ”

“ And having made up his mind to the death upon the cross, he went away and had a banquet with his equals. But Maximilla, the Lord going before her in the form of Andrew, went with Iphidamia to the prison. And when a greater number of brethren had met, Andrew felt compelled to speak thus:
15. "I was sent, dear brethren, by the Lord as an apostle into these regions, of which the Lord deemed me worthy, not to teach but to exhort all men inwardly related to the words, that they live in transitory sufferings, if they rejoice in the noxious notions of their imagination. ”