E00663: Coptic fragmentary parchment sheet of the 9th/10th c., of unknown provenance, preserving parts of the ninth and tenth miracles of *George (soldier and martyr, S00259) in the dialect of the Hermopolite nome (Middle Egypt); written most likely not before the 7th c.

Institut für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie der Universität zu Köln, inv. 10.263

Summary:

The ninth miracle takes place during the reign of Diocletian who sends his general Euchios to Egypt to destroy churches and build temples to the imperial gods instead, to arrange for governors to be installed in every city, and to round up Christians to torture and decapitate them. But God remembered all these evil deeds Diocletian ordered, and so his end was near. Diocletian then ordered general Euchios to go to Palestine in the province of Syria and to enter the shrine of George to destroy it completely, for he could not bear to hear about its miracles and magic (μάγος). Afterwards he was to destroy all churches and force their clerics to sacrifice to the imperial gods. That enterprise goes horribly wrong for both of them, resulting in the death of Euchios and in Diocletian’s blindness. The throne on which he was sitting was turned upside down by the powers of George and Michael the Archangel, so that the golden pomegranates which adorned it hit his eyes. Diocletian immediately recognises the power of George and begs the saint’s forgiveness, but Michael condemns him to eternal darkness and hell. In his place Constantine is put on the throne.

The tenth miracle then takes place, in the time of the new emperor Constantine, and is concerned with a presbyter within the saint’s shrine who felt no empathy or pity for the weak and the hopeful who came to the shrine. He would steal golden objects for himself and store them in his private house. But Eudoxia, the pious sister of Constantine, brings about his eventual punishment, the details of which are not preserved.

Text: Schenke 2008. Summary: Gesa Schenke.