Andrew was the son of Jonah (or John) and the brother of Simon Peter. He was a fisherman from Bethsaida and, according to the Gospel of John, a disciple of John the Baptist before he followed Jesus (John 1:35–40).
In the Gospels
Andrew appears three times in the Gospel of John, always in the role of bringing someone to Jesus: he brings his brother Simon (1:41–42), he brings a boy with five loaves and two fish (6:8–9), and he brings a group of Greeks who wanted to see Jesus (12:20–22). In the synoptic gospels he is named among the Twelve and is present at the healing of Peter's mother-in-law and at the feeding of the five thousand, but he rarely speaks.
After the Resurrection
Acts 1:13 lists Andrew among the apostles who gathered in the upper room after the ascension, but the New Testament says nothing further about him.
Death
Tradition places Andrew's later ministry in the region around the Black Sea — Scythia, Thrace, and Achaia. Eusebius (writing in the fourth century) records a tradition from Origen that Andrew preached in Scythia (modern Ukraine and southern Russia). The earliest detailed account of his death comes from the apocryphal Acts of Andrew (c. AD 150–200), which is unreliable as history but preserves the tradition that he was crucified on an X-shaped cross at Patras in Achaia.
His relics we're reportedly translated to Constantinople in the fourth century. In the medieval period, Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland (a tradition that probably stems from a much later legend about his relics being carried there).
Sources
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.1 (citing Origen).
- Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 889.
- Acts of Andrew (apocryphal; unreliable as history but a source for the tradition).