by the Arians, since Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary, declares, in describing his murder, that "all, without distinction, hated George"—ni Georgii odio omnes indiscreté flagrassent. 2. In the council convened at Rome by Pope Gelasius in 494, certain apocryphal Acts of the martyrdom of George, Passio Georgii Apocrypha, were condemned, and forbidden to be received by catholics. Had there not been a real martyr of the name honoured at that time by the church, we may be certain that the council would not have thought it necessary to condemn the spurious Acts. 3. But it is almost demonstrable that a George the martyr was so honoured in the time of Gelasius. In the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory, compiled about the end of the sixth century, there is an office, with collects, &c., for St. George's day, the 23d April. Now John the deacon, the biographer of Pope Gregory, distinctly states that the Sacramentary which goes by his name is substantially the same as the Sacramentary of Gelasius. We therefore have the devotion to St. George traced back to the latter part of the fifth century. 4. Is it then credible—is it even possible—that the Roman church, which, in the time of this very Pope Gelasius, broke off communion with that of Constantinople for not condemning Acacius, though Acacius was not a heretic himself, but had only communicated with heretics, should, in less than one hundred and thirty years after the death of George the Arian, have fallen into such a delusion as to receive from the Arian minority at Alexandria (for it could not have proceeded from the catholic majority) a solemn devotion in honour of a man whose history and bad character were well known, whom there is not the slightest ground for supposing that any party, or section of a party, ever regarded as a saint; nay, who was even, as we have shown, at the time of his death universally detested? St. George the martyr is then a different person from George the Arian; and the universal tradition of East and West, though the original monuments which could have supported it are lost, remains in its general features unshaken.—T. A.
George of Cyprus, Patriarch of Constantinople in the thirteenth century, held the office of protapostolarius at the accession of Andronicus Palæologus the elder in 1282. He was a man of considerable learning and eloquence. Under Michael Palæologus he had been favourable to the reunion of East and West, separated since the schism of Photius; but as Andronicus was opposed to the union, George seems to have veered round; for upon the death of the patriarch Joseph, the emperor determined that, although a layman, he should be raised to the vacant see. The inconveniences arising from the schism caused by the deposition of the patriarch Arsenius in 1266, joined to the exigencies of the standing controversy with the Latin church upon the procession of the Holy Ghost, seem to have been the circumstances which influenced the emperor's choice. Several bishops having been gained over, George was hurried through the minor grades of monk, reader, deacon, and priest, and finally consecrated patriarch in April, 1283, taking the name of Gregory. He succeeded at first in conciliating the Arsenians by proposing a curious kind of ordeal. It was agreed that two books—one containing the views of the Arsenians, the other those of the Josephites—should be committed simultaneously to the flames, and that the book which remained unconsumed should be taken as embodying the truth in the dispute. Both books were consumed; however, the Arsenians, who must have been exceedingly sanguine as to the result, acknowledged themselves to be in error, and received communion from the hands of Gregory. It was not long, however, before they relapsed into schism. Soon after this the patriarch wrote a work on the procession of the Holy Ghost, but its dubious soundness provoked much debate and censure; and, either from a feeling of disgust or through constraint, he resigned the patriarchate in 1289, and retired into a monastery. He died in 1290. He is the author of several works, particularly an autobiography, and a "Discourse concerning the great and triumphant martyr, St. George."—T. A.
George of Laodicea, first comes into notice as a priest of the church of Alexandria in the time of Arius, whose cause he espoused, while pretending to mediate between him and the bishop, St. Alexander. Being excommunicated, he was obliged to leave Alexandria, and proceeded to Antioch; but Eustathius, the bishop, would not receive him. Coming to Arethusa in Syria, he was received there, and shortly afterwards was appointed to the vacant see of Laodicea. At the councils of Antioch (330) and of Tyre (335) he joined himself to the Arianizing followers of Eusebius of Nicomedia. In the council of Sardica (347) sentence of deposition was passed against George and seven other bishops, on account of their heretical opinions. Yet he does not appear to have been actually ejected from his see. We next find him heading the semi-arian party, and condemning the anomœanism of Aetius and Eudoxius. In 359 he headed the semi-arians at the important council of Seleucia. In 361 he took part in the consecration of St. Meletius to the see of Antioch. After this we hear no more of him, so that the exact year of his death is unknown.—T. A.
George Petrovitch, called Kara or Czerni (the Black), the son of a Servian peasant, born between 1760 and 1770. Compromised by his connection with an insurrection against the Turkish authorities, he fled into the Austrian territory, and for a while served in the Austrian army. He returned to Servia in 1791, and followed the business of a dealer in swine, a most profitable and respectable employment in that country. The oppression exercised by the janissary generals led to a rising of the Servian population, at the head of which George Kara placed himself. In 1806 he defeated two Turkish armies, and in 1807 the emancipation of the Servians was completed by the expulsion of the last of the Turkish authorities. The new government was based on the principles of military organization, each district being under its hospodar, or lord, with a general diet (skupschitina) to meet annually under the presidency of George Kara, now recognized as prince, who was assisted by a senate (sowieh) of twelve members. The jealousies and contentions which followed led to the exclusion of the hospodars from all share in the government (1811), and these, naturally discontented, refused to support the president when the Turks invaded Servia in 1813. Kara was obliged to abandon his country and retire first to Austria and then to Bessarabia. From this he was invited by partisans connected with the Greek league (Hetæria) to attempt the rescue of Servia from Turkish rule, but was murdered by his host by direction of Milosch, who acted under constraint of the Turkish pacha, in 1816. The grandson of Kara (Alexander) was afterwards placed at the head of the Servian government.—W. B. B.
George of Pisidia, so called from his birth-place, was a deacon of the church at Constantinople in the seventh century. He appears to have enjoyed, not only the favour of Sergius the patriarch, but the esteem of the Emperor Heraclius; and probably accompanied the expedition of the latter against the Persians in 622. His office as keeper of the records drew his poetic tastes and literary labours into the domain of history, and the two works in which he chronicled the expedition above mentioned and the subsequent repulse of the invading Avars from the walls of the imperial city in 626, won for him a high reputation as an author among his countrymen. They were written in the iambic measure of the old Greek dramatists, and would have merited the encomiums which they have received, if the liveliness of the narrative and the force of the descriptions had equalled the grace and harmony of the versification. His industry, if not his genius, were attested by many other compositions, among which his poems on the "Six-days' work of Creation," on the "Resurrection of Christ," and on the "Vanity of Human Life," are worthy of being mentioned.—W. B.
George Syncellus, a monk of the eighth century, obtained his surname from his office as the syncellus or confidential attendant of the patriarch Tarasius. He was a diligent student of history; and few men of that era were better qualified by talent and learning to undertake a "Select Chronicle," which was intended to embrace the annals of the world from the creation to his own times. He did not live to complete the task. His work, however, extended to the reign of the Emperor Diocletian; and a continuation of it to the close of the eighth century was subsequently executed by a Greek historian named George Theophanes.—W. B.
George of Trebizond, was born in Crete, in the year 1396; his surname Trapezuntius being given to him because Trebizond was the seat of his ancestors. In 1428 he came to Venice, to teach Greek there, at the invitation of Franciscus Barbarus, a Venetian noble. His fame soon spread throughout Italy; and he was called to Rome, where he was appointed professor of literature and philosophy, and afterwards secretary to Pope Eugenius. Here his lectures were attended by students from all parts of the civilized world. Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards thronged to him; and he was reckoned the first literary man in Rome. His position remained uncontested
