[1] The latinized form of a non-existent [Greek: Geoponikoi], used
for convenience.
GEORGE, SAINT (d. 303), the patron saint of England, Aragon and
Portugal. According to the legend given by Metaphrastes the Byzantine
hagiologist, and substantially repeated in the Roman _Acta sanctorum_
and in the Spanish breviary, he was born in Cappadocia of noble
Christian parents, from whom he received a careful religious training.
Other accounts place his birth at Lydda, but preserve his Cappadocian
parentage. Having embraced the profession of a soldier, he rapidly rose
under Diocletian to high military rank. In Persian Armenia he organized
and energized the Christian community at Urmi (Urumiah), and even
visited Britain on an imperial expedition. When Diocletian had begun to
manifest a pronounced hostility towards Christianity, George sought a
personal interview with him, in which he made deliberate profession of
his faith, and, earnestly remonstrating against the persecution which
had begun, resigned his commission. He was immediately laid under
arrest, and after various tortures, finally put to death at Nicomedia
(his body being afterwards taken to Lydda) on the 23rd of April 303. His
festival is observed on that anniversary by the entire Roman Catholic
Church as a semi-duplex, and by the Spanish Catholics as a duplex of the
first class with an octave. The day is also celebrated as a principal
feast in the Orthodox Eastern Church, where the saint is distinguished
by the titles [Greek: megalomartyr] and [Greek: tropaiophoros].
The historical basis of the tradition is particularly unsound, there
being two claimants to the name and honour. Eusebius, _Hist. eccl._
viii. 5, writes: "Immediately on the promulgation of the edict (of
Diocletian) a certain man of no mean origin, but highly esteemed for his
temporal dignities, as soon as the decree was published against the
churches in Nicomedia, stimulated by a divine zeal and excited by an
ardent faith, took it as it was openly placed and posted up for public
inspection, and tore it to shreds as a most profane and wicked act.
This, too, was done when the two Caesars were in the city, the first of
whom was the eldest and chief of all and the other held fourth grade of
the imperial dignity after him. But this man, as the first that was
distinguished there in this manner, after enduring what was likely to
follow an act so daring, preserved his mind, calm and serene, until the
moment when his spirit fled." Rivalling this anonymous martyr, who is
often supposed to have been St George, is an earlier martyr briefly
mentioned in the _Chronicon Pascale_: "In the year 225 of the Ascension
of our Lord a persecution of the Christians took place, and many
suffered martyrdom, among whom also the Holy George was martyred."
Two Syrian church inscriptions bearing the name, one at Ezr'a and the
other at Shaka, found by Burckhardt and Porter, and discussed by J. Hogg
in the _Transactions of the Royal Literary Society_, may with some
probability be assigned to the middle of the 4th century. Calvin
impugned the saint's existence altogether, and Edward Reynolds
(1599-1676), bishop of Norwich, like Edward Gibbon a century later, made
him one with George of Laodicea, called "the Cappadocian," the Arian
bishop of Alexandria (see GEORGE OF LAODICEA).
Modern criticism, while rejecting this identification, is not unwilling
to accept the main fact that an officer named Georgios, of high rank in
the army, suffered martyrdom probably under Diocletian. In the canon of
Pope Gelasius (494) George is mentioned in a list of those "whose names
are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God,"
a statement which implies that legends had already grown up around his
name. The caution of Gelasius was not long preserved; Gregory of Tours,
for example, asserts that the saint's relics actually existed in the
French village of Le Maine, where many miracles were wrought by means of
them; and Bede, while still explaining that the _Gesta Georgii_ are
reckoned apocryphal, commits himself to the statement that the martyr
was beheaded under Dacian, king of Persia, whose wife Alexandra,
however, adhered to the Christian faith. The great fame of George, who
is reverenced alike by Eastern and Western Christendom and by
Mahommedans, is due to many causes. He was martyred on the eve of the
triumph of Christianity, his shrine was reared near the scene of a great
Greek legend (Perseus and Andromeda), and his relics when removed from
Lydda, where many pilgrims had visited them, to Zorava in the Hauran
served to impress his fame not only on the Syrian population, but on
their Moslem conquerors, and again on the Crusaders, who in grateful
memory of the saint's intervention on their behalf at Antioch built a
new cathedral at Lydda to take the place of the church destroyed by the
Saracens. This cathedral was in turn destroyed by Saladin.
The connexion of St George with a dragon, familiar since the _Golden
Legend_ of Jacobus de Voragine, can be traced to the close of the 6th
century. At Arsuf or Joppa--neither of them far from Lydda--Perseus had
slain the sea-monster that threatened the virgin Andromeda, and George,
like many another Christian saint, entered into the inheritance of
veneration previously enjoyed by a pagan hero.[1] The exploit thus
attaches itself to the very common Aryan myth of the sun-god as the
conqueror of the powers of darkness.
The popularity of St George in England has never reached the height
attained by St Andrew in Scotland, St David in Wales or St Patrick in
Ireland. The council of Oxford in 1222 ordered that his feast should be
kept as a national festival; but it was not until the time of Edward
III. that he was made patron of the kingdom. The republics of Genoa and
Venice were also under his protection.
See P. Heylin, _The History of ... S. George of Cappadocia_ (1631); S.
Baring-Gould, Curious _Myths of the Middle Ages_; Fr. Gorres, "Der
Ritter St Georg in der Geschichte, Legende und Kunst" (_Zeitschrift
fur wissenschaftliche Theologie_, xxx., 1887, Heft i.); E.A.W. Budge,
_The Martyrdom and Miracles of St George of Cappadocia_: the Coptic
texts edited with an English translation (1888); Bolland, _Acta
Sancti_, iii. 101; E.O. Gordon, _Saint George_ (1907); M.H. Bulley,
_St George for Merrie England_ (1908).