f no little labour--and a church erected in
the precincts. It must, however, have been the temple more particularly
which experienced this devastation. The building in which the library
had been contained must have escaped, for, twenty years subsequently,
Orosius expressly states that he saw the empty cases or shelves. The
fanatic Theophilus pushed forward his victory. The temple at Canopus
next fell before him, and a general attack was made on all similar
edifices in Egypt. Speaking of the monks and of the worship of relics,
Eunapius says: "Whoever wore a black dress was invested with tyrannical
power; philosophy and piety to the gods were compelled to retire into
secret places, and to dwell in contented poverty and dignified meanness
of appearance. The temples were turned into tombs for the adoration of
the bones of the basest and most depraved of men, who had suffered the
penalty of the law, and whom they made their gods."

Such was the end of the Serapion. Its destruction stands forth a token
to all ages of the state of the times.

[Sidenote: St. Cyril.]

[Sidenote: Determines on supremacy in Alexandria.]

[Sidenote: Riots in that city.]

In a few years after this memorable event the Archbishop Theophilus had
gone to his account. His throne was occupied by his nephew, St. Cyril,
who had been expressly prepared for that holy and responsible office by
a residence of five years among the monks of Nitria. He had been
presented to the fastidious Alexandrians with due precautions, and by
them acknowledged to be an effective and fashionable preacher. His pagan
opponents, however, asserted that the clapping of hands and encores
bestowed on the more elaborate passages of his sermons were performed by
persons duly arranged in the congregation, and paid for their trouble.
If doubt remains as to his intellectual endowments, there can be none
respecting the qualities of his heart. The three parties into which the
population of the city was divided--Christian, Heathen, and Jewish--kept
up a perpetual disorder by their disputes. Of the last it is said that
the number was not less than forty thousand. The episcopate itself had
become much less a religious than an important civil office, exercising
a direct municipal control through the Parabolani, which, under the
disguise of city missionaries, whose duty it was to seek out the sick
and destitute, constituted in reality a constabulary force, or rather
actually a militia. The u