The earliest account of the martyrdom of St George is palpably fictional, and probably Arian in origin. It was composed in Greek, probably by an Arian. It was a rather embarrassing work, and later versions remove much of the rubbish. For this reason Matzke, who reviewed the tradition, referred confusingly to the original as the “apocryphal version” and the revised version as the “canonical version”.
Only a few leaves of the Greek of the original version exist in palimpsest. A Latin translation of the whole does exist, however, dating from the 5th century. An English translation of this has now been prepared. Here it is:
- St George-Passio-Original Apocryphal Form-2020 (PDF)
- St George-Passio-Original Apocryphal Form-2020 (Word .docx)
The files are also available from Archive.org here.
As usual, the file is public domain. Make whatever use of it you like, whether personal, educational or commercial.