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hero; 124 and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed 125 into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter. 126
119 (return) [ The life and death of George of Cappadocia are described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of Nazianzen, (Orat. xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (Hæres. lxxvi.) The invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit, unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and impartial infidel.]
120 (return) [ After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library for his own use, and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of secreting any books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence he had borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued his studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works of the Galiæans might perish but he requires an exact account even of those theological volumes lest other treatises more valuable should be confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi.]
12011 (return) [ Julian himself says, that they tore him to pieces like dogs, Epist. x.—M.]
121 (return) [ Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates their guilt, l. vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.]
122 (return) [ Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat, ne, collectis supremis, ædes illis exstruerentur ut reliquis, qui deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere, cruciabiles pœnas, adusque gloriosam mortem intemeratâ fide progressi, et nunc Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the Arians, that George was not a martyr.]
123 (return) [ Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit. Dupin; and Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 517, in 4to.) have in like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic saints and martyrs.]
124 (return) [ The saints of Cappadocia, Basil, and the Gregories, were ignorant of their holy companion. Pope Gelasius, (A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who acknowledges St. George, places him among the martyrs “qui Deo magis quam hominibus noti sunt.” He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some, perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant; and, through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence of Queen Alexandria, against the magician Athanasius.]
125 (return) [ This transformation is not given as absolutely certain, but as extremely probable. See the Longueruana, tom. i. p. 194. ——Note: The late Dr. Milner (the Roman Catholic bishop) wrote a tract to vindicate the existence and the orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think, in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes it improbable that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the Catholic church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by Gelasius may have been of Arian origin, and designed to ingraft the story of their hero on the obscure adventures of some earlier saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl of Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792.—M.]
126 (return) [ A curious history of the worship of St. George, from the sixth century, (when he was already revered in Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul,) might be extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d edition, London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss. Mens. April. tom. iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in Europe, and especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades.]