ON ST. GEORGE LIMNIOTA, MARTYR,
IN THE REGION OF MOUNT OLYMPUS,
About the year 730.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
His cult, his torments, his date, his Acts.
George Limniota, martyr, in the region of Mount Olympus (St.)
BY J. P.
This man, memorable for the long exercise of the ascetic life, for his advanced old age, and for his fearless defense of the sacred images, His memory in the Greek Calendars by which he set himself as a wall against Leo the Isaurian, the emperor, that most impious assailant of them, for the house of God and for the glory of the Saints, is praised by various Greek Calendars, in which his name is inscribed with an elogium. The printed Great Menæa report him thus: The memory of our holy father and confessor George Limniota. Sirleto's Menology: The commemoration of our holy father George Limniota. Elsewhere he is honored with the title of martyr: for in our manuscript Sirmond-Chifflet Supplement to the printed Menæa this announcement is read concerning him: Ἄθλησις τοῦ ἁγ. ὁσιομάρτυρος Γεωργίου τοῦ Λιμνιώτου. That is: The contest of the holy sacred-martyr George Limniota. The same title of the Man is prefixed to the elogium or compendium of his Acts, which will be given below from our manuscript, and which was taken from a codex of the Imperial library of Vienna: Τοῦ ἁγίου ὁσιομάρτυρος Γεωργίου τοῦ Λιμνιώτου. And indeed the punishments inflicted upon him for the cult of the Saints, and his death which followed thereafter — even though it is not said whether it was brought upon him in some other violent manner — nevertheless brought it about that neither was he wanting to martyrdom, nor martyrdom to him.
[2] is noted, and he is praised: But since the elogia are of like tenor, I shall not transcribe them here; but one of the several will suffice, which I just now indicated. Yet after our manner I bring forward two verses from the aforesaid Menæa, which I thus render from the Greek into Latin:
Κοινῷ τελευτῶν Γεώργιος τῷ τέλει, Σημεῖον ἄθλου ῥῖνα τμηθεῖσαν φέρει.
While George falls by a common end, He bears his severed nostrils as tokens of his contest.
But that the public veneration of St. George was propagated among the Arabs and the Egyptians is clear from the Arabic-Egyptian Martyrology, which Gratia Simonio the Maronite translated from the Arabic, who in the year 1682 was archbishop of Tripoli in Syria, as is indicated in our copy: in which on this day also is set The contest of St. George the Martyr, our Saint of today without doubt, even though the surname of Limniota is not added: which, as one may surmise, took its origin from a lake, and was imposed upon him because in the region of Mount Olympus, where he led the ascetic life, he dwelt near a lake; whence the name Λιμνιότου clung to him.
[3] The name of this Saint, famous among the Greeks, is honored with an annual memory also by the Latins. For in the Roman Martyrology he is announced in this manner: Likewise St. George Limniota the monk, who, when he had rebuked the impious emperor Leo for breaking the sacred images and burning the relics of the Saints, by his command, his hands being cut off and his head burned, passed as a martyr to the Lord. [his cult in the Roman Martyrology, whose announcement does not rightly report the Saint's punishment:] For hands one must read nostrils, on the credit of the Greek copies: for below, in the compendium of his martyrdom, it is said ῥινοκοπηθεὶς; in the Menæa, and in the Supplement to them lately indicated, τὴν ῥῖνα τμηθεὶς; in Sirleto's Menology, which Baronius used, naribus. Lambeck, book 8 of the Commentaries on the Most August Imperial Library of Vienna, page 213, in the text of the Roman Martyrology which he recites, reads naribus abscissis, and adds this note in the margin: In the most faulty Paris edition of the year 1645 in folio, for NARIBUS is wrongly read MANIBUS. In what edition of the Roman Martyrology Lambeck read naribus for manibus I do not know. Certainly in the various Plantin editions of it manibus is constantly written; which corruption has persisted there even to our own times, as is plain from the edition of the year 1701, in which it also occurs; and it had long since crept into the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius, printed in the year 1601 by the Plantin press, at the year of Christ 735. To these let us add some other observations.
