The Greek Martyrdom of *George (soldier and martyr, S00259), tells the story of a young soldier, and his companion martyrs, who defies the wicked pagan king Dadianos, is tortured and killed three times and thrice resurrected by Christ, and finally martyred after converting many followers, banishing the demon Apollon. Written probably either in Diospolis/Lydda (Palestine) or in Alexandria or elsewhere in the East, probably originally in the 5th c., with at least two successive major revisions in the 5th-7th c.
E06147
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdom
Martyrdom of Georgios (BHG 670a)
Summary (the numbers in parentheses refer to pages and lines in Krumbacher's edition):
1. (3,1-17) The pagan king Dadianos issues a decree promoting the worship of the pagan gods and promising punishment for any who worship Christ. He also displays an array of frightening torture devices and describes at length the gruesome punishment he will inflict on anyone who is found unwilling to sacrifice. No-one dares declare him- or herself a Christian.
2. (3,18-4,26) The young soldier Georgios from Cappadocia has risen through the ranks and is ready to purchase the office of prefect, but at the sight of the evils being committed gives his money to the poor and presents himself before the king, professing his Christian faith. The king attempts to persuade him to sacrifice to the heathen gods, but Georgios declares his faith to be the superior one, launching into a lengthy comparison of the heroes of the Judaeo-Christian tradition against those of Greco-Roman mythology.
3. (4,27-5,16) The king, enraged, has Georgios lacerated so that his insides spill out, scourged and rubbed with salt, pierced with hooks [(?) the Greek reads ὀγκινίσκους ... ἐν αὐτοῖς βολισθῆναι)] and tortured with an iron 'raven' (βληθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐν λεκάνῃ καὶ κόρακι σιδηρῷ κατενεχθῆναι) and other similar devices and imprisoned for the night. After more torture the next day, the king at length sends out a call for a sorcerer capable of defeating the magical tricks of the Christians. A magician named Athanasios duly appears and demonstrates his capabilities by splitting a bull in half with a spell whispered in its ear [according to the Paris Volksbuch version] and/or making both pieces into a complete bull each. Athanasios gives Georgios a poisoned chalice upon which he invokes the names of demons, but upon drinking it the saint suffers no harm. As a result, Athanasios is converted to Christianity and is executed as a martyr on 23 January.
4. (5,17-6,3) The king has Georgios imprisoned and orders the construction of a massive torture wheel with a multitude of sharp instruments on it. Georgios at first despairs at the sight, but recovers his faith and says a lengthy prayer to God, consisting of an extensive enumeration of God's deeds and a plea for aid. He is then put on the wheel and his body is cut apart into ten pieces.
5. (6,4-21) Dadianos is overjoyed and mocks the Christian faith; he then has the martyr's relics thrown into a pit in order to prevent Christians from collecting them. He and his fellow kings then go for lunch. A strong wind blows and there is a thunderous sound, the archangel *Michael (S00181) blows his horn and God descends from the heavens. He collects Georgios' bones, forms his body anew and breathes life into him once more.
6. (6,22-34) The risen Georgios appears anew to the kings, who at first do not recognise him. The general Anatolios, however, believes, converts to Christianity and is executed as a martyr together with his 3998 followers and a single woman from the crowd on 23 February.
7. (6,35-7,6) Dadianos has the martyr tortured again by stretching him on a bronze bed, pouring molten lead down his throat, driving sixty nails into his head, sticking his head inside a hollow stone and having it roll for a distance, strung up with ropes with a massive stone hanging from his neck, smoking him with pungent smoke and having his insides crushed by a bronze ox.
8. (7,7-15) The following night in prison Georgios is visited by the Lord, who reveals to him he will die two more times over the course of seven years, and upon his fourth death be received into heaven.
9. (7,16-30) The following day Dadianos' co-ruler Magnentios gives Georgios a task, promising to convert if he is successful: Georgios must make the wooden planks in the king's fourteen thrones sprout roots and become trees once again. The saint prays and the miracle is accomplished, but Magnentios attributes it to his heathen gods.
10. (7,31-8,13) King Dadianos has Georgios sawn in half with a great saw and the martyr suffers thus his second death. He orders the body thrown into a cauldron and boiled with lead, pitch, fat and bitumen, and, when it has dissolved enough, the king's servants suggest it be poured into the earth to avoid any Christians collecting the bones. However, there is an earthquake and the sun and sky are darkened, and the Lord commands the archangel *Gabriel (S00192) to descend and gather up the rivulets of liquid that have escaped from the cauldron. The Lord resurrects Georgios once more and announces he will do so once more after three years have passed, and rises back into the heavens.
11. (8,14-25) The kings are astounded as Georgios appears before them once more. A woman named Scholastike calls out to the saint for help, for her ox had suddenly died when her son was ploughing the field, threatening their livelihood. Georgios gives the woman a staff with which the ox is resurrected.
12. (8,26-9,24) The king Trakylinos [i.e. Tranquillinus?] gives Georgios a second task: there is an ancient sarcophagus nearby and the saint must resurrect the corpses within. Only dust is found inside the sarcophagus, but Georgios prays, a bolt of lightning strikes the dust and from it five men, nine women and three children are resurrected. Upon being interrogated by king Theognis, one of the ancient dead, named Ioubes, reveals he died four centuries before, when the name of Christ had not been heard on earth, and that he worshipped the idol of Apollon. After death he found himself in an underground place with rivers of fire. Ioubes reveals that anyone confessing Christ is saved, otherwise they will end up in that place; the kings are sceptical, but Ioubes pleads with Georgios to baptise him and his companions. The saint causes a spring to gush forth with a kick of his foot and in it baptises the ancient dead, who disappear immediately afterward.
