The destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria

other · 391 · Alexandria

Theophilus asked the emperor for the temple of Dionysus and was granted it, and Theodosius ordered the demolition of the heathen temples of Alexandria under his direction. Theophilus turned the Dionysion into a church, had the Mithraeum cleaned out, and carried the cult objects through the middle of the forum — the phalli, and whatever else had been kept in the inner rooms that could be made to look ridiculous. Socrates says the point of it was to expose the mysteries to contempt, and does not present that as a good idea. What followed is not the story usually told. The pagans of Alexandria attacked the Christians, killed many and wounded more, seized the Serapeum for a citadel, and tortured the Christians they had carried in there, crucifying or breaking the legs of those who would not sacrifice. A man in a philosopher’s cloak named Olympius held them to it, telling them the statues were perishable matter and the powers that had lived in them had gone up to heaven. When the fighting stopped Socrates counted the dead and found very few pagans and a great many Christians, and he records that one of the men who did the killing was Helladius, a priest of Zeus and his own schoolmaster at Constantinople, who boasted of nine by his own hand. The emperor pardoned the killers, called the Christians who had died martyrs, and ordered the temples that had caused the sedition pulled down. The Serapeum was taken and became a church named for Arcadius. The images were broken up and melted into vessels for the Alexandrian poor, all but one statue that Theophilus kept and set up in public, so that nobody could afterwards deny they had worshipped such gods. Both historians record that stones were found in the ruins cut with hieroglyphs in the shape of a cross, and that Christians and pagans each claimed them for their own.

To convert the temples of Alexandria into churches, at the bishop's request and by imperial order.

The Serapeum a church named for Arcadius, the images of the gods melted down into vessels for the poor, and more Christians dead in the fighting than pagans.