Sophia Scriptura

Church History 1.2.18

Eusebius of Caesarea · Church History · ca. 300–325 · Caesarea · Read in context

Summary: After Adam's fall, his descendants, with few exceptions, sank into a savage way of life.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:8

εὐθὺς μὲν γὰρ ἐν ἀρχῇ μετὰ τὴν πρώτην ἐν μακαρίοις ζωὴν ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος, ἧττον τῆς θείας ἐντολῆς φροντίσας, εἰς τουτονὶ τὸν θνητὸν καὶ ἐπίκηρον βίον καταπέπτωκε, καὶ τὴν ἐπάρατον ταυτηνὶ γῆν τῆς πάλαι ἐνθέου τρυφῆς ἀντικατηλλάξατο, οἵ τε ἀπὸ τούτου τὴν καθʼ ἡμὰς σύμπασαν πληρώσαντες, πολὺ χείρους ἀναφανέντες ἐκτὸς ἑνός που καὶ δευτέρου, θηριώδη τινὰ τρόπον καὶ βίον ἀβίωτον ἐπανῄρηντο·

English · Claude translation

For at the very beginning, after the first life in blessedness, the first man, caring too little for the divine commandment, fell into this mortal and perishable life and exchanged the former divine delight for this accursed earth; and those descended from him who filled our whole world proved much worse, except for one here and there, and adopted a brutish manner and a life not worth living.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:8 · Wilhelm Dindorf, ed., Eusebii Caesariensis Opera, vol. 4: Historiae ecclesiasticae libri I–X (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871) · Greek text: W. Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Dindorf, Eusebii Opera 4. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Teubner, 1871); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1 (1890) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Scripture

Notes

Translation notes

  • Allusion to Gen 3 (the fall and the curse on the ground, Gen 3:17).

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.2.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/1/2/18/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.2.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/1/2/18/).

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