13. (9,25-10,3) King Dadianos accuses Georgios of trickery and, in order to humiliate the Christians has Georgios shut up in a house with a poor widow. Upon entering her house Georgios asks for bread, but there is no food. The widow is revealed to be a worshipper of idols, but is dazzled by the saint's angelic appearance and, wishing to fulfil the request, goes out to ask her neighbours for bread. When she is away, the saint causes the wood in her house to sprout into a tree which rises high above her roof. At the same time the archangel Michael brings bread from heaven for the saint to eat.
14. (10,4-19) Returning to her house, the widow, by now converted, begs the saint to heal her three-year-old son who is deaf, blind and lame. Georgios prays and blows into the eyes of the child, who is cured of his blindness. The widow requests that he also cure the boy's deafness, but Georgios answers that this will happen later.
15. (10,20-31) The kings, as they go about their business in the city, are perplexed at the sight of the tree above the widow's roof and, after enquiring, find out that Georgios is in that house. They cause the saint to be brought out, lashed and his head burnt with a helmet that has been heated up. Georgios' sides are torn and he is burnt with candles until he can no longer bear the pain; the martyr cries out and dies his third death. The kings send their people to take his body to a tall mountain so that it will be consumed by birds, lest the Christians collect his bones.
16. (10,32-11,6) When the servants have left Georgios' body on the mountain, there is thunder and lightning, and the Lord appears once more to resurrect the saint. Georgios chases after the servants, shouting to them 'Wait for me!'. The servants convert and request baptism, which the saint duly administers. The group returns together to the kings and professes their faith. Dadianos orders the servants, Aeikon, Glykades and Lasterinos, to be executed on 9 March.
17. (11,7-12,10) The king now resolves to try flattery instead of torture, and attempts to cajole the saint into sacrificing to the pagan deities. Georgios replies sarcastically that the king had never spoken thus, having instead merely tortured him for six years and killed him thrice; now that the king asks nicely, he is ready to sacrifice the following day. Georgios is brought to the palace to spend the night in the chamber of the queen Alexandra. Georgios, however, prefers psalmody to sleep. Upon hearing him, the queen is curious and enquires about Christ; the saint gives her a basic exposition of Christian doctrine and the queen is converted.
18. (12,11-13,32) The following morning Georgios is brought to the temple of Apollo with great pomp and circumstance as the pagans celebrate their presumed victory. The woman whose son Georgios had cured of blindness rebukes the martyr, but he merely smiles and calls for her son to go into the temple and summon forth the spirit of Apollo. The boy's deafness and lameness are at once healed and he does the saint's bidding. The spirit of Apollo comes out and is interrogated by Georgios. He reveals that he was the first of angels, but God exiled him from his glory and he fell down to earth; now he dwells in idols and deceives people. He also flies up as far as the third heaven and listens to the decisions that are announced there concerning people's fates, and he then brings about their deaths in various ways. He also seduces people who have been excommunicated by their priest. After a brief interchange, Georgios banishes the devil into the abyss, enters the temple and destroys all the idols. The priests, furious, take him back to the king tied up and the enraged Dadianos questions him about his actions, to no avail.
19. (13,33-14,24) The king complains to his queen about the frightful nuisance that Georgios is, but the queen will not hear him speak ill of the Christians; Dadianos now realises that she too has been converted. The kings Magnentios, Theognios and Strankylinos have her hung up by her breasts and beaten with a sword, but she merely begs Georgios to pray for her. The king orders her loins to be pierced with a heated iron spit and her breasts cut off with a sword. The queen complains that she has not been baptised, but Georgios reassures her that she is saved through her martyr's death. She asks for a brief respite in order to pray, and after her prayer is decapitated on 15 April.
20. (14,25-34) The kings contemplate the fate of Georgios, whom they blame for the conversion of the queen and many others. After consulting with the others, Dadianos produces a written decision for Georgios to be executed by the sword; the martyr rejoices.
21. (14,35-15,17) Georgios' mother, Polychronia, having heard of the verdict against her son, is overjoyed and appears at the scene. The king interrogates her and she perishes while being tortured. Christians collect her body in secret and bury it. [note: according to Krumbacher (see Source Discussion) this episode is a later interpolation]
22. (15,18-16,16) Georgios asks for permission to 'leave behind prayers for the generations to come' since, 'seeing this crowd' he fears that his body 'may not be enough' (μείνατε μικρὸν, ἵνα εὐχὰς καταλείψω ταῖς μέλλουσαις γενεαῖς. θεωρῶ γὰρ τὸ πλῆθος τοῦτο, μήποτε οὐκ ἀρκέσει τὸ σῶμά μου). In his final prayer the martyr, after an enumeration of God's beneficial deeds, entreats Him to grant his request. [In some early versions such as the Paris Volksbuch, and possibly also in the original text, the saint additionally announces that 'many await to obtain a part of my body' (πολλοὶ παραμένουσιν λαβεῖν μέρος τοῦ σώματός μου); see Evidence Discussion]. There follows a repetitive list of stereotypical actions expected of the faithful (invoking the saint's name or celebrating his feast) followed each time by a particular boon to be granted by God, usually in the form of deliverance from a particular threat:
A) 'Give, Lord, grace to my name, so that anyone who has a frightening dream [presumably meaning a portentous dream, i.e. foretelling some evil] and recalls [i.e. invokes in prayer] Your servant Georgios, let the outcome be good' (δός, κύριε, τῷ ὀνόματί μου χάριν, ἵνα πᾶς, ὅστις γένηται ἐν ἐνυπνίῳ φοβερῷ καὶ μνησθῇ τοῦ δούλου σου Γεωργίου, γενέσθω εἰς ἀγαθόν).
