Church History 4.7.3 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: From Menander came Saturninus in Syria and Basilides in Egypt, founders of two heresies.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:141

ἀπὸ γοῦν τοῦ Μενάνδρου, ὃν διάδοχον τοῦ Σίμωνος ἤδη πρότερον παραδεδώκαμεν, ἀμφίστομος ὥσπερ καὶ δικέφαλος ὀφιώδης τις προελθοῦσα δύναμις δυεῖν αἱρέσεων διαφόρων ἀρχηγοὺς κατεστήσατο, Σατορνῖνόν τε Ἀντιοχέα τὸ γένος καὶ Βασιλείδην Ἀλεξανδρέα, ὧν ὁ μὲν κατὰ Συρίαν, ὁ δὲ κατʼ Αἴγυπτον συνεστήσαντο θεομισῶν αἱρέσεων διδασκαλεῖα.

English · Claude translation

From Menander, then, whom we have already shown to have been Simon's successor, a kind of two-mouthed and two-headed serpentine power came forth and established leaders of two different heresies, Saturninus, an Antiochene by birth, and Basilides, an Alexandrian; the one in Syria, the other in Egypt, established schools of God-hated heresies.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:141 · 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)

Extrabiblical texts

Irenaeus, Irenaeus, Haer. 1.24.1 (Irenaeus, Against Heresies) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/4/7/3/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/4/7/3/).