The Historians of Late Antiquity

by David Rohrbacher

  The correction of a few factual mistakes in Socrates could not, however, have provided a justification for Sozomen’s work. Rather, he aims to correct broader stylistic and thematic flaws that he sees in Socrates’ work. Although the historians cover the same events, the differences are clear to the reader. Sozomen’s style is more literary and complex than that of Socrates, and Photius praises its richness (cod. 30). There is nothing in Sozomen to compare with the apologies for stylistic simplicity in Socrates, or with Socrates’ suggestion that the classical historians could write in a loftier style because their concern for the truth was less than his (Soc. 6. pref. 3). The use of a more elevated style is one way in which Sozomen writes a church history closer to the models of classical historiography (Grillet et al. 1983: 63–70). Although Sozomen presents some unaltered documents (seventeen in all), he generally abides by his intention (1.1.15) to paraphrase the contents of documents referred to, including many offered verbatim by Socrates. This provides the narrative with a smoother flow, and also allows the author to shape and control his message more effectively. Ecclesiastical struggles often revolved around a few disputed words, so the exact quotation of documents might have considerable importance for understanding the conflict. Sozomen’s paraphrasing, however, underlines his general contempt for what he understood as needlessly complex theological arguments (cf. Mazza 1980: 382–5).

  Sozomen’s interest in artful structure differentiates his work from the less sophisticated work of Socrates, who allows natural chronology to dominate the arrangement of information in his narrative. Sabbah shows, in his comparison of the first book of Socrates with the first two of Sozomen, how Sozomen has arranged his material to provide regular alternations between progress and retrogression (Grillet et al. 1983: 60–3). The first fourteen chapters of the first book narrate the conversion of Constantine, his defeat of Licinius, his promotion of Christianity, and accounts of some great monastic figures. The triumphant progress of Christianity is disturbed by two central chapters (1.15–16) which detail the origin of the Arian heresy, but the book concludes with the successful council at Nicaea presided over by the emperor which restores order to the church. In the second book Sozomen similarly engineers an alternation between positive and negative events, most notably inserting the account of the conversion of the Indians to Christianity (2.24) in a place designed to break up the narration of the spread of heresy in this period.

  In addition to making an ecclesiastical history more classical with an emphasis on style and structure, Sozomen also expands the scope of ecclesiastical history in two significant ways. Again the key passage is from the first chapter of the first book, where he states that he decided not to limit his work to events connected with the church in the Roman empire, but to include also events of religious interest that transpired among the Persians and barbarians. The historian adds that he also believes that ecclesiastical history ought to include accounts of the originators of monasticism, and those who succeeded them (1.1.18). He provides more information about the spread of Christianity into foreign lands, particularly into Persia, than does Socrates. The best of his many biographical digressions on notable ascetics derive from his own experiences in Palestine and Syria. Sozomen includes far more information on individual Christians than Socrates had, often with graphic details of martyrdoms and miracles which Socrates had eschewed. We learn of the Egyptian monk Apelles, a smith, who used a hot iron to drive off the devil when he appeared in the form of a woman to tempt him (6.28.7), and of a pagan mob of Gaza, who attacked the Christians Eusebius, Nestabus, and Zeno with boiling water, with pieces from a loom, and with spits until “they crushed their skulls and the martyrs’ brains poured onto the ground” (5.9.5).

