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Life of St Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza
Mark the Deacon, tr. Hill, 1913
Chapter 71
And after this, search was made in the houses also (for there were many idols in most of the courts), and of those which were found some were given to the fire and others were cast into the jakes.1 And there were found also books filled with witchcraft, which they called sacred, out of which they of the idol-madness performed their mysteries and other unlawful things. And unto these was done even as unto their gods.
Notes
- cast into the jakes. εἰς βόρβορον. This was the crowning insult to any religious image. There is a legend (supposed to go back to Saint Jerome) of a Jew who tried to defile an image of the Virgin in this manner (J. A. Herbert, British Museum Catalogue of Romances, ii, p. 612).