Church History 10.8.14 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Licinius finally turned against the bishops, secretly having the most respected of them killed through his governors in unheard-of ways.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:485

τὸ γοῦν τέλος αὐτῷ τῆς μανίας ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐπισκόπους ἐχώρει. ἤδη τε τούτους, ὡσὰν τοῦ ἐπὶ πάντων θεοῦ θεράποντας, ἐναντίους ὑπάρχειν οἷς ἔδρα ἡγούμενος, οὔπω μὲν ἐκ τοῦ φανεροῦ διὰ τὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ κρείττονος φόβον, λάθρα δὲ αὖθις καὶ δολίως συνεσκευάζετο, ἀνῄρει τε τούτων διʼ ἐπιβουλῆς τῶν ἡγεμόνων τοὺς δοκιμωτάτους. καὶ ὁ τρόπος δὲ τοῦ κατʼ αὐτῶν φόνου ξένος τις ἦν, καὶ οἷος οὐδεπώποτε ἠκούσθη.

English · Claude translation

The end of his madness, then, went so far as to attack the bishops. Thinking them, as servants of the God over all, to be opposed to what he was doing, he plotted against them, not yet openly, for fear of his superior, but again secretly and deceitfully, and he put to death the most esteemed of them through the plots of the governors. And the manner of their murder was strange and such as had never been heard of before.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:485 · 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, Church office

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.8.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/8/14/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 10.8.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/10/8/14/).