Primary source · Greek
Against Hierocles
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. AD 303

What this text is
Eusebius's reply to the persecutor-pamphleteer Sossianus Hierocles, who had set Apollonius of Tyana above Christ — a concession of the sage's virtue, a demolition of the comparison.
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Public-domain translations
Working translation (from the Greek)
Hierocles alone, of all who have ever written against us, set Apollonius beside and above our Saviour. Let the man be granted a place among philosophers and sages, if you will — but nothing more; the comparison refutes itself.
Manuscript witnesses
Codex Parisinus gr. 451 tradition
10th c. onwardTransmitted with Eusebius's apologetic corpus in the Byzantine tradition.
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 22 (Migne)
1857Standard pre-critical text (PG 22:795–868).
Provenance
Caesarea, at the outbreak of the Great Persecution
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Philostratus: Apollonius of Tyana, vol. III (Loeb)Christopher P. Jones, 2006Critical text and translation of the reply to Hierocles.
- Eusebius of Caesarea against PaganismAryeh Kofsky, 2000Study of Eusebius's apologetic method, including this earliest work.
