To start with, when I first knew of St. Christopher, I knew of him as being popular in medallions such as this:
He is sort of the patron saint of guiding children and travelers and seafarers to safety. In one legend, he was a fearsome giant and aspired to go serve the greatest king of kings. He did as such with some king who claimed to be all that, but then he noticed the king cross himself and display some fear toward the Devil. Christopher was like, well maybe the Devil is more badass, so I'll go serve him. He then came upon some brigands with a leader who claimed to be the the Devil Himself. After some time, this leader professed fear of Christ. So then Christopher was like, man, Christ must be the most badass of them all!
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| The Devil- the most badass of them all ??? |
He searched and searched but never found Christ in the flesh. An old Christian man instructed him in ways of Christianity and following Christ, mentioning the fact of frequent and devout fasting and prayer. St. Christopher was like 'fcuk that, I like my feasting over fasting....and prayer puts me to sleep!' So the old man suggested Chris use his size and strength carry people across a river where many were being swept away. This would be pleasing towards the Lord, since it was helping humanity in a way. So ol' Christopher did that.
One day he carried a child across and was like 'holy shit, this kid feels like he's like 20,000 pounds or something.' Then, upon delivering the child to the other embankment of the river, he had a revelation or moment of enlightenment- and recognized the kid as Jesus Christ Himself. What was felt was a sense of the 'weight of the world', because Christ evermore carries that burden on his shoulders, dig? Christopher journeyed here and afar to preach all his good news and shit. He was pissed off because all these Christians were being executed at Lycia. He protested and the local king tried to make Chris renounce his faith...even by sending beautiful women to seduce him. In the end it was the other way around. St. Christopher seduced them...with his religion.. and converted many to his cause. Eventually the king was like 'enough of this shit' and beheaded St. Christopher.
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| Curious art..preaching to the dog-men |
Ok, what about the werewolf part? Well, here's another legend. Some ancient scribes wrote of a race of canine-headed men living in various Eastern lands, including areas now parts of Russia, India, Libya, and elsewhere. They were called the Cynocephali. Though reasonably intelligent, they were could also be ruthless and bloodthirsty, even cannibalistic. St. Christopher was one of these. Like in the legend aforementioned, St. Chris was huge in size as well. He went by another name too, Reprobus..which essentially meant 'reprobate' or 'scoundrel'. Sounds cool. He basically lived a quite martial life until he was touched by the influence of Christ in some way, perhaps by hearing about him. He could only speak in his guttural barking language of his people, but an angel graced him with the ability to speak in any tongue. He then went around crusading for Christ, and renouncing his old barbaric ways. Prolly by this point he went from being called Reprobus to Christopher, which literally means 'Christ-bearer'. As in one to bear the good news, or bear Christ himself, for example. This can make sense in the context of both or more legends being able to overlap without any glaring contradiction. The rest, they say, is puzzled history.
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| By Matt Furner (?) |
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| An olde depiction of St. Christopher |