  While Sozomen shares Socrates’ concern over church disunity and perhaps surpasses him in his rejection of quibbling theological disputation, he does not share Socrates’ glorification of the emperor as the solution to strife. He alters Socrates’ narrative in several places to emphasize that bishops are superior to emperors, as when Valentinian is quoted as saying that, as a layman, it is not proper for him to decide church affairs (Soz. 6.7.2, cf. Soc. 4.2.2–3; Urbainczyk 1997a: 359–62). There is no ambivalence in Sozomen’s portrait, in the eighth book, of the heroic bishop John Chrysostom struggling against unjust secular power. Sozomen is, of course, properly reverential toward Theodosius II, in his preface, and toward Pulcheria and the other women of the Theodosian house in the last book of the history (9.1–3). Their power, however, lies in their piety and closeness to God, and the success of their rule is attributed to prayer and to their generosity toward the church. The supremacy of religious over secular views is most clear in Sozomen’s reflections upon the sack of Rome. The sack and the rise of western usurpers occupies several chapters, but in the end the usurpers were defeated and the rightful emperor Honorius remained in power. Sozomen states that he has mentioned the deaths of the usurpers only to present the moral that imperial stability depends solely upon the emperor’s continuing devotion to God. Honorius’ piety ensured his continuing rule, and the success of the eastern empire, despite the youth of Theodosius II, was equally ensured thanks to the favor of God. Despite some recent disturbances in the west, Sozomen rejoices that the empire now enjoys peace in both religious and secular affairs. We see in Sozomen’s conclusions the standard position of eastern historians in the middle of the fifth century, whether sincerely held or the product of Theodosian propaganda.

  Text and translation

  Greek text edited by J. Bidez and G.C. Hansen (1995), Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller. English translation by C.D. Hartranft (1890), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Available on-line at http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-02/Npnf2-02-13.htm.

  11

  THEODORET

  Life

  Theodoret of Cyrrhus was an accomplished dogmatist, apologist, exegete, and hagiographer, in addition to being the author of an Ecclesiastical History. He brings his history only up to 428, thus avoiding direct treatment of the Christological controversies to which he devoted much of his intellectual energy in the 430s and 440s.

  Theodoret’s family was from Antioch (Theod. hist. relig. 9, 13; Leroy-Molinghen 1980; Young 1983: 266–71). They were well off but not aristocrats, and Christians. His mother was converted to a more ascetic form of Christianity at age 23 in 386 as the result of an encounter with Peter the Galatian, a monk in the Syrian desert. After she climbed into the abandoned tomb in which the monk lived, Peter cured her of an eye disease, and instructed her to stop using cosmetics and jewelry. Peter also performed curative miracles for Theodoret’s family cook and for his grandmother, and as a boy Theodoret visited him once a week for spiritual instruction. He would sit on the monk’s lap and be fed grapes and bread (hist. relig. 9.4).

  Theodoret’s parents were childless until his mother was 30, to his father’s distress. His mother had been regularly supplying the monk Macedonius with the barley which was his only food and which gave him his epithet, “the Barley Eater.” Macedonius guaranteed the woman that she would have a boy, but added that the child would have to be “given back to the one who gave him.” Seven years later, when the boy was born in 393, he was given the name Theodoret, “gift of God,” as a sign of this pledge. The young Theodoret spent much time with Macedonius as well. The monk continually reminded the boy that he was a gift from God and must dedicate his life to virtue in return (hist. relig. 13).

  Theodoret tells us that he once was addressed by a demon, who spoke to him in Syriac, which suggests that Syriac was his first language (hist. relig. 21; Brock 1994: 154). His Greek, however, is polished and elegant. In addition to a monastic education, it is evident that Theodoret received a classical education of the kind customary for one of his class, since his works are filled with classical references and allusions. In his work the Cure for Hellenic Maladies, for example, over one hundred classical authors are cited, and he has been referred to as the “last great torchbearer of Christian rhetoric in Asia” (H
alton 1988: 4). Theologically, Theodoret was influenced by the teachings of the bishops Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tarsus, and his fellow students included Nestorius and John of Antioch.

  When he was 23 years old, Theodoret’s parents died. He distributed his inheritance among the poor, and entered a monastery at Nicerte near Apamea, about seventy-five miles from Antioch. Despite his desire to remain a monk, he was raised to the bishopric in 423 at the age of 30 in the village of Cyrrhus. Nothing is known of the circumstances of this consecration. Cyrrhus itself was a small town, but the diocese was huge and included nine hundred churches. Theodoret’s letters reveal that he was a conscientious bishop, who commissioned numerous public works and pressed for reductions in imperial taxation. He was also diligent in championing orthodox Christianity against pagans, Jews, and the many types of heretics who dwelled in his remote and mountainous see. Both before and after his ordination he produced a wide range of writings, which include about thirty-five works.

