E03994: Sozomen in his Ecclesiastical History mentions the conversion of Armenia to Christianity after a vision experienced by the Armenian king *Trdat (S01508) in the early fourth century. Written in Greek at Constantinople, 439/450.
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posted on 2017-09-06, 00:00authored byerizos
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 2.8
After recounting the conversion of the Iberians/Georgians
‘(1) Subsequently, the faith spread among the neighbouring races, yielding a great number of followers. As for the Armenians, I understand that they had embraced Christianity earlier [than the Iberians]. It is said that Tiridates, then leader of that nation, after an extraordinary divine manifestation which occurred near his house, became a Christian and commanded all his subjects by a single decree to follow the same religion. (2) Subsequently, the faith spread also among the neighbouring races, yielding a great number of followers. I believe that the first of the Persians to convert to Christianity were people who, in the context of the mingling of Osroeneans and Armenians, naturally met the local holy men and witnessed their virtue.’
Text: Bidez and Hansen 1995. Translation: E. Rizos.
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
Language
Greek
Evidence not before
439
Evidence not after
450
Activity not before
300
Activity not after
450
Place of Evidence - Region
Constantinople and region
Place of Evidence - City, village, etc
Constantinople
Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Constantinople
Constantinople
Κωνσταντινούπολις
Konstantinoupolis
Constantinopolis
Constantinople
Istanbul
Major author/Major anonymous work
Sozomen
Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Transmission, copying and reading saint-related texts
Cult Activities - Miracles
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Monarchs and their family
Source
Salamenios Hermeias Sozomenos (known in English as Sozomen) was born in the early 5th c. to a wealthy Christian family, perhaps of Arab origins, in the village of Bethelea near Gaza. He was educated at a local monastic school, studied law probably at Beirut, and settled in Constantinople where he pursued a career as a lawyer.
Sozomen published his Ecclesiastical History between 439 and 450, perhaps around 445. It consists of nine books, the last of which is incomplete. In his dedication of the work, Sozomen states that he intended to cover the period from the conversion of Constantine to the seventeenth consulate of Theodosius II, that is, 312 to 439, but the narrative of the extant text breaks in about 425. The basis of Sozomen’s work is the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates, published a few years earlier, which our author revises and expands. Like Socrates, Sozomen was devoted to Nicene Orthodoxy and the Theodosian dynasty, but his work is marked by stronger hagiographical interests, a richer base of sources, and different sympathies/loyalties. Sozomen probably lacked the classical education of Socrates, but had a broader knowledge of hagiographical and monastic literature and traditions, which makes him a fuller source for the cult of saints. Besides Greek and Latin, Sozomen knew Aramaic, which allowed him to include information about ascetic communities, monastic founders, and martyrs from his native Palestine, Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, to which Socrates had had no access. Much like the other ecclesiastical historians of the fourth and fifth centuries, Sozomen focuses on the East Roman Empire, only seldom referring to the West and Persia.
Discussion
The second book of Sozomen’s Ecclesiastical History recounts aspects of the progress of Christianity after Constantine’s victory, including the building projects of Constantine and the spread of Christianity inside and outside the Roman Empire.
In chapters 2.4 and 2.5, Sozomen recounts the Christianisation or destruction of pagan shrines under Constantine, whereas in chapters 2.6 and 2.7 he recounts the conversion of barbarian tribes, especially the Goths and the Iberians/Georgians. His account of the Iberian conversion reproduces the story recounted by the Ecclesiastical Histories of Rufinus and Socrates, but Sozomen adduces his own information about the conversion of Armenia and Persia, thus being the earliest Greek testimony of the foundation narrative of the Armenian Church and the legend of king Trdat. Sozomen is the first to date the conversion of the Armenians earlier than that of the Iberians/Georgians, which implies a period earlier than Constantine. Sozomen also associates the Armenian Church with the spread of Christianity into Persia, as a prelude to his long account of the Persian martyrs of the persecution of Shapur II.
Bibliography
Text:
Bidez, J., and Hansen, G. C., Sozomenus. Kirchengeschichte. 2nd rev. ed. (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, Neue Folge 4; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995).
Translations:
Grillet, B., Sabbah, G., Festugière A.-J. Sozomène, Histoire ecclésiastique. 4 vols. (Sources chrétiennes 306, 418, 495, 516; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1983-2008): text, French translation, and introduction.
Hansen, G.C. Sozomen, Historia ecclesiastica, Kirchengeschichte, 4 vols. (Fontes Christiani 73; Turnhout: Brepols, 2004): text, German translation, and introduction.
Hartranft, C.D. “The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, Comprising a History of the Church from AD 323 to AD 425." In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church: Second Series, edited by P. Schaff and H. Wace (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 179-427.
Further reading:
Chesnut, G. F. The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius (Atlanta: Mercer University, 1986).
Leppin, H. Von Constantin dem Grossen zu Theodosius II. Das christliche Kaisertum bei den Kirchenhistorikern Socrates, Sozomenus und Theodoret (Hypomnemata 110; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996).
Van Nuffelen, P., Un héritage de paix et de piété : Étude sur les histoires ecclésiastiques de Socrate et de Sozomène (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 142; Leuven: Peeters, 2004).