The Nicene Age · AD 313–400
Sozomen
b. Bethelia near Gaza; d. Constantinople c. AD 450 (held at the timeline’s ceiling) · Lawyer · Church historian · Constantinople
The Nicene Age
Who Sozomen was
The archive’s third most-cited authority, at seventy mentions, and the one who supplies almost all of its eastern material — because he read Syriac and Socrates did not. He was born at Bethelia near Gaza into a family converted by the monk Hilarion after a neighbour named Alaphion was healed; he took his own name, Salamanes, from one of the ascetic brothers of that circle. He trained in law at Beirut and practised at Constantinople. His nine books were dedicated to Theodosius II and were meant to run to 439, but the text breaks off around 425. His birth date is genuinely disputed: the New Catholic Encyclopedia puts it about 400, Britannica about 380 — a twenty-year spread that the archive records rather than splits. Held at the archive’s AD 400 ceiling, as Augustine, Jerome and Chrysostom are.
Common questions
When did Sozomen live?
Sozomen is dated b. Bethelia near Gaza; d. Constantinople c. AD 450 (held at the timeline’s ceiling) in the archive, which places Sozomen 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.
What did Sozomen write?
Sozomen has 1 catalogued writing in the archive: Ecclesiastical History, in nine books.
Which early sources mention Sozomen?
Sozomen is named in 2 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Cassiodorus and Epiphanius Scholasticus and Photius of Constantinople. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Where was Sozomen from?
The archive associates Sozomen with Constantinople.
Writings (1)
Ecclesiastical History, in nine books
c. AD 445, covering 324–439 (the text breaks off c. 425)[Dedicated to Theodosius II. Sozomen follows Socrates closely but adds archival documents and the eastern material — above all the Persian martyrs — that his source lacked.]Read the interlinear source text →
Primary-source mentions (2)
Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Historia Tripartita
c. AD 550[Compiled with Socrates and Theodoret into the single history the medieval West read.]Cassiodorus and Epiphanius Scholasticus · Historia Tripartita
The Historia Ecclesiastica Tripartita, a single Latin narrative woven c. AD 550 by Cassiodorus and Epiphanius Scholasticus out of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret — the form in which the three Greek historians were read in the medieval West. Edited by Walter Jacob and Rudolf Hanslik, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 71 (1952).
Bibliotheca, codex 30 (Photius reads the nine books)
c. AD 855[Photius gives his full name as Salamanes Hermias Sozomenus — the only source that does.]Photius of Constantinople · Bibliotheca cod. 30 · source text
Connected in the archive
People
Named alongside Sozomen in the sources
These figures are placed with Sozomen by the record — in a council roll, a martyr-act, a letter or a history — without Sozomen naming them in return.
Events in this lifetime
- AD 339 · The persecution of Shapur II, AD 339
- AD 343 · The Council of Serdica, AD 343
- AD 361 · Julian’s pagan restoration, AD 361
- AD 366 · Damasus and the catacomb epigrams, AD 366
- AD 367 · Athanasius lists the 27 NT books, AD 367
- AD 372 · The martyrdom of Sabbas the Goth, AD 372
- AD 378 · Queen Mavia’s revolt, AD 378
- AD 380 · The Edict of Thessalonica, AD 380
- AD 381 · The Council of Constantinople, AD 381
- AD 381 · The Council of Aquileia, AD 381
- AD 384 · The Altar of Victory petition, AD 384
- AD 390 · Thessalonica and the penance of Theodosius, AD 390
- AD 397 · Carthage confirms the canon, AD 397
Place
Places served
The one place the sources put Sozomen.