THE TRUE ST. GEORGE
Courtesy of ‘The National Message’ April 1956
Few countries know  less  of their  national Saint than the English. Perhaps that is because this year is the  one  thousand , six  hundred and  fifty-second anniversary of his martyrdom. To mark the occasion we present  the story of George’s life and death,  based upon Isabel  Hill Elder ‘s George of Lydda
There was  an  unmistakably festive air  in  the household of  His Imperial Majesty’s Governor of Lydda, in Palestine. The time: AD 280. The occasion: the birth of a son  to the Governor’s wife.
It was a great day for England,  too. For the young lad was  marked out  to become the Patron  Saint of the  English,  the  flower of Christian chivalry and manhood, the dragon slaying  hero  of a hundred generations of wide eyed  British youngsters.
For has  not such a story from  of old
Down man’s successive generations roll’d?
The Governor’s residence lay twenty  three  miles northwards from Jerusalem in the beautiful plain of Sharon, a peaceful enough background for the soldier- saint’s childhood one would  have imagined: amidst  verdant pastures and encircling olive groves, creeping vines and the rich foliage of the apricot and mulberry, it betrayed no hint of the fate and untimely death laid up for the young  boy.
George’s family was well known  and respected in those  parts;  of long Christian  ancestry, dating  back to the days when St Peter came to Lydda and brought about  the conversion of all that dwelt  at Lydda and Sharon  (Acts 9: 32-35 ).
They were fine days. Since then the family had been a tower of strength to the Faith, and was destined to become a greater; for  the  young  child  of military count of the Roman Empire was to be in the forefront of  the  band that  was  to  deal the  blow  to  send paganism reeling into the abyss.
But tragedy struck the  Governor’s household. Before  George  had  reached his eleventh year:  his father  died  quite  suddenly, at the early age of thirty six.
This meant a big change for the people of Lydda. For one  thing, a new  Governor was appointed from the capital  of the Empire.
According to the  records, he arrived  to take  his new  post  with  great  pomp befitting  such  a dignity.
Apparently young George captured  his  heart immediately as one document has it, of much  beauty of person and an exquisite courtesy’.
Governor Justus seems to have felt some personal responsibility for the education and  future  of his predecessor’s son. Anyhow, he provided George with a first-class military  training  and,  in due  time,  sent him off as a newly fledged  centurion to the court  of the Emperor Diocletian, whose name was to go down in history as the Arch-Butcher  of Christians. Although, in point of fact, it was the sharp reaction of powerful devotees of  the  old  religion against  progressive Christianity which  forced  his hand.
George’s career began well  enough, for  upon learning of his rank and good birth, the Emperor soon advanced the young Galilean in his service by a series of rapid  promotions, first to General and  finally to Military Tribune of the Imperial Guard.
By the  way,  ‘George’ is almost certainly his baptismal  name, adopted by the Church when he was canonized. He was probably  known  as ‘Nestor’ in his lifetime; in fact some  think he founded the Nestorans, a group of Christians in Persia: well, it is not unlikely, for  he  was  certainly there in  the  campaigns of Galerius.  And the  Nestorians, says tradition, ‘were originally  sons of Israel and not Gentiles’.
It was  during  these campaigns that George  met Constantine, surnamed the Great, British born future Emperor of Rome, who,  later, was responsible for proclaiming George Champion of Christendom.
In all the Empire two more significant persons were hardly to be found.  Both were  to exercise a profound influence upon  Roman  history. As companions–in arms they became firm friends, and George is said to have received a great welcome at  York Constantine’s home – after sailing  up the channel, later to bear  his name (St George’s) to land  on that part of the coast  known  to later  generations as the County of Lancaster. To this day, York bears the shield of St George-a red  cross  upon  a silver ground-a lingering testimony of  the  visit.  There are  some intriguing stories too, of a visit to Glastonbury.
But all too soon,  the clouds began to gather around his career in the imperial service, for the pagan  gods were in their death throes before the sustained assault of the Christian  Faith. Galerius,  Diocletian’s second in command, had finally prevailed  upon the Emperor to suppress it. Paganism was preparing its devastating come back. The time had come for the world to make its choice: the old order,  or the new.
Christians began  to be  deprived of their  offices and civil rights churches were  destroyed and Sacred Scriptures burned. In  the  Eastern Empire  38, 000 Christians were  slaughtered.
Just how George  became involved it is difficult to say. The most likely story is that, enraged  by the callous destruction of the churches and  Scriptures, he tore down  notices ordering such  action.
