The name is an unusual and difficult one. It seems desirable to give preference to the order which Photius adopts, but to preserve the spelling in Nicephorus Callistus, and in the captions of the chief manuscripts, and therefore to call him Salaminius Hermias Sozomen. What the term Salaminius indicates, cannot yet be accurately determined. There are no data to show any official connection of Sozomen with Salamis opposite Athens, or Salamis (Constantia) in Cyprus; certainly there is no record of any naval service. In vi. 32, where he speaks of the greater lights of monasticism in Palestine, Hilarion, Hesychas, and Epiphanius, he remarks, "At the same period in the monasteries, Salamines, Phuscon, Malachion, Crispion, four brethren, were highly distinguished." In the tart controversy between Epiphanius and the empress, the latter had said, "You have not power to revive the dead; otherwise your archdeacon would not have died." Sozomen explains, "She alluded to Crispion, the archdeacon, who had died a short time previously; he was brother to Phuscon and Salamanus, monks whom I had occasion to mention when detailing the history of events under the reign of Valens" (viii. 15). The readings in the first citation fluctuate between the forms Salamines and Salamanes. Since these monks were of the family of Alaphion, intimate friends and neighbors of the grandfather of Sozomen (v. 15), it might be conjectured that Salamines stood in some relationship with Sozomen, such as sponsor or teacher, and that the cognomen might have its origin from such a connection. It seems strange in such a case that he would not have dwelt upon the bond, or at least have emphasized the life of this particular brother by a special note; but he simply avers, "Some good men belonging to this family have flourished even in our own days; and in my youth I saw some of them, but they were then very aged." Nor in the other passages (vi. 32, viii. 15) is there any hint of intimacy. At the same time, this seems as yet the most warranted explanation of the epithet. Hermias was quite a common name even among Christians. It was originally connected with the household or local worship of Hermes, as the giver of an unexpected gift, or it may be as the utterance of a parental wish for the future success of the newcomer. Although it contained a heathen reminiscence, it was probably conferred in this case because it was ancestral. The name Sozomen itself is documentarily a very unusual one; and was probably bestowed upon the child by the father as a devout recognition of deliverance for himself and his boy, and in contrast with the family surname. A certain Praefectus domestico, to whom Isidore of Pelusium addresses a letter (i. 300), was also so called; he must have been a cotemporary. It would be a pleasant surprise could he be identified with the historian; and it would not be at all impossible, for Evagrius, the advocate and historian, was so promoted (H. E. vi. 24). The biographical hints in Sozomen's surviving work are of the smallest; and outside tradition has preserved absolutely nothing. His ancestors were apparently from early times inhabitants of the village of Bethelia, in the territory of Gaza, and near to that important city. By race, they were probably of Philistine rather than Jewish descent; for they were pagans (Hellenists) up to the time of Hilarion, in the second quarter of the fourth century, and our historian contrasts them with the Hebrews. The family was one of distinction, belonging to a sort of village patricianate. That of Alaphion was of still greater dignity. The village of Bethelia was populous with a mixture of Gentiles and Jews; the former, however, largely predominating.Its name appears to have been derived from the Pantheon, erected on an artificial acropolis, and so overlooking the whole community, whose universalistic religious zeal was thus symbolized. The term Bethel was first given to the temple, and then was transferred to the town as Bethelia; and the use of such a form indicates that the prevailing dialect was a variation of Syriac or Aramaic. It is also spelled Bethelea (vi. 32). Hilarion was born in Thabatha, another village near Gaza, to the south, on a wady of the same name. He became a student in Alexandria, but adopted the monastic discipline, through the example of Antony; on returning to his home, he found his parents dead. He distributed his share of the patrimony to his family and the poor, and then withdrew to a desert by the sea, twenty stadia from his native village, and began his career of monastic activity as the founder of that ethical system in Palestine. Before his flight to other and distant seclusions, he came in contact with Alaphion, the head of a noble family in Bethelia, seemingly on very friendly footing with Sozomen's grandfather. Alaphion was possessed of a demon; neither pagan formularies nor Jewish exorcists could relieve him; Hilarion had but to invoke the name of Christ, and the malignant agent was expelled. The healed man became at once a Christian; the grandfather of Sozomen was won to the same profession by the care of his friend. The father, too, adopted the new faith; many other relatives joined the ranks of the believers, in this intensely pagan community and region; for Gaza, as the chief city, displayed a decided hostility to the Gospel. The grandfather was a man of native intelligence, and had moderate cultivation in general studies, and was not without some knowledge of arithmetic. His earlier social and intellectual position made him at once prominent among the converts, especially as an interpreter of the Scriptures. He won the affections of the Christians in Ascalon and Gaza and their outlying regions. In the estimation of his grandson, he was a necessary figure in the religious life of the Christian communities, and people carried doubtful points of holy writ to him for solution; yet it does not appear that he held any clerical function.
While the ancestor of Sozomen was conspicuous as the religious teacher of Southwestern Palestine, the old Philistine region, Alaphion and his family were distinguished for works of a practical quality: they founded churches and monasteries; they were active in the relief of strangers and the poor; some adopted the new philosophy; and out of their ranks came martyrs and bishops. Sozomen says nothing of his father, excepting that he was originally a pagan, and therefore born before Hilarion's mission. The edicts of Julian caused a sudden revival of the old state religion, and led to many local persecutions, where the pagans were the stronger party: Gaza and its dependencies were of this number, and some of the tragedies of that unhappy time are recorded by our historian. The families of Alaphion and of Sozomen were compelled to flee, to what place is not told us; probably the southernmost monastic retreats: the exiles certainly returned (v. 15), not unlikely after the accession of Jovian. We can only guess at the date of Sozomen's birth, and somewhat in this wise. Hilarion's activity in Palestine was after the council of Nice, and before the accession of Julian; we may say about a.d. 345. The grandfather at his conversion may have been about forty, since he had become a conspicuous local figure; the father, in all likelihood, was but a lad when this change came over the domestic worship. The exile under Julian took place very nearly in 362, and the return in 364, when the patrician of Bethelia was verging on sixty, and the lad had become a young man. We may place the date of Sozomen's birth somewhere between 370 and 380. Hilarion passed away about 371: Ephraim Syrus, in 378; Gratian was emperor of the West; Theodosius the Great was just about to succeed Valens in the East. Ambrose was the most imposing ecclesiastic of the Occident; Gregory Nazianzen and Epiphanius were the leaders of orthodoxy in the Orient.
