Sophia Scriptura

Church History 8.6.9

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

Summary: The prisons filled with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists until there was no room for criminals.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:356–357

καὶ ἦν ἡ θέα τῶν ἐπὶ τούτοις γινομένων πᾶσαν διήγησιν ὑπεραίρουσα, μυρίου πλήθους ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ καθειργνυμένου, καὶ τὰ πανταχῆ δεσμωτήρια, ἀνδροφόνοις καὶ τυμβωρύχοις πάλαι πρότερον ἐπεσκευασμένα, τότε πληρούντων ἐπισκόπων καὶ πρεσβυτέρων καὶ διακόνων, ἀναγνωστῶν τε καὶ ἐπορκιστῶν, ὡς μηδὲ χώραν ἔτι τοῖς ἐπὶ κακουργίαις κατακρίτοις αὐτόθι λείπεσθαι.

English · Claude translation

And the spectacle of what happened then surpassed all description: a countless multitude was shut up in every place, and the prisons everywhere, long before prepared for murderers and grave-robbers, were then filled with bishops, presbyters, and deacons, readers and exorcists, so that there was no longer room there for those condemned for crimes.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:356–357 · 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, Church office

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (line-break hyphen left in the digital text): πλη- ρούντων → πληρούντων.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.6.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/6/9/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 8.6.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/8/6/9/).

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