Church History 8.1.7 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: When freedom bred pride, envy, and quarrels among Christians and their leaders, God's judgment began gently, with persecution of Christian soldiers.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:349

ὡς δὲ ἐκ τῆς ἐπὶ πλέον ἐλευθερίας ἐπὶ χαυνότητα καὶ νωθρίαν τὰ καθʼ ἡμᾶς μετηλλάττετο, ἄλλων ἄλλοις διαφθονουμένων καὶ διαλοιδορουμένων, καὶ μονονουχὶ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἑαυτοῖς προσπολεμούντων ὅπλοις, εἰ οὕτω τύχοι, καὶ δόρασι τοῖς διὰ λόγων, ἀρχόντων τε ἄρχουσι προσρηγνύντων, καὶ λαῶν ἐπὶ λαοὺς καταστασιαζόντων, τῆς τε ὑποκρίσεως ἀφάτου καὶ τῆς εἰρωνείας ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ὅσον κακίας προϊούσης, ἡ μὲν δὴ θεία κρίσις, οἷα φίλον αὐτῇ, πεφεισμένως, τῶν ἀθροισμάτων ἔτι συγκροτουμένων, ἠρέμα καὶ μετρίως τὴν αὐτῆς ἐπισκοπὴν ἀνεκίνει, ἐκ τῶν ἐν στρατείαις ἀδελφῶν καταρχομένου τοῦ διωγμοῦ.

English · Claude translation

But when, from greater freedom, our affairs changed to arrogance and sloth, and we envied and reviled one another, all but making war on ourselves, as it happened, with weapons and spears of words, rulers clashing with rulers and peoples rising in faction against peoples, while unspeakable hypocrisy and dissimulation advanced to the utmost height of wickedness, then the divine judgment, as is its way, sparingly, while the congregations were still assembling, gently and moderately began to exercise its oversight, the persecution beginning with the brothers in the army.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:349 · 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

Persecution, Church office

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.1.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/1/7/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.1.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/1/7/).