IN THE NAME OF GOD.
the Martyrdom of Saint George1, the valiant martyr of our [i] Lord Jesus Christ, who completed his strife on the 23rd of the month Pharmuthi2, in the peace of God, Amen.
Now in times of old there arose a severe and terrible storm, and a great and mighty storm and persecution came upon the Church.
In all places the governors had gone astray, and they dragged the preachers of the truth to the altars of the idols, and compelled them all to offer sacrifices to devilish idols.
Thus also did the governor Dadianus3, who had acquired dominion and had obtained the rule over the four quarters of the earth, When Dadianus had become chief, he sat upon the tribune, and wrote edicts to be proclaimed throughout the whole world; and hese are the things that were written in them. “Inasmuch
1 See Acta Sanctorum, April 23; Butler, Lives of the Saints, April 23, Dublin edit. 1833, vol, i, p. 508); Smith, Diet. Christ. Biog., ed. Wace, vol. ii, 3, 645, and Baring Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 266.
2 J. c.,April 18, For the proofs that all the churches accept April 23 as the lay on which Saint George cousummated his martyrdom, see Assemini in Kai., Eccles. Univ., t. vi, p. 284; and Malan, The Calendar o7 the Coptic Church, p. 28.
3 Arab. pSlsl, Syr. aan, Ethiop. LeLPH: The Greck version
of Metapbrastes, the encomium of Andrew of Crete on S. George, and the course of Gregory of Cyprus, state that George was tortured and martyred y Diocletian, Peter Heylin makes Dadianus, or Dacianus, to be Galerius laximinianus, or Galerius Caesar, who was by birth a Dacian, and who suc- ded Dincletian in “all those parts that he commanded”. See The Historie of: George of Cappadocia, p.1738. Whoever Dadianus may have been, he, according the Coptic text, was not Diocletian, for this emperor commanded BY ZIOC go to Palestine and destroy the shrine of Saint George “whose head Dadianus Persian eut off seyeral years ago”. See p. 81. There was no king of Persia at this time called Dadianus.
