Church History 3.24.7 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: John, having preached orally, wrote last, approving the other three but supplying Christ's early deeds.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:113

ἤδη δὲ Μάρκου καὶ Λουκᾶ τῶν κατʼ αὐτοὺς εὐαγγελίων τὴν ἔκδοσιν πεποιημένων Ἰωάννην φασὶ, τὸν πάντα χρόνον ἀγράφῳ κεχρημένον κηρύγματι, τέλος καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν γραφὴν ἐλθεῖν τοιᾶσδε χάριν αἰτίας. τῶν προαναγραφέντων τριῶν εἰς πάντας ἤδη καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν διαδεδομένων ἀποδέξασθαι μέν φασιν ἀλήθειαν αὐτοῖς ἐπιμαρτυρήσαντα, μόνην δὲ ἄρα λείπεσθαι τῇ γραφῇ τὴν περὶ τῶν ἐν πρώτοις καὶ κατʼ ἀρχὴν τοῦ κηρύγματος ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ πεπραγμένων διήγησιν.

English · Claude translation

And when Mark and Luke had already published their Gospels, they say that John, who all the time had used unwritten preaching, at last came to writing for the following reason. When the three previously written Gospels had already been distributed to all, and to himself too, they say that he accepted them and bore witness to their truth, but that there was lacking in the writing only the account of what Christ had done first and at the beginning of his preaching.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:113 · 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. 3.24.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/3/24/7/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.24.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/3/24/7/).