Church History Books 1–9 (trans.) 10 part 6/6

There, when Diodorus—assuredly one of the ancient catholics and a man proved by the evidences of trials—had been made bishop with the testimony of Athanasius by the confessors, his modesty being scorned, another was ordained by the party of Meletius. But in many other cities of the East also, contention of this kind begot such confusions among the priests. And [one] recently baptized received the priesthood. Meanwhile at Alexandria new commotions and, against the faith of the times, [disturbances] were stirred up against the church, arising from an occasion of this sort. There was a certain basilica of public construction, ancient and quite neglected, which, it was reported, from long neglect had nothing sound about it except its walls.

It seemed good to the bishop who at that time governed the church to request this from the emperor, so that, as the faithful peoples were increasing, the houses of prayer might also increase. And when, having received it, he wished to restore it, there was discovered [therein things] more suited to magical practices than to sacred rites. And so the heathen, seeing the evils of their crimes, hidden for so many ages and covered with darkness, being uncovered and laid open—as though they had drunk a cup of dragons—all began to go mad and openly to rage. And now, no longer with words and conflict [in dispute], each people came together in the streets and in open war. But our men, though in number and power far more numerous, were less fierce because of the modesty of their religion.

Whence, many of our men being frequently wounded and not a few even slain, they fled for refuge to the temple as to a kind of citadel. There, leading away with them some of the Christians whom they had captured, they compelled them, the altars being kindled, to offer sacrifice; those who resisted they killed after torturing them with new and elaborate tortures; some they fastened to gibbets, others, with their legs broken, they hurled headlong into caverns which an inquisitive antiquity had built to receive the blood of sacrifices and the other impurities of the shrine. And thus they carried on these things, and, shut up within the temple, they lived by plunder and pillage.

At last, running riot in the blood of the citizens, they chose as leader of their wickedness and audacity a certain man by name Olympus, a philosopher in dress alone, that under this standard-bearer they might defend the citadel and maintain their tyranny. But those to whom the deeds that had been done [were reported], troubled and terrified, hastened to the temple, inquired the reasons for such audacity, and asked what that gathering meant, in which, with so great wickedness, the blood of citizens was being poured out before the altars. But they, the entrance being barricaded, with confused and discordant voices rendered no account of the deed, but only clamour.

Yet, envoys being sent to them, they warned them concerning the power of the Roman empire, the vengeance of the laws, and the things which are wont to follow such deeds. And since the fortification of the place allowed nothing to be done against those attempting mad things except by greater force, the matter was referred to the emperor. He, who by the innate clemency of his mind preferred to correct the erring rather than to destroy them, wrote back that vengeance was indeed not to be demanded for those whom the blood shed before the altars had made martyrs—in whom the glory of their merits had overcome the pain of death; but that, for the rest, the cause of the evils and the roots of discord, which came for the defence of the images, ought to be utterly cut down, so that, these being exterminated, the cause of wars too might likewise be laid to rest.

And when these writings had come, and, as it were after a brief truce, each people had assembled at the temple to hear them, immediately, as soon as the first page of the letter was unsealed—in whose opening the empty superstition of the heathen was censured—an immense shout was raised by our men, and amazement and dread [seized] the heathen, so that the presence of God might be recognized, granting boldness to his people and putting to flight the fury of the demon which had before raged wildly in them. The temple of Serapis at Alexandria has been heard of, I suppose, by all, and is even known to most.

It is a place raised on high, not by nature but by hand and construction, through a hundred steps or even more, extended on every side over vast square spaces; and all of it, right up to the summit of the pavements, was built with vaulted work, which, with lights admitted from above and with hidden inner chambers separated from one another, furnished use for diverse services and secret offices. In the upper parts, moreover, the outermost spaces of the whole circuit are occupied by exedrae and shrine-chambers and houses extended aloft, in which either the temple-keepers or those whom they called hagneutai—that is, those who purify themselves—were wont to dwell.

