Church History 4.5.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Until Hadrian's siege Jerusalem had fifteen bishops, all Hebrew Christians, leading a church of Jewish believers.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:139

τοσοῦτον δʼ ἐξ ἐγγράφων παρείληφα, ὡς μέχρι τῆς κατὰ Ἀδριανὸν Ἰουδαίων πολιορκίας πεντεκαιδεκα τὸν ἀριθμὸν αὐτόθι γεγόνασιν ἐπισκόπων διαδοχαὶ, οὓς πάντας Ἑβραίους φασὶν ὄντας ἀνέκαθεν τὴν γνῶσιν τοῦ Χριστοῦ γνησίως καταδέξασθαι, ὥστʼ ἤδη πρὸς τῶν τὰ τοιάδε ἐπικρίνειν δυνατῶν καὶ τῆς τῶν ἐπισκόπων λειτουργίας ἀξίους δοκιμασθῆναι· συνεστάναι γὰρ αὐτοῖς τότε τὴν πᾶσαν ἐκκλησίαν ἐξ Ἑβραίων πιστῶν, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ εἰς τὴν τότε διαρκεσάντων πολιορκίαν, καθʼ ἣν Ἰουδαῖοι Ρωμαίων αὖθις ἀποστάντες οὐ μικροῖς πολέμοις ἥλωσαν.

English · Claude translation

But this much I have received from written sources: that until the siege of the Jews under Hadrian there were fifteen successions of bishops there, all of whom, they say, were Hebrews by origin who had genuinely received the knowledge of Christ, so that they were approved even by those able to judge such things as worthy of the episcopal ministry. For their whole church then consisted of Hebrew believers, from the apostles down to the siege at that time, in which the Jews, having again revolted from the Romans, were overcome in no small wars.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:139 · 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

Church office

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.5.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/4/5/2/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.5.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/4/5/2/).