Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew | Page 3

to those
good things which the Lord hath promised unto us. Therefore will we
abide with thee, wherever thou go."[1] In the Old English :--
O whither shall we turn us, lordless men,
Mourning in heart, forsaken
quite by God,
Wounded with sin, if we abandon thee?
We shall be
odious in 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[=æ]l_ ("shaft
of the devil"), and in the homily also the same word (_str[=æ]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