Church History 6.41.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Dindorf 4:282

Ὁ δʼ αὐτὸς ἐν τῇ πρὸς Φαβιανὸν Ἀντιοχέων ἐπίσκοπον τῶν κατὰ Δέκιον μαρτυρησάντων ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ τοὺς ἀγῶνας τοῦτον ἱστορεῖ τὸν τρόπον “οὐκ ἀπὸ τοῦ βασιλικοῦ προστάγματος ὁ διωγμὸς παρʼ ἡμῖν ἤρξατο, ἀλλὰ γὰρ ὅλον ἐνιαυτὸν προύλαβε, καὶ φθάσας ὁ “κακῶν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ μάντις καὶ ποιητὴς, ὅστις ἐκεῖνος ἦν, ἐκίνησε καὶ παρώρμησε καθʼ ἡμῶν τὰ πλήθη τῶν ἐθνῶν, εἰς τὴν ἐπιχώριον αὐτοὺς δεισιδαιμονίαν ἀναρριπίσας.

English · Claude translation

The same writer, in his letter to Fabian, bishop of the Antiochenes, relates the contests of those martyred at Alexandria under Decius thus: “The persecution among us did not begin with the imperial edict, but preceded it by a whole year. The prophet and maker of evils for this city, whoever he was, got in first and stirred and incited the multitudes of the pagans against us, fanning up their native superstition.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:282 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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

Dionysius of Alexandria (Dionysius of Alexandria (letters and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Persecution

Notes

Translation notes

Quotation from Dionysius of Alexandria, Letter to Fabius of Antioch (to 6.42.6). The edition reads Φαβιανόν (“Fabian”, the name of the bishop of Rome, 6.39.1); this is a variant in the text, not a digitization slip, and is kept as printed. The bishop of Antioch to whom Dionysius wrote was Fabius (6.39.4, 6.44.1), as other editions read here.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.41.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/6/41/1/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.41.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/6/41/1/).