B) 'Lord our God, give grace to my name and my body, so that everyone who finds himself in a frightening courthouse and recalls my name, may exit without tribulation'
(κύριε ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν, δὸς τῷ ὀνόματί μου καὶ τῶ σώματί μου χάριν, ἵνα πᾶς τις γενόμενος ἐν δικαστηρίῳ φοβερῷ καὶ μνησθῇ τοῦ ὀνόματός μου, ἐξέλθῃ ἄνευ πειρασμοῦ). [The Paris Volksbuch enumerates here many other threats besides, such as famine and the dangers of sea travel.]
C) 'Lord God, give grace to my name and my body, so that when the sky prepares to rain hail upon the earth on account of the sins of people, and [someone] recalls the name of George, let there not be a foul air in that place, but let the moisture that is from you be a source of healing for them (κύριε ὁ θεός, δὸς τῷ ὀνόματί μου καὶ τῷ σώματί μου χάριν, ἵνα ἐν τῷ συσκευάζειν τὸν οὐρανόν, ὥστε βρέχειν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν χάλαζαν διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ μνησθῇ τοῦ ὀνόματος Γεωργίου τοῦ δούλου σου, μὴ ἐπέλθῃ ἀὴρ κακὸς ἐν τῷ τόπω ἐκείνῳ, ἀλλ' ἡ δρόσος ἡ παρά σου ἴαμα αὐτοῖς ἔστω) [The Paris Volksbuch has a different but thematically related text e. g. 'let there not be a poor harvest of good fruits' (μὴ γενέσθω ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀφορία καρπῶν ἀγαθῶν).]
D) 'Lord God ... give grace to Your servant Georgios, so that everyone who remembers Your servant and the day of my contest and perseverance [i.e. celebrates the martyr's feast day] let none in his house become [or: be born in his house] a leper or a deaf or a mute or a blind or a paralytic; and remember not their transgressions, but redeem their sins' (κύριε ὁ θεὸς ... δὸς τῷ δούλῳ σου Γεωργίῳ χάριν, ἵνα πᾶς, ὅστις μνημονεύσει τοῦ δούλου σου καὶ τὴν ἡμέραν τῆς ἀθλήσεως καὶ τῆς ὑπομονῆς μου, μὴ γένηται ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ λεπρὸς ἢ κωφὸς ἢ μογγίλαλος ἢ τυφλὸς ἢ ξηρὸς ἢ παραλυτικός· μηδὲ μνησθῇς τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτῶν, ἀλλὰ ἐξαγόρασον τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν) [The Paris Volksbuch does not contain this part].
23. (16,9-24) After the martyr's prayer, God appears and promises that 'whoever in need invokes the name of Georgios' (ὅστις γένηται ἐν ἀνἀγκῃ καὶ μνησθῇ τοῦ ὀνόματος Γεωργίου) will be saved from all evils and their sins will be forgiven. [In the Paris Volksbuch and Vienna Palimpsest versions, and very probably also in the original text, God also announces that 'whoever acquires your relics ('clothes' in the Vienna P.) will be saved' (πᾶς ἄνθρωπος, ὃς καταξιωθῇ τῶν λειψάνων (ἱματίων Vienna P.) σου, σωθήσεται).] Georgios then prays a second time, asking God for fire to come down from heaven to consume Dadianos and his fellow kings for their wickedness [the Bohairic and Syriac translations and the kontakion attributed to Romanos the Melodist imply that this was then presented as happening in the original text].
24. (16,24-27) The martyr is then finally beheaded on 23 April. [The Paris Volksbuch/Vienna Mischtext version also contains the statement, probably a later addition, that pious men took the bodies of George and Polychronia and buried them in a prominent place in the city of Diospolis: λαβόντες δὲ ἄνδρες εὐλαβεῖς τὸ ἅγιον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔνδοξον σῶμα καὶ κηδεύσαντες ἔθαψαν ἐν Διοσπόλει ἐν τόπῳ ἐπισήμῳ σὺν τῇ ἰδίᾳ μητρὶ Πολυχρονίᾳ.]
Text: Krumbacher 1912, 3-16.
Summary: N. Kälviäinen.
Service for the saint
Cult PlacesBurial site of a saint - unspecified
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
MiraclesMiracle at martyrdom and death
Punishing miracle
Miracles causing conversion
Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather)
Miracle with animals and plants
Healing diseases and disabilities
Power over life and death
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Miraculous protection - of people and their property
Other miracles with demons and demonic creatures
Revelation of hidden knowledge (past, present and future)
Miracles experienced by the saint
RelicsBodily relic - unspecified
Contact relic - cloth
Division of relics
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Children
Unbaptized Christians
Pagans
Relatives of the saint
Monarchs and their family
Soldiers
Torturers/Executioners
Slaves/ servants
The socially marginal (beggars, prostitutes, thieves)
Crowds
Angels
Demons
Eunuchs
Family
Source
The hugely popular Greek Martyrdom of saint George existed already by the end of Late Antiquity in several redactions, the complex interrelationships of which are laid out in Krumbacher 1911, 106-173 and 281-302, and basic editions of which are provided ibid., 1-58. (Note that beyond the manuscripts studied in detail and published by Krumbacher, there are many other mss. which have so far not been sufficiently studied – for the full early dossier of the saint see BHG 669y-672b, 675 and 678-679, and the relevant entries in the Pinakes database (http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/)). The late antique text is divided into two main forms, the 'Volksbuch' and the 'Normaltext', with further subdivision:A) The oldest version of the Volksbuch, the original Martyrdom of saint George, which is named the 'Dadianos-type' by Krumbacher after the name given in it to the persecuting king, represents an extremely radical form of the genre of 'epic' martyrdom accounts (for which see Delehaye, Les Passions des martyres et les genres littéraires, 2nd ed. (Brussels 1966), 171-226). For a description of the contents of the Dadianos-type on the basis mainly of the extant 'Athens Volksbuch', see the Datum. According to Krumbacher, all early translations of the George legend into other languages belong to the Dadianos-type, and examples survive in most major literary languages both East and West beginning from around the 5th century. This, together with the date of the Vienna Palimpsest and especially the display of knowledge of material belonging to the first revised version, the 'old Diocletian-type' by Romanos the Melodist (but see below), enabled Krumbacher to date the composition and spread of the original Dadianos-type to the 5th century, and to entertain the possibility that the nucleus of the tale might conceivably date as far back as the end of the 4th. An additional dating criterion is the inclusion of the Martyrdom of saint George in the list of condemned books in the early 6th century Decretum Gelasianum (E03338) alongside the old 'epic' Passion of Kyrikos and Ioulitta (E06118); by the time of the composition of the Decretum, the text must have already spread and acquired fame (or notoriety, as the case may be) in its Latin version, which means that the original Greek text will by then have been in circulation for some time at least.
