ed
the roads in several places, and clogged them with thorns and logs of
wood, that they were scarce passable. They also contrived to raise such
a smoke and stench, that the holy men were in danger of being blinded or
suffocated.

There happened that year a very great drought, which the pagans ascribed
to the coming of the new Christian bishop, saying that their god Marnas
had foretold that Porphyrius would bring public calamities and disasters
on their city. In Gaza stood a famous temple of that idol, which the
emperor Theodosius the Elder had commanded to be shut up, but not
demolished, {476} on account of its beautiful structure. The governor
afterwards had permitted the heathens to open it again. As no rain fell
the two first months after St. Porphyrius's arrival, the idolaters, in
great affliction, assembled in this temple to offer sacrifices, and make
supplications to their god Marnas, whom they called the Lord of rains.
These they repeated for seven days, going also to a place of prayer out
of the town; but seeing all their endeavors ineffectual, they lost all
hopes of a supply of what they so much wanted. A dearth ensuing, the
Christians, to the number of two hundred and eighty, women and children
included, after a day's fast, and watching the following night in
prayer, by the order of their holy bishop, went out in procession to St.
Timothy's church, in which lay the relics of the holy martyr St. Meuris,
and of the confessor St. Thees, singing hymns of divine praise. But at
their return to the city they found the gates shut against them, which
the heathens refused to open. In this situation the Christians, and St.
Porphyrius above the rest, addressed almighty God with redoubled fervor
for the blessing so much wanted; when in a short time, the clouds
gathering, as at the prayers of Elias, there fell such a quantity of
rain that the heathens opened their gates, and, joining them, cried out
"Christ alone is God: He alone has overcome." They accompanied the
Christians to the church to thank God for the benefit received, which
was attended with the conversion of one hundred and seventy-six persons,
whom the saint instructed, baptized, and confirmed, as he did one
hundred and five more before the end of that year. The miraculous
preservation of the life of a pagan woman in labor, who had been
despaired of, occasioned the conversion of that family and others, to
the number of sixty-four.

The heathens, perceiving th