Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/866

Rh S54 SOCRATES. Younger, a. d. 439, to which period his Ecclesias- tical History extends {H. E. vii. 48). In fact, he probably survived that date several years, as he published a second edition of his history {H. E. ii. 1), and had opportunity between the first and second editions to procure access to several addi- tional documents, to weigh their testimony, and to re-wiite the first and second books. Photius, in his brief notice of Socrates and his history (Bihlioih. Cod. 28), and Nicephorus Callisti {H. E. i. 1) in a still briefer notice, do not speak of his profession of a scholasticus or pleader ; from which some have inferred (e. g. Hamberger, apud Fabric. Biblioth. Graec. vol. vii. p. 423, note g. ; comp. Ceillier,^MifeMrs Sacres, vol. xiii. p. 669), that the title of his work is inaccurate in giving him that designation : but we think that no such inference can be justly drawn from the omission of so unimportant a circumstance in notices so brief as those of Photius and Nice- phorus. The general impartiality of Socrates may be taken as an indication that he was not an eccle- siastic ; while his literary habits and his balancing of evidence (e. g. //. E. ii. 1 ) are in harmony with the forensic pursuits in which the title scholasticus shows him to have been engaged. Another much disputed point is, what were his religious opinions, or, to state the question more accurately, did he belong to the church claiming to be " Catholic," and which comprehended the bulk of the fJomoousian or orthodox community, or to the smaller and " schismatical " body of the Kadapoi, "Puritans" or Novatians. From the general accordance of the Novatians with " the Church " in* religious belief and ecclesiastical con- stitution, the only difference between the two bodies being the sterner temper and stricter dis- cipline of the dissenting community [Novatia- Nus], it is difficult to trace any decisive indications in the writings of Socrates to which body he gave his adherence. The testimony of Nicephorus Callisti (//. E.i. 1) would be decisive, had it been the testimony of a contemporary, and more im- partial in tone. He speaks of him as " Socrates the pure (KuBapos, i. e. Puritan) in designation, but not also in principle." To the testimony of Nice- phorus we may oppose the silence of earlier writers, as Cassiodorus (De divinis Lection, c. 1 7, and Praefat. Hisioriae Tripartitae), Liberatus (lireviar. c. 2), Theodore Anagnostes or Lector (Epistola Histor. Eccles. praefixa). Evagrius {H. E. i. 1 ), some one or other of whom would have probably mentioned his being a Novatian, had he really belonged to that sect. (See the Veterum Testimonia collected by Valesius, and prefixed to his edition of Socrates.) It is argued that he has carefully recorded the suc- cession of the Novatian bishops of Constantinople ; has spoken of these prelates in the highest terms, and has even recorded {H. E. vii. 17) a miracle which occurred to Paul, one of them ; and that he appears to have taken a peculiar interest in the sect, and to have recorded various incidents respect- ing them with a particularity which would hardly be expected except from a member of their body. But these things, as Valesius justly contends, may be accoimted for by his avowed purpose of record- ing events occurring in Constantinople more mi- nutely, because he was a native and resident of that city (H. E. v. 24), and by sympathy with the stricter morality of the Novatians, or by some family connection or intimate friendship with some of their members (comp. Socrat. //. E. i. 13). SOCRATES. When, however, Valesius adduces as positive evi- dence of his adherence to the " Catholic " church, that he repeatedly mentions it without qualifica- tion as " the church," and classes the Novatians with other sectaries, he employs arguments as little valid as those which, just before, he had refuted. Socrates, though a Novatian, might speak thus in a conventional sense, just as Protestants of the pre- sent day often speak of " Catholics," or " Catholic church," Dissenters of " the church " or " tlie church of England," and persons of reputedly heterodox views of " Orthodoxy " or "■ the Ortho- dox : " such terms, when once custom has deter- mined their application, being used as conventional and convenient without regard to the essential justness and propriety of their application. The question of the Novatianism of Socrates must be regarded as undetermined ; but the preponderance of the various arguments is in favour of his con- nection with the " Catholic church," The 'EKKr](na(TTri tcTTopia, Historia Ecclesiastical of Socrates extends from the reign of Constantino the Great to that of the younger Theodosius, a. d. 439, and comprehends the events of a hundred and forty years, according to the writer's own statement {H. E. vii. 48), or more accurately of a hundred and thirty-three years, in one of the most eventful periods of the history of the Church, when the doctrines of orthodoxy were developed and defined in a succession of creeds, each step in the process being occasioned or accompanied and fol- lowed by commotions Avhich shook the whole Christian community and rent it into sects, some of which have long since passed away, while others have continued to exist. Three general councils, the first Nicene, the first Constantinopolitan, and the first Ephesian are recorded in the history, and two others, the second Ephesian, rj XritrrpiKri, and the Chalcedonian, were held at no great interval from the period at which it ends. The interest and import- ance of the period may be further inferred from the fact that we have three histories of it by contempo- rary writers (Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret) which have come down to us in a complete fonn, and which furnished materials for the Historia Tri- partita of Cassiodorus [Cassiodorus ; Epiphanius, No.l 1 ], and that we have fragments of another (that of Philostorgius) written about the same period. Of these histories that of Socrates is perhaps the most impartial. In fact he appears to have been a man of less bigotrj-^ than most of his contemporaries, and the very difficulty of determining from internal evidence some points of his religious belief, may be considered as arguing his comparative liberality. His history is divided into seven books. Com- mencing with a brief account of the accession and conversion of Constantine the Great, and the civil war of Constantine and Licinius, the author passes to the history of the Arian controversy, which he traces from its rise to the banishment of Atha- nasius, the recal and death of Arius, and the death, soon after, of Constantine himself, a. d. 306 — 337 (Lib. i.). He then carries on the history of the contentions of the Arian or Eusebian and Ho- moousian parties during the reign of Constan- tius II. a. d. 337—360 (Lib. ii.). The struggle of heathenism with Christianity under Julian, and the triumph of Christianity under Jovian (a. d. 360—364), then follow (Lib. iii.). The renewed struggle of the Arians and Homoousians under Valens, a. d. 364—378 (Lib. iv.) : the triumph