[4] Let the first of them be concerning the time at which St. George came forth from his monastic solitude into the arena, his date to contend against Leo the Isaurian, the iconoclast. The same most eminent author weaves the event into the year already mentioned, 735, and narrates it from the Menology of the Greeks at the XXIV day of August. But neither in that Menology, nor in the Great Menæa, nor in the Vienna elogium do I find any year. Castellain, at his French announcement of the Roman Martyrology, marks broadly the eighth century. But Maimbourg, in volume 1, book 2 of his History of the Iconoclasts, describes the contest of our holy Champion at the year 736; where the same historian also, that I may note this in passing, fell into the same error which I corrected in the number just preceding. In the year 726 the impious Leo the Isaurian declared war upon the sacred images, and therefore St. George did not set himself against that heresiarch before this year. But since it is hidden from me on what ground the contest for the images undertaken by that holy Martyr is bound to the year 735, or the next following, as I have just said, it has seemed good to me to take as it were a middle way, by marking that the event happened about the year of Christ 730, as has been done above.
[5] and his Acts. Let the second observation be concerning the Acts. They are very small: but whether greater ones once existed, and still lie hidden somewhere, I have not ascertained. So illustrious a Man truly deserved fuller ones. Their author is contemporary, according to the Annotations, letter b. Besides these few things, no others occur of which I should forewarn the reader. It remains therefore that I subjoin them from our transcript, which was copied from the Vienna codex of the Imperial library, of which I have often made mention elsewhere in this month, and rendered by me into Latin; to which a very few notes also are added.
ACTS
By a contemporary anonymous author,
from a codex of the Imperial library of Vienna, J. P. translator.
George Limniota, martyr, in the region of Mount Olympus (St.)
Οὗτος ὁ ὅσιος Γεώργιος, ὑπῆρχεν ἐκ παλαιῶν τῶν χρόνων τὴν ἀσκητικὴν παλαίστραν ἐν τοῖς ὀλυμπίοις ὄρεσι πηξάμενος· καὶ πολλοὺς άγῶνας καὶ ἱδρῶτας άσκητικοὺς ἐνδειξάμενος, ἄλλος Ἀντώνιος ἐν τοῖς καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς χρόνοις ἀναδειχθείς. Ἐπὶ δὲ Λέοντος τοῦ Ἰσαύρου άρξαμένου τὰς ἐκκλησίας καταστρέφειν, καὶ τὰς εἰκόνας, καὶ τὰ λείψανα τῶν Ἁγίων πυρὶ καίειν, οὕτος παῤῥησιασάμενος καὶ ἐλέγξας τὴν ἀσέβειαν καὶ παρανομίαν τοῦ ἀλάστορος, καὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἀριδήλως άνακηρύξας, πολυτρόπους αἰκίας ὑπέμεινεν, ἐν βαθυτάτῃ πολιᾷ ὑπάρχων, ὡς λόγος, ἐτῶν ἐννενηκονταπέντε. Καὶ ῥινοκοπηθεὶς, καὶ τὴν κάραν καταφλεχθεὶς, καὶ πλεῖστα ἕτερα παθῶν, εὐχόμενος τῷ Θεῷ
τὴν ψυχὴν παραδέδωκε· ταῖς πρεσβείαις αὐτοῦ, κύριε, σῶσον πάντας ἡμᾶς. Ἀμήν.
This holy George from ancient times fixed the arena of the ascetic life in the mountains of Olympus a; and being notable for many contests and ascetic sweats, he proved himself another Antony in our times b. But when Leo the Isaurian began to overturn the churches and to burn with fire the images and the relics of the Saints, this Man used freedom of speech, and, rebuking the impiety and transgression of that destructive man, and openly preaching the truth, endured manifold injuries, being in a most declining old age of, as is reported, ninety-five years. And when his nostrils had been cut off and his head burned c, and he had endured many other things, praying, he delivered up his soul to God. By his intercessions, O Lord, save us all. Amen.