There are but few details concerning his education. That it was directed by the monks is sure; in fact, the only form of Christian life known in that region was of the ascetic type; the rery bishops and clerical functionaries were selected from the ranks of the practical philosophers. There was a succession of pious men in the line of Alaphion, and with the elders of the second generation, Sozomen, as a youth, was more or less acquainted. The names of some of them have already been mentioned : all had been pupils of Hilarion. The fourth of the brothers, Melachion by name, must have already passed away, and legends had speedily transfigured his memory. The influence of Epiphanius throughout Palestine, and particularly in its southern slopes and shepheloth, was dominant in shaping the quality of devotional thought and feeling: its force was scarcely spent when Sozomen was a boy.
This accounts for the exaggerated value he puts upon the monastic discipline as the true philosophy, and why he desires not to appear ungrateful to its cultivators, in the writing of his history; for he purposes to keep in mind that tremendous movement, and to commemorate its eminent leaders under different reigns; in fact, he decides to make it a feature of his treatment of church life and history. There is no warrant, however, for stating that he himself became a monk. With all his admiration for their spiritual superiority, he does not lay claim to any direct fellowship, but rather denies his right or competency to invade their domain. We may be sure that he received the ordinary education imparted in the monastic schools of the time, approximating that of similar institutions near Alexandria. In a degree it was narrow, and growingly hostile to pagan literature; moreover, it was apt to be provincial, if patriotic in its tone. This will account for his desire to elevate the importance of Palestine over against the supercilious tendency which centralized all culture in Constantinople. The main body of his studies was conducted in the Greek language, of which he is no slight master; indeed, he became one of the best imitative stylists of his time, according to so good a judge as Photius. His familiarity with the Syriac and Aramaic names, the exactness of their transliteration, and his larger acquaintance with the history of the Syrian church, point to a likely knowledge of at least a dialect of that widely diffused speech; indeed, he could hardly have escaped the patois, which seems to have predominated over the Greek in Bethelia. In iii. 16, he allows for the loss of force and original grace in every translation, but states that in Ephraim's works, the Greek rendition made in Ephraim's own day, suffered nothing by the change, and he institutes such a comparison between the original and its version, that one is inclined to think he could read both. So his effort to keep a balance in writing between the central and border lands of the empire, and indeed outside of it, would indicate a broader linguistic sympathy. In vi. 34, he speaks familiarly of Syrian monks, who had survived to his own period; the wider range of his knowledge may have been due also to the practice of his profession, or to Syrian cases brought to Constantinople, each of which would involve a comprehension of the language; nor less his use of the records written by the Christians of Persia, Syria, and particularly Edessa, to preserve the story of the Persian church and its many martyrs, whose material he used so copiously (ii. 9-14). It is difficult to be sure of his proficiency in Latin; on the one hand, as an advocate it would be absolutely necessary for him to understand that language of jurisprudence; for all edicts, laws, rescripts, were written therein: the Theodosian code itself was so compiled in his own day. On the other hand, where he quotes Latin documents, he invariably does it from translations into Greek made by other hands; thus in iii. 2, of Constantine's letter to the Alexandrians, he says, " I have met with a copy translated from the Latin into the Greek; I shall insert it precisely as I find it." So in iv. 18, the letter of the Synod of Ariminum to Constantius; and in viii. 26, the two epistles of Innocent. Probably his second-hand report about Hilary of Pictavium, v. 13, leans the same way. But on the whole we must allow his profession, which necessitated a knowledge of the law language, to outweigh the lack of original versions in his book.
It is difficult to judge from a solitary work what the degree of an author's general culture is. Clemens Alexandrinus has multitudinous quotations; it would be easy to conclude that he was a scholar of universal reading, and a genuine polyhistor; but their inaccuracy and frequent infelicity make them rather appear as the excerpts from some florilegium or some rhetorical hand-book. The classical allusions in Sozomen are not very many; and he might well have considered it out of place to indulge in overmuch reference in such a record as he presents; the quality of what appears would not compel a wide range of reading; the dedication is most fertile in familiar illustrations, poetical, historical, and mythological. In i. 6, because of his mentioning Aquilis, he drags the Argonauts in by the ears, hardly from Pisander, but rather from Zosimus, who does the same in mentioning the progress of Alaric. When he describes Constantine's tentative search for a favorable site on which to rear his new capital, the mention of the plain of Ilium moves the historian to relate a little tradition about the Trojan town (ii. 3). He mentions Aristotle, in whose philosophy Aetius was versed (iii. 15); and to whose dialectic work Theophronius composed an introduction (vii. 17). When he dwells on the imitative literature produced by Apolinarius, he alludes indirectly to the Homeric poems, and mentions outright his writing "comedies in imitation of Menander, tragedies resembling those of Euripides, and odes on the model of Pindar" (v. 18). In narrating the history of Daphne under Julian (v. 19), he gives the myth of Apollo and Daphne. Such hints and others are no proof or disproof of any extensive reading, and yet the way in which he alludes to some is more after a cyclopaedic fashion than any profound study of the authors themselves. In fact, his confession in the instance of the Apollo and Daphne myth is naive, "I leave this subject to those who are more accurately acquainted with mythology." This acknowledgment is not born of any puritanic hesitancy,-for he had ventured into the sensual bog a little way already,-but is rather a genuine declaration of his ignorance, and that in the capital where Anthemius and Synesius were authorities. Probably we have a little light in the limitations and illiberality of his early training, by recalling his attitude toward the imitative writings of Apolinarius, which sprang up to countervail the Julian edict, which the Christians interpreted as a prohibition to their enjoyment of the Hellenic culture. While Socrates whole-souledly and forcibly advocates the humanizing effect of the ancient literature (iii. 16), Sozomen says, "Were it not for the extreme partiality with which the productions of antiquity are regarded, I doubt not but that the writings of Apolinarius would be held in as much estimation as those of the ancients," and he rather sides with the monks in their contempt for classic studies (i. 12). He does not wholly commit himself; he is a bit hesitant,-a characteristic of his make-up. This was an absorbing question in that and previous days, as it has continued to agitate the church, more or less, until our own time. In his time the influence of the monks and the clergy, who were pervaded with the ascetic spirit, was more and more against the humanities; the court fluctuated, while the training of the Valentinian and Theodosian succession had been decidedly monastic, and its sympathies were mainly with the intolerant tendency, the necessities of their position, and the splendid and overshadowing political abilities of men like Libanius, Themistius, Anthemius, Troilus, could not be set aside. Some of them, too, had proved themselves to be the saviours and uplifters of the state.The learning and grace of Eudocia, the empress, the spirit of her early training as the daughter of an Athenian philosopher, and her own poetic gifts, were persuasive agents in sustaining a classical survival among the Christians at the court, before she fell under the blight of her husband's jealousy. Cyrus, the restorer of Constantinople, filled his verses with the same antique flavor. The clergy, whose preliminary training had been in the schools of the sophists, or at the Universities, could not wholly bury their sympathy, although they went through casuistic struggles such as that of Jerome. The Arians, too, were frequently of a larger culture, and on the Germanic side, of signal military skill and political sagacity, whose services the state could not dispense with. The University which even the monastically drilled Theodosius the Younger organized in Constantinople) while seeking to give a Christian tone to the higher education, previously controlled by Athens, made very liberal provision for the languages, if not so much for philosophy. Sozomen, as we see, inclined to a less generous view, and thought Apolinarius had such a universal genius, that his numerous originals might be dispensed with; Homer, Menander, Euripides, Pindar, but for an affectation, need not have been missed. This shows the thin quality of his reading, if not- the restricted quantity of it, and lays bare the impotence of his critical faculty. These limitations were doubtless due in large measure to the shrunken ideals of his Palestinian education: it savored of Epiphanius' temper and impress.
