The first of the Apostles to receive the call to follow Jesus, St. Andrew was a man of strong affections, but of remarkable humility. In all the incidents related of him in the Gospels these characteristics shine forth, for he ever thought of others before himself and was at all times content to take the lowest place. Even of his brother Peter, whom he himself led to the Master, he never showed the slightest jealousy, although that brother was from the first preferred before him.
Born at Bethsaida on the Lake of Gennesaret, St. Andrew was the son of a fisherman named Jonas, and with Simon followed his father’s profession. He had often gone to the wilderness to hear John preach, and is supposed to have had many private interviews with him, during which his mind had been fully prepared for the immediate coming of Christ. With another disciple of the Baptist, whose name is not given by any of the Evangelists, he was present at the Baptism of Christ, and heard the significant salutation of John, ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’ Their interest aroused by these remarkable words, the two lookers-on followed Jesus as He left the banks of the Jordan, wondering if He were indeed the promised Messiah. When Andrew’s future Master turned and asked them what they sought, they addressed Him as ‘Rabbi’ at once, but did not venture to do more than ask where He dwelt. To His gracious invitation to come and see they responded eagerly, and thus quietly, unostentatiously, and without observation, began the work of the Son of God on earth.
None know who was the companion of St. Andrew in this most important interview, which won for him amongst the Greeks the name of the Protoclet, or first-called, but the rest of his experiences, until the ascension of Christ, are very clearly related in the Gospels. He for a time returned to his work as a fisherman, not giving up all to work for Jesus until somewhat later, when he was called with Simon to follow Him and become a ‘fisher of men.’ He was, however, certainly present with the other disciples at the marriage at Cana, where the first miracle was performed, and probably went to Jerusalem with the Master to celebrate the Passover. When the Lord chose His Apostles, Peter and Andrew were first on the list, and they were honored with the presence of Jesus in their own home at Capernaum, when He cured the former’s mother-in-law of fever. At the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Andrew showed the greatest faith of all present in Christ’s power to meet the emergency of the case, for it was he who told of the lad who had the five barley loaves and the two small fishes, St, Bede calls St. Andrew the introducer to Christ, because it was he who brought Peter to Him and also because of the incident at Bethany, when, at the request of Philip, he obtained for some strangers who had come up for the Passover the privilege of an interview with the Lord.
Nothing is really known of the life of St. Andrew after the ascension of Christ, but according to tradition he went to preach the Gospel in Scythia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia, winning thousands to the truth. Origen, Sophronius, Theodoret and S. Gregory Nazianzen, all dwell on the conversions he effected, and Philastrius relates that in his time the people of Sinope had a portrait of him taken during his life, and preserved as a great treasure the pulpit in which he had preached. The Russians claim that he was the first to preach the Gospel to their ancestors, and on this account, he is one of the patron saints of the vast Muscovite Empire. He is also said to have founded a church at Byzantium, but for this there seems to be absolutely no foundation in fact. Authorities are, however, all fairly agreed in believing him to have paid a visit to Jerusalem shortly before his death, and to have gone thence to Greece, where, at Patras, he heroically met a terrible fate.
Before the end came St. Andrew had baptized many in the name of Jesus, including the wife of the Proconsul, who, enraged at this tampering with his own household, ordered the Apostle to be first scourged and then crucified. St. Peter Chrysologus, in his account of the tragedy, says that the instrument of death was a tree, and other writers add the detail that the tree was an olive. In any case, it has long been a matter of popular belief that the cross of St. Andrew was of a peculiar form, though a considerable time elapsed before the so-called crux decussata, or cross resembling the letter X, became associated with the Apostle, and if a tree was really used, a Y would certainly have been a more truly representative symbol. The Greeks, as on the bronze door of the old Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, so often referred to, occasionally represented St. Andrew bound to a tree, the feet resting on the trunk at the point of bifurcation of two branches, and the hands nailed to the apex of the branches. In certain miniatures of the Greek Menology, however, the Apostle is seen bound to a cross resembling that on which the Savior suffered, and in the so-called Metric Martyrology it is clearly implied that he was crucified with the head downwards. An example also occurs in the rose-windows of the choir of the Cathedral at Rheims, in which he is seen on a cross of ordinary form, but fixed in the ground by its right arm, not its staff, so that the letter X or Y is to some extent suggested, and in the Sacramentary of Metz, dating from the fourth century, he is represented bound to a right-angled cross similar to that of the Greek Menology. It is very evident, therefore, that opinion has always greatly differed on the subject of the cross of St. Andrew, and in the minor detail of the way in which the victim was fastened to the instrument of torture there is equal divergence, some asserting that he was nailed, others that he was only bound to it with cords. As to the spirit in which he met his sufferings there is, however, no dispute, early ecclesiastical writers agreeing in saying that when he saw the cross, of whatever form it may have been, he fell on his knees before it and burst out into an eloquent rhapsody of thanksgiving. In the record of his acts, accepted in the Roman Catholic Church as true, his very words are quoted. ‘Hail, precious cross!’ he cried, ‘that hast been consecrated by the body of my Lord and adorned with His limbs as with rich jewels. I come to thee exulting and glad; receive me with joy into thine arms. O good cross, that hast received beauty from our Lord’s limbs, I have ardently loved thee; long have I desired and sought thee. Now thou art made ready for my longing soul; receive me into thine arms, taking me from among men, and present me to my Master, that He who redeemed me on thee may receive me by thee.’
