ON ST. ANDREW OF CRETE, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR.
ABOUT THE YEAR 720.
A Historical Collection.
Andrew of Crete (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
CHAPTER I.
His sacred cult, elogia, the time of his life.
[1] Whoever attends to the merits of St. Andrew of Crete, most notable for the praise of virtue and doctrine, will not be able to doubt that a most ample field lies open for his praises, so that it is a wonder that so few things about his life and deeds have been propagated to posterity. His memory in the Greek tables, And indeed since the Acts are lacking, I will take pains to scrape together here from elsewhere some things which pertain to him. First I shall speak of his cult. His memory is read inscribed on this day in the Chiffletian Menaea and those of the Ambrosian library, in the Typicon of St. Sabas, the Epitome of the Greek Menology, in Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, the Slavo-Russian Menology, the Menology of Sirletus, and also in the printed Menaea: and in these last he is honored with this song:
Ὕμνοις κροτῶμεν ἀνδρικοῖς τὸν Ἀνδρέαν. / Λιπὼν βίον πρόσκαιρον Ἀνδρέας πάλαι / Ζῶντα κατέλιπεν ἀρετῆς βίον. / Τῇ δὲ δ᾽ ἀρχιθύτην μόρος Ἀνδρέαν εἷλε.
"A sonorous, manly hymn we give to Andrew. While thou forsakest the light of temporal life, Andrew, thou obtainest the pleasant life of the heavenly ones. On the fourth day death took away the Prelate Andrew."
[2] His elogium from the printed Menaea Observe the consonance in the words Ἀνδρέαν and ἀνδρικοῖς "Andrew" and "manly". There is subjoined an elogium, which I thus turn into Latin: "Andrew, sprung from the city of Damascus, was brought into the light by pious parents who loved God, and was handed over to the disciplines of letters. This man, while Theodore the Patriarch governed the see of Jerusalem, is enrolled by tonsure into the assembly of the clergy, and is taken up by him as an amanuensis. Moreover, he is sent by him to the Synod gathered at Constantinople, to subscribe to its acts. But on account of the erudition in which he excelled, and his virtue, he is created Deacon of the great church, a little after guardian of orphans, and at last Archbishop of Crete. And while he dwelt on a certain island, whose name is Hierissus, situated not far from Mitylene, having left very many monuments to the Church of God, he departed from life." Thus the printed Menaea; but whether all things are chronologically true enough, we shall afterward discuss, when we treat of his age.
[3] The Horologion of the Greeks, the memory of St. Andrew being made, addresses him in these words: and from the Horologion of the Greeks. "Thou hast eloquently trumpeted forth the divine melodies, thou hast appeared a luminary to the world far most splendid, blessed Andrew, shining with the light of the Trinity: whence we invoke thee, that thou cease not to intercede for us all." Papebroch in the preliminary Commentary to the life of St. Mary of Egypt, volume 1 of April, page 69, asserts that the elogium is described far more fully and perfectly in the Clermont Synaxarion than elsewhere. Nor did the memory of our holy Prelate grow illustrious only in the Greek tables; but it passed also to other writers. For among the Latin martyrologists,
Molanus records St. Andrew on this day, as also our Jacob Gretser, book 1 on the Cross, chapter 55, naming him by the title of a most holy man.
[4] Our Prelate is everywhere surnamed "of Crete," and this from the archiepiscopal see of the city of Crete Cur he is called "of Jerusalem." which he governed. Elsewhere you may find him also called "of Jerusalem." Not because he was a Bishop of Jerusalem, such as Vossius asserts him to have been, book 2 on the Greek Historians, page 223; but, as I believe, because he professed the monastic state there, having namely spent a notable delay of habitation in the city of Jerusalem, or in the region neighboring it.