His education on the religious side was in the Nicene faith as professed by the Catholic Church in the East, to which the monks remained, not always thoughtfully faithful, in all that stormy period. As Sozomen says, the people were unable to follow the refinements of theological discussion, and took their cue from those whose lives seemed better than that of the ordinary clergy. He had, however, no close drill in the arguments pro and con, judging from his own declarations of inability to follow the various aspects of Arian discussion. After citing the letter of Gregory Nazianzen to Nectarius, in which the distinctive features of the heresy of Apolinarius are given, he supplements: "What I have said, may, I think, suffice to show the nature of the sentiments maintained by Apolinarius and Eunomius. If any one desire more detailed information, I can only refer him to the works on the subject, written either by them or by others, concerning these men. I do not profess easily to understand or to expound these matters" (e0pei\ e0moi\ ou!te sunie/bai ta\ toiau=ta, ou!te metafra/zein eu0pete/j vi. 27). And when he enumerates the causes of rupture among the Eunomians, "I should be prolix were I to enter into further particulars; and indeed the subject would be by no means an easy one to me, since I have no such dialectic skill" (e0pei\ mhde\ e0mpei/rwj e!xw tw=n toiou/twn diale/cewn, vii. 17). It would seem, then, that his logical training had not been of a very deep quality, and yet it must be said that such definitions and arguments as he does state in the history of controversy are orderly and lucid. Metaphysics also seems to have had no large place in his earlier studies; but he certainly did become familiar with its later theological terms and distinctions, and he draws a clear line between the various contestants who warred for and against consubstantiality. His reading also covered some philosophical speculations, as one gathers from a sentence in v. 6, "For it is not true, as some assert, that as is the body, so is the soul." He probably also early learned to distinguish between ontology and ethics, by the practical lines drawn between the clerical disputant and the monastic philosopher. A sentence in his history of Meletius, bishop of Antioch (iv. 28), emphasizes this difference as we seldom find it in early Christian literature: "In his first discourse he confines himself to instructing the people in what we call ethics (tou\j kaloume/nouj h0qikou\j lo/gouj), and then openly declared the Son to be of the same substance as the Father."
His spirit was taught to enslave itself with legalistic fetters, and where he does rise above them, it is with trembling misgivings; he had a side for larger things, like Socrates, due probably to his profession, but he was afraid to venture quite so far, and yet he is magnanimous as compared with the better educated and clerical Theodoret.
To those early school years we must also attribute his statement, that he was a witness to the fidelity of Zeno, bishop of Majuma, the seaport of Gaza. "It is said, and I myself am witness of the truth of the assertion, that when he was bishop of the church in Majuma, he was never absent at morning or evening hymns, or any other worship of God, unless attacked by some malady; and yet he was at this period an old man, being nearly a hundred years of age" (vii. 28). The patriarch's self-support and industry were in like manner the object of his youthful admiration. The struggle of the bishop of Gaza to assert his jurisdiction over Majuma, the seaport which had its own episcopate, and desired to retain its ecclesiastical autonomy, after it had lost its civil independence, Sozomen speaks of as happening in his day, and was one of the news of his youth; and one catches in his statement an inner satisfaction with the decision of the council whichrecognized the freedom of the Christian community by the sea (v. 3). In connection with public worship, he had very likely heard in those earlier days the reading of the Apocalypse of Peter. He says in vii. 19, "Thus the book entitled the Apocalypse of Peter, which was considered altogether spurious by the ancients, is still read in some of the churches of Palestine, on the day of preparation, when the people observe a fast in memory of the passion of the Saviour." And a favorite book he saw in the hands of the monks of his native land, was the Apocalypse of Paul, "although unrecognized by the ancients" (vii. 19). A familiarity with such books gives a key to his later attitude toward prophecy.
There is no evidence as to what persuaded him to study law, nor do we know when he was enrolled as a student. The fact that he mentions the school of Berytus as the place where Bishop Triphyllius had prosecuted jurisprudence for so long a while (i. 11) can hardly be taken as a suggestion of Sozomen's own residence there. It would have been more likely for him to have attended lectures at the University of Alexandria or Antioch, with which cities he shows a considerable acquaintance. His studies were probably based on the Codex Gregorianus, with its supplement, the Codex Hermogenianus; for it was in his own day, and during the writing of his history, that the Codex Theodosianus was begun, and one is sorry to miss his name from the list of its compilers; and it was not until a.d. 439, that it was proclaimed as the text-book of imperial law. That he was admitted to the practice of that profession, we have direct evidence, as in the case of Evagrius, (H. E. vi. 7) while as to Socrates, it is simply an uncertified tradition. Sozomen speaks of his afflicted friend Aquilinus (ii. 3), " who is even at the present time residing with us, and is an advocate in the same courts of justice as that to which we belong." From the tenor of the legal notices in his history it is likely that he practiced in the episcopal courts as well; for these had assumed form, and the function of an advocate is regulated in several synodical canons. He is more careful and systematic in stating the course of important legislation with regard to religion and the Church, than any other historian. Thus under Constantine, i. 3, 5, 8, 9, 21, 23, ii. 32; under Constantius, iii. 17, iv. 15; under Julian, v. 5, 15, 17; under Jovian, vi. 3; Valens, vi. 12, 19; Gratian, vii. 1; Gratian and Theodosius, vii. 4; under Theodosius, vii. 9, 12, 16, 20, 7.25, viii. 4; Valentinian, ii. (Justine), vii. 13; Arcadius, viii. 7, 24. There is no instance of his own practice such as Evagrius gives (H. E. vi. 7).
