Church History 3.33.2

Summary: Trajan ruled that Christians should not be hunted but punished if accused; local persecutions and martyrdoms continued.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:126

πρὸς ἃ τὸν Τραϊανὸν δόγμα τοιόνδε τεθεικέναι, τὸ Χριστιανῶν φῦλον μὴ ἐκζητεῖσθαι μὲν, ἐμπεσὸν δὲ κολάζεσθαι· οὗ γενομένου ποσῶς μὲν τοῦ διωγμοῦ σβεσθῆναι τὴν ἀπειλὴν σφοδρότατα ἐγκειμένου, οὐ χείρονάς γε μὴν τοῖς κακουργεῖν περὶ ἡμᾶς ἐθέλουσι λείπεσθαι προφάσεις, ἔσθʼ ὅπη μὲν τῶν δήμων, ἔσθʼ ὅπη δὲ καὶ τῶν κατὰ χώρας ἀρχόντων τὰς καθʼ ἡμῶν συσκευαζομένων ἐπιβουλὰς, ὡς καὶ ἄνευ προφανῶν διωγμῶν μερικοὺς κατʼ ἐπαρχίαν ἐξάπτεσθαι, πλείους τε τῶν πιστῶν διαφόροις ἐναγωνίζεσθαι μαρτυρίοις.

English · Claude translation

To this Trajan made a decree of this kind: that the tribe of Christians should not be sought out, but punished if they fell in the way. By this the threat of persecution, which had been pressing most violently, was to some extent quenched; yet no fewer pretexts remained for those who wished to do us harm, the populace in some places and in others the local governors devising plots against us, so that even without open persecutions partial ones flared up in the provinces, and many of the faithful contended in various martyrdoms.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:126 · 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)

Extrabiblical texts

Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.97 (Pliny the Younger, Letters) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Persecution, Martyrdom

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.33.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/3/33/2/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.33.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/3/33/2/).

Greek text · Dindorf 4:126

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Translation notes

Cite this passage