The Idols Stripped and the Temple on Lebanon Destroyed

As soon as he understood that the ignorant crowds were filled with an empty and childish dread of these bogeymen of error, made of gold and silver, he judged it right to remove these too, like stumbling stones thrown in the path of people walking in the dark, and from then on to open a royal road, plain and clear, for everyone. Having made this resolution, he considered that no soldiers or military force of any kind were needed to put down the evil. A few of his own friends were enough for this service, and he sent them, by a simple expression of his will, to visit every province one by one. So, upheld by their confidence in the emperor’s godliness and by their own devotion to God, they passed through the midst of countless tribes and nations, abolishing this ancient system of error in every city and countryside. They ordered the priests themselves, amid general laughter and scorn, to bring their gods out of their dark hiding places into the light of day. Then they stripped them of their ornaments and showed everyone the ugly reality that had been hidden under a painted surface. Lastly, whatever part of the material seemed to be valuable they scraped off and melted in the fire to test its worth. After that they secured and set apart whatever they judged necessary for their purposes, and left to the superstitious worshipers what was completely useless, as a memorial of their shame. [a]

Meanwhile our admirable prince was himself engaged in work like that we have described. For at the same time as these costly images of the dead were stripped of their precious materials, as we have said, he also attacked those made of bronze. He had them dragged from their places with ropes and carried off like captives, these figures that the senile foolishness of mythology had counted as gods. The next care of our august emperor was to kindle, as it were, a brilliant torch, and by its light he cast his imperial gaze all around, to see whether any hidden traces of error might still remain. And as the keen-sighted eagle, flying high toward heaven, can make out from its great height the most distant things on the earth, so he, while living in the imperial palace of his own fair city, discovered, as from a watchtower, a hidden and deadly snare for souls in the province of Phoenicia. This was a grove and temple. It was not set in the middle of a city or in some public place, as is usually done for the sake of splendor, but away from the beaten and busy road, on part of the summit of Mount Lebanon, and it was dedicated to the foul demon known by the name of Venus. [b] It was a school of wickedness for all the shameless devotees of impurity, and for those who ruined their bodies with unmanly softness. Here men unworthy of the name forgot the dignity of their sex and sought the demon’s favor by behaving like women. Here too unlawful intercourse with women, adultery, and other horrible and infamous practices were carried on in this temple, as in a place beyond the reach and restraint of law. Meanwhile these evils went unchecked, with no one to observe them, since no one of good character dared to visit such scenes. But these doings could not escape the watchfulness of our august emperor. With his usual foresight he looked into them himself, and judging that such a temple was not fit to stand in the light of heaven, he gave orders that the building and its offerings should be utterly destroyed. So, in obedience to the imperial command, these instruments of an impure superstition were at once done away with, and the hand of military force was used to purge the place. And now those who until then had lived without restraint learned, through the emperor’s threat of punishment, to practice self-control.

So our emperor tore the mask from this system of deceiving wickedness and exposed it to public view, while at the same time openly proclaiming his Savior’s name to all. No one came forward to defend it. Neither god nor demon, prophet nor soothsayer, could lend any help to the exposed authors of the fraud. For people’s souls were no longer wrapped in thick darkness. Lit by the rays of true godliness, they lamented the ignorance and pitied the blindness of their forefathers, and at the same time rejoiced in their own rescue from such deadly error. So quickly, by the counsel of the mighty God and through the work of our emperor, was every enemy, whether visible or unseen, completely removed. From then on peace, the happy nurse of the young, extended her reign over the whole world. Wars were no more, because the gods were no more. No longer did fighting in country or town, no longer did the shedding of human blood, distress humankind as before, when the worship of demons and the madness of idolatry prevailed.