Sophia Scriptura

Church History 6.25.1

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

Summary: Origen: the Hebrews count twenty-two canonical books, matching their alphabet.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:269

Τὸν μέντοι γε πρῶτον ἐξηγούμενος ψαλμὸν ἔκθεσιν πεποίηται τοῦ τῶν ἱερῶν γραφῶν τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης καταλόγου, ὧδέ πως γράφων κατὰ λέξιν “οὐκ ἀγνοητέον δʼ εἶναι τὰς “διαθήκους βίβλους, ὡς Ἑβραῖοι παραδιδόασιν, δύο “καὶ εἴκοσι, ὅσος ἀριθμὸς τῶν παρʼ αὐτοῖς στοιχείων ῾ἐστίν.”

English · Claude translation

When expounding the first Psalm, he set out a list of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, writing somewhat thus, word for word: “It should be known that the canonical books, as the Hebrews hand them down, are twenty-two, which is the number of letters among them.”

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:269 · 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
Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

  • Quotation from Origen, Commentary on Psalm 1 (lost; to 6.25.2).

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): τῆς παλαιάς διαθήκης → τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/6/25/1/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/6/25/1/).

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