Very little is known about George's life, but it is thought he was a Roman military officer

of Greek descent who was martyred in one of the pre-Constantinian persecutions.[7]

Beyond this, early sources give conflicting information.

The saint's veneration dates to the 5th century with some certainty, and possibly even to
the 4th. The addition of the dragon legend dates to the 11th century.

The earliest text which preserves fragments of George's narrative is in a Greek

hagiography which is identified by Hippolyte Delehaye of the scholarly Bollandists to be
a palimpsest of the 5th century.[8] An earlier work by Eusebius, Church history, written in
the 4th century, contributed to the legend but did not name George or provide significant
detail.[9] The work of the Bollandists Daniel Papebroch, Jean Bolland, and Godfrey
Henschen in the 17th century was one of the first pieces of scholarly research to establish
the saint's historicity, via their publications in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca.[10]
Pope Gelasius I stated in 494 that George was among those saints "whose names are
justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God."[11]

The most complete version, based upon the fifth-century Greek text but in a later form,
survives in a translation into Syriac from about 600. From text fragments preserved in the
British Library, a translation into English was published in 1925.[12][13][14]

In the Greek tradition, George was born to Greek Christian parents, in Cappadocia. After
his father died, his mother, who was originally from Lydda, in Syria Palaestina, returned
with George to her hometown.[15] He went on to become a soldier for the Roman army;
but, because of his Christian faith, he was arrested and tortured, "at or near Lydda, also
called Diospolis"; on the following day, he was paraded and then beheaded, and his body
was buried in Lydda.[15] According to other sources, after his mother's death, George
travelled to the eastern imperial capital, Nicomedia,[16] where he was persecuted by one
Dadianus. In later versions of the Greek legend, this name is rationalised to Diocletian,
and George's martyrdom is placed in the Diocletian persecution of AD 303. The setting in
Nicomedia is also secondary, and inconsistent with the earliest cults of the saint being
located in Diospolis.[17]

George was executed by decapitation on 23 April 303. A witness of his suffering

convinced Empress Alexandra of Rome to become a Christian as well, so she joined
George in martyrdom. His body was buried in Lydda, where Christians soon came to
honour him as a martyr.[18][19]

George in the Acta Sanctorum, as collected in late

1600s and early 1700s. The Latin title De S Georgio Megalo-Martyre; Lyddae seu
Diospoli in Palaestina translates as St. George Great-Martyr; [from] Lydda or Diospolis,
in Palestine.

The Latin Passio Sancti Georgii (6th century) follows the general course of the Greek
legend, but Diocletian here becomes Dacian, Emperor of the Persians. His martyrdom
was greatly extended to more than twenty separate tortures over the course of seven
years. Over the course of his martyrdom, 40,900 pagans were converted to Christianity,
including the Empress Alexandra. When George finally died, the wicked Dacian was
carried away in a whirlwind of fire. In later Latin versions, the persecutor is the Roman
emperor Decius, or a Roman judge named Dacian serving under Diocletian.[20]