Church History 8.14.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Maxentius turned to every vice, taking senators' wives from their husbands, abusing them, and sending them back.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:372

οὐ μὴν οἶος ἔσεσθαι ἠλπίσθη, τοιοῦτος ἔργοις ἀναπέφηνεν, εἰς πάσας δʼ ἀνοσιουργίας ὀκείλας οὐδὲν ὅ τι μιαρίας ἔργον καὶ ἀκολασίας παραλέλοιπε, μοιχείας τε καὶ παντοίας ἐπιτελῶν φθοράς· διαζευγνύς γε τοι τῶν ἀνδρῶν τὰς κατὰ νόμον γαμετὰς, ταύτας ἐνυβρίζων, ἀτιμότατα τοῖς ἀνδράσιν αὖθις ἀπέπεμπε, καὶ ταῦτʼ οὐκ ἀσήμοις οὐδʼ ἀφανέσιν ἐγχειρῶν ἐπετήδευεν, ἀλλʼ αὐτῶν δὴ μάλιστα τῶν τὰ πρῶτα τῆς Ῥωμαίων συγκλήτου ἀπενηνεγμένων ἐμπαροινῶν τοῖς ἐξοχωτάτοις.

English · Claude translation

Yet in his deeds he did not prove to be such as he was hoped to be. Running aground into every kind of impiety, he left no deed of foulness and licentiousness undone, committing adulteries and every sort of corruption. He would separate lawful wives from their husbands, outrage them, and send them back to their husbands in the deepest dishonor; and he practiced this not on obscure or unknown persons but insulted above all the most eminent of those who held the first rank in the Roman senate.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:372 · 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

Ethics

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.14.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/14/2/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.14.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/14/2/).