The Riot at Alexandria and the Murder of George

It is now time to tell what happened in the churches under the same emperor. A great disturbance broke out at Alexandria for the following reason. There was a place in that city that had long been left to neglect and filth, where the pagans had formerly celebrated their mysteries and sacrificed human beings to Mithras. Since it was empty and otherwise useless, Constantius had granted it to the church of the Alexandrians. George wanted to build a church on the site, and gave orders for the place to be cleaned out. In the course of clearing it, a secret inner sanctuary of great depth was discovered, which laid bare the nature of their heathen rites. For the skulls of many people of all ages were found there, who were said to have been sacrificed for divination by examining their entrails, when the pagans practiced these and similar magic arts by which they bewitched people’s souls. When the Christians discovered these abominations in the sanctuary of the Mithraeum, they went out eagerly to expose them to the sight and loathing of everyone. So they carried the skulls through the whole city in a kind of triumphal procession for the people to look at. [a]

When the pagans of Alexandria saw this, they could not bear the insult of the act. They became so enraged that they attacked the Christians with whatever weapon came to hand, and in their fury killed great numbers of them in many different ways. Some they killed with the sword, others with clubs and stones; some they strangled with ropes; others they crucified, choosing this last kind of death on purpose, in contempt of the cross of Christ. Most of them they wounded. And as generally happens in such a case, neither friends nor relatives were spared: friends, brothers, parents and children stained their hands with one another’s blood. So the Christians stopped clearing out the Mithraeum. Meanwhile the pagans dragged George out of the church, tied him to a camel, tore him to pieces, and burned him together with the camel.