Church History
A history of the church in nine books from Constantine to the early fifth century, written at Constantinople and dedicated to Theodosius II. It runs parallel to Socrates, adds much on monks, laws and the churches outside the empire, and stands decades after most of what it tells.
Read the text at newadvent.org ↗The same translation with one page per chapter (CCEL) ↗
Salamanes Hermeias Sozomenos was a lawyer at Constantinople. In the dedication to the emperor Theodosius II he says that his history begins with the consulship of the Caesars Crispus and Constantine and reaches the emperor’s seventeenth consulship, which is AD 439, and that he has divided it into nine books. The dedication dates the work between that year and the emperor’s death in 450. The ninth book as it survives does not reach 439.
Sozomen covers the same ground as Socrates and often follows him closely without naming him, but he rearranges the material, adds stories of monks and holy men, and makes more use of imperial laws. For the reign of Theodosius I he writes about sixty years after the events, for the exile of John Chrysostom about forty, and for the Gothic sack of Rome about thirty. He writes as an admirer of the Nicene emperors and of the monastic life, and he reports hearsay as such, with phrases like “it is said”.
Cited in
- AD 301 (traditional) or c. 314, traditional date
- c. AD 326–337, estimated date
- 27 February AD 380, firm date
- May AD 381, firm date
- AD 390, estimated date
- August AD 410, firm date