Church History 2.23.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Commanded to deny Christ, James boldly confessed him as Son of God, and was killed in the interval after Festus's death.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:76

εἰς μέσον αὐτὸν ἀγαγόντες ἄρνησιν τῆς εἰς τὸν Χριστὸν πίστεως ἐπὶ παντὸς ἐζήτουν τοῦ λαοῦ. τοῦ δὲ παρὰ τὴν ἁπάντων γνώμην ἐλευθέρᾳ φωνῇ καὶ μᾶλλον ἢ προσεδόκησαν ἐπὶ τῆς πληθύος ἀπάσης παρρησιασαμένου, καὶ ὁμολογήσαντος υἱὸν εἶναι τοῦ θεοῦ τὸν σωτῆρα καὶ κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν, μηκέθʼ οἷοί τε τὴν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς μαρτυρίαν φέρειν, τῷ καὶ δικαιότατον αὐτὸν παρὰ τοῖς πᾶσι διʼ ἀκρότητα ἧς μετῄει κατὰ τὸν βίον φιλοσοφίας τε καὶ θεοσεβείας πιστεύεσθαι, κτείνουσι, καιρὸν εἰς ἐξουσίαυ λαβόντες τὴν ἀναρχίαν, ὅτι δὴ τοῦ Φήστου κατʼ αὐτὸ τοῦ καιροῦ ἐπὶ τῆς Ἰουδαίας τελευτήσαντος ἄναρχα καὶ ἀνεπιτρόπευτα τὰ τῆς αὐτόθι διοικήσεως καθειστήκει.

English · Claude translation

They brought him into their midst and demanded that he deny faith in Christ before all the people. But when, contrary to everyone's expectation, he spoke boldly with a free voice before the whole multitude, more than they had expected, and confessed that our Saviour and Lord Jesus is the Son of God, they could no longer bear the man's testimony, since he was believed by all to be most righteous because of the height of philosophy and piety which he practised in his life; and they killed him, taking the lawlessness as their opportunity, since, Festus having died in Judea at that very time, the administration there was without governor or procurator.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:76 · 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

Martyrdom, Christology

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.23.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/2/23/2/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.23.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/2/23/2/).