It must be stated at the outset that neither the original Dadianos-type nor the old Diocletian-type can be said to be preserved completely intact in any of the manuscripts available today, and there exists therefore no exact correspondence between these textual 'types' and individual surviving manuscripts; rather the 'types' represent stages of the text's evolution which can be reconstructed on the basis of comparative analysis of manuscripts which preserve elements of these and other such stages to varying degrees.
Nevertheless, in Greek, insofar as the so far published evidence is concerned, the Dadianos-type is preserved in a form closest to the original in the following witnesses (in chronological order): 1) ms. Vindobonensis lat. 954, the so-called Vienna Palimpsest which preserves one page of each of 5 leaves in uncial script, dated according to Krumbacher to the 5th century (BHG 670a), although to Krumbacher its text seemed already heavily adapted despite its age; 2) Nessana literary papyrus no. 6 (ed. Casson - Hettich 1950; see E04385), comprising fragments of the text and published after Krumbacher's edition, dated to the 7th or perhaps the 8th c. (BHG 669y); 3) ms. Atheniensis 422 or 'Athens Volksbuch', of the year 1546 (BHG 670a); 4) ms. Marcianus gr. II 160 or 'Venice Volksbuch' (BHG 670b) of the 16th c. Despite the late date of the latter two mss., a comparison of their material with that preserved in other languages, as well as the early Greek documents, reveals that they, and especially the Athens Volksbuch, have preserved the original 5th c. text remarkably well, despite later mutation and contamination having taken place (especially in the Venice Volksbuch). This makes the Athens Volksbuch currently the most important single source for the original Greek Martyrdom, although one must not rely on it to the exclusion of parallel material, where such exists.
B) The 'old Diocletian-type' represents a light revision of the older text, in which some of the most extravagant material in the original 'epic' text was removed or toned down, including changing the name of the unhistorical persecutor 'Dadianos' to the historical Diocletian; nevertheless, it seems that much of the original text was taken over without change, where none was deemed necessary by the anonymous redactor. This version was dated by Krumbacher to well before the beginning of the 6th century due to its use as a source by the hymnographer Romanos the Melodist (early 6th c.) in the first kontakion for George going under his name. However, the attribution of this text to Romanos has since then been questioned (Maas, P. and Trypanis, C.A. (eds.), Sancti Romani melodi cantica: cantica dubia (Berlin, 1970), 193-4), although not all of Maas and Trypanis' arguments are persuasive: on the one hand, their dating of the text after Romanos' lifetime by associating it with the 'Normaltext' version of George (n. 40) instead of the old Diocletian-type shows that they have paid little attention to Krumbacher's analysis and stemma, while the alleged 'poverty' and 'naivete' of the plot (n. 41) are simply a function of the source material, as are a number of words such as κόμης, τριβουνᾶτον, κασσίδα; on the other, J. Grosdidier de Matons has suggested that their criteria may sometimes be a little too strict (review of Maas and Trypanis, Revue de Philologie, de Littérature et d'Histoire Anciennes 47 (1973), 97-8). Nevertheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the kontakion is not by Romanos and cannot therefore be used to date the old Diocletian-type. Failing this, all that can be said is that the old Diocletian-type is almost certainly late antique, since in it the process of revision of the original text (which had provoked criticism from early on) has not yet been carried very far, and it must of course be dated earlier than the dubious kontakion. It probably does not postdate the 6th century.
The main published manuscripts which transmit the text of this version (though they also contain many later interpolations and omissions) are ms. Parisianus gr. 770 (14th century) or 'Paris Volksbuch' (BHG 679), and the Vindobonensis theol. gr. 123 (13th century) or 'Vienna Mischtext' (BHG 675). The latter in particular consists of a mixture of the interpolated old Diocletian-type and the Normaltext. Despite the initial redaction and the later interpolations, these surviving witnesses to the old Diocletian-type still preserve much of the material present in the original Dadianos-type. Accordingly, where the Athens and Paris Volksbuchs disagree, it is sometimes difficult to tell which one preserves the older reading.