  Theodoret is perhaps best known today for his role in the controversy over the nature of Christ known as the Nestorian controversy (Kelly 1959: 310–43; Young 1983: 178–289). In this conflict between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools of theology, Theodoret sided with Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, on the Antiochene side. Both sides sought to clarify the relationship between Christ and the Logos or Word, and the eventual settlement drew from each position, but the provocative and quarrelsome style of Nestorius and his antagonist, Cyril of Alexandria, seems to have increased the level of acrimony of the debate.

  In 428 and 429, Nestorius was attacked for his preaching against the use of the term “Theotokos,” or “God-bearer,” as an epithet for Mary. God, he argued, could not have a mother. Cyril saw in this refusal an attempt to split Christ too sharply into human and divine natures, or a potential revival of the “adoptionist” heresy which downplayed the divine nature of the Son. Cyril and Nestorius both wrote to Pope Celestine, who held a synod at Rome in August 430 and defended the use of “Theotokos” against Nestorius. Cyril followed the pope’s threat of excommunication to Nestorius with a provocative series of Christological claims, the “Twelve Anathemas,” which he ordered Nestorius to accept. The bluntness of the anathemas brought moderate followers of the Antiochene theology into the fight, including Theodoret, who exchanged angry broadsides with Cyril over the nature of Christ.

  Theodosius II held a synod at Ephesus on Pentecost in 431, but after the faction of Cyril passed a condemnation of Nestorius, a rival eastern synod voted to depose Cyril and repudiate the Anathemas. The Cyrillian side won the day, and Nestorius was never reinstated, but nevertheless compromise followed within a couple of years after the death of Celestine in July 432. A formula which blended Antiochene and Alexandrian language to describe Christ was signed by all parties in 433. Theodoret refused, however, to endorse the deposition of Nestorius, and wrote to Nestorius that he would prefer to cut off his own hands than to sign such a condemnation (ep. 172). The Christological dispute subsided for a time, though not Theodoret’s strong feelings about the matter. When Cyril died in 444 Theodoret rejoiced in a letter to a friend, and he suggested that the undertaker had better place a large stone in front of Cyril’s tomb, to prevent him from being driven back among the living by the angry ghosts of outraged theologians he might preach to in Hell (ep. 180).

  Theodoret was friendly with the bishop of Antioch, Domnus, and frequently traveled to Antioch and preached there. In an attempt to weaken the power of Antioch, Dioscorus, the new bishop of Alexandria and a devoted partisan of Cyril’s theology, complained to the emperor about Theodoret and his preaching, and an imperial decree of 448 ordered him confined to his own see to prevent him from “disturbing the orthodox” (ep. 79). Theodoret’s troubles mounted when Theodosius II, under Dioscorus’ influence, summoned the Second Council of Ephesus in 449. At this synod, called the latrocinium or “Robber Synod” by Pope Leo, Theodoret was removed from his see along with others accused of being “Nestorians” such as Flavian of Constantinople, and Cyril’s “Twelve Anathemas” were resurrected and approved as doctrine. Dioscorus had soldiers brought in to enforce the Alexandrian line; riots broke out and Flavian was badly beaten and died soon afterwards (Frend 1984: 766–70).

  After the death of Theodosius in July 450, however, the balance of power shifted as the emperor’s sister Pulcheria, sympathetic to Leo and the Antiochenes, was able to intervene more forcefully. The Council of Chalcedon was called to review the actions of the “Robber Synod,” and a doctrinal compromise was reached. The ban on Theodoret’s movement was reversed and he was able to attend the synod. There he was reinstated, but only after a grudging condemnation of his old friend Nestorius had been wrung from him.

