Church History 10.5.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Dindorf 4:473

“Ἤδη μὲν πάλαι σκοποῦντες τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς θρησκείας οὐκ ἀρνητέαν εἶναι, ἀλλʼ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου τῇ διανοίᾳ καὶ βουλήσει ἐξουσίαν δοτέον τοῦ τὰ θεῖα πράγματα τημελεῖν κατὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ προαίρεσιν, ἕκαστον κεκελεύκειμεν, τοῖς τε Χριστιανοῖς, τῆς αἱρέσεως καὶ τῆς θρησκείας τῆς ἑαυτῶν τὴν πίστιν φυλάττειν.

English · Claude translation

[Edict of Constantine and Licinius (the “Edict of Milan”):] “Having long since perceived that freedom of religion ought not to be denied, but that to the mind and will of each one power should be given to attend to divine matters according to his own choice, we had commanded everyone, the Christians included, to keep the faith of their own sect and religion.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:473 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

This is the rescript of Licinius issued in 313 after the agreement at Milan. Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors 48.2–12, gives the Latin of the same letter as posted at Nicomedia; it begins at 10.5.4 (“When I, Constantine Augustus …”), so 10.5.2–3 has no parallel there. The two texts are parallel copies, not a quotation of one by the other.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.5.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/5/2/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.5.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/5/2/).