Porticoes too, after these, in square rows distinguished, ran round the whole circuit within. In the midst of the whole space was a temple, raised on precious columns and outwardly built of marble stone, amply and magnificently. In it the image of Serapis was so vast that with its right hand it grazed one wall and with its left the other—which monstrous thing was reported to have been composed of every kind of metal and wood. The inner walls of the shrine were clothed first with plates of gold, over these with silver, and lastly with bronze, which was held to be for the protection of the more precious metals. There were also certain things composed by tricks and art, to the amazement and wonder of those who beheld them.

A very small window [was so placed] toward the rising of the sun that, when the times had been carefully observed, at the moment the image [came] to be greeted, a ray of the sun directed through that same window would illuminate the mouth and lips of Serapis, so that, in the sight of the people, Serapis appeared to be greeted with a kiss by the sun. There was also another kind of deceit of this sort. The nature of the magnet stone is reported to have this power, that it seizes and draws iron to itself.

An image of the sun had for this very purpose been fashioned of the finest iron by the craftsman's hand, so that the stone—whose nature we said draws iron to itself—being fixed above in the panelled ceiling, when the image had been placed beneath it exactly in balance, might by natural force seize the iron to itself, and the image might seem to the people to have risen up and to hang in the air. And lest this should be betrayed by a too sudden fall, the ministers of the deceit would say, when [the image] had risen: 'The Sun, as though bidding farewell to Serapis, departs to his own place.' But also many other things had been constructed in that place by the ancients for the sake of deception, which it would now be tedious to enumerate one by one.

But, as we had begun to say, the rescript having been read out, our peoples were indeed ready to overthrow the author of error; yet a certain persuasion had been spread abroad by the heathen themselves, that if a human hand should touch that image, the earth would gape open and at once be dissolved into chaos, and heaven suddenly rush headlong down. This matter gave the peoples a certain amazement for a little while, when lo, one of the soldiers, [relying] more on faith than on arms, dealt [it a blow]. A shout was raised by both peoples, and yet neither did heaven fall nor earth sink down. Then, striking again and again, he cut through the smoky genius of rotten wood, which, being cast down and fire applied, blazed up as easily as dry timber.

After this the head was torn from the neck and, the bushel-measure being pulled down, was dragged off; then the feet and other limbs, hacked with axes and hauled with ropes, were pulled apart, and limb by limb through the several places, in the sight of Alexandria the avenger, the drowsy old man was burnt up. At the last the trunk which remained was consumed together in the amphitheatre, and this was the end of Serapis, of empty superstition and of ancient error. Concerning his origin diverse is the opinion reported of the pagans. Some think him Jupiter, upon whose head the bushel is placed to indicate either that he governs all things by measure and limit, or that life is furnished to mortals by the bounty of the crops.

Others [make him] the power of the river Nile, by whose riches and fertility Egypt is fed. Certain ones assert that the image was formed in honour of our Joseph, on account of the measuring-out of grain by which in the time of famine he came to the aid of the Egyptians. Others report, [as] found in the ancient histories of the Greeks, a certain Apis, a father of a household or a king in Egypt, settled at Memphis, who, when in the time of famine grain had failed at Alexandria, furnished sustenance abundantly to the citizens from his own store.

When he had died, they instituted in his honour a temple at Memphis, in which an ox—as a token of the best husbandman—is reared, having certain distinctive marks of colour, which from his name is called Apis; but the soros—that is, the sepulchre—in which his body was, they brought to Alexandria, and called it first, from the composition, Sorapis, and afterwards, through corruption, Serapis. What the truth is, or whether there is nothing at all in these things, God shall see. But after these things, the very head of idolatry being cast down, by the zeal of a most vigilant priest, whatever prodigies rather than images had existed throughout all Alexandria were exposed to public view with a like end and similar disgrace.

