Sophia Scriptura

Church History 2.13.7

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

Summary: Their secret rites are said to be too shameful to be written or spoken.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:61–62

τὰ δὲ τούτων αὐτοῖς ἀπορρητότερα, ὧν φασι τὸν πρῶτον ὢ ἐπακούσαντα ἐκπλαγήσεσθαι, καὶ κατά τι παρʼ αὐτοῖς λόγιον ἔγγραφον θαμβωθήσεσθαι, θάμβους ὡς ἀληθῶς καὶ φρενῶν ἐκστάσεως καὶ μανίας ἔμπλεα τυγχάνει, τοιαῦτα ὄντα, ὡς μὴ μόνον μὴ δυνατὰ εἶναι παραδοθῆναι γραφῆ̣, ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ χείλεσιν αὐτὸ μόνον διʼ ὑπερβολὴν αἰσχρουργίας τε καὶ ἀρρητοποιίας ἀνδράσι σώφροσι λαληθῆναι.

English · Claude translation

Their more secret rites, at which they say that anyone who first hears them will be astounded and, according to a written oracle of theirs, will be amazed, are truly full of amazement, derangement of mind, and madness, such that they not only cannot be committed to writing but cannot even be spoken by the lips of sober men, because of their excess of shamefulness and unspeakable conduct.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:61–62 · 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
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • These are Eusebius's polemical claims about the Simonians.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.13.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/2/13/7/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.13.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/2/13/7/).

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