Sophia Scriptura

Church History 5.20.6

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

Summary: Irenaeus vividly remembers Polycarp recounting what he had heard from John and other eyewitnesses of the Lord.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:226–227

αἱ γὰρ ἐκ παίδων μαθήσεις “συναύξουσαι τῇ ψυχῇ ἑνοῦνται αὐτῇ, ὥστε με δύ- “νασθαι εἰπεῖν καὶ τὸν τόπον ἐν ᾧ καθεζόμενος διε- “λέγετο ὁ μακάριος Πολύκαρπος, καὶ τὰς προόδους “αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς εἰσόδους, καὶ τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ βίου, “καὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἰδέαν, καὶ τὰς διαλέξεις ἃς “ἐποιεῖτο πρὸς τὸ πλῆθος, καὶ τὴν μετὰ Ἰωάννου “συναναστροφὴν ὡς ἀπήγγελλε καὶ τὴν μετὰ “λοιπῶν τῶν ἑωρακότων τὸν κύριον, καὶ ὡς ἀπεμνη- “μόνευε τοὺς λόγους αὐτῶν, καὶ περὶ τοῦ κυρίου “τίνα ἦν ἃ παρʼ ἐκείνων ἀκηκόει, καὶ περὶ τῶν “δυνάμεων αὐτοῦ, καὶ περὶ τῆς διδασκαλίας, ὡς “παρὰ τῶν αὐτοπτῶν τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ λόγου παρειληφὼς ὁ Πολύκαρπος ἀπήγγελλε πάντα σύμφωνα “ταἴς γραφαῖς.

English · Claude translation

For what we learn as children grows with the soul and becomes one with it, so that I can tell even the place where the blessed Polycarp sat and discoursed, his goings out and comings in, the character of his life, the appearance of his body, the discourses he made to the people, how he reported his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what the things were that he had heard from them about the Lord, about his miracles and his teaching; how Polycarp, having received them from the eyewitnesses of the life of the Word, reported all things in agreement with the Scriptures.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:226–227 · 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
Topics
Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

  • Quotation from Irenaeus, Letter to Florinus; “eyewitnesses … of the Word” echoes Luke 1:2 and 1 John 1:1.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.20.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/5/20/6/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.20.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/5/20/6/).

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