Section 322
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.35% accurate
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 291 to go from Alexandria to Alexandria itself. For the very heart of the city is more desolate and impassable than that vast and trackless desert which the Israelites traversed in two generations, and our smooth and tranquil harbours have become like that sea which opened and arose like walls on both sides, enabled them to drive through, and in whose highway the Egyptians were overwhelmed. For often they appear like the Red Sea, from the frequent slaughters committed in them; but the river which washes the city, has sometimes appeared more dry than the parched desert, and more exhausting than that in which Israel was so overcome with thirst on their journey that they exclaimed against Moses, and the water flowed for them from the broken rock, by the power of Him who alone doeth wondrous works. Sometimes, also, it has so overflowed, that it has inundated all the country round ; the roads and the fields seeming to threaten that flood of waters which happened in the days of Noah. It also flows always polluted with blood and slaughter, and the con stant drowning of men, such as it formerly was, when, before Pharaoh, it was changed by Moses into blood and putrid matter. And what other purification could be applied to water which itself purifies all? Could that vast and impassable ocean ever wash away this bitter sea ? or could that great river, itself, which flowed from Eden, though it poured the four heads into which it was divided, into one Gihon, wash away this filth ? When will this air, corrupted as it is by the noxious exhalations every where rising, become pure and serene ? For there are such vapours from the earth, and such storms from the sea-breezes, from the rivers and mists coming from the harbours, that make it appear as if we should have for dew, the gore of these dead bodies that are putrifying in all the elements around us. " Then, and notwithstanding all this, men wonder, and arc at a loss to know whence come the constant plagues; whence these malignant diseases; whence those variegated infections; whence all that various and immense destruction of human lives. Wherefore it is, that this mighty city no longer cherishes within it such a number of inhabitants, from speechless children to the aged and decrepid, as it formerly had of those whom it could 27*