Meanwhile, at Alexandria, new disturbances were stirred up against the Church, contrary to the faith of the times, arising from an occasion of this kind. There was a certain basilica of public work, ancient and quite neglected, which the Emperor Constantius was reported to have given to the bishops who proclaimed his perfidy. Through long disregard it had nothing sound except its walls. It seemed good to the bishop who at that time governed the Church to ask it of the Emperor, so that, as the faithful peoples increased, the houses of prayer might also increase. And when, having received it, he wished to embellish it, there were found in the place certain hidden caverns dug into the earth, fitter for robberies and crimes than for ceremonies.
Therefore the Gentiles, who saw the lurking-places of their crimes and the caverns of their abominations being uncovered, not bearing that evils hidden for so many ages and covered by darkness should be laid open, began to rage and to be openly mad, all of them, as though they had drunk the cup of dragons. And now no longer with shouts and seditions, as was their custom, but with hand and sword they strove to fight it out. They engaged in frequent conflicts in the streets, and in open war each people joined battle with the other. But our people, though far more numerous in number and power, were less ferocious by the moderation of their religion. Hence, when many of ours were frequently wounded, and even some killed, they would flee to the temple as to a kind of citadel. Thither they dragged off with them some of the Christians whom they had captured, and, the altars being kindled, they compelled them to sacrifice;
those who resisted they put to death, tortured with new and exquisite torments; others they fastened to gibbets; others, with their legs broken, they cast headlong into caverns, which curious antiquity had constructed to receive the blood of sacrifices and the other impurities of the shrine. Indeed, these things they did day by day, at first with fear, then with confidence and desperation, and, shut up within the temple, they lived by plunder and prey. At last, raging against the blood of citizens, they chose as the leader of their crime and audacity a certain Olympius, a philosopher in name and habit, with him as their standard-bearer to defend the citadel and to hold their tyranny.
But those to whom the keeping of the Roman laws and the care of administering justice were entrusted, having learned what had been done, troubled and terrified, hastened to the temple, inquiring into the causes of such audacity, and asking what that gathering meant, in which, with so great a crime, the blood of citizens was poured out before the altars. But they, the entrance barred, returned no account of the deed by their confused and dissonant voices, but only a clamor. Yet messengers having been sent to them, they admonished them concerning the power of the Roman Empire, the vengeance of the laws, and the things that are wont to follow such deeds. And since the fortification of the place allowed nothing to be done against those plotting madness except by greater force, the matter as transacted was referred to the Emperor.
He, who by the innate clemency of his mind would rather amend than destroy those who erred, 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 sorrow of their death. But as for the rest, the cause of the evils and the roots of the discord, which came on behalf of the defense of idols, ought to be utterly cut down; and, these being exterminated, the cause of the wars would likewise come to rest.
And when these writings had arrived, and, as it were after a short truce, both peoples had come together to the temple to hear them, immediately as the first page of the Letter was opened—in whose opening the vain superstition of the Gentiles was censured—an immense shout was raised by our people, and stupor and dread invaded the Gentile peoples. Each one sought hiding-places, searched out the narrow paths of flight, or secretly mingled himself among ours; so that by all who were present it was recognized that, the presence of God granting boldness to the people, the fury of the demon, which before had raged among them, had been put to flight.