Sophia Scriptura

Church History 8.16.2

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

Summary: Not the rulers' mercy but divine providence ended the persecution, reconciled to God's people and angry at its chief author.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:377–378

οὐκ ἀνθρώπινον δέ τι τούτου κατέστη αἴτιον, οὐδʼ οἶκτος, ὡς ἂν φαίη τις, ἤ φιλανθρωπία τῶν ἀρχόντων· πολλοῦ δεῖ· πλείω γὰρ ὁσημέραι καὶ χαλεπώτερα ἀρχῆθεν εἰς ἐκεῖνο τοῦ καιροῦ τὰ καθʼ ἡμῶν αὐτοῖς ἐπενοεῖτο, ποικιλωτέραις μηχαναῖς ἄλλοτε ἄλλως τὰς καθʼ ἡμῶν αἰκίας ἐπικαινουργούντων· ἀλλʼ αὐτῆς γε τῆς θείας προνοίας ἐμφανὴς ἡ ἐπίσκεψις, τῷ μὲν αὐτῆς καταλλαττομένης λαῷ, τῷ δʼ αὐθέντῃ τῶν κακῶν ἐπεξιούσης καὶ πρωτοστάτῃ τῆς τοῦ παντὸς διωγμοῦ κακίας ἐπιχολουμένης.

English · Claude translation

Nothing human was the cause of this, nor pity, as one might say, or the humanity of the rulers; far from it. For from the beginning up to that time they devised more and harsher measures against us every day, inventing new tortures against us with ever more varied contrivances. But plainly it was the visitation of divine providence itself, reconciled to its own people, but attacking the author of the evils and angry at the ringleader of the whole wickedness of the persecution.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:377–378 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (line-break hyphen and wrong accent in the digital text): κατέ- στῆ → κατέστη.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.16.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/16/2/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.16.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/16/2/).

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