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 GEORGE

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GEORGE

points out that the earliest narrative known to us, even though fragments of it may be read in a paHmp- sest of the fifth century, is full beyond belief of extrav- agances and of quite incredible marvels. Three times is George put to death — chopped into small pieces, buried deep in the earth and consumed by fire — but each time he is resuscitated by the power of God. Be- sides this we have dead men brought to life to be bap- tized, wholesale conversions, including that of "the Empress Alexandra", armies and idols destroyed in- stantaneously, beams of timber suddenly bursting into leaf, and finally milk flowing instead of blood from the martyr's severed head. There is, it is true, a mitigated form of the story, which the older Bolland- ists have in a measure taken under their protection (see Act. SS., 23 Ap., §9). But even this abounds both in marvels and in historical contradictions, while modern critics, like Amelineau and Delehaye, though approaching the question from very different stand- points, are agreed in thinking that this mitigated ver- sion has been derived from the more extravagant by a process of elimination and rationalization, not vice versa. Remembering then the unscrupulous freedom with which any wild story, even when pagan in origin, was appropriated by the early hagiographers to the honour of a popular saint (see, for example, the case of St. Procopius as detailed in Delehaye, "Legends", ch. v) we are fairly safe in assuming that the Acts of St. George, though ancient in date and preserved to us (with endless variations) in many different languages, afford absolutely no indication at all for arrii/ing at the saint's authentic history. This, however, by no means implies that the martyr St. George never ex- isted. An ancient cultus, going back to a very early epoch and connected with a definite locality, in itself constitutes a strong historical argument. Such we have in the case of St. George. The narratives of the early pilgrims, Theodosius, Antoninus, and Arculphus, from the sixth to the eighth century, all speak of Lydda or Diospolis as the seat of the veneration of St. George, and as the resting-place of his remains (Geyer, "Itinera Hierosol.", 139, 176, 288). The early date of the dedications to the saint is attested by existing inscriptions of ruined churches in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, and the church of St. George at Thessa- lonica is also considered by some authorities to belong to the fourth century. Further the famous decree "De Libris recipiendis", attributed to Pope Gelasius in 495, attests that certain apocryphal Acts of St. George were already in existence, but includes him among those saints "whose names are justly rever- enced amongst men, bvit whose actions are only known to God". There seems, therefore, no ground for doubting the historical existence of St. George, even though he is not commemorated in the Syrian, or in the primitive Hieronymian Martyrologium, but no faith can be placed in the attempts that have been made to fill up any of the details of his history. For example, it is now generally admitted that St. George cannot safely be identified with the nameless martyr spoken of by Eusebius (Hist. Eccles., VIII, v), who tore down Diocletian's edict of persecution at Nico- media. The version of the legend in which Diocletian appears as persecutor is not primitive. Diocletian is only a rationalized form of the name Dadianus. More- over, the connexion of the saint's name with Nico- media is inconsistent with the early cultus at Diospolis. Still less is St. George to be considered, as suggested by Gibbon, Vetter, and others, a legendary double of the disreputable bishop, George of Cappadocia, the Arian opponent of St. Athanasius. "This odious stranger", says Gibbon, in a famous passage, "disyuisin^ every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Clu-istianhero, and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the Garter." "But this theory",

says Professor Bury, Gibbon's latest editor, "has nothing to be said for it. ' ' The cultus of St. George is too ancient to allow of such an identification, though it is not improbable that the apocryphal Acts have borrowed some incidents from the story of the Arian bishop. Again, as Bury points out, "the connexion of St. George with a dragon-slaying legend does not relegate him to the region of the myth, for over against the fabulous Christian dragon-slayer Theodore of the Bithynian Heracla?a, we can set Agapetus of Synnada and Arsacius, who, though celebrated as dragon- slayers, were historical persons ". This episode of the dragon is in fact a very late development, which can- not be traced further back than the twelfth or thir- teenth century. It is found in the Golden Legend (Historia Lombardica) of James de Voragine and to this circumstance it probably owes its wide diffusion. It may have been derived from an allegorization of the tyrant Diocletian or Dadianus, who is sometimes called a dragon (6 /3i55iO! SpaKuv) in the older text, but despite the researches of Vetter (Reinbot von Durne, pp. Ixxv-cix) the origin of the dragon story remains very obscure. In any case the late occurrence of this development refutes the attempts made to derive it from pagan sources. Hence it is certainly not true, as stated by Hartland, that in George's person "the Church has converted and baptized the pagan hero Perseus" (The Legend of Perseus, iii, 38). In the East, St. George (6 fieyaM/MpTvp), has from the begin- ning been classed among the greatest of the martyrs. In the West also his cultus is very early. Apart from the ancient origin of St. George in Velabro at Rome, Clovis (c. 512) built a monastery at Baralle in his hon- our (Kurth, Clovis, II, 177). Arculphus and Adara- nan probably made him well known in Britain early in the eighth century. His Acts were translated into Anglo-Saxon, and English churches were dedicated to him before the Norman Conquest, for example one at Doncaster, in 1061. The crusades no doubt added to his popularity. William of Malmesbury tells us that Saints George and Demetrius, "the martyr knights", were seen assisting the Franks at the battle of Antioch, 1098 (Gesta Regum, II, 420). It is conjectured, but not proved, that the "arms of St. George" (argent, a cross, gules) were introduced about the time of Richard Cceur de Lion. What is certain is that in 1284 in the official seal of Lyme Regis a ship is represented with a plain flag bearing a cross. The large red St. George's cross on a white ground remains still the " white en- sign" of the British Na\'y and it is also one of the ele- ments which go to make up the LInion Jack. Any- way, in the fourteenth century, "St. George's arms" became a sort of uniform for English soldiers and sailors. We find, for example, in the wardrobe ac- counts of 1345-49, at the time of the battle of Cr^cy, that a charge is made for 86 penoncells of the arms of St. George mtended for the king's ship, and for 800 others for the men-at-arms (Archseologia, XXXI, 119). A little later, in the Ordinances of Richard II to the English army invading Scotland, every man is ordered to wear "a signe of the arms of St. George" both before and behind, while the pain of death is threatened against any of the enemy's soldiers "who do bear the same crosse or token of Saint George, even if they be prisoners". Somewhat earlier than this Edward III had founded (c. 1347) the Order of the Garter, an order of knighthood of which St. George was the principal patron. Thechapeldedicated to St. George in Windsor Castle was built to be the official sanctuary of the order, and a badge or jewel of St George slaying the dragon was adopted as part of the insignia. In this way the cross of St. George has in a manner be- come identified with the ideaofkniglit hood, and even in Elizabeth's days, Spenser, at the beginning of his Faerie Queene, tells us of his hero, the Red Cross Knight: — But on his breast a bloody Cross he bore, The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,