We can only guess at the time of his settlement in Constantinople. One would judge from his narrative, that he was not there during the riots excited by the deposition of Chrysostom, a.d. 404. He may have arrived a little after the elevation of Atticus to the see, as successor to Arsacius, who had followed John, somewhere about 406, a year before the death of the orator, and two years before the decease of the Emperor Arcadius. Under the sage Anthemius, he was finding his way in his profession. Under Pulcheria, one is inclined to suppose that he obtained some recognition. The capital thereafter remained the center of his practice, and he appears to be still in connection with the dikasteries while he is writing the second book of his history (ii. 3). There are a few personal points in his life at the imperial city which he hints at. Thirty five stadia overland from the city, toward the Pontus, was Hestiae; owing to an appearance of the Archangel Michael, a temple was built there, and, as a consequence, called Michaelium. It became noted for its curative properties, both for physical and mental disorders. Sozomen himself had been afflicted, how, he does not tell us,-whether by reverses, or dangers, or disease, or other suffering,-but he resorted thither and testifies to the benefit he received (ii. 3). There is another personal incident which he records in ix. 2. He was a spectator of the splendid ceremonials connected with the discovery and transfer of the remains of the Forty Martyrs: he saw the costly caskets, the festival, and the procession; he heard the music of the commemorative odes, and beheld the deposit of the relics by the body of St. Thyrsus. A number of other spectators whom he knew were there, the greater part of whom were living at the writing of his record. This celebration took place much later, under the episcopate of Proclus; therefore after the year 434. A final personal hint is given in his statements of the overthrow of Uldis. Concerning the remnant of the Sciri, who as a result of that campaign were scattered as slaves over Asia Minor' he remarks, "I have seen many in Bithynia, near Mt. Olympus, living apart from one another, and cultivating the hills and valleys of that region" (ix. 5). As to the nature of this tour, we know nothing. He must have been active in many of the later ecclesiastical and secular matters. which he narrates, for the first endeavor of his history is to mention the affairs in which he was concerned (memnh/somai de\ pragma/twn oi$j pare/tuxon, i. I). We can only deplore that he makes no sign, in the unfolding story, possibly some might have been indicated had he completed his ninth book.
The influential circles of the Eastern and Westem capital were divided into parties on a variety of themes. One such, on the lines of culture, we have already considered. A second and very decisive one, was the question whether the foreigners, especially the Goths and the Persians, should be admitted into the service of the state. The stronger body believed in the use and incorporation of these new elements. What before was a variable matter, became a fixed policy under Theodosius the Great, and in all directions. His weak sons were controlled by both factions alternately. Anthemius, Pulcheria, and Theodosius II. adhered in the main to the liberal view. Yet the presence of a cry, Rome for the Romans, could overthrow such a man as Stilicho, and elevate such a weakling as Olympius. Sozomen, from his handling of the events, allied himself with the illiberal cabal; and while he sought room for a representation of foreign Christianity in his book, nevertheless opposed the intrusion of at least the northern element into the offices of the empire.
There was a third line of cleavage among the people and the court. A very strong and persistent faction set itself against the admission of pagans and Arians into political position. These two, dying elements often combined to save themselves from extinction. The court itself fluctuated, because the Germanic politicians were mostly Arian, and the best scholars of political science were pagans. Exigencies compelled the recognition of masters like Anthemius and Troilus. Sozomen threw in his lot with the narrower clique. He does not condescend to mention the best statesman of his time, or the wisest political thinker. Socrates does, and with admiration. The portrayal of Alaric is from the estimate of him as a leader in whom the hopes of pagans and Arians revived. Gainas is traduced, because he was the rallying-point of expiring Arianism in the East.
Sozomen, as we have seen, sided also with the majority in honoring the monastic life, which was bitterly opposed by many politicians and ecclesiastics. Naturally, therefore, he regarded life from a more pietistic standpoint, than did the court under the leadership either of Eudoxia or Eudocia. He responded to the puritanism of Chrysostom and Pulcheria.
He is a defender of Chrysostom, and answers such criticisms as Socrates has made. We can scarcely doubt that his heart was with the Johnites, although he may not have entered their separatist communion.
We can gather from intimations in his history that Sozomen had traveled somewhat. He shows a better knowledge of Palestine, than even Epiphanius; he must have kept up his connection with his native land to have been so well informed as to its traditions, places, and customs. Naturally the greater part of this interest centers in Gaza and its neighborhood, as his old home. In ii. 1, 2, his story of the invention of the Cross and the holy buildings erected by Helena, improves on the original, by local detail and color. In ii. 4, he enlarges upon the Eusebian account of Constantine's purgation of Mamre or Terebinthus, as one familiar with the spot and with its fair. In ii. 5, he gives a bit of history of Gaza and Majuma under Constantine. In ii. 20, he narrates the election of Maximus as bishop of Jerusalem, from a source which no one else has used. In iii. 14, his biographical notices of Hilarion, Hesychas, and others, indicate an exact topographical knowledge. The Julian edict gives occasion to state the dissensions between Gaza and its seaport (vii. 3). Quite graphic is the martyrology of Gaza and its vicinity, given in v. 9. In discussing Julian's outrage on the image of Christ at Paneas (v. 27), and the miraculous well at Nicopolis, formerly Emmaus, we see signs of local acquaintanceship. In v. 22, Julian is said to write to the patriarchs, and rulers, and people, asking for their prayers for himself and his empire; here is a distinct reference to the then existing patriarchate; so all the details of the attempted restoration betray a well-informed hand, as well as state the fact of direct communication with the witnesses of the phenomena. The biographies in vi. 32 are bound up with Southern Palestine, and particularly with Bethelia and Gerar. Similarities in vii. 28, of those more closely related to him, easily prove that he was near home. In viii. 13, Scythopolis is selected by the fugitive Egyptian monks, because its many palms afforded them their customary means of support,-a circumstance narrated by no one else. Nor are local hints wanting in the story of the finding of Zachariah's body (ix. 17), with its legends. There is in one sense a disproportionate mention of Palestine, and designedly, not only from patriotic motives, but from a desire to vindicate its historic position in the development of Church history, and to rebuke the prevailing tendency of churchmen and historians to press it into the background. It is a curious juxtaposition, that the councils of Chalcedon should so soon after have vindicated the primacy of Jerusalem. There is also a better acquaintance with the facts and purposes of Jewish history, the relation of Judaism to Christianity (i. 1); the genesis of the Saracens, and their association with the covenant people (vi. 38); the regulations of the paschal season, especially in vii. 18; as well as a greater accuracy in the transliteration of names of places.