[5] But it is a question of more difficult investigation, to be weighed with equal weights on either side, The opinions of writers and decided differently by different persons, in what year our holy Prelate lived. First therefore I shall set in the midst the opinions of the authors, then embracing that which shall seem to approach nearer to the truth. Vossius, in the place just cited, judges that he flourished under Justin II, about the year 570. Possevino had preceded, writing that St. Andrew grew famous under the same Emperor in the year of the Lord 550; which reckoning of the year the same Vossius believes faulty, from the fault of the typographer. A certain more recent Englishman, in his History of Ecclesiastical writers, goes off into a different opinion, which I set forth in his words: "He grew famous about the year 635, and long after. Certainly about his age it is not well agreed among the learned. Some wrongly refer him to 550 or 570. Others, led by I know not what authority, depress him to the year 720. But, that we may assign him the year 635, the authority of the Greek Triodion makes, in which he is said to have been σύγχρονος contemporary with Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem. Yet that he prolonged his life beyond the year 680 is evident from the eucharistic iambics, to Agathon the Deacon, scribe of the VI Council, on account of the synodal Acts lent to him for copying." Labbe prolongs him to about the year 720, relating that there are those who mark him at the year 723, and wishing to correct the error of Genebrard, Canisius, Maracci, and others, who fix him in the sixth century.
[6] And this last opinion seems to me more conformable to the truth, of various men about his age, at least so far as that our holy Archbishop lived on to the beginning of the eighth century. For he had not yet met his day in the year 681, since he took part in the III Synod of Constantinople, or Ecumenical VI, held against the Monothelites from the month of November 680, and prolonged even to September of the next following year, 681. This assertion is confirmed, first from the eucharistic Iambics written by him to Agathon the deacon, scribe of the VI synod, of which presently. Secondly, from the Clermont Synaxarion, which is cited by Papebroch on the 2nd day of April, in the preliminary Commentary of St. Mary of Egypt, in these words: Τῆς δὲ οἰκουμενικῆς συνόδου συναθροισθείσης ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει, μέρος καὶ αὐτὸς διέπων τὸν θρόνον τοῦ Πατριάρχου, ἀντ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἀπεστάλη. "And when the ecumenical Synod was convoked at Constantinople, and he himself in part governed the throne of the Patriarch [Papebroch inserts, suppose as vicar the see being vacant, or rather, the Patriarch living, as syncellus, being indeed already a perfect man, and for some time exercised not only in profane and sacred disciplines, but also in monastic exercises], he himself was sent thither for him," namely either for the throne or the Patriarch: because the praised Papebroch confesses in the same place that he has nothing whereby to judge whether in the year 680 the see of Jerusalem had a Patriarch, and by what name he was called.
[7] in which St. Andrew lived; the opinions; If it had a Patriarch at that time, it was not Theodore, much less Sophronius, the commentary just cited saying that it is more probable that Andrew was still an infant or altogether a boy when Sophronius died; and that by his successor Theodore, when he was in the fourteenth year of his age, he was tonsured into a cleric, in the last years of that very Patriarch, as Papebroch there writes, scarcely to be extended beyond the year 645. Since that Theodore was the father of Theodore, Pope of Rome, elected in the year 640, and dead in 649. In what manner therefore could Andrew, being so young when Theodore died, be sent by him to the VI Synod? But now much less can it be understood that this happened under Sophronius, who is placed as dead in the year 638, as you may see in the life collected from various sources on the XI day of March. I cannot but open one scruple, as to Andrew's setting out to the Synod of Constantinople, just now asserted from the Clermont Synaxarion, and it is this: since St. Andrew is reported to have been sent thither as vicar or syncellus, and so distinguished with the character of a public person, it is a wonder that his name is missing in the Acts of the said Synod; where nevertheless there is held George, a presbyter, in the name of the church of Jerusalem, who perhaps was inferior in office and dignity to Andrew, marked with the title of presbyter only. However it be, further inquiry must be made into the epoch of the life of our same Saint.
