On Bk. III. chap. 32, § 6 (note 14).
The Greek reads π€σης
ἐκκλησίας (without the article), and so, two lines below, ἐν
π€σῃ
ἐκκλησί& 139·. All the translators (with the exception of Pratten in the
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VIII., who reads, “the
churches”) render “the whole church,” as if
reading πᾶς
with the article. We have not, it is true, enough of
Hegesippus’ writings to be able to ascertain positively his use
of πᾶς, and it is possible that he carelessly employed it
indifferently with or without the article to signify the definite
“all” or “the whole.” In the absence of
positive testimony, however, that he failed to draw the proper
distinction between its use with and its use without the article, and
in view of the fact that Eusebius himself (as well as other early
Fathers so far as I am able to recall) is very consistent in making the
distinction, I have not felt at liberty in my translation to depart
from a strict grammatical interpretation of the phrases in question. Moreover, upon second thought, it seems quite as possible that Hegesippus meant to say “every” not “all”; for he can hardly have supposed these relatives of the Lord to have presided literally over the whole Church, while he might very well say that they presided each over the church in the city in which he lived, which is all that the words necessarily imply. The phrase just below, “in every church,” is perhaps as natural as “in the whole church.”