DESECRATION AND DESTRUCTION OF PAGAN TEMPLES. 365

body of the edifice immediately: he undermined the pillars themselves, which he supported with beams of timber. When he had thus rendered insecure three of the most considerable of these pillars, he put fire to the timber, and the pillars fell, and drew twelve more with them, and thus brought down one side of the edifice. The people flocked together from all parts of the town, praising the Most High, who had triumphed over his enemies. The zealous Prelate

made the same havoc wherever he found temples erected in honour of the false gods, as the most expeditious and efficacious means for gaining the deluded people to the worship of the one true God. Supported by what forces he had in the country, the Prefect prosecuted the same work with all imaginable success. There was at that time a spacious temple at Aulo, in the territory of Apamea, which the Pagans defended with their might. Marcellus, although out of order, through bodily indisposition, endeavoured to accompany the soldiers to that fortress of idolatry. He was so lame, that he could neither pursue the enemy, nor provide for his own safety by flight; and therefore thought fit to keep at a proper distance, and give the necessary orders for attack. While the Emperor's forces were employed in their work, a body of the Pagans sallied forth, seized the Bishop, and burnt him alive. As he was alone when this happened, it was some time before it was generally known. When it was disclosed, and the authors of that barbarous action were discovered, the sons of Marcellus were for inflicting summary justice on the murderers; but this motion was opposed and overruled by the most judicious and pious persons of the province, who were of opinion, that the young men ought rather to thank God for the favour their father had received at his hands, and the glory of martyrdom, which he had thus obtained. The Synod of the province also refused to revenge on his barbarous enemies a death so happy for Marcellus, and so glorious for his family.*

Although the career of Marcellus terminated so fatally, the work of demolition was not long content with less famous edifices, these outworks of Paganism; it aspired to attack again one of its strongest citadels, and, by the public destruction of one of the most celebrated temples in the world, to announce that polytheism had for ever lost its hold upon the minds of men. It was considered the highest praise of the magnificent temple in Edessa, of which the roof was of remarkable construction, and which contained in its secret sanctuary certain very celebrated statues of wrought iron, and whose fall had excited the indignant eloquence of Libanius, to compare it to the Serapion in Alexandria. The Serapion at that time appeared secure in the superstition which connected its inviolable sanctity and the honour of its god with the rise and fall of the Nile, with the fertility and existence of Egypt, and, as Egypt was the granary of the East, of Constantinople. The Pagans had little apprehension that the Serapion itself, before many years, would be levelled with the ground. The temple of Serapis, next to that of Jupiter in the capitol, was

* Sozom., Hist. Eccles., lib. vii., cap. 15; Theodoret., Hist. Eccles., lib. v. cap. 21.

the proudest monument of pagan religious architecture. Like the more celebrated structures of the East, and that of Jerusalem in its glory, it comprehended within its precincts a vast mass of buildings, of which the temple itself formed the centre. It was built on an artificial hill, in the old quarter of the city called Rhacotis, to which the ascent was by a hundred steps. All the substructure was vaulted over; and in these dark chambers, which communicated with each other, were supposed to be carried on the most fearful and, to the Christian, abominable mysteries. All around the spacious level platform were the habitations of the Priests and the ascetics dedicated to the worship of the god. Within these outworks of the city rather than temple was a square, surrounded on all sides with a magnificent portico. In the centre arose the temple, on pillars of enormous magnitude and beautiful proportion. The work, either of Alexander himself or of the first Ptolemy, aspired to unite the colossal grandeur of Egyptian with the fine harmony of Grecian art. The god himself was the especial object of adoration throughout the whole country, and every part of the empire into which the Egyptian worship had penetrated, but more particularly in Alexandria; and the wise policy of the Ptolemies had blended together, under this pliant and all-embracing religion, the different races of their subjects. Egyptian and Greek met as worshippers of Serapis. The Serapis of Egypt was said to have been adored for ages at Sinope: he was transported from that city with great pomp and splendour, to be re-incorporated, as it were, and re-identified with his ancient prototype. While the Egyptians placed in Serapis the great vivific principle of the universe, the fecundating Nile, holding the Nilometer for his sceptre, the Lord of Amen-ti, the President of the regions beyond the grave; the Greeks at the same time recognised the blended attributes of their Dionysius, Helios, Esculapius, and Hades. The colossal statue of Serapis embodied these various attributes.* It filled the sanctuary; its outstretched and all-embracing arms touched the walls; the right the one, the left the other. It was said to have been the work of Sesostris: it was made of all the metals fused together, gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin: it was inlaid with all kinds of precious stones: the whole was polished, and appeared of an azure colour. The measure, or bushel, the emblem of productiveness, or plenty, crowned its head. By its side stood the symbolic three-headed animal, one the fore-part of a lion, one of a dog, one of a wolf. In this the Greeks saw the type of their poetic Cerberus. The serpent, the symbol of eternity, wound round the whole, and returned, resting its head on the hand of the god. The more completely, observes Mr. Milman, (from whom on this subject we have quoted largely,) the adoration of Serapis had absorbed the worship of the whole Egyptian pantheon, the more eagerly Christianity