When the sacrifice was consummated, the body of St. Andrew is said to have been buried near the scene of the martyrdom, where it remained until the fourth century. Part of it is supposed to have been then removed to Constantinople, to be reinterred in the Church of the Apostles there, and a legend was long accepted to the effect that the remainder was at the same time taken to Scotland. According to this legend, St. Regulus, Rueil, or Rule, variously described as a monk of Constantinople, of Patras, and of Scotland, was warned in a dream of what was about to take place, and hastened to the spot where the body of the Saint was resting, in the hope of securing a portion of the sacred spoil. He was successful, but on his way home with his treasure he was wrecked off Muckross, on the site of the present St. Andrew’s, and the bones of the martyr were buried there. Later a stately monastery marked the spot, and the accident of the wreck led to St. Andrew becoming the patron Saint of Scotland, and of her greatest order of chivalry. The crux decussaia now embodied in the Union Jack with the cross of St. George, was adopted as the national emblem, in gratitude, it is said, for a victory won by Achaius and Hungus, Kings of the Scots and Piets, over Athelstane of England, the X cross having appeared to them in the sky on the eve of the battle. Another version of the same story places the arrival of the bones of the martyr in Scotland three centuries later, and identifies St. Regulus with the Irish Saint Riagail, and Sir Walter Scott seems to sanction yet a third supposition — namely, that St. Regulus was the first Saint of Scotland, who came from his home in Greece to teach her people the truth, and was later superseded by St. Andrew; for, in the well-known lines in ‘Marmion,’ he says :
‘I have solemn vows to pay . . .
To far St Andrew’s bound,
Within the ocean cave to pray,
Where good St. Rule his holy lay
Sang to the billow’s sound.’
The fact that there is no certainty as to the form of the cross of St. Andrew has not prevented the growth of a tradition that the actual instrument of his death has been preserved to the present day. It is referred to in the ‘Annals of Burgundy’ as having been brought from Patras at some remote date, and given into the care of some nuns living near Marseilles, who later transferred it to the Abbey of St. Victor, in the same town, where it is still shown. This apocryphal cross was sometimes called that of Burgundy, and it is said that Philip, the good Duke of Burgundy, and Brabant, having obtained a piece of it, founded in its honor the great Order of the Golden Fleece, which is under the patronage of St. Andrew.
Of the attributes of St. Andrew in art, the chief are. of course, the scroll, with the sentence of the Creed for which he is said to be responsible, and the cross; but the latter is by no means always of the shape with which his name is so inseparably connected. In many old calendars the 30th of November, the day dedicated to St. Andrew, is marked with the letter X; but a tracing from a brass at Namur, said to be of earlier date than these calendars, shows the Apostle holding a long-staffed, short-armed cross in his right hand, and instances occur of a similar cross resting on his shoulder. In the latter case, however, this is supposed to be merely an emblem of the Apostle having been a believer in the crucified Redeemer.
In some calendars the cross of St. Andrew is replaced by a fish-hook, in allusion, of course, to his original vocation, and to the fact that he is one of the many patron saints of fishermen. Another but rarer symbol is a serpent, in reference to the story told in the Golden Legend of St. Andrew having overcome the devil, who assailed him in the form of a dragon or serpent, an incident represented in a window of the Cathedral at Chartres. The occasional introduction of a tomb in subjects from the life of the Apostle is supposed to have reference to his having been one of the saints called Myroblites, because they are said to have had the power of exhaling from their bodies after death a sort of odorous balm.
St. Andrew is the patron Saint of Rochester and Wells, and he is specially honored in Spain and in Belgium, probably because of his connection with the great Order of the Golden Fleece, which numbered amongst its knights the flower of the nobility of both those countries. As a rule, he is represented in works of art as an old man, bearing a marked resemblance to his brother St. Peter, with a partially bald head, long white hair and beard, handsome features, and an expression of reverent devotion.
Amongst devotional pictures in which St. Andrew is a principal figure may be noted: the ‘St. Peter Enthroned’ of Giotto, in the Sacristy of the Vatican; the ‘Saints Michael and George, with Saints Andrew and Longinus,’ by Andrea Mantegna, now in the Louvre; the ‘Young Christ, with St. Andrew and St. Catherine,’ attributed to Titian, in St. Marcuola, Venice; the ‘St. Jerome and St. Andrew,’ by Tintoretto, in the Doge’s Palace, Venice; and the great Ancona, by Carlo Crivelli, from the Dominican Church at Ascoli, now in the National Gallery, London, in all of which the interpretation of the character of the first of the disciples is remarkably fine.
Perhaps the most celebrated representations of scenes from the life of St. Andrew are the fresco of the ‘Vocation of the two First Disciples,’ by Ghirlandaio, in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, which is full of poetic feeling; the same subject by Domenichino, with the ‘Adoration of the Cross,’ the ‘Flagellation,’ and the ‘Martyrdom’ of the Saint, in St. Andrea della the martyr are well brought out; the ‘Martyrdom’ by Murillo, in the Madrid Gallery, considered one of that master’s greatest works ; and the ‘Taking down of St. Andrew’s Body from the Cross’ in the Munich Gallery, by Ribera, which is instinct with the somber grandeur so characteristic of the great Spanish artist’s religious pictures.
Adapted from: The Saints in Christian Art: The Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints. By Mrs. Arthur Bell, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901)