In addition, in Q'asr Ibrim in Egyptian Nubia three more papyrus fragments of the Greek Martyrdom of George were found (ed. Frend 1978 and 1982), dating from medieval times, perhaps sometime around the year 1000. As their editor realised (Frend 1982, 85), the text of the third fragment, which preserves a section of the interpolated story of George's youth and the conversion of his father (the so-called 'Jugendgeschichte') preserved in the Paris Volksbuch and the Interpolated Normaltext, corresponds almost verbatim to the Paris version. A cursory comparison of the other two fragments reveals correspondences with both the Paris and Athens Volksbuchs, but, because of the presence of the Jugendsgeschichte and the fact that the correspondences with the Paris text against Athens are more evenly spread (while the notable absence in Paris of lines 12-18 of fragment I verso can be explained as a later omission), it appears likely that the Nubian papyrus codex contained a text closely related to that of the Paris Volksbuch, although seemingly somewhat abbreviated.
Finally, in ms. Atheniensis gr. 434, of the 16th century there is a peculiar composite text called by Krumbacher the 'Athens Excerpt from the Volksbuch'; this text was not edited by Krumbacher, who nevertheless analysed its contents (Krumbacher 1911, 155-160). The Athens Excerpt is seemingly a later redaction stitching together material from different versions of the Volksbuch, and most of this material corresponds to that which is preserved in the Athens, Paris and Vienna Mischtext versions of the Volksbuch.
C) the 'new Diocletian-type' or 'Normaltext' (BHG 672) is a full-blown rewrite of the Volksbuch, stylistically upgraded, but most of all edited, so as to remove any and all elements potentially at odds with orthodox doctrine and/or ecclesiastical sensibilities, including the extravagant torture scenes, the saint's stay in the widow's house and in the bedchamber of the empress, the torture of the empress, the repeated deaths and resurrections of the hero and so on. This revised version, for which Krumbacher suggested a date before 700 (since it was used by Andreas of Crete), seems to have succeeded over time in replacing the older Volksbuch to a large extent, and formed the basis for most later medieval reworkings. Krumbacher also identified and published a second version which he called the 'Interpolated Normaltext' (BHG 678), found in ms. Parisinus gr. 1534 (12th century), the redactor of which has grafted onto a text of the 'new Diocletian-type' some older material deriving from the Volksbuch tradition, such as the story of George's youth and the conversion of his father.
The text whose summary is given (see Datum) is the Athens Volksbuch (except the lacunas in 5,3 and 12,29 which are restored from the Paris version, and occasional comparisons with the Paris text); the characteristics of the other versions are discussed below.
Discussion
Because of the confused state of the evidence (as seen above, the early texts available to us are either fragmentary or an uncertain patchwork of original material and later additions, omissions and retouches), it is difficult to reach solid conclusions as to the evidence that can be gleaned from it. Nevertheless, some observations can be made. The main plot of the original Martyrdom belongs largely to the realm of legend; indeed, with its fantastic motifs and its repetitive structure and phraseology (such as the constantly recurring phrase ὡς δὲ καὶ ταύτην τὴν πληγὴν/τιμωρίαν/βάσανον γενναίως ὑπήνεγκεν 'as he bravely withstood this form of torture too'), the Volksbuch reads very much like a fairytale or folk-song and has even less points of contact with historical events than most martyrdom accounts that can with justification be characterised as 'epic'. However, there are a few elements occurring in some or all of the witnesses of the Volksbuch tradition that are likely to point to the text's function in the developing cult of saint George in the 5th century:1) The question of the provenance of the Martyrdom and its relationship with the shrine of saint George in Diospolis. In the Paris Volksbuch and the closely related Vienna Mischtext there is a reference to the Palestinian city of Diospolis (Lydda), the famous centre of George's late antique cult (for which see Delehaye 1909, 46-47 and Walter 1995, 314), as the place of George's martyrdom and as the site where his (and his mother's) relics are buried 'in a prominent place'. The establishment of the Diospolis shrine is narrated in greater detail in the saint's Coptic (Bohairic) Miracle collection (E03586; trans. Balestri-Hyvernat 1953 vol. 2, 203-207) as well as in the Bohairic Encomium attributed to Theodotus of Ancyra (trans. Balestri-Hyvernat 1953 vol. 2, 171-173). However, in these two texts, which present an account which is fundamentally the same, the martyrdom of George is located in Tyre under the Persian king Dadianos, and the translation of his relics is described as having taken place from Tyre through Joppa into Diospolis, which was George's hometown despite his origins in Melitene in Cappadocia. Note that Dadianos is also identified as king of the Persians in the Vienna Palimpsest and the Athens Excerpt from the Volksbuch (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 1 and 155), as well as the Latin Codex Gallicanus version (ed. Arndt 1874, 49) and the Syriac version (E06307; trans. Brooks 1925, 97).
In contrast, the Paris and Vienna version of the Greek Volksbuch (i.e. the interpolated 'old Diocletian-type') states that both the martyrdom and the burial of the relics take place in Diospolis under Diocletian (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 30 and 40). What is more, the Bohairic Martyrdom of saint George, which in general seems to derive directly from the Greek Volksbuch (in contrast to the obviously later Encomium and Miracle collection), agrees with the Athens Volksbuch in containing only the statement, also present in the Paris text, that George is of Cappadocian extraction but raised and nurtured in Palestine (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 4 and 20; trans. Balestri-Hyvernat 1953 vol. 2, 181); additionally, in the Latin Gallicanus version it is simply said that he 'has been in Palestine as well' (ed. Arndt 1874, 50). (The Athens Excerpt's version in which George's parents live in Diospolis – see Krumbacher 1911, 155 – is obviously a secondary later development, since it is based on the 'Jugendsgeschichte' or story of George's youth first introduced as an interpolation in the 'old Diocletian-type', and is not relevant here.)
