Church History 8.14.13 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Only the Christians resisted Maximin: the men endured every torture rather than trade God's worship for idols.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:375

κατὰ πάντων γέ τοι αὐτῷ ταῦτα προυχώρει, μὴ ὅτι μόνων Χριστιανῶν, οἴ θανάτου καταφρονήσαντες παρʼ οὐδὲν αὐτοῦ τὴν τοσαύτην ἔθεντο τυραννίδα. οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἄνδρες ἀνατλάντες πῦρ καὶ σίδηρον καὶ προσηλώσεις, θῆράς τε ἀγρίους καὶ θαλάττης βυθοὺς, ἀποτομάς τε μελῶν καὶ καυτῆρας, καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν κεντήσεις τε καὶ ἐξορύξεις, καὶ τοῦ παντὸς σώματος ἀκρωτηριασμοὺς, λιμόν τε ἐπὶ τούτοις καὶ μέταλλα καὶ δεσμὰ, ἐπὶ πάντων μᾶλλον ὑπομονὴν τὴν ὑπὲρ εὐσεβείας ἐνεδείξαντο ἢ τὸ σέβας τὸ εἰς θεὸν εἰδώλοις ἀντικατηλλάξαντο.

English · Claude translation

In all this he succeeded against everyone except the Christians alone, who, despising death, set his great tyranny at nothing. For the men endured fire and sword and nailing, wild beasts and the depths of the sea, the cutting off of limbs and branding, the pricking and gouging out of eyes and the mutilation of the whole body, and besides these hunger, mines, and chains; in all things they showed endurance for the sake of piety rather than exchange the worship of God for idols.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:375 · 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

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.14.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/14/13/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.14.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/14/13/).