Sophia Scriptura

Church History 1.2.21

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

Summary: When wickedness had overwhelmed nearly all, the Word in his love appeared to a few godly men, in human form.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:9

τότε μὲν οὖν, ὅτε δὴ πολὺς ἦν ἐπικεχυμένος ὀλίγου δεῖν κατὰ πάντων ὁ τῆς κακίας κόρος, οἶα μέθης δεινῆς τὰς ἁπάντων σχεδὸν ἀνθρώπων ἐπισκιαζούσης καὶ ἐπισκοτούσης ψυχὰς, ἡ πρωτόγονος καὶ πρωτόκτιστος τοῦ θεοῦ σοφία καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ προὼν λόγος φιλανθρωπίας ὑπερβολῇ τοτὲ μὲν διʼ ὀπτασίας ἀγγέλων τοῖς ὑποβεβηκόσι, τοτὲ δὲ καὶ διʼ ἑαυτοῦ οἶα θεοῦ δύναμις σωτήριος ἐνί που καὶ δευτέρῳ τῶν πάλαι θεοφιλῶν ἀνδρῶν, οὐκ ἄλλως ἢ διʼ ἀνθρώπου μορφῆς, ὅτι μηδʼ ἑτέρως ἦν δυνατὸν, αὐτοῖς ὑπεφαίνετο.

English · Claude translation

At that time, then, when the glut of wickedness had been poured out over almost all, like a terrible drunkenness overshadowing and darkening the souls of nearly all men, the firstborn and first-created Wisdom of God, the pre-existent Word himself, in the excess of his love for mankind, appeared to those beneath him, sometimes through visions of angels, and sometimes in his own person, as the saving power of God, to one or two of the God-loving men of old, and in no other way than in human form, since it was not possible otherwise.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:9 · 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)
Topics
Christology

Notes

Translation notes

  • “First-created” (πρωτόκτιστος) echoes the LXX of Prov 8:22 quoted above.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.2.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/1/2/21/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.2.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/1/2/21/).

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