Church History 9.7.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Maximin's rescript praises Tyre for recognizing, after long error, that the world is governed by the immortal gods.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:425–426

“Ἤδη ποτὲ ἡ ἀσθενὴς θρασύτης τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης διανοίας ἴσχυσε, πᾶσαν πλάνης ἀμαυρότητα καὶ ὀμίχλην ἀποσεισαμένη καὶ ἀνασκεδάσασα, ἥτις “πρὸ τούτου οὐ τοσοῦτον τῶν ἀσεβῶν ὅσον τῶν “ἀθλίων ἀνθρώπων τὰς αἰσθήσεις ὀλεθρίῳ ἀγνοίας “σκότῳ ἐνειληθείσας ἐπολιόρκει, ἐπιγνῶναι ὡς τῇ “τῶν ἀθανάτων θεῶν φιλαγάθῳ προνοίᾳ διοικεῖται καὶ σταθεροποιεῖται·

English · Claude translation

[Rescript of Maximin to Tyre:] “At last the feeble boldness of the human mind has prevailed, shaking off and scattering all the darkness and mist of error, which before this besieged the senses of men not so much impious as wretched, wrapped in the deadly darkness of ignorance, so as to recognize that it is governed and made stable by the benevolent providence of the immortal gods.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:425–426 · 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. 9.7.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/7/2/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.7.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/7/2/).