Indeed, since it was the custom in Egypt that the measure of the rising of the river Nile should be carried to the temple of Serapis, as to the author of the increase of the waters and of the inundation, when his image had been overthrown and consumed by fire, all alike denied that Serapis, mindful of the injury, would any longer grant the waters and the customary abundance. But that God might show that it was not Serapis—who was much later than the Nile—but Himself who bade the waters of the river increase in their seasons, from that time onward there was so great an inundation as no age remembered to have been before. And therefore the very cubit-measure, that is, the measure of the water which they call πήχυς, began to be carried to the Lord of the waters, into the Church.
But when these things were announced to the religious emperor, with hands stretched out to heaven he is reported to have said with great exultation: 'Thanks be to thee, O Christ, that without the destruction of that great city so ancient an error has been extinguished.'