But this too was done at Alexandria, that even the busts of Serapis, which were on the walls of each and every house, in the entrances, in the doorposts also and the windows, were all so cut away and scraped off, that not even a trace anywhere, nor the name of the deity—whether of him or of any other demon—remained; but in their place each one painted the sign of the Lord's Cross on the doorposts, in the entrances, in the windows, on the walls and columns. When those who survived of the pagans saw that this had been done, they are said to have come into the recollection of a great matter, handed down to them from antiquity by tradition:
the Egyptians are said to hold this our sign of the Lord's Cross among those which they call ίερατικάς, that is, priestly letters, as one of the rest of the characters which exist among them. And of this letter or word they assert this to be the interpretation: 'The life to come.' Those, therefore, who were then being converted to the faith through admiration of the things done, said that it had thus been handed down to them by the ancients, that the things now worshipped would stand only so long until they should see this sign come, in which was life. Whence it came about that those who were of the priests or ministers of the temples were converted to the faith rather than those whom the illusions of errors and the contrivances of deceptions delighted.