It was no inconsiderable journey from Gaza to his school, and from his school to Constantinople. The hints concerning Palestine, already mentioned, indicate personal observation. Beyond these we have suggestions that may look to his having been in Arabia and Cyprus, as, when he speaks (vii. 19) of knowing the custom in both places, to have a chorepiscopus at the head of a local church. So, too, in Alexandria, he was struck with the strange position of the bishop in not rising when the Gospels were read, something he had never known or heard of in other communities,-words which point to familiarity with that city. One would be glad to think of his having visited Tarsus, since he was acquainted with Cilix, a presbyter of that city, whom he consulted about the origin of the Apocalypse of Paul (vii. 19). That he knew Bithynia from the sight of it, we have already seen (ix. 5). He describes or alludes to architectural or topographic features of Alexandria, Antioch, and possibly Edessa, in a way that scarcely leaves a doubt of his having seen those cities; we may suppose that his clientelage would compel journeys to and fro.
His work abounds with allusions to structures and regions of Constantinople, to say nothing of its vicinity. The general description of the building of the city by Constantine (ii. 3) already gives some of its principal features. Of the churches, he mentions the first of those dedicated to the Archangel St. Michael (ii. 3), at some remove from the city (Hestiae, Michaelium), and to be distinguished from a later structure on the opposite shore, and one in the city, erected to the same patron angel;-the church of the Apostles, which became the place of sepulture for emperors and even bishops (ii. 34, iv. 21, viii. 1O);-the church of Acacius the martyr (iv. 21), to which Macedonius endeavored to remove the coffin of Constantine;-the church of Sophia (iv. 26), begun by Constantine, and dedicated under Constantius,-with which was connected a baptistery (viii. 21); this great edifice was burned in the tumult which arose after the second exile of Chrysostom was announced (viii. 22);-the house of prayer begun by Chrysostom and completed by Sisinnius, containing the tomb of the martyred Notaries; this was outside the walls, in a spot previously devoted to the execution of criminals, and an object of dread, because of frequenting ghosts (iv. 3);-the church of the Novatians, situated in a cart of the city called Pelargum; this was taken down by them and transferred to a suburb named Sycae, hence the edifice was entitled Anastasia; it was restored to its original spot under Julian (iv. 20);-the little dwelling which was converted into a house of prayer for Gregory Nazianzen, and so became a church, also called Anastasia (vii. 5);-the church reared by Macedonius, which received the name of Paul, bishop of Constantinople, when Theodosius removed the confessor's body to that building; it is described as a spacious and distinguished temple (vii. 10); when Theodosius the Great conveyed the head of John the Baptist to Hebdomas, in the suburbs, where was the seventh milestone, he erected on that site a spacious and magnificent temple, which became a center of imperial devotion and miraculous cures (vii. 21, 24, viii. 4, 14);-the church reared in honor of St. Stephen, the proto-martyr (viii. 24);-the church dedicated to the memory of St. Mocus the Martyr, where Dioscorus was buried (viii. 17);-the place where the body of Thyrsus the Martyr reposed, and whither the relics of the forty soldiers were transferred (ix. 2); this was a temple, according to Procopius. In Chalcedon, he mentions the church of St. Euphemia, so glowingly described by Evagrius, and that of SS. Peter and Paul in the Oak (Ruffinum).
While he speaks of the number of monks and nuns, in and about Constantinople (iv. 2, viii. 9), and alludes in a general way to their dwellings (iv. 20), he mentions no particular establishment except that founded by Marathonius, which stood in Sozomen's time. He also refers to the Xenodochia, the Nosocomia, the Cherotrophia, and the Ptochotrophia (iv. 20, 27, viii. 9), but he does not specialize, not even concerning the group of institutions founded and endowed by Pulcheria (ix. 8). There were residences for the bishops and clergy, but these are only hinted at (vii. 14, viii. 14). The palaces and the forums are mentioned only in a general way, but the splendid council chamber (me/gistoj oi\koj th=j sngklh/ton bonlh=j), which was burned with the Sophia, is described as south of that edifice. He refers to the Hippodrome in the third region, with a little description of its early form and place (vi. 39, viii. 21). Certain of the eight public baths are mentioned, the commodious thermae called after Zeuxippus (iii. 9) is set forth as a conspicuous and large structure, and the palace as adjoining it near the sea-side. This was in the second region. He speaks correctly of baths bearing the names of Anastasia and Carosa, daughters of Valens, standing in his own time (vi. 9). The baths of Constantius are characterized as very spacious when he tells us how the followers of John resorted thither for the paschal feast (viii. 21).
We have some brief notices of a few friends outside the earlier circles in Bethelia and Gaza. By the advice of some pious acquaintances, who were versed in the mysteries, he decided not to publish the Nicene symbol (i. 20). Among those who experienced relief at the Michaelium, was a fellow-advocate, Aquilinus; the story of his cure is told us from Sozomen's own observation, and from the statements made by his colleague (ii. 3). He was on good terms with Cilix, the venerable presbyter of Tarsus (vii. 19). He had a friend or friends, who were cognizant of affairs under Theophilus (viii. 12); and similarly with some who had been intimate with Chrysostom (viii. 9). It is not unlikely that he knew Nicarete in her old age, a lady of Bithynia remarkable for her sacrificial life, whose memory is preserved by him alone (viii. 23). The facts which he brings to light concerning Pulcheria, and the submission of his work to the younger Theodosius, shows that he was received graciously by both.
Part II.-Sozomen as Author.
When seized with a desire to write history, Sozomen says: "I at first felt strongly inclined to trace the course of events from the very commencement, but on reflecting that similar records of the past, up to their own time, had been compiled by those wisest of men, Clemens and Hegesippus, successors of the Apostles, by Africanus, the historian, and by Eusebius, surnamed Pamphilus, a man intimately acquainted with Sacred Scriptures and the writings of the Greek poets and historians, I merely drew up an epitome in two books, of all that is recorded to have happened to the churches, from the ascension of Christ to the deposition of Licinius." This work is unfortunately lost. It was not a simple chronicle, but an abbreviated account of these events; the abridgment was probably from the authors mentioned above. The habit of succinct narration is quite in his later vein. He doubtless commingled secular with the sacred detail. It may be suggestingly asked, whether his words in ix. 1 do not give a hint of another work: "But I willingly for awhile pass over the many separate manifestations of divine favor, that were granted to the sister of the emperor, as proofs that she was loved of God, lest anybody should blame me, for having set out to do other things, and yet had turned to the use of encomiums." This sudden arrest could not be owing to an intended resumption of such matters at a later portion of the history; for the method was already regarded as irrelevant, and the very reason for citing no more in that vein; is it not likely that he at least purposed an encomium of Pulcheria?
