the rites of their _accursed_ sects.... Their religious meetings,
whether public or secret, by day or by night, in cities or in the
country, were equally proscribed by the edicts of Theodosius: and the
building or ground, which had been used for that illegal purpose, was
forfeited to the imperial domain. It was supposed, that the error of the
heretics could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds;
and that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment....
The sectaries were gradually disqualified for the possession of
honourable or lucrative employments; and Theodosius was satisfied with
his own justice, when he decreed, that as the Eunonians distinguished
the nature of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable
of making their wills, or of receiving any advantages from testamentary
donations" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. pp. 412, 413).

One important event of this century must not be omitted, the dispersion
of the great Alexandrine library, collected by the Ptolemies. In the
siege of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, the Philadelphian library in the
museum, containing some 400,000 volumes, had been burned; but there
still remained the "daughter library" in the Serapion, containing about
300,000 books. During the episcopate of Theophilus, predecessor of
Cyril, a riot took place between the Christians and the Pagans, and the
latter "held the Serapion as their head-quarters. Such were the disorder
and bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He despatched a
rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop, Theophilus, to destroy the
Serapion; and the great library, which had been collected by the
Ptolemies, and had escaped the fire of Julius Cæsar, was by that fanatic
dispersed" ("Conflict of Religion and Science," p. 54), A.D. 389. To
Christian bigotry it is that we owe the loss of these rich treasures of
antiquity.