The  authorities acted swiftly  and  terribly. The intrepid young noble  found  himself,  stripped of. his armour and  rank, arraigned before a man  ‘more wicked than  any  other man  upon  earth’ – as the Coptic texts describe Galerius -and subjected to all manner of pitiless tortures to induce him to sacrifice to the Roman  gods.
And  how  could Diocletian, his  former patron , help  him , when Galerius had  actually persuaded him  to  persecute his  own  wife ,  Prisca,  and  his daughter, Valeria,  both  of whom were Christians? The  Emperor really  had  no  stomach for the bloodshed, and  he soon resigned the purple to Galerius.
In the  west ,  Constantine was  already treading the path  that  was  to lead  to supreme power in the Empire , but he was  not treading it quickly enough to save  George, who in the east was  already on trial for his life. His heart felt protestation before the nobles and  governors, a ringing  echo of Paul ‘s courageous stand before Agrippa, and  of Stephen before his  accusers-‘I am  a Christian: I  believe on the Lord Jesus Christ’-was one  of the marvels of the day, and  won  untold sympathy, in the hearts of his listeners.
His earnest preaching of the  Gospel so  moved Queen Alexandra, the wife of Galerius, as to bring about her conversion to Christ.
Those  legends of St. George rescuing a princess from a fire  belching dragon spring from this incident.  George, the cavalry  officer,  is  the equestrian hero of the story; Galerius the monstrous dragon (of paganism), and  his wife the distressed princess. And who  would deny  that  a man  is a  beast who would torture and  imprison his wife?  But Alexandra remained steadfast, and died  in her  new-found faith.
It was George’s courageous example which  was to overcome the  dragon in  the  end  and  not  his battle prowess, for  Galerius had  his  hateful way and ,  to the  sorrow of many  of his  own  patrician rank , beheaded him at Nicomedia on April 23, 304, a date remembered every year  in England .
George  at the early age of 24 had taken his place in  the  ranks of  that  splendid host  seen in  the apocalyptic vision  who were beheaded  for  the witness of Jesus, and  for  the  Word  of God, and which had  not  worshipped the  beast, neither his image’ (Rev. 20:4).
His friends bore  his body away secretly by sea to Joppa,  and  laid  it to  rest  in  his  native Sharon whose rose, the single Persian  kind became for ever after  the peculiar emblem of the martyred soldier, and  soon of Merrie England.
A few short years after  that day George’s friend and  brother officer Constantine inspired on  the field  of battle so  it is said, by a vision  of a cross high in the  heavens and  by the encouraging words In hoc  signo vinces, ‘By this  sign  conquer ‘ won the imperial diadem and  made the Christian Faith the  Faith  of  the  Empire ,  in  name at  least. The fearsome pagan dragon was,  as it were, beaten down under Christian feet  and  crushed .
By command of the Council  of the Church  sitting at Arles in 314, George was  proclaimed the pattern of Christian manhood, the bishops of York , London and  Caerleon being  the  British signatories.
Knights of St. George and the Garter
In Britain  King Arthur,  emulating the  Israelite martyr,  (some even  say George was  of the lineage of St Joseph of Arimathea who  founded the British Church), instituted the British Age of Chivalry when he founded the Order of St. George  and the Round Table at Windsor.
And when Christendom united  to wage  holy war upon  the  infidel occupying the saint’s homeland, it was  the blood-red cross of St. George that  they emblazoned upon their  armour.
At least one legend has  it that  the  exhausted Crusaders took  fresh heart from  a vision  of St. George,  resplendent in  dazzling armour and mounted upon a fine  charger, over  the  Mount  of Olives,  sword  held aloft,  as  they stormed  the ramparts of the  Holy City.
But it was  in Britain that the cult really took  root when Edward III revived the  Arthurian Order  of St.  George, making Windsor again the  centre of European chivalry, proclaiming the soldier-saint National  Patron.
Ever since  then, beneath five-and-twenty knightly knees of members of the country’s highest  Order of Knighthood, the coveted band  of the Knights of St. George and  the  Garter,  has  rested – symbol  of Christian unity  and  courage. The  Garter  finds  its beginning  in the ’round table’  spirit of Arthurian days and not, as one vulgar story has it, in the amused titterings  of the courtiers of Edward III when,  to her embarrassment, the Countess of Salisbury dropped her garter  on a dance-room floor.
And  throughout the  far-flung quarters  of  the globe , wherever Britain ‘s sons have  broken forth , on the right hand or the left, inheriting the desolate heritages of the earth, they have borne the Georgian banner, under which colonists and missionaries, engineers and  doctors, statesmen and  magistrates, have  preached and  practised the Faith of Christ, forwarding in impressive measure Christ’s cause; in defence of which St. George of Lydda, eighteen centuries ago,  laid down his life.
D.J.C