The mind shudders to tell what snares were prepared by the demons for wretched mortals, what deaths, what crimes were concealed in those places which they called sanctuaries, how many heads of infants, cut off, were found with gilded lips, how many agonizing deaths of wretches were depicted there. When these things were brought forth into the light and, drawn out, were carried under the open air, although the heathen fled away in the very confusion and shame, yet if anyone was able to be present, he marvelled that for so many ages he had been ensnared by frauds so nefarious and so shameful.

Whence very many of these, condemning their error and the wickedness now detected, [embraced] the faith of Christ and the worship of the true [God]—[infants having been] slain in [secret] places, and virgins despised for the sake of the inspection of their entrails. I will mention one thing only, which in the temple of Saturn came to the knowledge of all, from which the rest also, which I omit, [may be judged]. By a response of the divinity, to any nobles and men of the first rank who were worshipping in the temple, whose matrons had pleased [the priest] for his lust, he would say that Saturn had commanded him that the man's wife should pass the night in the temple. Then he who had heard, rejoicing that his wife was called by the deigning of the divinity, would send his adorned spouse to the temple.

In the sight of all, the matron being shut up within, Tyrannus, the doors being closed and the keys handed over, would depart; then, silence being made, through hidden and subterranean passages he would creep within the very image of Saturn through gaping cavities—for that image was [hollow]—and, [with lights removed] from the intent and supplicating woman, would suddenly utter through the image of hollow bronze a voice, so that the unhappy woman trembled with dread and joy, because she reckoned herself worthy of the address of so great a divinity. After what he had pleased [had been done], either for the greater consternation or for the [incitement] of lust, all the lights would suddenly be extinguished. Then, coming down, he would work upon the amazed and terror-struck little woman the deception of adultery by profane devices.

When these things had for a long time now been carried on among all the matrons of the wretches, it happened that a certain woman of chaste mind shuddered at the crime and disclosed the fraud of the wickedness to her husband. He, inflamed the more ardently at the wrong done to his wife, nay rather to himself, brought Tyrannus, the inscribed [priest], to the torments. When he had been convicted and had confessed, and the blind frauds had been revealed, shame and disgrace of the pagans pervaded all their homes; upon the adulterous mothers, [uncertain] with images and shrines, both the buildings and the crimes were cut down. And now, at Canopus, who could count the superstitious enormities? Where, under the pretext of the sacerdotal letters—for so they call the ancient letters of the Egyptians—there was almost a public school of the magic art.

That place, [reckoned] by the pagans [so holy] that a much greater celebrity was held there than at Alexandria, it will not be superfluous to expound in a few words. They relate that once the Chaldeans, carrying about their fire-god, held [a contest] with the gods of all the provinces; the gods of the remaining provinces were made of bronze, or gold, or silver, or wood, or stone, or of whatever material, which would without doubt be corrupted by fire. From which it came about that the fire prevailed in all places. When the priest of Canopus had heard these things, he devised a certain cunning thing. [There were water-jars] pierced with very minute holes, by which turbid water, sweating through, is rendered clearer and purer.

One of these he set up as a god, its holes stopped with wax and painted over with various colours, filled with water; and the head, carved from an old image—which was reported [to be that] of Menelaus's helmsman—he carefully fitted, placed on top. After these things, [when the holes] which had been stopped [with wax] are dissolved, the water-jar sweating, the fire is extinguished, and by the priest's fraud Canopus is shown victor over the Chaldeans. Whence the very image of Canopus is formed with very small feet, the neck drawn in and as it were throttled, with a swollen belly in the manner of a water-jar, with a back equally rounded. These things perhaps [availed] the Chaldeans once, but now, at the coming of Theophilus the priest of God, no sweating profited, nor did the fraud hidden by wax come to the rescue.