[8] which seems to be prolonged further, To prolong the age of St. Andrew further, makes a plainly notable passage from the Chronography of Theophanes, writing that he was surviving at that time in which, under the Emperor Philippicus, a little council was convoked at Constantinople, to overthrow the dogmas established by the often-mentioned VI ecumenical Synod against the heresy of the Monothelites. Moreover that little council fell in the year of Christ 712; consequently it follows that St. Andrew lived on in the year 712. Add a few years, and you will easily arrive at the year 720, or, as others please, 723; and perhaps a little further. For it is indeed established from Theophanes that in the year 712 the holy Archbishop was alive; but how many years determinately he continued to survive, I have nothing whence I may certainly define; and I am mistaken, if it can be exactly defined by another. Gather from what has been said, that Nicephorus Callistus, son of Xanthopulus, in the Synaxaries which he composed to be recited with the Triodion, a bad dogmatician and historian, when in the Synaxarion on the V Feria of the V week of Lent, treating of the Great penitential canon, unskillfully accumulates errors upon errors.
[9] "This canon," he says, "truly the greatest of all canons, Nicephorus Callistus hallucinating. our holy Father Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, surnamed of Jerusalem, most excellently and ingeniously composed and wrote. But he made this canon at that time in which the great Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, committed to writing the life of Mary of Egypt … This most illustrious and greatest canon, and also the treatise on the Life of Mary of Egypt, he first brought to Constantinople, when he was sent by Theodore, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in aid to the VI Synod. For then, still professing the monastic life, when he had valiantly contended against the Monothelites, he was enrolled in the clergy of the church of Constantinople; thereafter in it he is constituted Deacon and curator of orphans: and no long time after he was ordained Archbishop of Crete." Hence deservedly the same Author is thrashed by his own merit in the second paragraph of the preliminary Commentary to the life of Mary of Egypt, on the 2nd day of April, page 69, where there are more things about that Great canon, and the Acts of that Mary, which are not of the present purpose.
CHAPTER II.
Vindication from Monothelism. His writings. Andrew of Crete and Andrew of Caesarea, whether the same.
The nefarious emperor Bardanes or Bardas, his name being changed, called Philippicus, at the beginning of the second year of his reign, The little council of Constantinople of Christ 712, the scepter being now confirmed to him, since he was by promise a sworn enemy of the sacrosanct ecumenical VI Synod, did nothing else, nothing but strove to tear to pieces and destroy the dogmas of the same Synod passed against the Monothelites, a little council being gathered at Constantinople, to which, as to a synagogue of Satan, came together several Bishops of the East. And so, the Emperor being made master of his wish in this little council, the authority of the VI Synod being oppressed, the truth betrayed, the heresy defended, the impious error of the Monothelites triumphing through those by whose effort it especially ought to have been repressed and extinguished. There are those who adjudge St. Andrew of Crete to that sink of Bishops; there are those who ab-judge him. The former consequently accuse him of Monothelism, the latter excuse him; which of them do this more truly, here we inquire.
[11] Cardinal Baronius, at the aforesaid year 712, graphically describing the impious deeds of this little council, it was to many an occasion of Monothelism. thus establishes of the Bishops: "A decree is written," he says, "concerning the single will and operation, the condemnation of truth is acclaimed, the confirmation of heresy is shouted out, to which it is subscribed also by all those Bishops, from Catholics in one moment melted down into Monothelites: for thus proved in the melting-pot, those who seemed to be gold or silver, were all turned into rejected slag; so that not even one is read who resisted, who refused, and for that matter fell from his bishopric, and suffered prison, chains, or exile," and this he argues from the silence of the authors, who handed down nothing of the sort; "those only being safe from the fire of so great a furnace, whom it happened to be absent." This passage does not make much against our Prelate. For although I gratuitously grant that the Bishops to a man all subscribed to the nefarious decree, nor is even one read who resisted, who refused, etc., it does not yet follow from the cited words that among them was Andrew. For besides that Baronius does not express his name, he supposes that some were not present, since he reports that all succumbed, except those whom it happened to be absent. And so, since from the said passage it cannot be elicited whether Andrew was present at the said little council, or rather was absent, it can equally not be concluded from the same whether he was a prevaricator. Whence it is clear that Jacob Goar hallucinates, when in his notes to the first passage of Theophanes, to be produced by us a little below, in the edition rendered by him into Latin, printed with the royal types and illustrated with notes—when, I say, in the passage of Theophanes placed on page 320, he traduces SS. Germanus and Andrew, as at some time here not sufficiently orthodox, in him who "may read the mourning and complaints of Baronius about the lapse of Germanus and Andrew, in the year of the Lord 712, numbers 5, 6, and 7." Neither name do I read there, much less mourning and complaints about their lapse.
