George of Cappadocia

Georgius, commonly called of Cappadocia (Athan. Ep. ad Episc. 7); Arian intruding bishop of Alexandria (356–361). He was born, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, at Epiphania in Cilicia (xxii. 11, 3), and, if so, must have been Cappadocian only by descent. Gregory Nazianzen describes him as not purely free-born (Orat. xxi. 16), and as "unlearned," but he undoubtedly collected a library which Julian, no bad judge, describes as "very large and ample," richly stored with philosophical, rhetorical, and historical authors, and with various works of "Galilean" or Christian theology (Epp. 9, 36). In February 356, after Athanasius had retired from Alexandria in consequence of the attack on his church, which all but ended in his seizure, he heard that George was to be intruded into his throne, as Gregory had been sixteen years previously. George arrived in Alexandria, escorted by soldiers, during Lent 356 (de Fug. 6). His installation was a signal for new inflictions on Alexandrian church-people. "After Easter week," says Athanasius (ib.), "virgins were imprisoned, bishops led away in chains" (some 26 are named in Hist. Arian. 72) ; "attacks made on houses"; and on the first Sunday evening after Pentecost a number of people who had met for prayer in a secluded place were cruelly maltreated by the commander, Sebastian, a "pitiless Manichaean," for refusing to communicate with George.