Church History 9.11.6 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Licinius had the priests of Theotecnus's idol tortured, exposed the oracle as a fraud, and executed Theotecnus and his accomplices.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:445–446

Λικίννιος δʼ ἐπιβὰς τῆς Ἀντιοχέων πόλεως, φοράν τε γοήτων ποιησάμενος, τοὺς τοῦ νεοπαγοῦς ξοάνου προφήτας καὶ ἱερεῖς βασάνοις ᾐκίζετο, τίνι λόγῳ τὴν ἀπάτην καθυπεκρίνοντο πυνθανόμενος. ὡς δʼ ἐπικρύπτεσθαι αὐτοῖς πρὸς τῶν βασάνων συνελαυνομένοις ἀδύνατον ἦν, ἐδήλουν δὲ τὸ πᾶν μυστήριον ἀπάτην τυγχάνειν τέχνῃ τῇ Θεοτέκνου μεμηχανημένην, τοῖς πᾶσι τὴν ἀξίαν ἐπιθεὶς δίκην, πρῶτον αὐτὸν Θεότεκνον, εἶτα δὲ καὶ τοὺς τῆς γοητείας κοινωνοὺς μετὰ πλείστας ὅσας αἰκίας θανάτῳ παραδίδωσι.

English · Claude translation

But Licinius, coming to the city of Antioch, made a search for sorcerers and tortured the prophets and priests of the newly made image, inquiring by what means they had carried out the deception. When, under the pressure of torture, they could no longer conceal it and revealed that the whole mystery was a deception contrived by Theotecnus's art, he inflicted the just penalty on them all: first Theotecnus himself, then his partners in the sorcery, he put to death after very many tortures.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:445–446 · 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)

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.11.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/11/6/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.11.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/11/6/).