preached
with much success in Lycia; and was martyred about A.D. 250 during the
persecution under the emperor Decius.[1] Round this small nucleus of
possibility, however, a vast mass of legendary matter gradually
collected. All accounts agree that he was of great stature and
singularly handsome, and that this helped him not a little in his
evangelistic work. But according to a story reproduced in the _New Uniat
Anthology_ of Arcudius, and mentioned in Basil's _Monologue_,
Christopher was originally a hideous man-eating ogre, with a dog's face,
and only received his human semblance, with his Christian name, at
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 insensibility 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 people.

The more conspicuous of these legends are included in the Mozarabic
_Breviary_ and _Missal_, and are given in the thirty-third sermon of
Peter Damien, but the best-known story is that which is given in the
_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 left the service of the king of Canaan because the king
feared the devil, and that of the devil because the devil feared the
Cross. He was converted by a 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 river. One
day a little child asked to be taken across, and Christopher took him on
his shoulder. When half way over the stream he staggered under what
seemed to him a crushing weight, but he reached the other side and then
upbraided the child for placing him in peril. "Had I borne the whole
world on my back," he said, "it could not have weighed heavier than
thou!" "Marvel not!" the child replied, "for thou hast borne upon thy
back the world and him who created it!" It was this story that gave
Christopher his