“George of Cappadocia, born at Epiphania in Cilicia, was a low parasite, who got a lucrative contract to supply the army with bacon. A rogue and informer; he got rich, and was forced to run from justice. He saved his money, embraced Arianism, collected a library, and got promoted by a faction to the episcopal throne of Alexandria. When Julian came, A.D. 361, George was dragged to prison. The prison was burst open by the mob, and George was lynched, as he deserved. And this precious knave became, in good time, Saint George of England—patron of chivalry, emblem of victory and civility, and the pride of the best blood of the modern world!”
Here is a goodly patron of our dainty doings in Hanover Square! If all be indeed as our clear-sighted, unimaginative, American cousin tells us. But if all be indeed so, what conclusion would our American cousin draw from it? The sentence is amusing—the facts (if facts) surprising. But what is to follow? Mr. Emerson’s own conclusion is “that nature trips us up when we strut.” But that is, in the first place, untrue absolutely, for Nature teaches all cock-sparrows, and their like (who are many) to strut; and never without wholesome effect on the minds of hen-sparrows, and their like, who are likewise many. But in its relative, if not absolute, truth, is this the conclusion here wisely to be gathered? Are “chivalry, victory, civility, and the pride of the best blood of the modern world,” generally to be described as “strutting?” And is the discovery of the peculations of George of Cilicia a wholesome reproof, administered by Nature, to those unnatural modes of thinking and feeling?
Mr. Emerson does not think so. No modern person has truer instinct for heroism than he: nay, he is the only man I know of, among all who ever looked at books of mine, who had nobleness enough to understand and believe the story of Turner’s darkening his own picture that it might not take the light out of Lawrence’s. The level of vulgar English temper is now sunk so far below the power of doing such a thing, that I never told the story yet, in general society, without being met by instant and obstinate questioning of its truth, if not by quiet incredulity. But men with “the pride of the best blood of England” can believe it; and Mr. Emerson believes it. And yet this chivalry, and faith, and fire of heart, recognised by him as existent, confuse themselves in his mind with effete Gothic tradition; and are all “tripped up” by his investigation, itself superficial, of the story of St. George. In quieter thought, he would have felt that the chivalry and victory, being themselves real, must have been achieved, at some time or another, by a real chevalier and victor,—nay, by thousands of chevaliers and victors. That instead of one St. George, there must have been armies of St. Georges;—that this vision of a single Knight was as securely the symbol of knights innumerable, as the one Dragon of sins and trials innumerable; and no more depended for its vitality, or virtue, on the behaviour of George of Cilicia than the terror of the present temptation depends on the natural history of the rattlesnake. And farther, being an American, he should have seen that the fact of the Christian world’s having made a bishop of a speculating bacon-seller, and afterwards kept reverent record of this false St. George, but only obscure record of its real St. Georges, was by no means an isolated fact in the history of the Christian world,—but rather a part of its confirmed custom and “practical education;” and that, only the other day, St. James Fiske, canonised tearfully in America, and bestrewn with tuberoses and camellias, as above described, (xv. 14), was a military gentleman of exactly the type of the Cilician St. George.
Farther. How did it never occur to Mr. Emerson that, whether his story of the bookcollecting bishop were true or not, it was certainly not the story told to Cœur-de-Lion, or to Edward III., when they took St. George for their Master? No bookcollecting episcopal person, had he been ever so much a saint, would have served them to swear by, or to strike by. They must have heard some other story;—not, perhaps, one written down, nor needing to be written. A remembered story,—yet, probably, a little truer than the written one; and a little older.
