Flavian and Evagrius, and the Fall of the Serapeum

About this time Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, died. Those who had gathered as a church with him kept up their aversion to Flavian, even though his beliefs were exactly the same as their own, because he had broken the oath he had once made to Meletius. So they elected Evagrius as their bishop. Evagrius did not live long after his appointment. Flavian prevented the election of another bishop, but those who had broken off communion with him still went on holding their assemblies apart. [a]

About this time the bishop of Alexandria, to whom the emperor had granted the temple of Dionysus at his own request, turned the building into a church. The statues were removed and the inner sanctuaries laid open. To pour scorn on the pagan mysteries, he held a procession to display these objects: the phalluses, and whatever else had been hidden in the inner sanctuaries that really was, or seemed to be, ridiculous, he put on public show. The pagans, astonished at so unexpected an exposure, could not bear it in silence. They plotted together to attack the Christians. They killed many of the Christians, wounded others, and seized the Serapeum, a temple remarkable for its beauty and size, which stood on high ground. This they turned into a makeshift fortress. They carried many of the Christians there, tortured them, and forced them to offer sacrifice. Those who refused were crucified, had both their legs broken, or were put to death in some other cruel way. [b]

When the uprising had gone on for some time, the authorities came and urged the people to remember the laws, to lay down their arms, and to give up the Serapeum. Romanus, the general of the legions in Egypt, came; and Evagrius was the prefect of Alexandria. But since their efforts to bring the people to submission were completely useless, they reported what had happened to the emperor. Those who had shut themselves up in the Serapeum prepared to resist all the harder, out of fear of the punishment they knew awaited their reckless deeds. They were stirred up to revolt still more by the inflammatory speeches of a man named Olympius, who dressed in the clothing of a philosopher. He told them that they ought to die rather than neglect the gods of their fathers. Seeing that they were badly disheartened by the destruction of the idols, he assured them that this was no reason to give up their religion. The statues, he said, were made of perishable material and were mere images, and so they would disappear; but the powers that had lived in them had flown away to heaven. With arguments like these he kept the crowd with him in the Serapeum.

When the emperor was told what had happened, he declared that the Christians who had been killed were blessed, since they had been given the honor of martyrdom and had suffered in defense of the faith. He offered a full pardon to those who had killed them, hoping that this act of mercy would make them all the more ready to embrace Christianity. And he ordered the demolition of the temples in Alexandria that had been the cause of the uprising. It is said that when this imperial decree was read out in public, the Christians raised loud shouts of joy, because the emperor laid the blame for what had happened on the pagans. The people guarding the Serapeum were so terrified at hearing these shouts that they ran away. The Christians at once took possession of the place, and they have held it ever since. I have been told that on the night before this happened, Olympius heard the voice of someone singing “Hallelujah” in the Serapeum. The doors were shut and everything was quiet. Since he could see no one, but could only hear the voice of the singer, he understood at once what the sign meant. Without anyone knowing, he left the Serapeum and sailed for Italy. [d]

It is said that while the temple was being demolished, some stones were found carved with hieroglyphic characters in the shape of a cross. When these were shown to the learned, they were interpreted as meaning “the life to come.” These characters led several of the pagans to be converted, and so did other inscriptions found in the same place, which foretold the destruction of the temple. That was how the Serapeum was taken. A little while later it was turned into a church, and it was named after the emperor Arcadius.

There were still pagans in many cities who fought zealously for their temples: for instance, the people of Petra and of Areopolis in Arabia, of Raphia and Gaza in Palestine, of Heliopolis in Phoenicia, and of Apamea on the river Axius in Syria. I have been told that the people of this last city often armed the men of Galilee and the peasants of Lebanon to defend their temples, and that in the end they went so far as to kill a bishop named Marcellus. This bishop had ordered the demolition of all the temples in the city and its villages, believing that otherwise it would not be easy for the people to be converted from their former religion. Hearing that there was a very large temple at Aulon, a district of Apamea, he went there with a body of soldiers and gladiators. He took up his position at a distance from the fighting, out of range of the arrows, for he suffered from gout and could neither fight, nor pursue, nor run away. While the soldiers and gladiators were busy attacking the temple, some pagans found out that he was alone. They hurried to the place where he was, away from the fighting, rose up suddenly, seized him, and burned him alive. Those who did this were not known at the time, but in the course of time they were found out, and the sons of Marcellus resolved to avenge his death. The council of the province, however, forbade them to do so. It declared that it was not right for the relatives or friends of Marcellus to seek vengeance for his death, when they ought rather to give thanks to God for having counted him worthy to die in such a cause. [e]