Alexander of Constantinople

When did Alexander live?

Alexander of Constantinople is dated c. 240 – c. 337 in the archive, which places Alexander in the Nicene Age (AD 313–400). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention Alexander?

Alexander of Constantinople is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Athanasius of Alexandria, Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Alexander from?

The archive associates Alexander of Constantinople with Byzantium / Constantinople.

Who were Alexander’s contemporaries?

The archive links Alexander of Constantinople to 3 other figures, including Arius, Constantine the Great and Alexander of Alexandria. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

If Arius is brought to communion tomorrow, let me Your servant depart, and destroy not the pious with the impious; but if You will spare Your Church (and I know that You will spare), look upon the words of Eusebius and his fellows, and give not your inheritance to destruction and reproach, and take off Arius, lest if he enter into the Church, the heresy also may seem to enter with him.

Athanasius's Letter to Serapion on the death of Arius (Letter 54), written during his third exile — the account he had from the presbyter Macarius, who was at Constantinople when Arius died. Greek: Migne, Patrologia Graeca 25.685. English translation by Archibald Robertson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 4 (1892), public domain. Not to be confused with the Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit, which this archive holds as a separate text. This entry previously carried the excerpt on Arius's death, which belongs to Arius; Alexander's own words — the prayer Macarius heard him pray on the pavement of the chancel — are given here instead.

Alexander… shut himself up in the church called Irene, and prostrating himself before the altar, prayed that if the opinion of Arius were true, he might not live to see the day; but if his own faith were true, that Arius might suffer the penalty of his impiety.