[The place was] laid waste. But nothing was done that would turn the place into squalor. Lofty [buildings] of abominations were constructed. For in the sepulchre of Serapis, [the profane buildings being cast down], I think it worthy to record whence the occasion for constructing a martyr-shrine was given. In the times of Julian, as though the reins had been loosened, [wickedness] boiled up into every savagery—[the LPNF text is defective, a leaf having been cut out from the Theophilus passage]—[so that men] with maddened mind and deadly hands should invade the sepulchre of John the Baptist, scatter his bones, and, having gathered them up again, burn them with fire, and scatter the holy ashes, mingled with dust, through fields and countryside. But by God's providence it came about that certain men from Jerusalem, from the monastery of Philip the man of God, had come thither for the sake of prayer at that same time.

When they beheld so great a crime being wrought indeed by human hands, yet with a beastlike mind, they counted it more welcome to die than to be defiled by such an abomination. Mingling among those who were gathering up the bones for burning, and collecting them as carefully and as reverently as the circumstances allowed, they secretly carried off, with one Philip, the venerable relics. He, judging it too great a treasure to keep under his own watch alone, sent the relics of the spotless victim by his deacon Julian — afterwards bishop of the city of Parenzo — to Athanasius, then supreme pontiff. Athanasius received them and preserved them to be of profit to a later generation; and now, with the traces of idolatry cast down and overthrown, golden roofs were rising up in buildings once profane.

But after the fall of Serapis, who had never lived, what shrines of any other demon could yet stand? I should say too little were I to add that the unfrequented chapels of every demon fell. Throughout all places, and even through the desert, if any temples or rather sepulchres could be found, they were, through the diligence of each several bishop, undermined and razed to the ground, so that the countryside was once more given back to cultivation which had unjustly belonged to the demons. The figures of Serapis, which were upon the walls of every single house, on the doorways and the doorposts and even the windows, were all so cut away and scraped off that not a trace of any other demon remained; but in their place each man painted the sign of the Lord upon his doorposts, his doorways, his windows, his walls, and his columns.

When those who had survived among the pagans saw this done, they are reported to have come to the recollection of a great matter handed down to them from of old by tradition. For the Egyptians are said to have this sign of ours, the Lord's cross, among those letters which they call hieratic, that is, priestly letters, as one among the rest of the elements of writing that are in use among them. And of this letter, or word, they declare the interpretation to be this: 'the life to come.' Those, therefore, who were then being converted to the faith through wonder at the things that had been done, said that it had thus been handed down to them by the ancients: that these things which were now worshipped should stand only so long as men should not see that sign come, in which there was life.

Hence it came about that those who were of the priests or ministers of the temples were converted to the faith more readily than those whom the illusions of error and the contrivances of deception delighted. Now since it was the custom in Egypt that the measure of the rising of the river Nile should be carried to the temple of Serapis, as to the author of the increase of the waters and of the inundation, when his image had been overthrown and consumed by fire, all alike declared that Serapis, mindful of the injury, would no longer grant the waters and the wonted abundance. But that God might show that it was not Serapis — who was far later than the Nile — but Himself who bade the waters of the river rise in their seasons, there was from that time and thereafter so great an inundation as no age remembered to have occurred before.

And therefore the cubit-measure itself — that is, the gauge of the water — began to be carried thither. But when these deeds were announced to the religious emperor, with his palms stretched out to heaven he is said to have spoken with mighty exultation: 'I thank Thee, O Christ, that without the destruction of that great city...' Meanwhile Valentinian, in the western regions, ended his life by a noose, as far as his age allowed. But some affirmed that this had been done by the treachery of his general Arbogast, and this opinion was held most widely among the people. Others said that the general was indeed innocent of the crime committed, but had furnished the occasions by which the youth was driven to this in the indignation of his spirit, because Arbogast granted him less than full command over all things, as though he were not yet, by reason of his age, strong enough.

Yet there were some of the priests who, having undertaken an embassy of peace from him who was afterwards set up, maintained that the general was free from the crime of that death. But Theodosius, no less ardently kindled to vengeance, took up arms against Eugenius, who had been put in the place of the deceased; having first inquired the will of God through John the monk, of whom we have made mention above.

