Sophia Scriptura

Church History 7.22.6

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

Summary: The plague terrified the pagans but was a test for Christians, though it struck them too.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:320

βραχυτάτης δὲ ἡμῶν τε καὶ αὐτῶν “τυχόντων ἀναπνοῆς, ἐπικατέσκηψεν ἡ νόσος αὕτη, “πρᾶγμα φόβου τε παντὸς φοβερώτερον ἐκείνοις, καὶ “συμφορᾶς ἡστινοσοῦν σχετλιώτερον, καὶ ὡς ἴδιός “τις αὐτῶν ἀπήγγειλε συγγραφεὺς, πρᾶγμα μόνον “δὴ τῆς πάντων ἐλπίδος κρεῖσσον γενόμενον· ἡμῖν “δὲ οὐ τοιοῦτο μὲν, γυμνάσιον δὲ καὶ δοκίμιον οὐ- “δενὸς τῶν ἄλλων ἔλαττον. ἀπέσχετο μὲν γὰρ οὐδὲ “ἡμῶν, πολλὴ δὲ ἐξῆλθεν εἰς τὰ ἔθνη.“

English · Claude translation

When both we and they had enjoyed a very short breathing space, this disease fell upon us, a thing more fearful to them than any fear and more dreadful than any calamity whatever, and, as one of their own writers declared, ‘the only thing that has proved greater than all hope.’ But to us it was not such, but a training and testing no less than any of the others. For it did not spare us either, but it went out much among the pagans.”

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:320 · 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
  • Dionysius of Alexandria (Dionysius of Alexandria (letters and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
  • Thucydides, 2.64.1 (Thucydides, History) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • Quotation from Dionysius of Alexandria. The pagan writer is Thucydides 2.64.1.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.22.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/7/22/6/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.22.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/7/22/6/).

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