Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux

St. George and the Resurrection

One of the things I appreciate about the liturgical year is the way it barges into my ordinary days and leaves a calling card with suggestions for what I might ponder on a given day. Today, the invitation is found in the Feast of St. George. Having just come off Resurrection Sunday, the Feast of St. George along with its imagery is bouncing off several other images and ideas in the pinball machine that is my mind.

The story of St. George follows the along the lines of other familiar dragon-slaying myths. When a princess and her kingdom are in peril, threatened by a dragon, the hero arrives, slays the dragon, saves the kingdom, and marries the princess. Perhaps this sounds like the Greco-Roman myth of Perseus and Andromeda, or the story of St. Michael overcoming the Dragon in Revelation. The story of St. George is right at home with these, and the ways in which St. George has been depicted in art are similar enough that it was difficult to find images of him as I searched through my photos for this post. I would find a picture and think, “There’s one!” only to realize it was Perseus and Andromeda, or St. Michael and the Dragon. When imagery follows a certain type, it can be hard to tell what we’re looking at.

Dragon slayer? Yes. The one I was looking for? No.

It is easiest to distinguish St. George from these others when he is depicted with the typical flag, banner, or shield associated with the Red Cross Knight. Often, he is shown with a red cross on a white field, standing atop a slain dragon. If you see that, you’ve likely landed on the right story. According to legend, St. George was a knight in the Crusades, and whether or not he was originally associated with the red cross on a white field, at least by the time Edmund Spenser wrote "The Faerie Queene,” St. George was known by this emblem, as well as his identity as the Red Cross Knight. We see him first accompanied by Una and her white lamb, on the way to save her kingdom from the dragon that has besieged it. If it feels like those are some allegorically-leaning details, that may not be by accident.

St. George slaying the dragon, with Una and her white lamb looking on.

St. George shows up as a type of Christ, who saves his church, his sheep, from the serpent that would devour her, who has laid siege to her kingdom, the kingdom that will be joined to his and redeemed at the end of the story. The story shows up over and over and over throughout literature, because it is the redemption story. But the red flag on the white background, that belongs to St. George. So then I wonder: what do we do with images like this?

The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca

This fresco, once hailed by Aldous Huxley as “The Best Picture,” is in the city of San Sepolcro, Italy. I only know of it thanks to Wendell Berry, whose poem “Early in the year by my friend’s gift” is written about the scene. He doesn’t mention the flag. Nor does he mention the fact that he was only able to see the fresco because it had been saved from destruction in WWII because Tony Clarke, the one in charge of the troops tasked with destroying the town, had read Huxley’s essay. Though he had never seen the fresco, Clarke defied orders and commanded his men to hold fire, rather than going through with their orders. I am struck by the life-from-death way that wends itself through our world, the way that this story finds itself telling again of beauty’s rescue from the ravaging destruction of monsters, the way that it is, like its name, a testament to resurrection. And still, I wonder why Christ is standing with St. George’s flag. If this were the only place I had seen it, I might be able to let it go. But the question persists, as do images like this one:

Or this one…

All three show Christ the Victor, conqueror of death, and it seems that the white flag with the red cross is seen as a symbol of victory over death. I have yet to find out the connection between this symbol and St. George, so I continue down the path with these images in my mind. While these all show Jesus rising from the tomb, victorious over death, it seems the banner is what connects them to St. George, not triumph over a dragon. Until, that is, I remember seeing a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder (who, for some reason, I find fascinating) that had Jesus the victor over a dragon. Sure enough, I had remembered correctly:

There are several variations of this painting, but all of them contain very similar imagery. Known as the “Allegory of the Law and Grace,” the first half of the painting shows life under the law, the second half life under grace. Cranach was one of the key artists during the Reformation, and most of the images by which we recognize Martin Luther were painted by Cranach. In the first half, you can see death (personified as a skeleton) and the dragon tormenting humanity, where in the second you see Christ victorious with his spear, having defeated the dragon and death. This looks familiar! And just beside the victor we see… Una’s white lamb, carrying the banner of the Red Cross Knight. Jesus is even in the pose commonly associated with the dragon slayer and St. Michael:

Of course, this isn’t actually Una’s lamb holding the flag, as Spenser’s Faerie Queene hadn’t yet been published at the time of the painting. But the flag had been associated with the Crusades and with St. George for centuries at this point. In fact, it was used a symbol of the Crusades as early as the 10th century, and was the imperial war flag of the Holy Roman Empire. As such, it became the emblem of several northern Italian factions in the conflict between the (pro-Pope) Guelphs and the (pro-Imperial) Ghibellines. The more I take in the image, the more it works its way through my memory, touching connections along the way. Does this look familiar?

Stained glass detail at the Cathedral of Florence

Last summer we spent some time in Florence, a city that once had a thriving system of trade guilds, evidence of which can be seen all over the city. One image we saw repeatedly in Florence was a lamb holding a flag. It’s an image with which I was familiar, and maybe you are too. I have always assumed it to be the lamb of God in Christian iconography, and to some degree it is; it is an image drawn almost directly from Revelation 5. But its ubiquitous presence in the massive Cathedral of Florence is not intended to point the viewer to the lamb of God. Instead, I was surprised to learn that the image of the lamb holding a flag was the symbol of the wool guild, and its integration into the design of the building indicated that it was primarily the wool guild, in league with the Medicis, that had provided the oversight and funding for the cathedral. These trade guilds blurred the lines between religious and commercial iconography, making it difficult to see just who or what was being worshiped.

Symbol of Wool Guild in Florence, Italy

When it comes to art, to patrons of the arts and those who are rich and powerful enough to commission art, especially art for worship, it’s easy to overlook the complexities of layered images and our assumptions about what we’re seeing. It can be easy to mistake symbols of Empire for symbols of the Kingdom, especially when they look so much alike, when claim to be on the same mission. I don’t know what St. George’s role was as a Crusader. But I think it’s safe to say that not all the Crusaders were saints. I think it’s safe to say that not everything the Holy Roman Empire did was holy.

I still don’t have any answers for why St. George’s flag shows up in Christ’s hand. But I do know that it’s worth paying attention to whether the one bearing it is upholding the standard of the resurrected Savior. If Jesus stands triumphant over the grave, triumphant over the dragon, triumphant over death, it seems like the least I can do is pick up the cross and follow his leading, choosing life over death, light over dark, and Kingdom over Empire.

Though not associated with St. George in any way, I am reminded of the medal of St. Benedict, with a cross on its obverse. I did not know, when I became a Latin teacher, that one of the risks I was taking was a change to the way I pray. However, a dozen years of developing a layered linguistic lens and learning Latin prayers has indelibly altered my inner landscape for the richer and, I believe, the better. The letters along the cross above abbreviate a Latin prayer, one I now pray a modified form of daily: Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux; Crux Sancta (Christi) Sit Mihi Lux. “Let not the dragon be my guide, but may the cross of Christ be my light. Amen. This is the way of peace.