The attempt of Hieronymus, Wolf, Lambec, and Fenzel to ascribe Hermias' Diasnrmo\j tw=n e!cw filoso/fwn (Irrisio gentilium philosophorum) to Sozomen, because of identity of name, is now held by none. The work by which we know him, is the Ecclesiastical History in nine Books. When did he write it? In trying to determine the time of its production, let us look at the data suggested in his work.
(1) In the dedication, the delineation of the emperor's culture and character discloses a man of fixity and repose; these qualities could not be ascribed to the time of his imperial majority, in his fifteenth year, nor to the time of his marriage (421); they are rather the features of settled experience; hence we would expect in general a period nearer the end of his reign, than one in the beginning or middle; certainly somewhere beyond his thirtieth year, and therefore beyond a.d. 438.
(2) Sozomen says that poets and authors, even those of prefectural dignity, as well as other subjects, celebrated the emperor. The usual literary incense was burned. Olympiodorus dedicated his history to him. Socrates was magniloquent; and more particularly did Cyrus, the friend of Eudocia, who attained the highest offices of the state from 439-441, write epigrams in praise of his monarch. This would make a date after 441.
(3) In illustration of the practiced self-control of his sovereign, he narrates an incident of the royal journey in the summer heat, through Bithynia, to the fallen city of Heraclea, in Pontus, with the view of restoring it. This journey took place in June of a.d. 443. This incident is introduced with prw/hn, which would place the writing quite definitely as not very soon after June 443.
(4) The reign of Theodosius is described as above all others bloodless and pure from slaughter. This could only be moderately just, before the judicial murders connected with the jealous fits of Theodosius, from 442 on, and the united movement of outlying nations upon the East and West, as projected by the political sagacity of Attila.
(5) The professed terminus of his history is the seventeenth consulate of Theodosius: this was the year 439; hence the whole work was written after that time.
(6) The prayer at the conclusion of the prooemium may have in it a point of light; he hopes that through the favor of Christ, the imperium may be transmitted to Theodosius' sons and grandsons. The only child born to Eudocia was a daughter, Eudoxia, who was married to Valentinian III. It was because of the lack of succession, that Pulcheria married General Marcianus. Eudocia withdrew from the court somewhere between 441-443, but that would not have had to impede the succession, had Theodosius chosen to be divorced; and this prayer rather intimates the desirability of another marriage. This, therefore, must have been written before the hope of sons was removed; certainly, therefore, before the closing years of the emperor's reign.
(7) In Book ix, Pulcheria's inclination to virginity is spoken of as expressed in the most solemn way, and with the consecrated gift of a table to signalize it. There is no hint in the work of the marriage with Marcian, suggested by Theodosius on his death-bed, and carried out after his demise. This would indicate that the work was completed before 450.
(8) In ix. 1, he affirms: "That new heresies have not prevailed in our times, we shall find to be due especially to her, as we shall subsequently see." The heresies are those connected with Nestorianism, 428-444, and possibly the return of the Johannists to full communion by the triumphal restoration of Chrysostom's remains in 438; these were to fall within the limits of his work. The Eutychean heresy in its first stage was hostile to Pulcheria's views, while its overthrow was not effected until a year after the death of Theodosius. The close of the Nestorian controversy through the compromise was in 444, and that date would suit well with the fact of mastering the heresy at the very time he was writing this account of Pulcheria.
(9) In ix. 2, he recounts the transfer of the forty martyrs, after a public festival had been appropriately celebrated with fitting honor and pomp, with psalms, "at which I myself was present; and others who were present can also bear testimony that these things were done in the way described, for almost all of them still survive. And the event occurred much later, when Proclus governed the church of Constantinople." Proclus was elected 434, and continued in office until his death in 447. This transfer must have taken place before 439, the proposed terminus of the history, and very likely a little while after the accession of this long-tried candidate. The time of the writing was at some considerable remove from the event itself, because of his appeal to the survivors as witnesses to the truth of his portrayal, and yet not so far, but that the most of the participants and spectators could still be appealed to. This would correspond very well with the date connected with 443, suggested by the incident in Bithynia, if we allow some interval between the writing of the dedication and Book ix.
(10) In ix. 6, the overthrow of Uldis, 406, is narrated. The settlement of the conquered Sciri as slaves and colonists is enlarged upon. Sozomen himself saw these imperial farmers at their tilling in Bithynia. This may connect itself, possibly, as to the time of the year, and place, with the emperor's progress to Heraclea Pontica. There is evidently an interval between the capture of the Sciri, and their settled work as colonists, when Sozomen visited that region, and between that visit and the writing of the fact. If it corresponded with the imperial progress, it would of course be 443. Taking all these points together, it would seem that the work was begun about the latter part of 443; and that the dedication was written first, because that states the plan of the whole work, including the ninth book, whose record does not meet the intention, there expressed; moreover, some of the events in Book ix. indicate a considerable interval between the fact and the account of it. When he finished what he wrote, it is not so easy to tell; it would certainly take him a few years, and the end was reached before any considerable outbreak of the Eutychean heresy; therefore probably in 447, or 448, for the reason that Pulcheria did not conquer that heresy until after her marriage with Marcian; this date is supported by the fact that the breaking of her vow was unknown to the writer of ix. 1, 3; also because the Emperor Theodosius was still alive. The work was the fruit and employment of old age; the style is certainly that of an elderly man, and not that of youth or early maturity.
What were the main objects he had in view in his history?
1. He desired to present the truth with regard to the facts and their results. In i. 1, he affirms: "I will readily transcribe fully from any work that may tend to the elucidation of truth." "Still, as it is requisite, in order to maintain historical accuracy, to pay the strictest attention to the means of eliciting truth, I felt myself bound to examine all writings of this class, according to my ability." This is his professed purpose; however subjective or churchly his view of truth may be, we must give him the credit for the intention. In i. 1, he appeals to his readers in this wise: "Let not an impertinent or malignant spirit be imputed to me, for having dwelt upon the disputes of ecclesiastics among themselves, concerning the primacy and pre-eminence of their own heresy. In the first place, as I have already said, a historian ought to regard everything as secondary in importance to truth." And we shall see evidences of his fairness.
