Socrates Scholasticus

:This article is about the Byzantine church historian. For the famous ancient Greek philosopher, see Socrates. For this page, we will sometimes refer to "Socrates Scholasticus" as merely "Socrates".

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Socrates Scholasticus was a Greek

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Christian church historian;

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born at Constantinople c. 380.

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Even in ancient times nothing seems to

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have been known of the life of Socrates except what

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was gathered from notices in his "Church History."

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His birth and education are related in V., xxiv. 9;

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his teachers were the grammarian Helladius and

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Ammonius, who came to Constantinople from

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Alexandria, where they had been heathen priests (V.,

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xvi. 9). A revolt, accompanied by an attack upon

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the heathen temples, had forced them to flee. This

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revolt is dated about 390.

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That Socrates

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later profited by the teaching of the sophist Troilus,

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is not proven; no certainty exists as to his precise

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vocation, although it may be inferred from his work

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that he was a layman. On the title-page of his

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history, he is designated as a scholasticus (lawyer).

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In

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later years Socrates traveled and visited among

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other places Paphlagonia and Cyprus (cf. Hist.

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eccl., I., xii. 8, II., xxxviii. 30).

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