Church History 9.1.7 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: The governors, believing the order sincere, freed imprisoned confessors and those condemned to the mines.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:420–421

ἐπὶ τούτοις οἱ κατʼ ἐπαρχίαν, τὴν τῶν γραφέντων αὐτοῖς ἐπαληθεύειν προαίρεσιν νενομικότες, λογισταῖς καὶ στρατηγοῖς καὶ τοῖς κατʼ ἀγροὺς ἐπιτεταγμένοις τὴν βασιλικὴν διὰ γραμμάτων ἐμφανῆ καθιστῶσι γνώμην· οὐ μόνον δʼ αὐτοῖς διὰ γραφῆς ταῦτα προυχώρει, καὶ ἔργοις δὲ πολὺ πρότερον, ὡσὰν νεῦμα βασιλικὸν εἰς πέρας ἄγοντες, οὑς εἶχον ἐν δεσμωτηρίοις καθειργμένους διὰ τὴν εἰς τὸ θεῖον ὁμολογίαν, εἰς φανερὸν προάγοντες ἠλευθέρουν, ἀνιέντες τούτων δὴ αὐτῶν τοὺς ἐν μετάλλοις ἐπὶ τιμωρίᾳ δεδομένους· τοῦτο γὰρ ἐπʼ ἀληθείας βασιλεῖ δοκεῖν ὑπειλήφασιν ἠπατημένοι.

English · Claude translation

Thereupon the provincial governors, thinking that the intention of what had been written to them was sincere, made the imperial will known by letters to the curators, magistrates, and those in charge of the country districts. Nor did they proceed in this only by writing, but much earlier by deeds, as though carrying an imperial decree into effect: those whom they held shut up in prisons for their confession of the divine, they brought out into the open and set free, releasing also those among them who had been sent to the mines as punishment. For they supposed, deceived as they were, that this was truly the emperor's will.

About this passage

Source

Dindorf 4:420–421 · 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

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.1.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/1/7/).

Plain text

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 9.1.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/9/1/7/).