andrew of caesarea and the apocalypse in the ancient church of the ...

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has been dated from 563-614. 7 While this is a useful approximation, it is highly unlikely that
Andrew reigned for fifty-one years as a bishop, although it is not entirely impossible. It is
more plausible that another bishop or bishops held the see during an intervening period of
time between the end of Theokritos' episcopacy in 563 and Andrew's ascent. Andrew could
hâve occupied the see as early as the end of the sixth century, but internai évidence in the
commentary suggests that he most definitely served as the bishop during the critical first
years of the seventh century.
We know for certain that while Andrew was writing his own commentary he had
before him the earliest Greek commentary on Révélation, which had been authored only a
few years prior by Oikoumenios. Oikoumenios provided us with a rough date for his own
commentary when he remarked that he was writing more than five hundred years after John
experienced his révélation. This places Oikoumenios' work at the end of the sixth century
and provides the first parameter for dating Andrew's commentary. Since Andrew's
commentary followed that of Oikoumenios, Andrew could not hâve written prior to the very
end of the sixth or early part of the seventh century.
1.2.2 Dating Andrew's Commentary on the Apocalypse
Many scholars surmise that Andrew's commentary was composed not only prior to
other at an uncertain date in the sixth or seventh centuries." Georgios B. Mavromatis,
H 'AnoicâXvynç rov Icoâvvov pe narepiKrj 'AvâXvarj, (Athens: Apostolike Dianoia,1994), places Andrew
in the 5 century and, even more surprisingly, places Oikoumenios around 600, well after Andrew
(Mavromatis, 21). Frederick W. Norris, likewise dates Andrew in the fifth century. "Andrew of Caesarea,"
Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, éd. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990), 38.
7 The terminus post quem is that a previous Archbishop of Caesarea, Theokritos, died in 563 and Andrew
followed him at some point thereafter. We know the names of the archbishops of Caesarea from the year 500
through 563. See Franz Diekamp, Analecta Patristica (Rome, 1938), 162, and Panagiotis K. Chrestou,
'EXXnviKrj FlarpoXoyia, 5 vols. (Thessalonika: Kyromanos, 1992), 5:514, and also Chrestou in Flarépeç
mi QeoXôyoi rov Xptariaviapov, 2 vols. (Thessalonika: Tehnika Studio, 1971), 1:338. Chrestou correctly
states that Andrew lived in the ô" 1 and 7"" centuries. The terminus ante quem is the date of the destruction of
Jérusalem by the Persians, an extremely significant event about which Andrew gives no hint of any knowledge.
Diekamp believes the last possible date of composition is 637, the date at which time Moslems took control of
Jérusalem. But Andrew présents Jérusalem as still under the rule of "pious" kings, i.e., Christian Roman
emperors. Chp. 52, Text 178, Commentary Translation, (hereinafter"Co/w/w."), 171.
"But what does he mean by adding what must soon take place since those things which were going to happen
hâve not yet been fulfilled, although a very long time, more than five hundred years has elapsed since this was
said?" (Oikoumenios 1.3.6) Oecumenius: Commentary on the Apocalypse, trans. John N. Suggit, Fathers of the
Church Séries, vol. 112 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 22. Oikoumenios'
identity and dating are discussed in greater détail below.