Church History 8.12.7 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Dindorf 4:367

διά τε τῶν ἀπορρήτων ἕτεροι μελῶν τε καὶ σπλάγχνων αἰσχρὰς καὶ ἀσυμπαθεῖς καὶ οὐδὲ λόγῳ ῥητὰς ὑπέμενον πάθας, ἃς οἶ γενναῖοι καὶ νόμιμοι δικασταὶ, τὴν σφῶν ἐπιδεικνύμενοι δεινότητα, ὥσπερ τινὰ σοφίας ἀρετὴν φιλοτιμότερον ἐπενόουν, ἀεὶ ταῖς καινότερον ἐφευρισκομέναις αἰκίαις, ὡσπερεὶ ἐν ἀγῶνος βραβείοις, ἀλλήλους ὑπερεξάγειν διαμιλλώμενοι.

English · Claude translation

others endured, in their private parts and bowels, shameful, pitiless, and unspeakable sufferings, which the noble and law-abiding judges, displaying their own cleverness, devised with rivalry as if it were some virtue of wisdom, always striving to outdo one another with newly invented outrages, as though for prizes in a contest.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:367 · 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

Martyrdom, Persecution

Notes

Translation notes

“Noble and law-abiding” is ironic.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): ἀσυμπαθεῖς καἰ οὐδὲ → ἀσυμπαθεῖς καὶ οὐδὲ.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.12.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/12/7/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.12.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/12/7/).