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THE illustrious Athanasius was succeeded by the admirable Petrus,
Petrus by Timotheus, and Timotheus by Theophilus, a man of sound
wisdom and of a lofty courage. By him Alexandria was set free from
the error of idolatry; for, not content with razing the idols'
temples to the ground, he exposed the tricks of the priests to the
victims of their wiles. For they had constructed statues of bronze and
wood hollow within, and fastened the backs of them to the temple
walls, leaving in these walls certain invisible openings. Then coming
up from their secret chambers they got inside the statues, and through
them gave any order they liked and the hearers, tricked and cheated,
obeyed. These tricks the wise Theophilus exposed to the people.
Moreover he went up into the temple of Serapis, which has been
described by some as excelling in size and beauty all the temples in the
world. There he saw a huge image of which the bulk struck beholders
with terror, increased by a lying report which got abroad that if any
one approached it, there would be a great earthquake, and that all the
people would be destroyed. The bishop looked on all these tales as the
mere drivelling of tipsy old women, and in utter derision of the
lifeless monster's enormous size, he told a man who had an axe to give
Serapis a good blow with it. No sooner had the man struck, than all
the folio cried out, for they were afraid of the threatened
catastrophe. Serapis however, who had received the blow, felt no
pain, inasmuch as he was made of wood, and uttered never a word,
since he was a lifeless block. His head was cut off, and forthwith
out ran multitudes of mice, for the Egyptian god was a dwelling place
for mice. Serapis was broken into small pieces of which some were
committed to the flames, but his head was carried through all the town
in sight of his worshippers, who mocked the weakness of him to whom
they had bowed the knee.
Thus all over the world the shrines of the idols were destroyed.
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