Church History 8.2.3 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Eusebius will pass over those who fell away and record only what is useful: the contests of the martyrs.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:351

οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ τῶν πρὸς τοῦ διωγμοῦ πεπειραμένων, ἢ τῶν εἰς ἅπαν τῆς σωτηρίας νεναυαγηκότων, αὐτῇ τε γνώμῃ τοῖς τοῦ κλύδωνος ἐναπορριφέντων βυθοῖς, μνήμην ποιήσασθαι προήχθημεν, μόνα δὲ ἐκεῖνα τῇ καθόλου προσθήσομεν ἱστορίᾳ, ἃ πρώτοις μὲν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τοῖς μεθʼ ἡμᾶς γένοιτʼ ἂν πρὸς ὠφελείας. ἴωμεν οὖν ἐντεῦθεν ἤδη, τοὺς ἱεροὺς ἀγῶνας τῶν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου μαρτύρων ἐν ἐπιτομῇ διαγράψοντες.

English · Claude translation

Accordingly, we have not been led to make mention either of those who were tried by the persecution or of those who made complete shipwreck of their salvation and of their own will were cast into the depths of the flood; we shall add to the general history only those things that may be profitable first to ourselves and then to those after us. Let us go on, then, from here to describe in summary the sacred contests of the martyrs of the divine Word.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:351 · 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

Martyrdom, Persecution

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.2.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/2/3/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.2.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/2/3/).