The most important - and difficult - question here is whether the original Volksbuch included any reference to Diospolis/Lydda, and the related question of whether or not it was composed in the context of the shrine located there. The patchiness of the available evidence (especially since there seems to be absolutely no textual relationship between the extant references in Greek and Coptic to the Diospolis shrine; the Coptic account of the shrine's foundation present in the Bohairic Encomium and Miracle collection is probably a later development, although possibly based on a lost Greek original since it is connected to Palestine and Ancyra in Asia Minor rather than to Egypt) suggests that it is probable that the Paris and Vienna text's reference to George and his mother being buried in Diospolis was added to the Greek text sometime before or after the redaction of the 'old Diocletian-type', the first revision of the Volksbuch. Another argument to this effect is that since the tradition that Dadianos was a king of Persians, not Romans, is so widespread (see above), it is likely that this was so already in the earliest Volksbuch, something that would not fit neatly with the Roman Diospolis as the site of George's martyrdom; the Paris version of course does not have such a problem since there the persecutor has already been changed to Diocletian.
Of course the alternative is also not impossible, namely that the text of the Athens Volksbuch might at some point have undergone abridgement in the epilogue, omitting the mention of the shrine, and that the non-Greek versions studied also might have omitted the mention – in both cases probably because this will no longer have been relevant information outside the late antique Palestinian context. A different, unfortunately at present unanswerable, question is whether the text was written in and for the Diospolis shrine, or whether the redactor simply took over a text that was already circulating, harnessing it to the shrine's mission to promote itself. In any case even the earliest text is likely to have had some relation to a Palestinian milieu, since both the Athens and the Paris Volksbuch as well as the early Coptic and Latin translations agree that George, though a Cappadocian, was raised in Palestine, or 'has been in Palestine' in the Latin (but cf. Baumeister 1972, 154 for a contrary opinion).
Ultimately, the problem remains that, even if we could be certain of the course of the development of the text, dating its various constituent parts is all but impossible. All we can say is that it is probably unlikely that the reference to the Diospolis shrine which is found in the Paris Volksbuch postdates the 6th-7th century; the shrine itself was certainly active by the early 6th century (Walter 1995, 314).
With regard to the date and place of composition of the original text, apart from Krumbacher's arguments based on literary references and translations to other languages (see Source discussion above), very little can be added. The identification of a 'historical saint George' with *Georgios the Cappadocian (Arian bishop of Alexandria and martyr under Julian, S01145), has been proposed in the past by J. Friedrich (Friedrich 1899), and most recently by David Woods (Woods 2009), but there is simply not enough convincing evidence, and most of the supposed 'clues' the text provides for such an identification are ambiguous at best (cf. Delehaye 1909, 71-72; Krumbacher 1911, 304-317; Baumeister 1972, 156). Nevertheless, it seems that such theories were already circulating in ancient times, since there has survived a reply to doubters of George's sanctity by Jacob, a West Syrian bishop of Edessa around 700, denying that George the martyr was of the Arian faction and suggesting that such an assumption was merely due to a homonymy between two different persons (E05056); this seems to indicate that there was some kind of tradition in Jacob's time associating the martyr with the bishop of Alexandria lynched under Julian in 361. Also, it must be said that the supplementary theory of Woods that the martyrdom account of George is derived from that of *Christophoros (E06111) is simply untenable, as all the similarities he cites in support of the theory are simply generic features of 'epic' Passions; there are no similarities close enough to permit a hypothesis of direct derivation. Likewise, Cumont's theory of an origin of the text in a hypothetical Irano-Manichaean mythology of the Cappadocian region cannot be accepted (see Baumeister 1972, 155).
Despite the general rejection of such a brutally straightforward identification of the hagiographical personages with historical ones, it is acknowledged by scholars that at least some of the apparent coincidences and similarities of certain elements of the text (chiefly names of people and places, such as Dadianos/Tatianus the prefect of Egypt in 370 etc.; for Tatianus as persecutor cf. E01165) with the 4th century milieu surrounding the downfall of the historical George the Cappadocian may be understood in a more loose sense as reflecting fluid reminiscences of real personages, combined, by an author working in a literary environment of a syncretistic mindset, in a mix of elements drawn from recent history, mythology, apocrypha and, of course, Scripture (Delehaye 1909, 711-72; Krumbacher 1911, 312-315; Baumeister 1972, 156-158). It has also been suggested that the original Martyrdom may have been composed in an Arian or semi-Arian (Krumbacher 1911, 316) or Meletian milieu (Baumeister 1972, 158).
Finally, although the text was definitely composed first in Greek, not in Coptic as had been proposed by Amélineau (see Krumbacher 1911, 285-288), it has been suggested that the reminiscences of 4th century Alexandrian personages and the text's literary affinities with motifs known from Egyptian hagiography indicate that it may have been written in Alexandria, perhaps around the year 400 (Krumbacher 1911, 316; Delehaye 1922, 152). This position has been supported by Baumeister, who argues that since the earliest text appears to exhibit at best only a very tenuous link with Palestine and to make no mention of the Diospolis shrine, it was probably written elsewhere, and that an Egyptian milieu would be the best candidate (Baumeister 1972, 158-9). However, as Baumeister admits, there is no conclusive evidence; before being refuted or accepted, the Alexandrian hypothesis must at the very least await further study into the origins and development of Greek martyrdom literature in general.
