GEORGIUS, Sirnamed PISIDES.
GEORGIUS, Deacon and Library-Keeper of the Church of Constantinople, Sirnamed Pisi∣des, wrote a Book in Iambick Verse upon the Creation of the World, which the Anci∣ents * 1.1 call * 1.2 the Six Days Work. He writ also the Life of the Emperor Heraclius, the Persian War, a Panegyrick upon the Martyr Anastasius, and another Work intituled Abarica, [or Avarica, being an History of the Avares.]
We have the first Work of this Author, which is Dedicated to Sergius Patriarch of Constan∣tinople, and another Poem of the Vanity of this Life, together with some fragments taken out of Suidas. He is a better Poet than Divine.
This is probably the same Georgius who made some Sermons in the praise of the Virgin, Pub∣lished by F. Combefis, whereof some are upon the Virgin's Conception, and his Mother's; others upon the Virgin's Birth, her Presentation in the Temple, her assisting at the Cross, and at the Sepulchre; they are full of Fables, (taken out of the Apocryphal Book of the Virgin's Birth, falsly fathered upon S. James,) and of extraordinary commendations of the Virgin, and her Parents. They are Declamations full of Descriptions, Exclamations, Rhetorical Figures, and Emphatical Terms, but void of Sence and Reason, and fitter for Sport than Instruction. The last of these Sermons is upon S. Cosmus and S. Damian.