novelists, of the fifth century and later, have given a great number of stories about Andrew, inconsistent with the earlier accounts, with each other, and with common sense. Indeed there is no great reason to think that they were meant to be believed, but written very honestly as fictitious compositions, to gratify the taste of the antique novel-readers. There is therefore, really, no more obligation resting on the biographer of the apostles to copy these fables, than on the historian of Scotland to transcribe the details of the romances of Scott, Porter and others, though a mere allusion to them might occasionally be proper. The most serious and the least absurd of these fictions, is one which narrates that, after having received the grace of the Holy Spirit by the gift of fiery tongues, he was sent to the Gentiles with an allotted field of duty. This was to go through Asia Minor, more especially the northern parts, Cappadocia, Galatia and Bithynia. Having traversed these and other countries as above stated, he settled in Achaia. Where, as in the other provinces, during a stay of many years, he preached divine discourses, and glorified the name of Christ by wonderful signs and prodigies. At length he was seized by Aegeas, the Roman proconsul of that province, and by him crucified, on the charge of having converted to Christianity, Maximilla, the wife, and Stratocles, the brother of the proconsul, so that they had learned to abhor that ruler's wickedness.
This story is from Nicephorus Callistus, a monk of the early part of the fourteenth
century. (See Lardner, Cred. Gos. Hist. chap. 165.) He wrote an ecclesiastical
history of the period from the birth of Christ to the year 610, in which he has
given a vast number of utterly fabulous stories, adopting all the fictions of earlier
historians, and adding, as it would seem, some new ones. His ignorance and folly
are so great, however, that he is not considered as any authority, even by the Papist
writers; for on this very story of Andrew, even the credulous Baronius says, "Sed
fide nutant haec, ob apertum mendacium de Zeuzippo tyranno," &c. "These things
are unworthy of credit, on account of the manifest lie about king Zeuzippus, because
there was no king in Thrace at that time, the province being quietly ruled by
a Roman president." (Baron. Ann. 44. § 31.) The story itself is in Niceph. Ecc.
Hist. II. 39.
One of the longest of these novels contains a series of incidents,
really drawn out with considerable interest, narrating mainly his
supposed adventures in Achaia, without many of the particulars
of his journey thither. It begins with simply announcing
that, at the time of the general dispersion of the apostles on their
missionary tours, Andrew began to preach in Achaia. but was soon
after interrupted for a time by an angelic call, to go a great distance,
to a city called Myrmidon, to help the apostle Matthew out
of a scrape, that he had fallen into of himself, but could not get out
