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SAINT CHRISTOPHER (Christophorus, Chr...

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 295 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAINT CHRISTOPHER (
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Christophorus, Christoferus)
  , a saint honoured in the
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Roman Catholic (25th of
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July) and Orthodox Eastern (9th of May) Churches, the
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patron of ferrymen . Nothing that is authentic is known about him . He appears to have been originally a pagan and to have been born in
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Syria . He was baptized by Babylas, bishop of
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Antioch; preached with much success in
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Lycia; and was martyred about A.D . 250 during the persecution under the emperor Decius.' Round this small nucleus of possibility, however, a vast mass of legendary
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matter gradually collected . All accounts agree that he was of
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great stature and singularly handsome, and that this helped him not a little in his evangelistic
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work . But according to a story reproduced in the New Uniat
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Anthology of Arcudius, and mentioned in Basil's Monologue, Christopher was originally a hideous man-eating
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ogre, with a
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dog's face, and only received his human semblance, with his Christian name, at
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baptism . Most of his astounding miracles are of the ordinary type . He thrusts his staff into the ground; whereupon it sprouts into a date palm, and thousands are converted . Courtesans sent to seduce him are turned by his mere aspect into Christians and martyrs . The Roman governor is confounded by his insensi- Or Dagnus—perhaps to be identified with Maximinus Daza, joint emperor (with Galerius) in the East 305-311, and
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sole emperor 311-313.bility to the most refined and ingenious tortures . He is roasted over a slow fire and basted with boiling oil, but tells his tormentors that by the grace of Jesus Christ he feels nothing .

When at last, in despair, they cut off his

head, he had converted 48,000
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people . The more conspicuous of these legends are included in the Mozarabic Breviary and
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Missal, and are given in the
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thirty-third sermon of Peter Damien, but the best-known story is that which is given in the
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Golden Legend of Jacopus de Voragine . According to this, Christopher—or rather Reprobus, as he was then called—was a giant of vast stature who was in search of a man stronger than himself, whom he might serve, He
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left the service of the king of Canaan because the king feared the devil, and that of the devil because the devil feared the
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Cross . He was converted by a
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hermit; but as he had neither the gift of fasting nor that of prayer, he decided to devote himself to a work of charity, and set himself to carry wayfarers over a bridgeless
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river . One day a little child asked to be taken across, and Christopher took him on his shoulder . When
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half way over the stream he staggered under what seemed to him a crushing
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weight, but he reached the other side and then upbraided the child for placing him in peril . "Had I borne the whole
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world on my back," he said, " it could not have weighed heavier than thou!" " Marvel not!" the child replied, " for thou
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host borne upon thy back the world and him who created it!" It was this story that gave Christopher his immense popularity throughout Western Christendom . See Rolland . Acta Sanct. vi . 146; Guenebault, Dict. iconographique
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des .attribute des figures et des lcgendes des saints (Par., 185o) ; Smith and Wace, Dict. of Christ . Biog . (
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London, 1877, &c., 4 vols.) ; A .

Sinemus,

Die Legende vom h .
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Christophorus (Hanover, 1868) ; and other literature cited in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. iv . 6o .

End of Article: SAINT CHRISTOPHER (Christophorus, Christoferus)
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