2. His history is designed to be a demonstration of Christianity as from God. The vastness of the change wrought by God in the introduction and success of Christianity and the insignificant and mythical themes upon which literature had been wont to exercise itself, prompted him, with his confessed inefficiency, to undertake this line of evidence, in the conviction that God would help his believing incapacity. Hence his work is a record of immediate divine interventions, and extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit; it abounds in visions, miracles, and prophecy. The celestial agents visibly direct affairs; the flow of vaticination does not cease; the power to reverse the expected order of events is not suspended. Thus, as to epiphanies of divine, angelic, or sainted beings: In i. 3, is recounted the appearance of the cross unto Constantine; and in the night during sleep, the manifestation of Christ with a cross, and the instructions given to the emperor. In ii. 1, we have a series of divine interpositions to discover the true cross, and Sozomen remarks in refutation of one explanation, "I do not think that human information is requisite, when God thinks it best to make manifest the same." In ii. 3, the old name, Hestiae, is changed to Michaelium, because of the reported appearance of the archangel there. The monks are favored with such direct counselors; Pachomius obeys an angel, who directs him to assemble young men for instruction; "he was frequently admitted to intercourse with the holy angels." Apollonius yielded to direct divine advice, and withdrew from the desert to a populous region. The cross reappeared in the days of Constantius (iv. 5); Julian's life is filled with portents (v. 1, 20, 22; vi. 2). A curious bit of speculation occurs in vi. 2; in interpreting Julian's alleged use of his blood, he says: "I know not whether the approach of death, as is wont to be the case, when the soul is in the act of being separated from the body, and when it is enabled to behold diviner spectacles than is allotted to men, that Julian might then have beheld Christ. Few allusions have been made to this subject; and yet I dare not reject this hypothesis as absolutely false, for God often suffers still more improbable and astonishing events to take place, in order to prove that the religion named after Christ is not sustained by human energy." Of Theodore's confession (v. 20) he remarks: "It is said that he was afterwards asked whether he had been sensible of any pain on the rack; and that he replied he had not been entirely free from suffering, but had his pain assuaged by the attentions of a young man who had stood by him, and had wiped off the perspiration with the finest linen cloth, and supplied him with coolest water, by which he eased the inflammation and refreshed his labors. I am convinced that no man, whatever magnanimity he may possess, is capable without the special assistance of divine Power, of manifesting such entire indifference about the body." In vi. 29, Piammon sees an angel standing near the holy table, and writing down in a book the names of the monks who were present, while he erased the names of those who were absent. Mark had the elements of the holy table administered to him by an angel (vii. 29). Malachion, while journeying with his brothers, was made invisible, and then reappeared, and pursued his way with them (vi. 32). So the portent at Hebdomas was a sign of divine favor to Theodosius the Great (vii. 24); the heavenly hosts were the real overthrowers of Gainas (viii. 4); Basiliscus the martyr appears to Chrysostom (viii. 28).Pulcheria's celestial directors helps her to find the forty martyrs (ix. 2). The appearance of Zechariah to the serf pointed out the way to the discovery of the prophet's remains (ix. 17). The demoniacal agencies are equally operant, some of which are alluded to in the above passages, but readily yield to prayer and exorcism, if not immediately overthrown by God.
For a demonstration of the same truth, miracles are wrought to effect physical cures, mental troubles, threatened dangers, casting out of demons, silencing philosophers and wordy ecclesiastics, vindicating orthodoxy, reading the thoughts of hypocrites defeating enemies, sanctifying the sacraments' raising the dead; and they are the mighty agents for converting philosophers, Jews, pagans, and heretics. They are wrought by the hands of the eminently excellent only; the gift is associated with a high measure of grace; for example the bishops Paphnutius (i. 10) and Spyridion (i. 11) are so endowed; Alexander of Constantinople (i. 14), Eusebius of Emesa (iii. 6), Martin of Tours (iii. 14), Arsacius of Nicomedia (iv. 16), Donatus (vii. 26), Gregory of Neocaesarea (vii. 26), Theotimus of Scythia(vii. 26), Epiphanius of Salamis (vii. 27). In like manner, the monks Antony (i. 13), Amun (i. 14), Eutychianus (i. 14), Macarius the Egyptian, Apollonius, Hilarion, Julian (iii. 14), John, Copres, Helles, Apelles, Eulogius (vi. 28); Apollos, John of Diolchus, Benjamin and Pior (vi. 29). The united prayer of a congregation could effect them (vii. 5). The statue of Christ at Paneas, the fountain at Emmaus, the tree at Hermopolis (v. 21), were all miraculous centers. The spot where the Archangel Michael appeared (ii. 3), the places where the head of John the Baptist reposed (vii. 21), the tombs of monks, martyrs, and bishops,-as of Hilarion (iii. 14), Martyrius and Marcianus (iv. 3), Epiphanius (vii. 27),-were replete with restorative virtues. Sozomen had such a miracle wrought upon himself; he believed thoroughly in an uninterrupted stream of charismata; he deemed it necessary for the maintenance of the faith. He was no more credulous than Socrates, or Theodoret, or Evagrius, or Theodore. To criticise him for his belief in this respect is to forget the Christian consciousness of the age. And the historic school which seeks to eliminate the volume of testimony, in the assumption that miracles do not fall within the province of history, ignores the first law of that science, which requires the reproduction of all facts, in time and place, whatever they may be, that are affiliated with the evolution of the human will; that other older school which dismisses all ecclesiastical miracles on the a priori assumption that these energies ceased at a time co-ordinate with the death of the Apostles, or at a point not far removed from their age, violates the spirit of induction. These miracles must be tested by evidence, and the laws of supernatural energy, and in no other way. To Sozomen and all his contemporaries the miracle appeared essential both to the proof of the divine origin of Christianity, and to offset and withstand the influence of the theurgic arts of the philosophers, such as Julianus and many of the Neoplatonists. As he remarks concerning the reply made by Alexander, bishop of Constantinople, when he silenced the philosopher by the simple authority of Christ, "It is then right to consider whether it is a greater miracle, that a man, and he a philosopher, should so easily be silenced by a word, or that a stone wall should be cleft by the power of a word, which miracle I have heard some attribute with pride to Julian, surnamed the Chaldean" (i. 18). The gift of prophecy is also represented as sustained throughout this period, and with the same logical aims in view. The monks are especially thus endowed: Antony (i. 13, vi. 5, 6), the two Macarii, Pachomius (iii. 14), Arsacius (iv. 16), John (vi. 28, vii. 22, vii. 28), Theon (vi. 28), Isaac (vi. 40); so the bishops Athanasius (iv. 10), Chrysostom and Epiphanius, rather abusively (viii. 15); so royal persons, such as the wife of Valens, passively (vi. 16), Pulcheria, directly and passively (ix. 3).The perpetuation of this charism was deemed inherently necessary for the sake of historical continuity, and to prove as well that the faith he loved had been established by God; equally was it requisite as a holy parallel whereby to gainsay the mantic spirit of Paganism; as is best illustrated in the silencing of the oracle at Daphne (v. 19), and by his reflections upon the philosopher's tripod devised for finding the successor of Valens (vi. 35). Nor are Socrates, Theodoret, Evagrius, and others any more moderate than Sozomen in this respect.
