Posted on 04/23/2013 4:19:17 AM PDT by markomalley
Outside of my great friend, Saint Philomena – the veracity of whose existence as a virgin and martyr of the early Church has recently been sustained by exhaustive scientific evaluations of the evidence — outside of her… there is perhaps no saint more scorned as being no more than a figment of pious imagination than Saint George, who, however, boasts of more archeological and historical evidence than most any other saint in the history not only of the early Church, but for some lesser known saints, right into our own day. Churches dedicated to Saint George sprang up in their dozens throughout the ancient world immediately after news of his martyrdom on 23 April 303.
Liberal warning: The most obnoxious denial of the existence of Saint George comes from a super liberal professor of “ecumenism” (which I put in quotes because he had no idea what ecumenism is). Many of my fellow priests today have had Father XXX as a professor in the various countries, seminaries and universities where he’s mislead people. Anyway, he had the idea that Saint George couldn’t possibly have existed because of the iconography of him slaying a dragon. His arrogant idea was that we’re so very smart today, and people of the past were so very gullible and stupid. He laughed his nervous, mocking laugh when I tried to explain a few things about the iconography:
None of this — or the archeological proofs — made any impression on this super-liberal priest, for the last thing he wanted to hear was faithfulness to the Church unto death. That’s not what his own life was about. Since he couldn’t answer in any reasonable way, he merely laughed his mocking laugh once again. I had to live with that kind of nonsense for… well… pretty much my whole priesthood. Yikes! This kind of thing can occasion an increase in friendship with Christ Jesus and the Saints!
This icon was given to me by Cardinal —. It’s from the Mount Zion crowd just outside the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem. There is great devotion to Saint George in Palestine until today, with about every third boy being called after Saint George.
George’s father, Gerontius, was well known to the Emperor Diocletian as one of his very best soldiers. When Gerontius’ son George applied to Diocletian to be in the military service of the Emperor, Diocletian quickly made him part of the Imperial Guard and gave him the rank of Tribune. These positions taken together made young George, perhaps in his early twenties, almost as powerful as the Emperor himself. Very few people would have ever had such power, both military and political, and at such a young age. George was an instant phenomenon. Everyone would have known exactly who he was in the entire ancient world.
Diocletian was persuaded by the might-makes-right Galerius to have all his soldiers offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. George, with the zeal of the saints, loudly and with great reason proclaimed his worship of Christ Jesus, so that he couldn’t possibly offer sacrifice to any Roman gods. Diocletian, distraught — for he had never intended this — offered George all sorts of bribes, all of which were scorned by our Saint. Diocletian then set out to make an example of him, first attaching him to a wheel of swords and then having him decapitated.
Saint George and Saint Michael the Archangel sometimes meld into one presentation with wings being granted to Saint George on his white horse. That’s O.K. I’m sure they were great friends!
By the way, George is the Name of God the Father: ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν (John 15,1). “My Father is George.” O.K., so, a pedantic translation would be “My Father is the Farmer” or “My Father is the Tiller of the Ground.” Some translations have “Vinedresser.” Truth be told, it’s γεωργός, that is, George!
Just to be insistent about this: “Adam” means “Tiller of the Ground.” “Adam” = “George.” Jesus is the New Adam. Jesus is the New George. Yours truly is merely the old George, the old Adam. But Christ has conquered and goes out to conquer still. Thanks be to God our Father that Jesus sets about slaying me so that, dead to myself, I live for Him alone. Yikes!
The Greek word translated "vinedresser" is γεωργός (georgos)
I don't know that I totally agree with Father Byers here. John 15:1 says: ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν, so perhaps he would have better said, "My father is the George"
But what's a definite article among friends?
Saint George of England; pray for us that we might be faithful unto death.
Saint George. We are beset by a dragon with a hundred, hundred heads. It reeks of Islam and Communism: of theft, of murder, of rape and above all of the will to power. It is drunk on old heresies and its teeth are stained with the blood of children.
Help us to kill it. Help us to bear Christ’s banner of the Resurrection against it.
Amen!
Any “theologian” who claims that a particular saint could not have existed because of a dragon in his iconography is either exquisitely STUPID, or malignantly and deliberately duplicitous.
Anyone with even a modicum of common sense knows that a “Icon” contains symbolic images that tell a story. In the Book of Revelation, the “Dragon” symbolizes Satan, the world-system, The False Prophet, The Beast, the antichrist, the spirit of the antichrist, etc. By creating an Image of St. George slaying the Dragon, the artist is telling a story in a symbolic manner.
By this same logic, the Chinese Emperors never existed because they are often pictured in the same image as dragons! LOL!
St George is my patron saint, not my choice, God’s choice. Wondering if anyone else has him as a patron saint.
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