" It was now eighty years since a Christian had first sat on the throne of Rome and in the intervening decades the religion of the Lamb had taken an increasingly bullish attitude to all those who refused it. Since taking control in Alexandria, Theophilus had lived up to his early promise as a statue-smashing scourge. A little earlier, he had stolen the most sacred objects from two temples and paraded them through the streets for Christians to mock. The worshippers of the old gods were shocked and enraged: this was a gross and unprompted act of sacrilege and Christians afterwards were attacked and even killed by outraged worshippers. "

― Catherine Nixey , The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World