* The statue is described by Macrobius, Saturn. i., 20; Clemens Alexandrin., Exhortat. ad Gent., i., p. 42; Ruffin., Hist. Eccles., lib. xii., cap. 23.

According to the interpretation of Macrobius, the three heads represented the past, the present, and the future: the rapacious wolf, the past; the central lion, the intermediate present; the fawning dog, the hopeful future. (Milman.)

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desired to triumph over the representative of polytheism. However, in the time of Hadrian, the philosophic* party may have endeavoured to blend and harmonize the two faiths, they stood now in their old direct and irreconcilable opposition. The suppression of the internal feuds between the opposite parties in Alexandria, enabled Christianity to direct all its concentred force against Paganism. Theophilus was a man of boldness and activity, eager to seize, and skilful to avail himself of, every opportunity to inflame the popular mind against the Heathens. A Priest of Serapis was accused and convicted of practising those licentious designs against the virtue of the female worshippers, so frequently attributed to the priesthood of the Eastern religions. The noblest and most beautiful women were persuaded to submit to the embraces of the god, whose place, under the favourable darkness caused by the sudden extinction of the lamps in the temple, was filled by the Priest. These inauspicious rumours prepared the inevitable collision. A neglected temple of Osiris, or Dionysius, had been granted by Constantius to the Arians of Alexandria. Theophilus obtained from the Emperor a grant of the vacant site for a new church, to accommodate the increasing numbers of the orthodox Christians. On digging the foundation, there were discovered many of the obscene symbols used in the Bacchic and Osirian mysteries. Theophilus, with more regard to the success of his cause than to decency, exposed these ludicrous or disgusting objects in the public market-place, to the contempt and abhorrence of the people. The Pagans, indignant at this treatment of their sacred symbols, and maddened by the scorn and ridicule of the Christians, took up arms, and demanded severe reprisals. The streets ran with blood, and many Christians who fell in this tumultuous fray received the honours of martyrdom. A philosopher named Olympus placed himself at the head of the pagan party. Olympus had foreseen and predicted the ruin of the external worship of polytheism. He had endeavoured to implant a profound feeling in the hearts of the Pagans, which might survive the destruction of their ordinary objects of worship. ، The statues of the gods are but perishable and material images: the eternal intelligences which dwelt within them have withdrawn to the heavens."† Yet Olympus hoped, and at first with his impassioned eloquence succeeded in rousing his pagan compatriots to a bold defiance of the public authorities in support of their religion; faction and rivalry supplied what was wanting to faith; and it appeared that Paganism would likewise boast its army of martyrs,-martyrs, not indeed through patient submission to the persecutor, but in heroic despair perishing with their gods.

The Pagans at first were the aggressors: they sallied from their fortress, the Serapion, seized the unhappy Christians whom they met, forced them to sacrifice on their altar, or slew them upon it, or threw them into the deep trench defiled with the blood and offal of sacrifice. In vain Evagrius, the Prefect of Egypt, and Romanus, the Commander of the troops, appeared before the gates of the tem* Milman, History of Christianity, vol. ii., p. 155.

† Sozom., Hist. Eccles., lib. vii., cap. 15.

