Church History 8.6.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Dorotheus and the Christian servants of the palace preferred suffering for God to honor and luxury; Eusebius tells one of their deaths as an example.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:354–355

Πάντων δὲ, ὅσοι τῶν πώποτε ἀνυμνοῦνται θαυμάσιοι καὶ ἐπʼ ἀνδρείᾳ βεβοημένοι, εἴτε παρʼ Ἕλλησιν εἴτε παρὰ βαρβάροις, θείους ἤνεγκεν ὁ καιρὸς καὶ διαπρεπεῖς μάρτυρας τοὺς ἀμφὶ τὸν Δωρόθεον βασιλικοὺς παῖδας, οἱ καὶ τῆς ἀνωτάτω παρὰ τοῖς δεσπόταις ἠξιωμένοι τιμῆς, γνησίων τε αὐτοῖς διαθέσει τέκνων οὐ λειπόμενοι, μείζονα πλοῦτον ὡς ἀληθῶς ἥγηνται τῆς τοῦ βίου δόξης καὶ τρυφῆς τοὺς ὑπὲρ εὐσεβείας ὀνειδισμούς τε καὶ πόνους, καὶ τοὺς κεκαινουργημένους ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς πολυτρόπους θανάτους, ὧν ἑνός τινος οἵω κέχρηται μνησθέντες τῷ τοῦ βίου τέλει, σκοπεῖν ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις συμβεβηκότα τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσι καταλείψομεν.

English · Claude translation

Of all who have ever been celebrated in song as admirable and renowned for courage, whether among Greeks or barbarians, the occasion produced divine and illustrious martyrs in Dorotheus and the imperial servants with him. Though they had been counted worthy of the highest honor by their masters and were loved by them no less than true children, they truly considered the reproaches and toils for piety, and the many kinds of death newly devised against them, greater wealth than the glory and luxury of life. We shall mention how one of them met the end of his life, and leave our readers to judge from it what happened to the others.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:354–355 · 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. 8.6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/6/1/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/6/1/).