Socrates of Constantinople
Socrates
380
Constantinople, Eastern Roman Empire
(modern-day Istanbul, Turkey)
439 (aged c. 59)
He is the author of a Historia Ecclesiastica ("Church History", Ἐκκλησιαστική Ἱστορία) which covers the history of late ancient Christianity during the years 305 to 439.
Life[edit]
He was born in Constantinople. Even in ancient times, nothing seems to have been known of his life except what can be gathered from notices in his Historia Ecclesiastica, which departed from its ostensible model, Eusebius of Caesarea, in emphasizing the place of the emperor in church affairs and in giving secular as well as church history.
Socrates' teachers, noted in his prefaces, were the grammarians Helladius and Ammonius, who came to Constantinople from Alexandria, where in 391 they had been involved in a violent revolt that culminated in the destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria.
It is not proved that Socrates of Constantinople later profited from the teachings of the sophist Troilus. No certainty exists as to Socrates' precise vocation, though it may be inferred from his work that he was a layman.
In later years, he traveled and visited, among other places, Paphlagonia and Cyprus.[3]
