Sophia Scriptura

Church History 9.1.3

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

Summary: Sabinus's letter says the emperors had sought to lead all, including those of foreign custom, to worship the gods.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:382

‟Λιπαρωτάτῃ καὶ καθωσιωμένῃ σπουδῇ ἡ θειότης τῶν δεσποτῶν ἡμῶν θειοτάτων αὐτοκρατόρων πάντων τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰς διανοίας πρὸς τὴν ὁσίαν καὶ ὀρθὴν τοῦ ζῆν ὁδὸν περιαγαγεῖν ἔτι πάλαι ὥρισεν, ὅπως καὶ οἶ ἀλλοτρίᾳ Ῥωμαίων συνηθείᾳ ἀκολουθεῖν δοκοῦντες τὰς ὀφειλομένας θρησκείας τοῖς ἀθανάτοις θεοῖς ἐπιτελοῖεν.

English · Claude translation

[Letter of Sabinus:] “With most earnest and devoted zeal the divinity of our masters, the most divine emperors, long ago determined to lead the minds of all people to the holy and right way of life, so that even those who seemed to follow a custom foreign to the Romans should perform the worship due to the immortal gods.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:382 · 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

Translation notes

  • Sabinus was Maximin's praetorian prefect; the letter dates from 311.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.1.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/1/3/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.1.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/1/3/).

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