Well for thee, O cross, which bindeth the world in its extent! Well for thee, O cross, which hast formed thy deformed outward appearance to a form full of intelligence! Well for thee the invisible chastisement, with which thou chastisest the nature of the doctrine of polytheism and drivest its inventor out of this humanity! Well for thee, O cross, which hast put on the Lord, hast gathered in the robber, hast called the apostle to repentance, and hast not deemed us unworthy to be received by thee! But why do I speak yet so long and allow not the cross to embrace me, in order to be raised to life in the cross, when I, through the cross, have gone from life to death, which is the lot of all? Come then, servants of my joy and beadles of Aegeates, and fulfill the wish of both of us and bind the lamb to the cross of suffering, the man to the demiurge, the soul to the Saviour!" >[1]
20. (p. 25) And when most happy Andrew, standing on the ground and incessantly looking at the cross, had spoken these words, <he approached it> after having called to the brethren that the hangman should come and execute their order; for they stood afar off. <So they came and> (p. 26) only bound his feet < without piercing his hands and feet>, without cutting the hollows of the knee, having received this order from the proconsul, for he wished him to be in distress while on the cross, and in the night time to be eaten up alive by the
- ↑ This paragraph is inserted from the Martyrium Andrea prius, p. 54, line 18 to p. 55, line 19.