[12] Among whom Andrew is said by Theophanes to have existed; More strongly against the orthodoxy of St. Andrew presses the passage of Theophanes, and the more so, because he lived only one century's interval after this matter, of which he hands down the following, on page 320 of the impression mentioned above: "Philippicus did not blush to inveigh against the holy and universal VI Synod, striving to overthrow the sacred dogmas sanctioned by it": and the Bishops being there enumerated who went into this opinion, he expressly reckons the Bishop of Crete among those "who, by an opinion promulgated in writing, pronounced anathema against the holy sixth Synod." Another passage of Theophanes is adduced in Pagi, volume 3, page 175, from the beginning of number 4, thus enunciating about the pseudo-synod of Constantinople: "In the first year of the reign of Philippicus himself, an insane little council was celebrated against the ecumenical council; and Cyrus being expelled, in about the sixth year of his patriarchate, John was made Patriarch of Constantinople: but Andrew Metropolitan of Crete, and Germanus Metropolitan of Cyzicus, openly subscribed, and condemned by anathema with all their colleagues the aforesaid holy ecumenical Synod celebrated against the Monothelites." You see therefore the reiterated testimony of Theophanes, expressed in the clearest words, by which he signifies that Andrew of Crete stood with the Monothelites against the sixth ecumenical Synod,
associating with him Germanus, Metropolitan of Cyzicus. This last Henschenius long ago vindicated from Monothelism, volume 3 of May, on the XII day of the same month, page 156, number 8. Whether the same can be obtained in our Andrew, will appear from what follows.
[13] but he is vindicated I assume that by which the praised Henschenius began his vindication for St. Germanus against Nicephorus and Theophanes, accusing him of Monothelism; namely that this is a fabrication, taken from the crafty papers of the heretics. Heretics are wont, when they cannot from elsewhere, to conciliate authority to themselves by the number of adherents and favorers craftily and mendaciously multiplied, especially of those who are conspicuous in dignity, that so they may draw the incautious into their nets, going not whither one ought to go, but whither the more go. How easily could the Monothelites, fertile artificers of tricks, employ this device also, inserting into the number of their followers the names of Bishops thoroughly Catholic, for the deception of the simple, and the reproach of the sixth ecumenical Council, which they hated worse than a dog and a snake? Which names Theophanes, taken from those crafty instruments, may have transferred into his Chronography; which seems sufficiently likely, especially since Andrew preceded by about one century before Theophanes grew famous. Nicephorus certainly, Patriarch of Constantinople, and who therefore could equally well know the things done at Constantinople as Theophanes, expressly commemorating indeed others, helpers of Philippicus in the impious machination against the ecumenical Synod, on page 149 of the historical Breviary, published by Petavius, keeps deep silence about St. Andrew of Crete, saying only that to the two other bishops expressed by him there acceded very many others, both priests and senators. But let us pass from conjectures to more probable things.
