Sophia Scriptura

Church History 8.6.7

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

Summary: The emperors had the buried palace martyrs dug up and thrown into the sea so that no one would venerate their graves.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:356

τοὺς δέ γε βασιλικοὺς μετὰ θάνατον παῖδας, γῇ μετὰ τῆς προσηκούσης κηδείας παραδοθέντας, αὖθις ἐξ ὑπαρχῆς ἀνορύξαντες ἐναπορρῖψαι θαλάσσῃ καὶ αὐτοὺς ᾤοντο δεῖν οἱ νενομισμένοι δεσπόται, ὡς ἂν μὴ ἐν μνήμασιν ἀποκειμένους προσκυνοῖέν τινες, θεοὺς δὴ αὐτοὺς, ὥς γε ᾤοντο, λογιζόμενοι. καὶ τὰ μὲν ἐπὶ τῆς Νικομηδείας κατὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀποτελεσθέντα τοῦ διωγμοῦ τοιαῦτα.

English · Claude translation

As for the imperial servants, who after death had been committed to the earth with fitting burial, their reputed masters thought it necessary to dig them up again from the beginning and throw them too into the sea, so that no one might worship them lying in tombs, regarding them, as they supposed, as gods. Such were the things done at Nicomedia at the beginning of the persecution.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:356 · 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

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong breathing and accent in the digital text): οἶ νενομισμένοι → οἱ νενομισμένοι.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.6.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/6/7/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.6.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/6/7/).

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