XXXIT PREFACE
is Alexandra the wife of Dadianus who was converted to the Christian religion, and was baptized and suffered martyrdom.
As for Saint George the martyr it is very improbable that such a person ever lived.
The young man who tore down the edict at Nicomedia, and the fearful sufferings which he suffered, afforded ample material for the construction of a martyr who should not only be able to endure every suffering and torture which the malice and hate of a tyrannical governor could devise, but who should die several times and be raised up again to life by the power of Jesus Christ.
Every new version which was made of the martyrdom contained some new wonder or miracle, and we know that the actu of Saint George became absolutely incredible before the end of the fifth century, for about the year 495, Pope Gelasins decreed that, although George was to be esteemed as a genuine martyr, yet his passion was not to be read because of it being the work of heretics. 1
The popular versions of the martyrdom of Saint George current among Christian nations assign to him tortures which he never could have endured, and endow him with powers which he never could have possessed.
He has been universally regarded as a helper of the poor and needy, a defender of the weak against the strong, a mediator between God and man, a benefactor of all mankind, a co-regent of the Holy Trinity
1 See Tillemont, Mémoires, xii, pp. 694, 695; Theil, Epistolae Romanorum pontifleum genuinae, i, p. 458; and Dillmann, Uber die apokryphen Miirtyrergeschachten, p. 1.