[14] Combefis, in his notes to the Iambics of St. Andrew of Crete, partly from the iambics written by himself, printed in the new Auctarium of the Greco-Latin Library of the Fathers, and after him Pagi, volume 3, page 175, prove the orthodoxy of Andrew from a little poem, composed of the said Iambics, whose title is: "The iambics of Andrew, most holy Archbishop of Crete, written to the most holy Agathon, Archdeacon and keeper of the books of this most holy great church of God of Constantinople, when, receiving this book—understand the peroration of the same Agathon—he transcribed it, and again sent it back," of which matter we have made mention in passing above. Those Iambics make plain how orthodoxly our Andrew believed concerning the mystery of the incarnation of the Lord, comprising an accurate confession, such as, Combefis says, "the Synods published, both the Chalcedonian and this Constantinopolitan third, with absolutely no stain of Eutychianism or Monothelism, but with an express refutation of each, such as times of this kind could demand, when, as by a Symbol, heretics were distinguished from the orthodox; because the former preached a perfect economy with no defect of natures; but the latter destroyed the natures, or at least said that the one was as it were absorbed by the other, so that it did not properly work anything, having only its passion left." It is not clear when these things were written, before or after the persecution brought by Bardanes. But whether they were written before it or after, they most brilliantly prove how our holy Prelate was alien from all soot of the Monothelites. Take a specimen from certain fragments of the said Iambics: "Man is Christ, and at the same time the same God. See, however, that you do not speak of division, OR CONFUSION, nor wish to cut him into two hypostases; he himself is the son of the Father, who [is] the little boy of the Virgin: but at the last, by no sowing of nature, planted by the Word, he existed; hence the celebrated Parent obtains the illustrious name of Mother of God."
[15] "Faith does not worship Christ as two: yet, consisting of two, thoroughly Catholic. in two he was seen, utterly unmoved, FREE FROM CONFUSION. TWO actions the very notion of Christ and his concrete hypostasis suggest to me; that from one fount the two may come forth. So our substance holds entire, from which the one hypostasis of Christ rises; it is clear that there are altogether two natures: for otherwise it would be confusion; nor would that be the manner of union. As therefore you know, and prudently teach the same, TWO OPENLY [ARE] THE ACTIONS OF CHRIST; so also you hold a DOUBLE WILL IN HIM as a dogma: but each you discern only by contemplation, cutting by undivided laws, the substances by no means migrating into one another; which, as from one, and by one, come forth common, fittingly to each nature." Do you see Andrew walking between Scylla and Charybdis—between, I mean, the dogmas of Nestorius, Eutyches, and the Monothelites—and avoiding the rocks on either side? Do you hear, against the Monothelites, of whom alone here is the question, of the two actions of Christ and the double will? Could he have professed his orthodoxy in clearer terms, and separated himself from the Monothelites?
[16] Why should not St. Andrew have resisted Philippicus? Why therefore should not St. Andrew, imbued with principles of the orthodox faith so firm, so alien from Monothelism, have been one of those who preferred to undergo glorious exile rather than betray the faith? For that some Bishops were so affected that they preferred exile to the loss of faith; and that, not as Baronius somewhat harshly asserted above, only those Bishops were unharmed by the fire of so great a furnace or persecution whom it happened to be absent; but also that those who were present did not shudder to suffer persecutions and exiles, that they might keep the integrity of the faith safe and sound, I gather from Agathon the Deacon, a witness beyond all exception, contemporary and an eyewitness, of whom above. He in his peroration, published by the praised Combefis in the new Auctarium of the Greco-Latin library of the Fathers, and under the name of an Epilogue inserted from two other copies into the collection of the councils, volume 6, column 1401, treating of the things which the insane tyrant Bardas dared against the holy and ecumenical sixth Synod, thus speaks: "When Bardas or Philippicus found the volumes of the acts of the sixth Synod written by my own hand, bringing them forth and publishing them, he gave them to the fire in the secret of the palace and abolished them; bringing persecution on very many pious and orthodox men, and relegating some of them to exile, especially those who would by no means subscribe to the booklet, composed and dictated according to what he himself had commanded, namely concerning the faith, and as it were for the abrogating of that holy and ecumenical sixth Synod." These things therefore seem to persuade us to judge more rightly of St. Andrew's orthodoxy.
