Sophia Scriptura

Church History 9.6.1

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

Summary: The commander killed himself, but persecution resumed; at Emesa the aged bishop Silvanus and two others were thrown to beasts.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:424

Ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν οὐκ εἰς μακρὸν αὐτόχειρ ἑαυτοῦ γεγονὼς ὁ στρατοπεδάρχης δίκην τίννυσι τῆς κακοτροπίας. ἡμῶν δʼ αὖ φυγαὶ πάλιν ἀνεκινοῦντο καὶ διωγμοὶ χαλεποὶ, τῶν τε κατὰ πάσας ἐπαρχίας ἡγουμένων αὖθις δειναὶ καθʼ ἡμῶν ἐπαναστάσεις, ὡς καί τινας ἁλόντας τῶν περὶ τὸν θεῖον λόγον ἐπιφανῶν ἀπαραίτητον τὴν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ ψῆφον καταδέξασθαι, ὧν τρεῖς ἐν Ἐμίσῃ τῇ πόλει τῆς Φοινίκης, Χριστιανοὺς σφας ὁμολογήσαντες, θηρίων βορᾷ παραδίδονται· ἐπίσκοπος ἦν ἐν τούτοις Σιλβανὸς, τὴν ἡλικίαν ὑπέργηρως, ἐν ὅλοις ἔτεσι τεσσαράκοντα τὴν λειτουργίαν διηνυκώς.

English · Claude translation

But not long afterward the commander became his own executioner and paid the penalty for his wickedness. For us, however, banishments and severe persecutions were stirred up again, and once more the governors in all the provinces rose terribly against us, so that some who were prominent in the divine word were seized and received the inexorable sentence of death. Of these, three in Emesa, a city of Phoenicia, confessed themselves Christians and were given as food to wild beasts. Among them was a bishop, Silvanus, very old, who had fulfilled his ministry for forty full years.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:424 · 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, Martyrdom, Church office

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (editor's apparatus leaked into the digital text): Κα. H. E. VII, 27] → .

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/6/1/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/6/1/).

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