Original Correspondence.

Bruce Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 798, 28 April 1876, Page 5

Original Correspondence.

ST. GEORGE'S DAY. (To the Editor. J Sir, — Can you inform me if to-day is the anniversary of the birth, death, or marriage of St. George, or of the killing of the dragon ? If the latter, who has got the skin ? I am, &c, Antio.ua.ted Fossil. Milton, 124 th April, 1876. [Perhaps the following explanation from ' Chambers' Encyclopaedia ' will satisfy our correspondent. — En. B. H.] : — George, St., a saint, venerated both in the Eastern and Western churches, held in especial veneration as the patron of Chivalry, and adopted as the tutelary saint of England. His origin is extremely obscure; and the very oldest accounts of him which are extant contain a strange admixture of history and legend. He is honored both in the East and the West as a martyr, and the Greek acts of: his martyrdom fix the date of his death as the persecution under Diocletian ; but these acts are, by the confession even of Roman Catholic hagiologists, undoubtedly spurious. On the other hand, it is asserted (see Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," ii. 323) that the canonisation of G. is one of the many errors which Protestant historians freely impute to the Roman calendar, and that the George who is thus reputed a saint and martyr is no other than the turbulent and unscrupulous Arian partisan, George of Cappadocia, whom his Arian followers revered as a saint, and imposed as such upon the credulity of their Catholic countrymen. It must be confessed, however, that the best modern authorities, Catholic and Protestant, agree in admitting the great improbability of this allegation! lleylin is of one mind in this matter with the Jesuit Papebroch, and Dean Milman adopts the arguments, and agrees in the opinion of the Roman Catholic Bishop Milner. The truth is, that whatever is to be said of the early accounts of the martyrdom of G., the fact of his being honored as a martyr by the Catholic Church, of churches being dedicated to him, and of the Hellespont being called "St. George's Arm," is traced by Papebroch, by Milnor, and by other writers to so early a date, and brought so immediately into oontact with the times of the angry conflicts in which George of Cappadocia figured aa an Arian leader, that it would be just as reasonable to believe that, the Catholics of England at the present \xdXr would accept Lord George Gordon aa a Catholic saint, a3 to suppose that t\ iQ Catholics of the East — while the torn 1 ;, 0 f Athanasius was hardly closed up'., n his honored relics-would accept as a sainted martyr his cruel and unscrupulous persecutor. Indeed it cannotbo dotted that the St. G. of the Eastern on . ur ch is a real personage, and of a .__ earlier date than George of Cappadocia — very probably of the date to which these acts, though otherwise false, assign him. The legend of his conflict with the Dragon arose most probably out of a symbolical or allegorical representation of his contest with the pagan persecutor. As in this ancient legend St. G. appears as a soldier, he was early regarded as one of the patrons of the military profession. Under this title, ha was honored in France as early as the Qf\\ c. ; but it was not until after tho Crusaders, who ascribed their success ai the siege of Antioch to his intercession, returned to Europe from the Holy War, that tb© religious honor; 3>aid to him reached its full development. He was selected as the patroo saJAt of the Republic of Genoa ?jhd also off 'England. At the council or Oxford, in 1222, his feast was order^ to be kept as a national featival. I a 1330, he was made the patron oHhe f^rder of the Garter by Edward Hi. ; ar>^ even B i nC e the Reformation, the 3 Loient sentiment is still popularly mainI tamed.