Sophia Scriptura

Church History 9.9.5

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

Summary: Like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea, Maxentius and his troops sank in the river on the bridge of boats he had made.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:434

ὥσπερ οὑν ἐπʼ αὐτοῦ Μωυσέως καὶ τοῦ πάλαι θεοσεβοῦς Ἑβραίων γένους “ἅρματα Φαραὼ καὶ τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ ἔρριψεν θάλασσαν, ἐπιλέκτους ἀναβάτας τριστάτας κατεπόντισεν ἐν θαλάσσῃ ἐρυθρᾷ, πόντῳ ἐκάλυψεν αὐτούς”, κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ δὴ καὶ Μαξέντιος οἵ τε ἀμφʼ αὐτὸν ὁπλῖται καὶ δορυφόροι “ἔδυσαν εἰς βυθὸν ὡσεὶ λίθος”, ὁπηνίκα νῶτα δοὺς τῇ ἐκ θεοῦ μετὰ Κωνσταντίνου δυνάμει τὸν πρὸ τῆς πορείας διῄει ποταμὸν, ὃν αὐτὸς σκάφεσι ζεύξας καὶ εὖ μάλα γεφυρώσας μηχανὴν ὀλέθρου καθʼ ἑαυτοῦ συνεστήσατο.

English · Claude translation

For as in the time of Moses himself and the ancient godly race of the Hebrews, “Pharaoh's chariots and his army he cast into the sea; his chosen horsemen, his captains, he drowned in the Red Sea; he covered them with the deep,” in the same way Maxentius and the soldiers and guards around him “sank into the depth like a stone,” when, turning his back before the power that came from God with Constantine, he crossed the river in his way, which he himself had bridged with boats, and so had built an engine of destruction against himself.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:434 · 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)
Scripture

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotations are Exod 15:4–5. The river is the Tiber at the Milvian Bridge (312).

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.9.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/9/5/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.9.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/9/5/).

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