Church History 10.4.14

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

Summary: The devil, enraged at Christ's grace, attacked the church like a mad dog, tearing down church buildings, issuing threats through tyrants, and poisoning souls with idolatry.

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Greek text · Dindorf 4:454

νῦν δʼ ἐπὶ τῇ τοσαύτῃ χάριτι καὶ εὐεργεσίᾳ τοῦ μισοκάλου φθόνου καὶ φιλοπονήρου δαίμονος μονονουχὶ διαρρηγνυμένου, καὶ πάσας αὐτοῦ τὰς θανατοποιοὺς καθʼ ἡμῶν ἐπιστρατεύοντος δυνάμεις, καὶ τὰ μὲν πρῶτα κυνὸς δίκην λυττῶντος, τοὺς ὀδόντας ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀφιεμένους κατʼ αὐτοῦ λίθους προσαράττοντος, καὶ τὸν κατὰ τῶν ἀμυνομένων θυμὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἄψυχα βλήματα καθιέντος, τοῖς τῶν προσευκτηρίων λίθοις καὶ ταῖς τῶν οἴκων ἀψύχοις ὕλαις τὴν θηριώδη μανίαν ἐπερείσαντος, ἐρημίαν τε, ὥς γε δὴ αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ ᾤετο, τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν ἀπεργασαμένου, εἶτα δὲ δεινὰ συρίγματα καὶ τὰς ὀφιώδεις αὐτοῦ φωνὰς, τοτὲ μὲν ἀσεβῶν τυράννων ἀπειλαῖς, τοτὲ δὲ βλασφήμοις δυσσεβῶν ἀρχόντων διατάξεσιν ἀφιέντος, καὶ προσέτι τὸν αὐτοῦ θάνατον ἐξερευγομένου, καὶ τοῖς ἰώδεσι καὶ ψυχοφθόροις δηλητηρίοις τὰς ἁλισκομένας πρὸς αὐτοῦ ψυχὰς φαρμάττοντος, καὶ μονονουχὶ νεκροῦντος ταῖς τῶν νεκρῶν εἰδώλων νεκροποιοῖς θυσίαις, πάντα τε ἀνθρωπόμορφον θῆρα καὶ πάντα τρόπον ἄγριον καθʼ ἡμῶν ὑποσαλεύοντος,

English · Claude translation

But now, when at so great a grace and benefit the envy that hates good and the demon that loves evil was all but bursting with rage, and was marshaling all his death-dealing powers against us; at first, like a mad dog, gnashing his teeth at the stones thrown at him and venting his fury against those who drive him off upon the lifeless missiles, he vented his bestial madness upon the stones of the houses of prayer and the lifeless materials of the buildings, and made the churches desolate, as he himself thought; then he sent forth terrible hissings and his serpent-like voices, now through threats of impious tyrants, now through blasphemous ordinances of ungodly rulers; and besides he vomited forth his own death and poisoned with his venomous and soul-destroying drugs the souls captured by him, and all but killed them with the deadly sacrifices to dead idols, and stirred up against us every beast in human form and every kind of savage;

About this passage

Source: Dindorf 4:454 · 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: Persecution

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (stray combining mark in the digital text): αὐ̣τοῦ θάνατον → αὐτοῦ θάνατον.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.4.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/4/14/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.4.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/4/14/).

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