Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, Greek Menaeas and Menology; also by Russians, Ruthenians, Mekhites, In some Oriental Kalendars on Oct. 20, also on Nov. 28; in some Menaeas, also on Oct. 21 and 28. Authorities:— The Acts in Greek, genuine.] Constantine V., sumamed Copronymus, bom in 719, received in his cradle the offensive name which attached to him through life. The fact that he had as an infant defiled the font in which he was regenerated was held to foreshadow a life of abomination. Nor was this anticipation falsified. He occupied the throne of the East for thirty-foui years, during which time he reigned as an ancient tyrant of Rome. Cruel and lustful, he spared neither age nor sex, and even laid his own hands on his victims, to assist the executioner in his bloody work. He was superstitious and fanatical, consulting auguries and witches, and oracles. He went beyond his father Leo in his hostility to images. He forbade not only all veneration for saints, and erection of sacred images and pictures, but he desecrated churches and destroyed monasteries.

Andrew, a Cretan hermit or monk, moved by the narratives he received of the sufferings of those in Constantinople who venerated sacred images, took ship for the imperial city, and presented himself before the emperor in his palace of S. Mamas, outside the gates of the town, as he was torturing some orthodox Christians. When the hermit saw them scourged with oxhide thongs, their flesh tom off their backs, some blistered and black with the application of lighted torches to their sides, other with their eyes plucked out, and the imperial tyrant in his purple, enthroned, and his handsome head wreathed with a pearl diadem, calmly enjoying these horrors, Andrew could contain his indignation no longer, but, bursting through the ring of shuddering spectators, with eyes flashing, and quivering with indignant enthusiasm, he shouted, “ What ! emperor, callest thou thyself a Christian ? ” Then turning sharply round on the crowd, he cried, “ Lo ! there, in these maimed and bleeding objects, are the true soldiers of Christ ! Brave, faithful souls, full of love and zeal for their Lord !”

The servants and executioners sprang on the audacious hermit, beat him with their fists, hustled him, tore his hair, his clothes, and dragged him to the foot of the throne. Constantine, with unruffled composure, beckoned his servants to fall back, and the panting, ragged, and ruffled confessor [in old usage, a saint who was not martyred, or who suffered for the faith without being killed] was left standing alone. Andrew signed himself with the cross, and prayed.

“ Man,” said the emperor, “ what has induced you to honour those who resist the imperial laws, these false, infamous Christians?” “And who are true Christians, sire?” asked the undaunted confessor, “those who suffer wrongfully, or you who condemn and torture them ? Look at this blood dribbled over the sand, look at these discoloured swords, these hooks clotted with flesh and gore; they cry out with as many voices, denouncing the tyrant and blood-thirsty man as a false Christian. No ! I cannot call thee a Christian, sire !”

“ You,” said Constantine, “ are an idolater.” “ I am no idolater,” answered Andrew; “ I love and venerate the image of my Lord and Redeemer, but the love and devotion I pay passes from the object to the prototype.” “ Let the fellow be tortured,” said the emperor. “ Sire !” cried the daring hermit, “ if thou must needs fight, war against the barbarians who assail the empire on all sides and are bringing it to ruin, and not against the harmless folk in thy realm who serve God peacefully.”

Andrew's words were cut short by the executioners, who stripped him and scourged him till his flesh came off in strips and his blood streamed down on the ground. Before he fainted, he was borne, held up between two men, to the foot of the throne. He lifted his dim eyes to Constantine, and said, “ Thou seest, Emperor, thy powerlessness against Faith.”

“ Break his jaws,” said Constantine; and the assistants smote him on the face till he fell with broken jaws on the ground. He was then dragged away, and cast into a filthy dungeon.

Next morning he was once more produced in court, and, after having been beaten, was ordered to be carried through Constantinople, to be shown to the people as an example of what would be the sufferings of those who continued to VOL. xii. 7 venerate sacred images. As he was being thus led through the streets, a fisherman, to curry favour with the emperor, or to exhibit his own hatred of the Orthodox, caught up his fishspear, and struck it into the right foot of the martyr, cutting through the veins so that he fell on the spot and bled to death. His body was secretly secured during the night, and buried by the faithful at a place called Crisis, near Constantinople.