The temple of Serapis at Alexandria I suppose has at least been heard of by all, and is indeed known to most. The place is suspended on high, not by nature but by hand and construction, through a hundred or more steps, extended on every side with square and immense spaces; and all of it, up to the topmost of the pavements, was built with vaulted work, which, with immense skylights above and hidden inner sanctuaries set apart from one another, furnished use for diverse services and clandestine offices.
Now in the upper parts the outermost spaces of the whole circuit are occupied by exedrae and pastophoria (chapels), and houses stretched up to a height, in which either the temple-keepers, or those whom they called ἀγνεύοντας, that is, those who purify themselves, were wont to dwell. Porticoes also, after these, distinguished by square rows, ran around the whole circuit on the inside. In the middle of the whole space was a shrine, raised on precious columns and amply and magnificently constructed of marble stone on the outside. In this the image of Serapis was so vast that with its right hand it grazed one wall, and with its left the other; which monster was reported to be composed of all kinds of metals and woods.
The inner walls of the shrine were clothed first with plates of gold, over these with silver, and finally with bronze, that these might serve as a protection to the more precious metals. There were also certain things contrived by trickery and craft to astonish and amaze those who beheld them. A very small window had been so fitted toward the rising of the sun that, on the day appointed for the image of the Sun to be brought in to greet Serapis, the proper times having been carefully observed, as the image entered, a ray of the sun directed through that same window would light up the mouth and lips of Serapis, so that, while the people looked on, Serapis seemed to be saluted with a kiss by the Sun. There was also another deception of this kind:
It is said that the nature of the magnet stone is to have this power, namely to seize and draw iron to itself. An image of the Sun had for this very purpose been fashioned by the craftsman's hand out of the finest iron, so that the stone—whose nature, as we said, draws iron to itself—being fixed above in the panelled ceiling, when the image had been set in balance directly beneath the ray, would by its natural force draw the iron to itself, and the image would seem to rise up before the people and to hang in the air. And lest this should be betrayed by a too-hasty fall, the ministers of the deceit would say, 'The Sun has risen, that bidding Serapis farewell, he may depart to his own place.' But many other things too had been constructed in that place by the ancients for the purpose of deceiving, which it would now be tedious to enumerate one by one.
But, as we had begun to say, when the imperial rescript had been read aloud, our people 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 dissolve into chaos, and the heavens would suddenly rush down headlong. This matter caused the people a little amazement. But behold, one of the soldiers, fortified more by faith than by arms, seized a double axe, and rising up with all his strength, struck it against the jaw of the old impostor. A shout went up from both peoples; yet neither did the heavens fall nor the earth sink down. Then, striking again and again, he hacked away at the smoky spirit of rotten wood:
and when it had been cast down and fire applied, it blazed up as easily as dry wood. After this the head, wrenched from the neck and the bushel-measure pulled off, was dragged along; then the feet and the other limbs, hewn with axes and hauled with ropes, were torn apart, and piece by piece, limb by limb, in the various quarters and in the sight of Alexandria its worshipper, the decayed old idol was burned up. Finally the trunk that remained was consumed in the amphitheatre; and such was the end of empty superstition and of the ancient error of Serapis. Concerning his origin diverse opinion is reported among the pagans. Some think him to be Jupiter, upon whose head a bushel was placed, either because by measure and limit he is shown to govern all things, or because life is supplied to mortals by the bounty of crops.
Others hold him to be the power of the river Nile, by whose riches and fertility Egypt is fed. Some declare that the image was formed in honour of our Joseph, on account of the measuring out of grain by which he relieved the Egyptians in the time of famine. Others report, found in the ancient histories of the Greeks, that a certain Apis, a head of a household or a king set up at Memphis in Egypt, when in time of famine the grain at Alexandria had failed, supplied his fellow citizens abundantly with nourishment out of his own stores. When he died, they say, in his honour they founded a temple at Memphis, in which a bull, as a token of the best husbandman, is reared, bearing certain distinguishing marks of colour, which after his name is called Apis;
but the σορός (soros), that is, the coffin in which his body lay, they brought to Alexandria, and at first from the compound 'Soron Apis' they named it Sorapis, but afterwards by corruption they called it Serapis. Whether this be true, or nothing at all, concerning these matters let God see. But let us return to what we had begun.