[17] The praised Combefis in the Auctarium, several times already cited, writing notes on the Apology of John, or a middle way being employed Archbishop of Constantinople, to Pope Constantine; by which he excuses [him] for the things which under the tyrant Bardanes were agitated against the sixth Synod, the praised, I say, Combefis enters upon another way; that he may vindicate three Prelates alike, John, Germanus, and Andrew, from the stain of Monothelism; and contends that they incurred the suspicion of it, because they employed some middle course, by which they thought that matters of faith should be spoken of with the least possible offense and irritation of the emperor Philippicus. Thus therefore the said Author speaks in the same place, to our purpose: "John signifies that by his art and shrewder counsel he guarded against greater offense to Bardas, namely by publishing a formula of faith in a Catholic sense, in which nevertheless were suppressed the words lately defined by the sixth Synod, of the twin operation and will in Christ, harsher and odious to the aforesaid Bardas. This economy of our John, for which he excuses himself; and not only his, but also of St. Germanus, then bishop of Cyzicus, but afterward Patriarch of Constantinople, [and] of Andrew of Crete, whom St. Nicephorus and Theophanes name as the chief cooperators of John in it, and of nearly the other Bishops throughout the East, whom all it is hard to condemn of prevarication, and to call, with Baronius, suddenly melted into Monothelites. I should go by a middle way, so that I should think in fact many Bishops, in whose minds the ingrained seeds of the Monothelite heresy resided, or who otherwise were easily to be led to subscribe to the express condemnation of the aforesaid sixth Synod, nay even of the Chalcedonian, and to accede as associates to the whole machination of Bardas reported by John, not immune from fault, or not guilty of betrayed faith; since it was their part and that of the whole ecclesiastical order, by unanimous constancy to deter the tyrant from his purpose, or at least by a glorious confession to defend the faith lately explained.
[18] But others, orthodox at heart and altogether guarding a milder exposition of faith lest the Eastern church should undergo so grave a loss through the malice or cowardice of their colleagues, namely the public anathematization of the sixth Synod and of the holy Fathers, finding this middle course, or approving it as found by others, not only did not sin, but even did a thing worthy of praise, a greater evil being driven from the church, and a lesser permitted rather than done." Then, after the same Author had said, from Agathon the deacon, whose words we gave above, that several, not acquiescing in this economy, and refusing to subscribe to this confession of faith, were vexed in dire ways by Bardas, he adds that by this their zeal and constancy John (and why not Andrew of Crete also?) drew upon himself, by that middle course of his, so much odium, that he is everywhere reputed a Monothelite, and of the same opinion with Philippicus: "although most writers seem to speak only by conjecture and presumption; not because they follow certain monuments of those times, on which matter they are thus various." Thus he. But if this is true, the whole crime of those Bishops comes at last to this, that they judged it more advantageous for the Eastern church and the Catholics dwelling there, considering the circumstances of places, times, and persons, to decline the emperor's fury for a while by a less express formula of faith, than by an entire exposition of all the dogmas defined by the Fathers in the sixth Synod, to bring the whole Eastern church into danger.
[19] Pagi, in the Historico-Chronological Critique, in the vindication of the said three Bishops, following Combefis, he declined his fury. shows that that economy, or the said moderation in expressing matters of faith, is not unlike the economy of St. Basil, a parallel being instituted between the two, as may be seen in the same author, volume 3, page 175. And this way in vindicating St. Andrew of Crete must be entered upon by those to whom it seems hard or not probable that Theophanes was deceived by the lying papers of the heretics in the things which he handed down about our St. Andrew, related above by us; and in this opinion it must be said that the more obscure formula gave Theophanes occasion of writing that the holy Bishop of Crete conducted himself less orthodoxly, as we said before.
[20] What and how many writings St. Andrew of Crete published, On the Writings of St. Andrew. it is not of our forum to investigate and determine more accurately, that office belonging to those who treat of writers expressly. Such in the present matter is Casimir Oudin, who in the Supplement collected by him concerning ecclesiastical writers or writings omitted by Bellarmine, reviews various works composed by our Andrew as author; concerning which there, from page 190. Very many writings also attributed to St. Andrew the other neoteric English Bibliographer commemorates in the Literary History of ecclesiastical Writers, from page 319, subjoining that some of them are of suspect faith, as being those in which you may easily detect vestiges of a more recent age.
