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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 61
Now when we had come out of the ship1 unto the city as hath been said, when we came unto the place where was the aforesaid idol of Aphrodite (but the Christians were carrying the precious wood of Christ, that is to say the figure of the Cross), the demon that dwelt in the statue beholding and being unable to suffer the sight of the sign which was being carried, came forth out of the marble with great confusion and cast down the statue itself and brake it into many pieces. And it fell out that two men of the idolaters were standing beside the base on which the statue stood, and when it fell, it clave the head of the one in twain, and of the other it brake the shoulder and the wrist. For they were both standing and mocking at the holy multitude.
Notes
- come out of the ship. ἐκπλευσάντων, usually meaning ‘set sail from’.