Then he who had foretold to him his first, bloodless victory over Maximus — foretelling now this one also, though not without much blood shed on both sides — Theodosius accordingly prepared for war, fortified not so much by the resources of arms and weapons as by those of fastings and prayers, and protected not so much by the vigil of sentinels as by the night-long offering of supplications. He went about with the priests and the people to all the places of prayer, and before the shrines of the martyrs and apostles he made his entreaty.

But the pagans, who ever enliven their errors with newer errors, renewed their sacrifices and stained Rome with deadly victims, inspecting the entrails of cattle and announcing from the foreknowledge of the fibres a sure victory for Eugenius. With Flavianus, then of consular rank, conducting these rites the more superstitiously and with all eagerness, they had presumed it certain that Eugenius would be the victor. But when Theodosius, relying on the help of the true religion, began to press upon the gorges of the Alps, those foremost ones, for whom so many victims had been sacrificed in vain, were the demons, trembling in the consciousness of their deceit, turned to flight. Afterwards too the master of these men, himself accountable, though he could have escaped — a very learned man — judged that he more justly deserved death for his error than for any crime.

But the rest drew up their battle-line, and having set ambushes on the higher ridge, they themselves awaited the fight as the army descended the mountain. But when it came to the first ranks, and these straightway surrendered themselves to the lawful prince, while the rest were caught in the lowest valleys, a most bitter conflict was waged. For a long while the victory stood doubtful; the auxiliaries of the barbarians were being slaughtered and were now turning their backs to the enemy. But this happened, not that Theodosius might be conquered, but that he might not seem to conquer through the barbarians. Then he, when he saw the lines of his own men turned in flight, standing on a lofty rock, whence he could both see and be seen by either army, cast away his arms and turned to his accustomed helps, and prostrate in the sight of God:

'Almighty God,' he said, 'Thou knowest that in the name of Christ Thy Son I have undertaken these battles of just vengeance, as I believe. If it be otherwise, avenge it upon me; but if I have come hither with a probable cause and trusting in Thee, stretch forth Thy right hand to Thine own, lest perchance the nations say, Where is their God?' This supplication of the pious prince, sure that it had been received by God, those leaders who were present were emboldened to the slaughter. And chiefly Bacurius, a man distinguished for faith, piety, and strength of mind and body, and one who deserved to be the companion and ally of Theodosius, laid low with pike, javelins, and sword all who were nearest, broke through the dense and crowded throngs of the enemy, and forced his way through thousands of men rushing on, up to the tyrant himself, the columns broken and the slain heaped up in slaughter.

What was done would perhaps scarcely be believed by the impious. For it has been ascertained that, after that prayer of the emperor which he had poured out to God, a wind so violent arose that it hurled back the weapons of the enemy upon those who had cast them. And while, with the wind persisting with great force, every missile shot by the enemy was rendered vain, the spirit of the adversaries being broken, or rather driven back by divine power — Arbogast their general availing nothing, since God was against him though he fought bravely — Eugenius was led, with his hands bound behind his back, before the feet of Theodosius; and there was the end of his life and of the struggle.

Then truly to the religious prince the victory was more glorious over the frustrated opinions of the pagans than over the destruction of the tyrant; for the empty hope and false divination availed them less in death to bring punishment than it served to preserve them in shame. And when, after these things, the emperor, as one foreknowing the future, was beset with anxiety for the ordering of the commonwealth, he straightway sent to the East — where, when about to come to the war, he had entrusted his children to safe keeping — and there commanded Arcadius, the Augustus, to keep the kingdom long since handed over to him. But Honorius, endowed with equal dignity, he bade come more swiftly to the empire of the West.

When Honorius had been received, embraced with fatherly kisses, and the helm of the western realm had been handed over to him, Theodosius himself, having for seventeen years happily governed the Roman empire, passed over to better things together with the most devout...