Church History 2.15.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Peter's hearers in Rome begged Mark, his follower, to write down Peter's teaching, which became the Gospel of Mark.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:63

Οὕτω δὴ οὖν ἐπιδημήσαντος αὐτοῖς τοῦ θείου λόγου ἡ μὲν τοῦ Σίμωνος ἀπέσβη καὶ παραχρῆμα σὺν καὶ τῷ ἀνδρὶ καταλέλυτο δύναμις, τοσοῦτο δʼ ἐπέλαμψεν ταῖς τῶν ἀκροατῶν τοῦ Πέτρου διανοίαις εὐσεβείας φέγγος ὡς μὴ τῇ εἰσάπαξ ἱκανῶς ἔχειν ἀρκεῖσθαι ἀκοῇ, μηδὲ τῇ ἀγράφῳ τοῦ θείου κηρύγματος διδασκαλίᾳ, παρακλήσεσι δὲ παντοίαις Μάρκον, οὗ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον φέρεται, ἀκόλουθον ὄντα Πέτρου λιπαρῆσαι, ὡς ἂν καὶ διὰ γραφῆς ὑπόμνημα τῆς διὰ λόγου παραδοθείσης αὐτοῖς καταλείψοι διδασκαλίας, μὴ πρότερόν τε ἀνεῖναι ἢ κατεργάσασθαι τὸν ἄνδρα, καὶ ταύτῃ αἰτίους γενέσθαι τῆς τοῦ λεγομένου κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίου γραφῆς.

English · Claude translation

So when the divine Word had come to dwell among them, Simon's power was quenched and at once destroyed together with the man. And so great a light of piety shone on the minds of Peter's hearers that they were not content with hearing once, nor with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, but with all kinds of entreaties begged Mark, whose Gospel is extant, being a follower of Peter, to leave them a written record of the teaching delivered to them orally; and they did not let up until they had prevailed on the man, and so they became the cause of the writing of the Gospel called according to Mark.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:63 · 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

Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.15.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/2/15/1/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.15.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/2/15/1/).