Theophilus of Alexandria and the Fall of Serapis

The illustrious Athanasius was succeeded by the admirable Peter, Peter by Timothy, and Timothy by Theophilus, a man of sound wisdom and lofty courage. By him Alexandria was set free from the error of idol worship. He was not content with razing the temples of the idols to the ground; he also exposed the tricks of the priests to those they had deceived. For the priests had made statues of bronze and wood, hollow inside, and fastened their backs to the temple walls, leaving certain hidden openings in the walls. Then they would come up from their secret rooms, get inside the statues, and through them give whatever orders they liked; and their hearers, tricked and cheated, obeyed. The wise Theophilus exposed these tricks to the people.

He also went up into the temple of Serapis, which some have described as surpassing every temple in the world in size and beauty. There he saw a huge image whose bulk struck terror into those who looked at it. The terror was made worse by a false rumor that had spread: that if anyone came near it, there would be a great earthquake and all the people would be destroyed. The bishop regarded all these tales as nothing but the babbling of drunken old women. In utter scorn for the huge size of the lifeless monster, he told a man who had an axe to give Serapis a good blow with it. As soon as the man struck, all the people cried out, for they were afraid of the threatened disaster. But Serapis, who had received the blow, felt no pain, since he was made of wood, and he said not a word, since he was a lifeless block. His head was cut off, and at once crowds of mice came running out, for the Egyptian god was a home for mice. Serapis was broken into small pieces, and some of them were thrown into the fire. But his head was carried all through the city in sight of his worshipers, who mocked the weakness of the one they had bowed down to. [a] So the shrines of the idols were destroyed all over the world.