ple, remonstrated with the garrison, who appeared at the windows, against their barbarities, and menaced them with the just vengeance of the law. They were obliged to withdraw, baffled and disregarded, and to await the orders of the Emperor. Olympus exhorted his followers to the height of religious heroism." Having made a glorious sacrifice of our enemies, let us immolate ourselves, and perish with our gods." This was more easily said than done. Before the edict of Theodosius arrived, Olympus had disappeared: he had stolen out of the temple, and had embarked for Italy. The Christian writers do honour to his sagacity, or to his prophetic powers, at the expense of his courage and fidelity to his party. In the dead of night, when all was slumbering around, and all the gates closed, he heard the Christian Alleluia pealing from a single voice through the silent temple. He acknowledged the sign, or the omen, and anticipated the unfavourable sentence of the Emperor, the fate of his faction, and of his gods. This temporary triumph of Christianity over the powers of darkness was not achieved without a struggle. The Bishop of Alexandria, to whom the temple of Bacchus had, at his own request, been granted by the Emperor, converted the edifice into a Christian church. The statues were removed, the most secret recesses of the temple explored. The Pagans, amazed at so unexpected an exhibition, would not suffer it in silence, but conspired against the Christians, took possession of the temple of Serapis, which large and beautiful structure was placed on an eminence. Here they conveyed their Christian prisoners, put them to the torture, and otherwise maltreated them. The efforts of Romanus to reduce the citadel to submission were utterly in vain. The Heathen, who had shut themselves up in the temple of Serapis, were averse to yield from fear of the punishment that they knew would await their outrageous proceedings, instigated as they were by that craven miscreant, Olympus. When the Emperor was informed of all these occurrences, he declared that the Christians who had been slain were blessed, inasmuch as they had been admitted to the honours of martyrdom, and had suffered in defence of the faith. He offered a free pardon to those by whom they had suffered death, hoping that by this act of clemency they would be the more readily induced to embrace Christianity; and he commanded the demolition of the temples which had been the cause of the sedition. It is said, that when this edict was read in public, the Christians uttered loud shouts of joy, because the Emperor laid the odium of what had occurred upon the Pagans. The people who were guarding the temple of Serapis were so terrified at hearing these shouts, that they took to flight; and the Christians immediately obtained possession of the spot, which they have retained ever since. It is said, that when the temple was being demolished, some stones were found on which were hieroglyphic characters in the form of a cross, which, on being submitted to the inspection of the learned, were interpreted as signifying "the life to come." These characters, Sozomen informs us, led to the conversion of several of the Pagans, as did likewise other inscriptions found in the same place, and which contained predictions of the

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destruction of the temple. It was thus that the temple of Serapis was converted into a church: it received the name of the Emperor Arcadius.*

The Eastern Pagans appear to have been but little acquainted with the real character of Theodosius. When the rescript arrived, they laid down their arms, and assembled in peaceful array before the temple, as if they expected the sentence of the Emperor in their own favour. The officer began: the first words of the rescript plainly intimated the Emperor's abhorrence of idolatry. Cries of triumph from the Christians interrupted the proceedings; the panic-stricken Pagans abandoning the temple and the god. Two of the celebrated Pontiffs, one of Amoun, one of "the Ape," retired to Constantinople, where the first, Ammonius, taught in a school, and continued to deplore the fall of Paganism; Helladius, the other, was known to boast of the part he had taken in the sedition of Alexandria, in which, with his own hands, he had slain nine Christians. The imperial rescript at once went beyond and fell short of the fears of the Pagans. It disdained to exact vengeance for the blood of the Christian martyrs, who had been so happy as to lay down their lives for their Redeemer; but it commanded the destruction of the idolatrous temples; it confiscated all the ornaments, and ordered the statues to be melted or broken up for the benefit of the poor. Theophilus hastened in his triumphant zeal to execute the ordinance of the Emperor. Marching with the Prefect at the head of the military, they ascended the steps to the temple of Serapis. They surveyed the vacant chambers of the Priests and the ascetics; they paused to pillage the library; they entered the deserted sanctuary; they stood in the presence of the god. The sight of this colossal image, for centuries an object of worship, struck awe to the hearts of the Christians themselves. They stood silent, inactive, trembling. The Archbishop alone maintained his courage: he commanded a soldier to proceed to the assault. The soldier struck the statue with his hatchet on the knee. The blow echoed through the breathless hall; but no sound or sign of divine vengeance ensued; the roof of the temple fell not to crush the sacrilegious assailant, nor did the pavement heave and quake beneath his feet. The emboldened soldier climbed up to the head, and struck it off: it rolled upon the ground. Serapis gave no sign of life; but a large colony of rats, disturbed in their peaceful abode, ran about on multitude are always in extremes. at once to ungovernable mirth.

*Sozom., Hist. Eccles., lib. vii., cap. 15.

all sides. The passions of the From breathless awe they passed The work of destruction went on

† If the oration of Libanius, exhorting the Emperor to revenge the death of Julian, was really presented to Theodosius, it betrays something of the same ignorance. He seems to think his arguments not unlikely to meet with success; at all events, he appears not to have the least notion that Theodosius would not respect the memory of the apostate.

(Milman.)

Socrat., Hist. Eccles., lib. v., cap. 16. Helladius is mentioned in a law of Theodosius the Younger, as a celebrated grammarian, elevated to certain honours. This law is, however, dated 425, at least five-and-thirty years after this transaction.

§"Nos vidimus armaria librorum; quibus direptis, exinanita ea a nostris hominibus, nostris temporibus memorant." (Oros., lib. vi., cap. 15.)