Sophia Scriptura

Church History 5.14.1

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

Summary: The devil raised new heresies; in Asia and Phrygia Montanus was hailed as the Paraclete, with Priscilla and Maximilla as his prophetesses.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:214

Μισόκαλός γε μὴν ἐς τὰ μάλιστα καὶ φιλοπόνηρος ὢν ὁ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τοῦ θεοῦ πολέμιος, μηδένα τε μηδαμῶς τῆς κατὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀπολιπὼν ἐπιβουλῆς τρόπον, αἱρέσεις ξένας αὖθις ἐπιφύεσθαι κατὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἐνήργει, ὧν οἱ μὲν ἰοβόλων δίκην ἑρπετῶν ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ Φρυγίας εἷρπον, τὸν μὲν παράκλητον Μοντανὸν, τὰς δʼ ἐξ αὐτοῦ γυναῖκας, Πρίσκιλλαν καὶ Μαξίμιλλαν, ὡσὰν τοῦ Μοντανοῦ προφήτιδας γεγονυίας αὐχοῦντες.

English · Claude translation

The enemy of God's church, who hates good above all and loves evil, leaving no manner of plotting against men untried, again set to work to make strange heresies spring up against the church. Some of these crept like venomous reptiles over Asia and Phrygia, boasting of Montanus as the Paraclete and of the women who followed him, Priscilla and Maximilla, as having been prophetesses of Montanus.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:214 · 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
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • Montanism (the “New Prophecy”) arose in Phrygia ca. 170. Eusebius's hostile description is his own.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.14.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/5/14/1/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.14.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/5/14/1/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage