Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew | Page 3

every land,?Hated of every folk, when sons of men,?Courageous warriors, in council sit,?And question which of them did best stand by?His lord in battle, when the hand and shield,?Worn out by broadswords on the battle-plain,?Suffered sore danger in the sport of war. (405-414.)
[Footnote 1: Bede, Hist. Eccl. IV. 2.]
There is in the Greek no trace of the Teutonic idea of loyalty to a lord, which is the ruling motive of the Old English lines.
But did the poet read the legend in the Greek? The study of that language had, it is true, been introduced into England in the seventh century by Archbishop Theodore[1], but we can hardly assume that this study was very general. Moreover, there are several important variations between the poem and the Acts of Andrew and Matthew, facts wanting in the Greek, which the poet could not possibly have invented. For example, the poem states that Andrew was in Achaia when he received the mission to Mermedonia. In the Greek we find no mention of Achaia, nor is the name "Mermedonia" given at all. After the conversion of the Mermedonians, the poet says that Andrew appointed a bishop over them, whose name was Platan. Again the Greek is silent. There is, however, an Old English homily[1] of unknown authorship and uncertain date, which contains these three facts, (though the name of the bishop is not given). Still another remarkable coincidence has been pointed out by Zupitza.[2] In line 1189 of the Andreas, Satan is addressed as _d[=e]ofles str[=?]l_ ("shaft of the devil"), and in the homily also the same word (_str[=?]l_) is found. But in the corresponding passage of the Greek we find [Greek: O Belia echthrotate] ("O most hateful Belial"). From this correspondence between the poem and the homily, Zupitza argues the existence of a Latin translation of the Greek, from which both the Andreas and the homily were made, assuming that the ignorant Latinist confused [Greek: Belia] (Belial) with [Greek: Belos] ("arrow," "shaft,"), translating it by telum_ or _sagitta. It is hardly probable that both the poet and the homilest should have made the same mistake.
[Footnote 1: Bright, Anglo-Saxon Reader, pp. 113-128.]
[Footnote 2: _Zeitschrift für Deutsches Altertum_, XXX. 175.]
The homily could not have been drawn from the poem, nor the poem from the homily, for in each we find facts and phrases of the Greek not contained in the other. For example, both in the Greek and in the homily, the flood which sweeps away the Mermedonians proceeds from the mouth of an alabaster image standing upon a pillar, while in the poem it springs forth from the base of the pillar itself. On the other hand, most of the dialogue between Andrew and the Lord on shipboard, as well as other important incidents, are wanting in the homily.
Summing up, then, we have the homily and the poem agreeing in some important points in which both differ from the Greek, but so dissimilar in other points that neither could have been the source of the other. In the light of these similarities and variations, and of others which space prevents me from mentioning, we must suppose the homily to have been taken from an abridgment of the Latin version, of which the poet saw a somewhat corrupt copy. It is also not improbable that this Latin version may have been made from a Greek manuscript varying in some details from the legend as it appears in Tischendorf's edition. This view is sustained by a Syrian translation, which in some respects agrees with our hypothetical Latin version. But this Latin version has never been discovered, though some fragments of the legend are found in the Latin of Pseudo-Abdias and the Legenda Aurea,[1] which curiously enough supply several of the facts missing in the Greek, namely, that Andrew was teaching in Achaia, and that the land of the Anthropophagi was called Mermedonia.
[Footnote 1: Grimm, Andreas und Elene, XIII-XVI.]
So much for the sources of the poem as a whole. The poet is also deeply indebted to the Beowulf and to the poems of Cynewulf (unless he be Cynewulf himself) for lines and phrases throughout his work. One example of this borrowing will suffice. In line 999, when Andrew reaches the prison, we read (translating literally): "The door quickly opened at the touch of the holy saint's hand." In the Greek: "And he made the sign of the cross upon the door, and it opened of its own accord." Why has the poet omitted the sign of the cross? We are unable to answer until we read in the Beowulf (721) that at the coming of the monster Grendel to Heorot "the door quickly opened ... soon as he touched it with his hands."
[Sidenote: The Poem as a Work of Art.]
How shall we rank the Legend of St. Andrew