Church History 10.8.9 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Forgetting the persecutors' fate, which he himself had inflicted, Licinius madly chose to fight God, Constantine's helper.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:484

οὔτʼ οὖν τὴν μνήμην τῶν πρὸ αὐτοῦ Χριστιανοὺς ἐκδιωξάντων πρὸ ὀφθαλμῶν ἔθετο, οὐδʼ ὧν αὐτὸς ὀλετὴρ καὶ τιμωρὸς διʼ ἃς μετῆλθον ἀσεβείας κατέστη. ἀλλὰ γὰρ τοῦ σώφρονος ἐκτραπεὶς λογισμοῦ, διαρρήδην δὲ μανεὶς τὰς φρένας, τὸν θεὸν αὐτὸν, οἷα δὴ Κωνσταντίνου βοηθὸν, ἀντὶ τοῦ βοηθουμένου πολεμεῖν ἐγνώκει.

English · Claude translation

He did not keep before his eyes the memory of those who had persecuted the Christians before him, nor of those whose destroyer and punisher he himself had been for the impieties they pursued. But turning away from sound reasoning and going plainly mad in his mind, he decided to make war on God himself, as Constantine's helper, instead of on the one being helped.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:484 · 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

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.8.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/8/9/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.8.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/8/9/).