Syriac tradition of St. George

By: George Kiraz

No dragon!

Today is the feast of St. George (in the Syriac Orthodox churches of the former Maphrianate of the East, April 24).

Syriac preserves the oldest (almost) complete text in a manuscript from around 600. And there is no dragon.

Simply, the king who is persecuting George is called in the story ܚܶܘܝܐ ܓܳܪܣܐ /ḥewyo gorso/, a snake that fatally kills. Satan, for example, is the "great gorso" in Syriac literature. Early Syriac iconography depicts a large snake rather than a dragon.

It is only around the 11th century where the story of a dragon appears (in Georgian, if one is to believe Wikipedia). The crusades took the story to Europe and the dragon becomes bigger and bigger.

When I arrived in Oxford in 1990, the £20 note had St. George and shortly after the note changed (so I kept one or two as a souvenir).