2) The question of role of the saint's (corporeal) relics in his early cult. References to the relics of the saint appear in the different versions of his final prayer (body, σῶμα - and/or clothes, ἱμάτια), as well as the invocation of his name as a means of obtaining protection and salvation. Of these the name is repeatedly mentioned in all available sources for the Volksbuch, while some mention of the corporeal relic is likewise almost universal. The Vienna Palimpsest (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 3) and the Latin Codex Gallicanus (ed. Arndt 1874, 68-69) also make mention of the saint's clothes, but probably independently of each other; the Latin version seems to systematically add the term vestimenta to all mentions of the saint's relics (perhaps an addition made with a Western shrine in mind where textile relics had been deposited?), whereas the Vienna version merely has ἱματίων 'robes, clothes' where the Paris Volksbuch has λειψάνων 'relics' in the sentence ὅσ(τις) καταξιωθῇ τῶν λειψάνων σου, σωθήσεται 'whoever is [deemed] worthy of possessing your relics/clothes will be saved' (it could be that this is just a random textual variant, though a similar explanation concerning a particular shrine might be sought here as well).
It is not absolutely certain whether this last mention of the relics was included in the original text; it seems very likely that it does, though, given that the textual forms of the Paris and Vienna Palimpsest versions, which according to Krumbacher's stemma should not be particularly closely related, clearly go back to a common source. The text as given by the Paris Volksbuch (closely paralleled by the Vienna Palimpsest with a few insignificant differences) could easily represent a more original form which gave rise to the shorter text as presented in the Athens Volksbuch, if the underlined sentence containing the mention of the relics was accidentally omitted in the branch of the tradition represented by the Athens Volksbuch through the extremely common copyist's error of saut du même au même (the eye jumping from one occurrence of the phrase 'πᾶς ἄνθρωπος' to the other and omitting the text in between):
(Paris) κατ' ἐμαυτοῦ σοι ὀμνύω, ὅτι πᾶς ἄνθρωπος, ὃς καταξιωθῇ τῶν λειψάνων/ἱματίων σου, σωθήσεται. οἶδα, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμά εἰσι· πᾶς οὖν ἄνθρωπος, ὅστις γένηται ἐν ἀνάγκῃ ... μνησθῇ δὲ καὶ τοῦ ὀνόματος Γεωργίου, ῥύσομαι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ πάσης θλίψεως καὶ ἀνάγκης (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 3,1-5 and 30,3-8)
(Athens) κατ' ἐμαυτοῦ ὀμνύω καὶ κατὰ τῶν ἁγίων μου ἀγγέλων, ὅτι πᾶς ἄνθρωπος, ὅστις γένηται ἐν ἀνάγκῃ καὶ μνησθῇ τοῦ ὀνόματος Γεωργίου, ῥύσομαι αὐτὸν ἀπὸ πάσης ἀνάγκης ... (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 16,12-13).
It seems, nevertheless, that the original text, while certainly not failing to make mention of the saint's corporeal relics, focused its attention more on the protective grace attached to his name, which is in most cases mentioned instead of the bodily relics as a means of obtaining salvation and protection (for this see also Flusin, B. “Le contrat de Marina: passions épiques et culte des saints”, forthcoming). Indeed the martyr himself is presented in all the main versions of the final prayer (Athens, Paris, Latin, Bohairic, Armenian and Syriac: ed. Krumbacher 1911, 15-16 and 29-30; ed. Arndt 1874, 68-69; trans. Balestri-Hyvernat 1953 vol. 2, 201; trans. Peeters 1909, 269-270; trans. Brooks 1925, 113-114) as expressing his concern that his bodily relics might not be sufficiently available: 'seeing this great multitude, [I fear] that my body may not be enough for the world' (θεωρῶ γὰρ τὸ μέγα πλῆθος τοῦτο, μήποτε οὐκ ἀρκέσει τὸ σῶμά μου τῇ οἰκουμένῃ).
This could perhaps indicate that the text was not composed in the context of a shrine, or it could mean that the keepers of the shrine that the text was composed for were hesitant to part with too many relics and wanted to assure eager pilgrims that the saint's name would provide an equally valid alternative method of accessing his grace. Compared to the Athens text, the Paris Volksbuch contains the additional request by the martyr to God that 'since many are waiting to take a piece of my body, give grace to my name as well' (ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ παραμένουσιν λαβεῖν μέρος τοῦ σώματός μου <, δὸς> καὶ τῶ ὀνόματί μου χάριν). If this were to be understood as an addition to the text, it might indicate the increasing significance and diffusion of corporeal relics, whose division is explicitly presented here as an acceptable practice. However, the Bohairic version also contains a statement to the effect that the onlooking crowd will want to 'divide it [George's body] between them', and the Syriac that 'many are standing and seeking to take my body', while the Latin text says the same about the saint's vestments and the Armenian that many await to receive grace on earth from George's relics. If these elements are text-historically cognate to the statement in the Greek Paris Volksbuch, as seems most likely, and are not independent secondary developments, then the interpretation gains much weight that this statement too belonged to the original Volksbuch and was simply lost in the Athens version.
As an unrelated side note, it may be mentioned that an inscription (E01214, probably 6th c. or later) found in Mytilene (Lesbos) seems to echo George's final prayer in terms of the vocabulary used (such as the term χάρις, 'grace'), raising the question whether the inscription was perhaps influenced by the text of the Martyrdom.
3) The question of the companion martyrs and their relationship to cult practice. The dates of the martyrdom of all the 'secondary' or companion martyrs (i. e. the magician Athanasios, the general Anatolios and his followers, the three (four in the Coptic versions) soldiers sent to bury George in the mountain, and the queen Alexandra) are given in full in the Athens Volksbuch (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 5-6, 11 and 14) and in the Latin Gallicanus version (although here the exact day is sometimes omitted: ed. Arndt 1874, 52, 54, 61, 67); the known Armenian version omits of these only the date of the three soldiers (trans. Peeters 1909, 257, 259, 269), while the Paris Volksbuch gives the dates for Athanasios and Alexandra (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 22 and 28), and the two Sahidic Coptic fragments (E03585) surviving in 10th-12th century manuscripts also include, between them, at least the dates of Athanasios, Anatolios and the soldiers; the Bohairic Martyrdom has Anatolios and Alexandra (trans. Balestri-Hyvernat 1953 vol. 2, 186 and 200). The Syriac version has only Alexandra's date (trans. Brooks 1925, 113).