3. Another aim of his history is to prove that Providence or the divine government is promoting the Christian faith directly. The universal order must be interpreting itself distinctly through the Church. The Father must be vindicating the good and punishing the wicked, according to the orthodox category. Sozomen's history is as insistent in this regard as Eliphaz and his philosophic confreres. One must be able to decide infallibly in each case as to cause and effect; it is a very realistic pragmatism' and is not the exclusive property of Sozomen; it is a characteristic of all these Church historians.
There is properly enough a recognition of God in history; the sovereign will and the human will are jointly working out the world's order, but it is the attempt to trace the cause and effect immediately and in each case, which is so repulsive and absurd. Some illustrations will show how he brings out this view. In i. 7 the comment made on Constantine's overthrow of Licinius: "From many facts it has often appeared to me that the teaching of the Christians is supported, and its advancement secured, by the Providence of God, and not the least from what then occurred; for at the very moment that Licinius was about to persecute all the churches under him, the war in Bithynia broke out, which ended in a war between him and Constantine, and in which Constantine was so strengthened by Divine assistance, that he was victorious over his enemies by land and by sea." More of detail comes out in the life of Athanasius. Thus in ii. 17, of his election he says: "Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, when about to depart this life, left Athanasius as his successor, in accordance, I am convinced, with the Divine will, directing the vote upon him." And again: "He fled to escape the honor, but he was discovered in his place of concealment by the help of God, who had forecast by Divine manifestations to his blessed predecessors, that the succession was to devolve upon him." His whole career is so viewed in v. 6. There is a large discussion of this subject in vi. 35, where he argues against the plan of pagan philosophers to foretell the future of the empire: "The philosophers, on the other hand, acted as if the deposition and restoration of emperors had depended solely on them; for if the imperial succession was to be considered dependent on the arrangement of the stars, what was requisite but to await the accession of the future emperor, whoever he might be? Or, if the succession was regarded as dependent on the will of God, what right had man to meddle? For it is not the function of human foreknowledge or zeal to understand God's thought; nor if it were right, would it be well for men, even if they be the wisest of all, to think that they can plan better than God." He persists in tracing a connection between God and every event in favor of mechanical goodness or orthodoxy. He follows many opponents, whether heretical or pagan, with the Divine wrath; all these historians do this,-Philostorgius, as well as Evagrius. Sozomen is not nearly so bitter or uncharitable as either of these. He is most atrabilious in the case of Julian, under whom his own family had suffered. As a consequence of this arbitrary pious pragmatism, the most deplorable incompetents are treated as the express favorites of heaven, while the larger-minded pagan or Arian is loaded with contempt. Under this law, too, the evil sides of the orthodox, and the excellences of the pagan, or Arians, are suppressed. The defeats of the Nicene emperors are not mentioned; the victories of the Anti-Nicene are passed by or belittled, while their humiliations are evidence of the impending anger of heaven. In the survey of Helena's life (ii. 2) he says: "It seems to me that so many holy actions demanded a recompense, and indeed even in this life she was raised to the summit of magnificence." As to Constantine, in ii. 34 he dares say: "He was more successful than any other sovereign in all his undertakings; for he formed no design, I am convinced, without God." When Bishop Felix of Rome died, and Liberius became sole occupant of the see, he construes the fact thus: "This event was no doubt ordained by God, that the seat of Peter might not be dishonored by the occupancy of two bishops; for such an arrangement is a sign of discord, and is foreign to ecclesiastical law" (iv. 15).In all the features of Julian's life, God is visiting him with his unappeasable anger (vi. 35, v. 21, 22, vi. 1, 2). The election of Nectarius, though it was in violation of ecclesiastical order and an accumulation of ignorant blunders, did not take place without the interposition of Divine strength (vii. 8). Theodosius is portrayed as the prime delight of heaven; thus his simple reliance upon God wins him a hopeless battle with Eugenius (vii. 24). It is so with the whole Theodosian line (viii. 1, ix. 1). Pulcheria has Divine love manifested to her in manifold ways, as does her brother, Theodosius the Younger (ix. 1, 3, 16). Even Alaric is driven by an inexplicable impulse to rebuke the luxury, debauchery, and injustice of the Romans (ix. 6). In ix. 1, he says of his own sovereign: "It appears to me that it was the design of God to show by the events of this period, that piety alone suffices for the salvation of princes; and that without piety, armies, a powerful empire, and every other resource, are of no avail. The Divine power, which is the guardian of the universe, foresaw that the emperor would be distinguished by his piety, and determined that Pulcheria, his sister, should be the protector of him and of the government." In ix. 16, he explains his secular details in the paragraph: "This is not the proper place to enter into details concerning the deaths of the tyrants; but I considered it necessary to allude to the circumstance in order to show, that to insure the stability of imperial power, it is sufficient for an emperor to serve God with reverence, which was the course pursued by Honorius." While of his patron he says: "It seems as if God openly manifested His favor towards the present emperor, not only by disposing of warlike affairs in an unexpected way, but also by revealing the sacred bodies of many persons who were of old most distinguished for piety." The whole history is full of this sort of philosophy of its personages. Similarly all natural calamities and the irruption of barbarians are ethically explained, which is correct enough as a general principle; but these phenomena are punitive or vindicatory of particular deeds. Constantius' course toward Athanasius was heralded by an invasion of the Franks, and by an earthquake in the East (iii. 6). Of Julian he says: "It is, however, very obvious that throughout the reign of this emperor, God gave manifest tokens of His displeasure and permitted many calamities to befall several of the provinces of the Roman Empire. He visited the earth with such fearful earthquakes' that the buildings were shaken, and no more safety could be found within houses than in the open air." Then follow the inundations of the Nile; the drought and the famine in the empire, and on their heels the pestilences (vi. 2). Under Valens we read: "In the meantime although hail-storms of extraordinary magnitude fell in various places, and although many cities, particularly Nicaea in Bithynia, were shaken by earthquakes, yet Valens the emperor and Eudoxius the bishop paused not in their career, but continued to persecute all Christians who differed from them in opinion" (vi. 10).He does not make the same reflection upon Constantius, when the earthquake at Nicomedia intercepted the meeting of a council (iv. 16); Gainas' attempted revolution is "pre-announced by the appearance of a comet directly over the city; this
