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But the temple-keepers, seeing that he was careless and lukewarm with regard to their worship, feared that he might neglect to be present in their temple, and that they might lose the royal largess, and the rest of their revenues.
In like manner also he summoned the initiate and the temple-keepers of his idols, and wise men of the Chaldeans and Indians that were in all his kingdom, beside certain augurs, sorcerers and seers, that they might get the better of the Christians.
But after his departure, the king waxed yet more wroth, and devised a yet fiercer persecution of the monastic order, while treating with greater honour the ministers and temple-keepers of his idols. While the king was under this terrible delusion and error, there was born unto him a son, a right goodly child, whose beauty from his very birth was prophetic of his future fortunes.
The temple-keeper to the great god Serapis, or one of the temple-keepers, at this time was Asclepiades, a noted boxer and wrestler, who had been made chief of the wrestling-ground and had received the high rank of the emperor's freedman.
This done, when the spirits of wickedness had greatly vaunted them over Theudas' victory, and when the temple-keepers had rendered him thanks, the king went up again unto his palace, and said milo Theudas, "Behold now, as thou badest us, we have spared no pains over the splendour of this gathering and the lavishness of the sacrifice.
He himself began to condemn the impotence of the gods falsely so called, although as yet he refused to look fully at the light of Christ, for the dense cloud of darkness, that enveloped him, still bound the eyes of his heart. Howbeit he no longer honoured his temple-keepers, nor would he keep feasts, nor make drink offerings to his idols, but his mind was tossed between two opinions.
When Nachor had fully delivered this oration, the king changed countenance for very anger, but his orators and temple-keepers stood speechless, having nothing but a few weak and rotten shreds of argument in reply.
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