Primary source · Greek

Ecclesiastical History

Socrates Scholasticus · c. AD 439

Patrologia Graeca, vol. 67 (Migne) — manuscript witness to Ecclesiastical History
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 67 (Migne) — 1859Eastern Orthodox St. Fathers and other notable Christian writers · Public domain · Commons
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Patrologia Graeca, vol. 67 (Migne) — manuscript witness to Ecclesiastical History

Patrologia Graeca, vol. 67 (Migne) — 1859Eastern Orthodox St. Fathers and other notable Christian writers · Public domain · Commons

What this text is

The sober lay historian of the Constantinian and Arian centuries — the primary narrative source for dozens of fourth-century figures, from Acesius the Novatianist to the intruded bishops of Alexandria and Constantinople.

Profile of Socrates Scholasticus →

Public-domain translations

NPNF translation (Zenos, 1890, public domain)

'Place a ladder against heaven, Acesius, and climb up to it alone.' — the emperor Constantine's reply to the Novatianist bishop who held that the lapsed could not be restored (HE I.10).

Manuscript witnesses

Byzantine minuscule tradition

11th c. onward

The History in the standard Byzantine church-history corpora, with an Armenian version attesting an earlier state of the text.

SURVIVING WITNESSES

Patrologia Graeca, vol. 67 (Migne)

1859

Standard pre-critical text (shared volume with Sozomen).

PRINTED PROXY

Provenance

Constantinople; a lawyer's continuation of Eusebius, 305–439

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (38)

Complete public-domain text ↗