Sophia Scriptura

Church History 3.32.8

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

Summary: Once the apostles and their hearers had died, false teachers openly proclaimed “knowledge falsely so called.”

Greek text · Dindorf 4:125–126

ὡς δʼ ὁ ἱερὸς τῶν ἀποστόλων χορὸς διάφορον εἰλήφει τοῦ βίου τέλος, παρεληλύθει τε ἡ γενεὰ ἐκείνη τῶν αὐταῖς ἀκοαῖς τῆς ἐνθέου σοφίας ἐπακοῦσαι κατηξιωμένων, τηνικαῦτα τῆς ἀθέου πλάνης ἀρχὴν ἐλάμβανεν ἡ σύστασις, διὰ τῆς τῶν ἑτεροδιδασκάλων ἀπάτης, οἳ καὶ, ἅτε μηδενὸς ἔτι τῶν ἀποστόλων λειπομένου, γυμνῇ λοιπὸν ἤδη τῇ κεφαλῇ τῷ τῆς ἀληθείας κηρύγματι τὴν ψευδώνυμον γνῶσιν ἀντικηρύττειν ἐπεχείρουν.

English · Claude translation

But when the sacred band of the apostles had in various ways reached the end of their life, and that generation had passed of those thought worthy to hear the divine wisdom with their own ears, then the conspiracy of godless error took its beginning through the deceit of false teachers, who, since none of the apostles was left any longer, attempted with bare head thereafter to proclaim against the proclamation of the truth the knowledge falsely so called.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:125–126 · 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
Extrabiblical texts
  • Hegesippus (Hegesippus, Memoirs (fragments)) · allusion, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • Paraphrase of Hegesippus; “knowledge falsely so called” is from 1 Tim 6:20.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.32.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/3/32/8/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.32.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/3/32/8/).

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