Sophia Scriptura

Church History 1.4.8

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

Summary: The patriarchs, like Christians, did not keep circumcision, sabbath, or food laws, but knew Christ, who appeared to them.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:18

οὔτʼ οὖν σώματος αὐτοῖς περιτομῆς ἔμελεν, ὅτι μηδὲ ἡμῖν, οὔτε σαββάτων ἐπιτηρήσεως, ὅτι μηδὲ ἡμῖν· ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ τῶν τοιῶνδε τροφῶν πα φυλακῆς, οὐδὲ τῶν ἄλλων διαστολῆς, ὅσα τοῖς μετέπειτα πρῶτος ἁπάντων Μωυσῆς ἀρξάμενος ἐν συμβόλοις τελεῖσθαι παραδέδωκεν, ὅτι μηδὲ νῦν Χριστιανῶν τὰ τοιαῦτα· ἀλλὰ καὶ σαφῶς αὐτὸν ᾔδεσαν τὸν Χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, εἴ γε ὦφθαι μὲν τῷ Ἀβραὰμ, χρηματίσαι δὲ τῷ Ἰσαὰκ, λελαληκέναι δὲ τῷ Ἰακὼβ, Μωυσεῖ τε καὶ τοῖς μετὰ ταῦτα προφήταις ὡμιληκέναι προδέδεικται.

English · Claude translation

They did not, then, care about bodily circumcision, as neither do we; nor about keeping sabbaths, as neither do we; nor about abstaining from certain foods, nor the other distinctions that Moses first of all began to hand down to later generations to be performed as symbols, as Christians do not keep such things now either. But they clearly knew the Christ of God himself, since it has already been shown that he appeared to Abraham, gave oracles to Isaac, spoke to Jacob, and conversed with Moses and the prophets after him.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:18 · 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

  • The digital text has a stray “πα” before φυλακῆς.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.4.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/1/4/8/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.4.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/1/4/8/).

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