  We are poorly informed of the activities of Theodoret during the period from Chalcedon to his death because none of the letters which he wrote after 451 survive except for a few fragments (Azema 1984). He continued to write exegetical works, either from Cyrrhus or perhaps back in Nicerte at the monastery where he began his career. The date of his death is the subject of much controversy. The absence of Theodoret from a list of addressees of the emperor Leo I concerning Chalcedon in 457 has led some to suggest that he must have been dead by that time, but his successor in the bishopric of Cyrrhus is equally absent from the list. On the other hand, a remark by the chronicler Marcellinus seems to imply that the second edition of Theodoret’s work Eranistes was published in 466. The biographer Gennadius says that Theodoret died during the reign of the emperor Leo, that is, between 457 and 474 (vir. ill. 89). It may also be the case that Theodoret himself revised his life of Simeon Stylites after the monk’s death in 459 (hist. relig. 26). Finally, the Syrian historian John Diacrinomenus mentions a letter of Theodoret to “Sura,” who may have been the bishop of Germanicia in northern Syria starting in 460. Azema, having weighed this evidence, admits to a lack of certainty, but suggests 460 as the most likely date (Azema 1984: 151).

  Theodoret’s collection of works is too extensive to receive more than superficial attention here (a full list may be found in Bardy 1946). Most numerous are his exegetical works, which include commentaries on most of the books of the Old Testament, and on the letters of Paul (Guinot 1995, 1984). Early in his career Theodoret wrote one of the last great works of Christian apologetics, the Cure for Hellenic Maladies, a demonstration of the bishop’s wide reading in pagan authors and evidence of the continuing vitality of paganism in Syria (Canivet 1958). Among Theodoret’s most popular theological works is his treatise On Divine Providence, a collection of ten discourses which may have been delivered at Antioch around 437 (Halton 1988). Theodoret argues that the natural order of the world is not random and uncertain but rather is in fulfillment of a divine plan, in spite of the existence of poverty and injustice. The treatment is not rigorously philosophical, but is clear and well argued. More original is Theodoret’s Eranistes, a series of three dialogues on Trinitarian issues between the characters Eranistes, that is, “Beggar” or “Collector,” and Orthodoxus (Ettlinger 1975). Theodoret saw the heretic as a “collector” of ideas which did not form a coherent whole. The dialogues are nevertheless fair to Eranistes, who holds Alexandrian views on the nature of Christ, but who is allowed to make reasonable and realistic points. Each dialogue ends with a series of quotations from patristic authors which support the claims of Orthodoxus. The work, written in 447 or 448, has been called “perhaps the most original work to stem from Syria in the fifth century” (Ettlinger 1975: 3). Also of interest is the Collection of Heretical Myths, a work Theodoret wrote late in his life (Young 1983: 287–8). He arranges this encyclopedic work by the nature of the heresy, rather than in chronological order, as earlier compilers such as Epiphanius had done, and he concludes with a fifth book which offers an explanation of correct Christian doctrine. Surprisingly, Theodoret includes a chapter on Nestorius, which perhaps he felt he had to do for political reasons after Chalcedon.

  Closer in form and content to his histori
cal work is Theodoret’s hagiographical Religious History, written in 440, which the author had called History of the Monks or the Ascetic Life (Price 1985; Canivet and Leroy-Molinghen 1977). This collection of about thirty lives of monks of the eastern desert reveals Theodoret’s deep attraction to and knowledge of the ascetic, individualized monasticism of Syria. He knew many of his subjects as a child or as an adult, and was familiar as well with the oral tradition of the monks of the recent past. The monastic history makes use of vivid narrative and classical style, which Theodoret would bring to his Ecclesiastical History as well. Theodoret’s monks are “athletes” or “gladiators” for God, who perform miracles and amazing acts of self-denial. The most famous, perhaps, was Simeon Stylites, who lived on top of a high pillar for decades. The Religious History is frequently referred to in Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History.

  Work

  Like the works of Socrates and Sozomen, Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History is written as a continuation of the work of Eusebius. From its beginning in 324, the history spans 105 years to 429. The work must have been published before 28 July 450, since it refers at one point to the emperor Theodosius II as “now” ruling (5.36.1). The Ecclesiastical History contains references to the Religious History, and therefore must have been written after 440 when that work was published. References to his Religious History, published in 440, provide a terminus post quem for the work. The fifth book seems to contain a reference to his struggles over Christology, which would most likely have been written after 447 (5.3.8). It seems likely that Theodoret drew upon Socrates, but he probably wrote before Sozomen’s work was available, although this is still debated (Güldenpenning 1889; Barnes 1993b: 209–11).