ST. GEORGE WAS NOT IDENTICAL WITH GEORGE THE ARIAN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3674, 24 April 1883, Page 3

ST. GEORGE WAS NOT IDENTICAL WITH GEORGE THE ARIAN.

[To the Editor of tiie Daily Telegraph.] Sir,—At the commencement of my letter to you on Saturday last, I said that " the historian Gibbon, iv matters pertaining to the Catholic. Church, alloAved himself to be misled by historians as untruthful as him- i self." In your issue of last evening a correspondent signing himself " Quintiliauus " undertakes to disprove my assertion, but has miserably failed. I beg- leave to remind him that it is not by quoting the ipse dixit* of such men as Niebuhr, nor by heaping insult iv no measured terms on my humble person, nor by shoAving his contempt for religion, that he Avill succeed in refuting my two-fold proposition. I may say that as yet "Quintiliauus" has not even set about the disproval of my proposition, as is patent to any one acquainted with even the elements of logic. Verily " fools rush in Avhevc angels fear to tread." " Quintiliauus " says that St. George ay as identical with George of Cappadocia, if the historian (I-) Pope Gelasius is to be believed. It is a gratuitous assertion to say that Pope Gelasius made St. George and George the Arian to be identical, and quod ijrutis usscritur, yrutis ncrjatur. St. George was not a contemporary of St. Athanasius, and consequently was not his infamous persecutor. " Ha.yden's Dictionary of Dates " is admitted as a standard book of reference. At page 339 of this work avo read, "St. George was a tribune in the reign of Dioelcsiaii, aud, being- a man of great courage, Avas a favourite; but complaining to the Emperor of his severities toAvards the Christians, and arguing in their defence, lie was put in prison and beheaded 23rd April, 200." At page 38 of the same Avork avc read "Athanasius of Alexandria Avas elected bishop 326." Consequently St. George was 36 years dead Avhen the election of St. Athanasius to the See of Alexandria took place; and consequently, also, the former was not the persecutor of the latter, nor identical with his persecutor. The Rev. Alban Butler, in his life of St. Athanasius, tells us that Athanasius Avas not born till about 200, six years after the martyrdom of St George.—l am, kc, A. D. AIULA'IHILL. St. Mary's Napier, April 24th, 1883. •