Church History 8.2.4 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Dindorf 4:351

ἔτος τοῦτο ἦν ἐννεακαιδέκατον τῆς Διοκλητιανοῦ βασιλείας, Δύστρος μὲν (λέγοιτο δʼ ἂν οὗτος Μάρτιος κατὰ Ῥωμαίους), ἐν ᾧ τῆς τοῦ σωτηρίου πάθους ἑορτῆς ἐπελαυνούσης ἥπλωτο πανταχόσε βασιλικὰ γράμματα, τὰς μὲν ἐκκλησίας εἰς ἔδαφος φέρειν, τὰς δὲ γραφὰς ἀφανεῖς πυρὶ γενέσθαι προστάττοντα, καὶ τοὺς μὲν τιμῆς ἐπειλημμένους ἀτίμους, τοὺς δὲ ἐν οἰκετίαις, εἰ ἐπιμένοιεν τῇ τοῦ Χριστιανισμοῦ προθέσει, ἐλευθερίας στερεῖσθαι προαγορεύοντα.

English · Claude translation

It was the nineteenth year of the reign of Diocletian, the month Dystrus (which the Romans would call March), when, as the feast of the Savior's passion was approaching, imperial letters were published everywhere, ordering the churches to be razed to the ground and the Scriptures to be destroyed by fire, and proclaiming that those who held honors should lose them, and those in households, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, should be deprived of their freedom.

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

Persecution, Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

The first edict of the Great Persecution, AD 303. Dystrus is the Macedonian month name.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (misspelling in the digital text; opening parenthesis missing in the digital text): ἐννεακαιδέκατου → ἐννεακαιδέκατον; Δύστρος μὲν, λέγοιτο → Δύστρος μὲν (λέγοιτο.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.2.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/2/4/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.2.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/2/4/).