XI. THE PLACE OF DRAGONS 377

as much from Greek as from mediæval mythology. Even in the scenes from St. Jerome’s life, a well-known classical tale, which mingled with his legend, is introduced, and all the paintings contain much ancient religious symbolism. St. Tryphonius’ conquest of the basilisk is, as we shall see,¹ almost purely a legend of Apollo. From the Middle Ages onwards it has been often remarked how closely the story of St. George and the Dragon resembles that of Perseus and Andromeda. It does not merely resemble,-it is that story.

216. The earliest and central shrine of St. George,-his church, famous during the crusades, at Lydda,-rose by the stream which Pausanias, in the second century, saw running still “red as blood,” because Perseus had bathed there after his conquest of the sea monster.² From the neighbouring town of Joppa, as Pliny tells us,³ the skeleton of that monster was brought by M. Scaurus to Rome in the first century B.C. St. Jerome was shown on this very coast a rock known by tradition as that to which Andromeda had been bound. Before his day Josephus had seen in that rock the holes worn by her fetters.

In the place chosen by fate for this, the most famous and finished example of harmony between the old faith and the new, there is a strange double piece of real mythology. Many are offended when told that with the best teaching of the Christian Church Gentile symbolism and story have often mingled. Some still lament vanished dreams of the world’s morning, echo the

“Voice of weeping heard, and loud lament,”⁴

by woodland altar and sacred thicket. But Lydda was the city where St. Peter raised from death to doubly-marvellous service that loved garment-maker, full of good works, whose

¹ [The reference is to an intended further chapter by Mr. Anderson.]

² [Pausanias, iv. 35-39: “Red water, red as blood, may be seen in the land of the Hebrews, near the city of Joppa. The water is hard by the sea, and the local legend runs that when Perseus had slain the sea-monster, to which the daughter of Cepheus was exposed, he washed off the blood at this spring.”]

³ [Nat. Hist., ix. 4.]

⁴ [Milton: On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, 183.]

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