CHAPTER LVI

DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE OF ÆSCULAPIUS AT ÆGÆ

FOR since it happened that many of these pretenders to wisdom were deluded votaries of the demon worshipped in Cilicia, whom thousands regarded with reverence as the possessor of saving and healing power, who sometimes appeared to those who passed the night in his temple, sometimes restored the diseased to health (though in reality he was a destroyer of souls, who drew his easily deluded worshippers from the true Saviour to involve them in impious error), the emperor, consistently with his practice, and desire to advance the worship of Him who is at once a jealous God and the true Saviour, gave directions that this temple also should be razed to the ground. In prompt obedience to this command, a band of soldiers laid this building, the object of admiration even to noble philosophers, prostrate in the dust, together with its unseen inmate, neither demon nor god, but rather a deceiver of souls, who had seduced mankind for so long a series of years. And thus he who had promised to others deliverance from misfortune and distress, could find no means for his own security, any more, than when (as fables feign) he was scorched by the lightning’s stroke. Our emperor’s pious deeds, however, had in them nothing fabulous or feigned; but by virtue of the manifested power of his Saviour, this temple as well as others was so utterly overthrown, that not a vestige of the former follies was left behind.