Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/408

 some authorities, the order of the Garter was instituted under his patronage, and in 1415, according to the Constitutions of archbp. Chichely, St. George's Day was made a major double feast, and ordered to be observed like Christmas Day. In the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. St. George's feast was a red-letter day, and had a special epistle and gospel. This was changed in the next revision (Ashmole, Order of the Garter; Anstis, Register; Pott, Antiquities of Windsor and History of Order of Garter, 1749). The influence of the Crusades also led to St. George becoming the patron of the republic of Genoa, the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, and to the institutions of orders of knighthood under his name all over Europe (cf. AA. SS. Boll. Apr. iii. 160). In N. Syria his day is still observed as a great festival (Lyde, Secret Sects of N. Syria, Lond. 1853, p. 19).

Controversy.—The consentient testimony of all Christendom till the Reformation attested the existence of St. George. Calvin first questioned it. In his Institutes, lib. iii. cap. 20, § 27, when arguing against invocation of saints, he ridiculed those who esteem Christ's intercession as of no value unless "accedant Georgius aut Hippolytus aut similes larvae," where, unfortunately for himself, he places Hippolytus in the class of ghosts or phantoms together with St. George. Dr. Reynolds, early in the 17th cent., was the first to confuse the orthodox martyr of Lydda with the Arian bp. of Alexandria. [.] Against him Dr. Heylin argued in an exhaustive treatise (Hist. of St. George of Cappadocia), giving (pp. 164–166) a very full list of all earlier authors who had referred to St. George, including a quotation from a reputed treatise by St. Ambrose, Liber Praefationum, which is not now extant. The controversy was continued during the 18th cent. Dr. Milner wrote in defence of the historical reality of St. George, provoked doubtless by Gibbon's well-known sneer in c. xxiii. of his history. See further ''Mart. Vet. Rom., Mart. Adon., Mart. Usuard., which all fix his martyrdom at Diospolis in Persia (cf. Herod. ed. Rawlinson, i. 72, v. 49, vii. 72); Hogg, however, well suggests the Bithynian town of that name, which was in the Persian empire under Cyrus (Pasch. Chron. ed. Bonn, p. 510; Sym. Metaphrast.; Magdeburg. Centur. cent. iv. cap. iii.; Ceillier, xi. 404, iii. 58, 89, 297; Alban-Butler, Lives of Saints; Malan, Hist. of the Georgian Church, pp. 28, 51, 54, 72; E. A. Wallis Budge, The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George of Cappadocia'': the Coptic texts ed. with an Eng. trans., Lond. 1888).

[G.T.S.]

Germanus (8), St., bp. of Auxerre, born probably c. 378, at Auxerre, near the S. border of what was afterwards Champagne. The parents of German caused him to be baptized and well educated. He went to Rome, studied for the bar, practised as an advocate before the tribunal of the prefect, on his return married a lady named Eustachia, and rose to be one of the six dukes of Gaul, each of whom governed a number of provinces (Gibbon, ii. 320), Auxerre being included in German's district. German, having been ordained and nominated as his successor by Amator, bp. of Auxerre, was, on the latter's death, unanimously elected, and consecrated on Sun. July 7, 418. His wife became to him as a sister; he distributed his property to the poor; he became a severe ascetic, and, as his biographer Constantius says, a "persecutor of his body," abstaining from salt, oil, and even from vegetables, from wine, excepting a small quantity much diluted on Christmas Day or Easter Day, and from wheat bread, instead of which he ate barley bread with a preliminary taste of ashes (cinerem praelibavit). He wore the same hood and tunic in all seasons, and slept on ashes in a framework of boards. "Let any one speak his mind," says Constantius, to whom some details of German's life must have come down not free from exaggeration, "but I positively assert that the blessed German endured a long martyrdom." Withal he was hospitable, and gave his guests a good meal, though he would not share it. He founded a monastery outside Auxerre, on the opposite bank of the Yonne, often crossing in a boat to visit the abbat and brethren.

Pelagianism had been rife in its founder's native island of Britain; and the British clergy, unable to refute the heretics, requested help from the church, we may say from their mother church, of Gaul. Accordingly a numerous synod unanimously sent to Britain German and Lupus, bp. of Troyes, both going the more readily because of the labour involved. So says Constantius, who is followed closely by Bede (i. 17). But Prosper of Aquitaine, a contemporary, in his Chronicle for 429, says that pope Celestine, "at the suggestion of the deacon Palladius, sent German as his representative" (vice sua) into Britain; and in his contra Collatorem, written c. 432, speaks of Celestine as "taking pains to keep the Roman island" (Britain) "Catholic" (c. 21 or 24). The truth probably lies in a combination of the pope's action with the councils, at any rate as regards German. Lupus is not included by Prosper—of him evidently Celestine took no thought, but, we may reasonably believe, gave some special commission to German either before (so Tillemont, Mémoires, xiv. 154) or at the time of the Gallic synod: it is not probable that, as Lingard supposes, the synod's commission was only to Lupus and German "sent" by the pope alone (Angl. Sax. Ch. i. 8).

When the two prelates reached Nanterre near Paris, German saw in the crowd which met them the girl, whom he bade live as one espoused to Christ, and who became "St. Geneviève of Paris." Arrived in Britain, the bishops preached the doctrines of grace in churches and on the country roads with great effect; till the Pelagian leaders challenged them to a discussion, apparently near Verulam. A great multitude assembled: the two bishops, appealing to Scripture in support of the Catholic position, silenced their opponents, and the shouts of the audience hailed their victory. German and Lupus then visited the reputed tomb of the British protomartyr Alban; and Constantius adds the famous tale of the Alleluia Victory. The Britons were menaced by Picts and Saxons: German and Lupus encouraged them to resist, catechized and baptized the still heathen majority in their army, and then, shortly after Easter 430,