Church History 9.4.3 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: To win Maximin's favor, officials and subjects vied in cruelty toward the Christians.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:423

ἡ γοῦν ἔκτοπος τοῦ κρατοῦντος δεισιδαιμονία, συνελόντι φάναι, πάντας τοὺς ὗπʼ αὐτὸν ἄρχοντάς τε καὶ ἀρχομένους εἰς τὴν αὐτοῦ χάριν πάντα πράττειν καθʼ ἡμῶν ἐνῆγε, ταύτην αὐτῷ χάριν μεγίστην ἀνθʼ ὧν ἐνόμιζον πρὸς αὐτοῦ τεύξεσθαι εὐεργεσιῶν ἀντιδωρουμένων, τὸ καθʼ ἡμῶν φονᾶν καί τινας εἰς ἡμᾶς καινοτέρας κακοηθείας ἐνδείκνυσθαι.

English · Claude translation

In short, the ruler's extraordinary superstition led all those under him, rulers and subjects alike, to do everything against us to please him, repaying him with this, the greatest favor, in return for the benefits they expected to receive from him: to thirst for our blood and to display some new malice against us.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:423 · 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

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.4.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/4/3/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.4.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/4/3/).