[21] More nearly concerns us whether St. Andrew of Crete and Andrew of Caesarea are one and the same person, Whether Andrew of Caesarea, or rather two different ones; so that the man of Crete first
set over the see of that city, then, by lapse of time, was promoted to the see of Caesarea. "Those who make," says the said Oudin in the place cited, page 191, "one and the same Andrew Archbishop of Crete with the man of Caesarea, rely on conjectures alone. For they will have it that it was easy for Aretas of Caesarea to make, from the man of Crete, a man of Caesarea, to honor his homeland; whence they consequently deny that there was one and the same Andrew, successively archbishop of each see; but that by Aretas of Caesarea, Andrew was called of Caesarea, whom he ought to have called of Crete. Indeed, since Aretas, who wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse about the year 912 (for he wrote the Acts of St. Euthymius, Patriarch of Constantinople, translated to heaven in the year 911), had his own Andrew, from whom he took very many things, as an author more ancient than himself by one or two centuries: rightly consequently Andrew of Caesarea and of Crete fall into one and the same time, and perhaps coalesce into the same man, who successively held each see according to the custom of the Greeks, and who was now called of Crete, now of Jerusalem, now of Caesarea." Thus there.
[22] and of Crete be the same, But his assertion, sought from the age of Aretas, easily collapses, if you admit as true that which the same more recent English Bibliographer, adduced above, judges, in the Literary History of Ecclesiastical Writers, part 1, page 288, namely that there were two men named Aretas; the one Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia; the other a presbyter of Caesarea, and the one older than the other. Double therefore, according to this author, was Aretas: of whom that one, who was Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, composed from the commentary of Andrew of Caesarea on the Apocalypse his own explication on the same book; but the other Aretas, also of Caesarea, but younger than the former, to whom, as the author of the translation of Euthymius, the title of presbyter; but to the other, of Archbishop, is always applied. But against this it happens, in Lipomanus, the following title being prefixed to the life: "The Life of Euthymius, Archbishop of Constantinople, described by Aretas Archbishop of Caesarea, that which is in Cappadocia." Whence it is understood that scarcely anything is here brought forward, except by mere conjectures; to which if you add the words of Labbe on Ecclesiastical Writers, page 76, you would have nothing more. Thus he speaks in the same place: "At what time Andrew of Caesarea lived is not yet ascertained by the learned, nor did any of the ancients, that at least I have seen or heard, make mention of him. Bellarmine, and others after him, refer him to about the year 500. This one thing is certain, that he flourished at least one or two centuries before Aretas, likewise Prelate of Caesarea, who from him composed his commentations on the Apocalypse."
[23] or rather different [men.] Miraeus in the Auctarium on Ecclesiastical Writers, page 108, places only one Aretas, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who flourished about the year 540, citing Coccius; adding that from the Commentaries of Andrew, Bishop of the same Caesarea, he composed his explication of the Apocalypse. What more? You see here, as many heads, so many opinions. If, the conjectures of others being reviewed, it be permitted to superadd my own, Andrew of Crete seems to be distinguished from the man of Caesarea, both because the identity of the two pretended by some does not appear sufficiently founded, but rests on mere divinations, propped, as I suppose, by no support of antiquity; and because nowhere hitherto in the ancient monuments do I remember to have seen Andrew of Crete called Bishop of Caesarea. For indeed we have already seen above that he is twice called Bishop of Crete, not of Caesarea, by Theophanes. Add, that concerning the public cult of Andrew of Caesarea I have hitherto received nothing, who in the sacred tables of the Greeks, which we produced above, is always attributed to Andrew of Crete only.
[24] Gather from the course of this historical collection what must be said to Sixtus of Siena, who in book 4 of the Holy Library, page 197, not acquiescing in two, marks three different Greek men named Andrew, one indeed, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia; another of Crete, and a third finally Bishop of Jerusalem. Whence this last was erroneously intruded here, since under that name no Bishop of Jerusalem is read ever to have existed in the nature of things; you will understand from what was said in number 4. See also the Chronological History of the Bishops of Jerusalem, prefixed to volume 3 of May.