The Passion of Saint Andrew

Abstract

IF we compare the two important articles of M. Paul Meyer on the lives of saints in the thirty-third volume of the Histoire litteraire de la France, we can hardly fail to be surprised that the Apostles have but rarely2 been the subject of a life in verse, whereas in the prose versions in one MS. after another all the Apostles are fully dealt with. This is all the more surprising since the apocryphal writings have served as sources to a considerable number of Old French verse legends, e.g. La 'Nativite Nostre Dame, which according to M. Paul Meyer reproduces in substances the Pseudo-Matthcei Evangelium; the Enfance de Jes,us4; the Descente de Jesus aux Enfers5 together with L'Evangile de Nicodeme6 and the Vengeace de la mort de iTostre Seigneur7. A careful examination of the age of the earliest Latin MSS. and their dissemination in France would no doubt explain this apparent contradiction, since the French verse versions are generally older than the prose adaptations. The poet of the following Passion of Saint Andrew tells that after having treated of love, vanity and folly, and after having led a wild life it is now his intention to narrate a simple moral story; he is now