It is, above all, strange that the confusion of his own first sentence did not strike him, “George of Cappadocia, born in Cilicia.” It is true that the bacon-selling and book-collecting Arian bishop was born in Cilicia, and that this Arian bishop was called George. But the Arians only contrived to get this bishop of theirs thought of as a saint at all, because there was an antecedent St. George, with whom he might be confused; a St. George, indeed, “of Cappadocia;” and as it chanced that their own bishop came out of Cappadocia to his bishopric, very few years after his death sufficed to render the equivocation possible. But the real St. George had been martyred seventy years before, A.D. 290, whereas the Arian bishop was killed in 361. And this is the story of the real St. George, which filled the heart of the early Christian church, and was heard by Cœur-de-Lion and by Edward III., somewhat in this following form, it, luckily for us, having been at least once fairly written out, in the tenth century, by the best eastern scholar who occupied himself with the history of Saints. I give you an old English translation of it, rather than my own, from p. 132 of the ‘Historie of that most famous Saint and Souldier of Christ Jesus, St. George of Cappadocia, asserted from the fictions of the middle ages of the Church, and opposition of the present, by Peter Heylyn; printed in London for Henry Seyle, and to be sold at his shop the signe of the Tyger’s head in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1631.’
“St. George was born in Cappadocia, of Christian parents, and those not of the meanest qualitie: by whom he was brought up in true Religion, and the feare of God. Hee was no sooner past his Childhood, but hee lost his father, bravely encountring with the enemies of Christ; and thereupon departed with his afflicted Mother into Palestine, whereof she was a native; and where great fortunes and a faire inheritance did fall unto him. Thus qualified in birth, and being also of an able bodie, and of an age fit for employment in the warres; hee was made a Colonell.” (This word is explained, above, xv. 15.) “In which employment hee gave such testimonies of his valour, and behav’d himselfe so nobly; that forthwith Diocletian, not knowing yet that he was a Christian, advanc’d him to the place and dignitie of his Councell for the warres; (for so on good authoritie I have made bold to render ‘Comes’ in this place and time). About this time his Mother dyed: and hee, augmenting the heroicke resolutions of his mind, with the increase of his revenue, did presently applie himselfe unto the Court and service of his Prince; his twentieth yeere being even then compleat and ended.”
“But Diocletian being soon after compelled into his persecution of the Christians” (Heylyn now gives abstract of his author,) “and warrants granted out unto the officers and rulers of the Provinces to speed the execution, and that done also in frequent senate, the Emperour there himself in person, St. George, though not yet sainted, could continue no longer, but there exposed himself unto their fury and his owne glory:” (Translation begins again.)
“When therefore George, even in the first beginnings, had observ’d the extraordinarie cruelty of these proceedings, hee presently put off his military habiliments, and, making dole of all his substance to the poore, on the third Session of the Senate, when the Imperiall decree was to be verified, quite voide of feare, he came into the Senate-house, and spake unto them in this manner. ‘How long, most noble Emperour and you Conscript Fathers, will you augment your tyrannies against the Christians? How long will you enact unjust and cruell Lawes against them, compelling those which are aright instructed in the faith, to follow that Religion, of whose truth your selves are doubtfull. Your Idols are no Gods, and I am bold to say againe, they are not. Be not you longer couzned in the same errour. Our Christ alone is God, he only is the Lord, in the glory of the Father. Eyther do you therefore acknowledge that Religion which undoubtedly is true: or else disturbe not them by your raging follies, which would willingly embrace it.’ This said, and all the Senate wonderfully amazed at the free speech and boldnesse of the man;” (and no wonder;—my own impression is indeed that most martyrs have been made away with less for their faith than their incivility. I have always a lurking sympathy with the Heathen;) “they all of them turn’d their eyes upon the Emperour, expecting what hee would reply: who beckoning to Magnentius, then Consull, and one of his speciall Favourites, to returne an answere; hee presently applyed himselfe to satisfie his Prince’s pleasure.”
“Further” (says Heylyn) “we will not prosecute the storie in our Authors words, which are long and full of needlesse conference; but will briefly declare the substance of it, which is this. Upon St. George’s constant profession of his Faith, they wooed him first with promises of future honours, and more faire advancements: but finding him unmoveable, not to be wrought upon with words, they tried him next with torments: not sparing anything which might expresse their cruelty or enoble his affliction. When they saw all was fruitlesse, at last the fatall Sentence was pronounced against him in this manner: that, beeing had againe to prison, hee should the following day be drawne through the City and beheaded.
“Which sentence was accordingly performed, and George invested with the glorious Crowne of Martyrdome upon the 23. day of April, Anno Domini nostri, 290.”