and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, the new, which resulting, as a foregone
conclusion, in the triumph of Christianity, a decree to that effect was
promulgated.

Then the long deferred opportunity having arrived, the vengeful
bishops, hounding on a no less vengeful laity, ruthlessly murdered the
priests of the old religion, and, appropriating its emoluments to their
own use, they seized upon its temples, and demolishing some, converted
others into churches. With iconoclastic hands they destroyed some of
the statues representing the ancient divinities, or after mutilation
exposed others in public places to the derision of the populace.
Subjecting the adherents to the older form of worship, whom they
designated as infidels, to the most diabolical indignities and
persecutions, they destroyed their works of art, burned their
libraries, suppressed their schools of learning, and either killed or
exiled their professors. Among the atrocious acts perpetrated by these
fiends in human shape none was more barbarous than the one committed in
Alexandria, in the year 415, when Hypatia, the beautiful and
accomplished daughter of Theon, who had succeeded her father as
professor of mathematics and philosophy in the Alexandrian University,
while on her way to deliver a lecture, was, by order of Bishop Cyril,
dragged from her chariot and murdered in a most revolting manner.

One of the successors of Theodosius justified himself in decreeing the
spoliation of the old religion upon the grounds that "It was unbecoming
a Christian government to supply the infidels with the means of
persevering in their errors." Another one of the Emperors, more zealous
than his predecessors, decreed the death penalty against all persons
discovered practicing any of the rites and ceremonies of the old
religion. Thus the onslaught of Christian savagery obliterated the