Sophia Scriptura

Church History 4.15.24

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

Summary: The Martyrdom (quoted): threatened with fire, Polycarp pointed to the eternal fire of judgment and told the proconsul to do as he wished.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:158

ὁ δὲ πάλιν πρὸς αὐτὸν ‘πυρί σε ποιήσω δαμασθ(??) “ ναλ, ἐὰν τῶν θηρίων καταφρονῇς, ἐὰν μὴ μετανο(??) “σῃς.’ Πολύκαρπος εἶπε ῾πῦρ ἀπειλεῖς πρὸς ὥρα “ καιόμενον καὶ μετʼ ὀλίγον σβεννύμενον· ἀγνοεῖς γα “τὸ τῆς μελλούσης κρίσεως καὶ αἰωνίου κολάσεως τοῖ “ἀσεβέσι τηρούμενον πῦρ. ἀλλὰ τί βραδύνεις; φέρ “ἃ βούλει.’

English · Claude translation

And he said to him again, ‘I will have you consumed by fire, if you despise the beasts, unless you repent.’ Polycarp said, ‘You threaten a fire that burns for an hour and is soon quenched; for you are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly. But why do you delay? Bring what you will.’

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:158 · 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
  • Mart. Pol. 11.2 (Martyrdom of Polycarp) · quotation, high confidence
Topics
Martyrdom, Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • Quotation from Mart. Pol. 11.2. The digital text has unread letters (δαμασθ(??) ναλ for δαμασθῆναι).

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.15.24 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/4/15/24/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.15.24 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/4/15/24/).

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