It seems therefore likely that dates for most if not all of the secondary martyrs were present in the original Volksbuch, given that at least some of them are present in all the main texts derived from the Volksbuch available to us; the dates vary somewhat between different versions and languages, but usually form a logical procession from Athanasios (usually 23 January) through Anatolios (February or March) and the soldiers (March) to Alexandra (around 8-17 April). These will probably have provided George's shrine(s) with a crescendo of minor feast days, roughly paralleling and overlapping with Lent, which culminated in the George's own feast day (23 April in the Greek tradition) in the period around Easter.
Finally, as for the so-called 'Normaltext' or 'new Diocletian-type', the omission in it of practically all cultic (and relevant geographical) information can be explained as a result of the revised text's no longer being associated with the Diospolis cult site; rather it must reflect the progressive development of the more 'oecumenical' cult of the saints of the Byzantine Greek church in the last centuries of Late Antiquity, and accordingly the only item preserved is the date of the saint's own martyrdom, 23 April (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 51); this is a text intended primarily for liturgical reading on the saint's feast day, when he is celebrated as but one saint amongst a throng of others, and not for the eponymous patron of a particular, locally focused cult shrine. It is especially revealing that in this version, in the saint's final prayer the references to the saint's name being invoked have been changed to the invocation of the Lord's name, and, instead of the memory of saint George's contest, the faithful are exhorted to celebrate the memory of all the saints (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 51)! It is perhaps more likely than not that this 'oecumenicalist' revision was carried out in Constantinople, but there is no way to be certain.
On the other hand, the so-called Interpolated Normaltext published by Krumbacher seems to have originated in an eastern Anatolian or Armenian milieu, since the hometown of George's family is here 'Sebastopolis of Armenia' (in the Late Empire in the province of Armenia Prima), and also the obviously Armenian name of the persecuting dux, Vardanios (Οὐαρδάνιος), points in this direction (ed. Krumbacher 1911, 51 and 54). This redaction, however, is difficult to date and could well be medieval.
Bibliography
Text(s) in Greek manuscript transmission:Krumbacher, K. (ed.) (edited by A. Ehrhard), Der heilige Georg in der griechischen Überlieferung (Abhandlungen der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-his. Klasse 25/3, Munich, 1911), 1-58 (pp. 1-3 Vienna Palimpsest, 3-16 Athens manuscript, 16-18 Venice manuscript, 18-30 Paris manuscript, 30-40 Vienna 'Mischtext', 41-51 Normaltext, 51-58 interpolated Normaltext).
Papyrus fragments in Greek:
Casson, L., and Hettich, E.L. (ed.), Excavations at Nessana, vol. 2: Literary Papyri (Princeton, 1950), 128-142.
Frend, W.H.C. (ed.), "Greek Liturgical Documents from Q'asr Ibrim in Nubia," in: Atti del IX Congresso internazionale di archeologia cristiana (Rome, 1978), 300-301 and idem (ed. and trans.), "A Fragment of the 'Acta Sancti Georgii', from Q'asr Ibrim (Egyptian Nubia)," Analecta Bollandiana 100 (1982), 82-83 (text) and 84 (trans.).
Texts in other languages cited as evidence:
Armenian (in Latin trans.):
Peeters, P. (trans.), "Une passion arménienne de S. Georges," Analecta Bollandiana 28 (1909), 249-271.
Coptic (cf. $E03585, $E03586) (with Latin trans.):
Balestri, I. and Hyvernat, H. (ed. and trans.), Acta Martyrum II (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 86, 125; Paris 1924, repr. Louvain 1953), vol. 1, 183–360 (text) and vol. 2, 126-232 (trans.).
Latin:
Arndt, W. (ed.), "Passio Sancti Georgii", Berichte über den Verhandlungen der königlich sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Klasse 26 (1874), 49-70.
Syriac (cf. $E06307) (with English trans.):
Brooks, E.W., "Acts of S. George," Le Muséon 38:1-2 (1925), 73-96 (text) and 97-115 (trans.).
Further reading:
Baumeister, Th., Martyr Invictus. Der Martyrer als Sinnbild der Erlösung in der Legende und im Kult der früher koptischen Kirche. Zur Kontinuität des ägyptischen Denkens (Münster, 1972), 153-159.
Delehaye, H., Les légendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris, 1909), 45-76. (Note: outdated – published before Krumbacher's study and hence unable to take advantage of his texts and findings.)
Delehaye, H., "Les Passions des martyrs d'Égypte," Analecta Bollandiana 40 (1922), 114-154.
Friedrich, J., "Der geschichtliche Heilige Georg," Sitzungsberichte der königliches bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, hist. Classe 2 (1899), 159-203.
Walter, Ch., "The Origins of the Cult of Saint George," Revue des études byzantines 53 (1995), 295-326.
Woods, D., "The Origins of the Cult of St George," in: V. Twomey and M. Humphries (eds.), The Great Persecution: The Proceedings of the Fifth Patristic Conference, Maynooth, 2003 (Dublin, 2009), 141-158.
Nikolaos Kälviäinen
31/08/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00181 | Michael, the Archangel | Μιχαήλ | Certain | S00192 | Gabriel, the Archangel | Γαβριήλ | Certain | S00259 | George, soldier and martyr, and Companions | Γεώργιος | Certain |
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