Socrates of Constantinople

The church history of Socrates is one of the most important sources, eastern or western, pagan or Christian, for the fourth and early fifth centuries. This book is the first detailed study of Socrates' history, and it describes the historical situation in which he wrote his work, pulling together all the personal information available about the author.

It then examines the history itself, how it was composed, and which sources were used, and it looks at the relationship between Socrates' work and other church histories. The book goes on to explore Socrates' attitudes toward bishops, emperors, and their enemies.

Socrates is often dismissed by modern scholars for being unable to master the genre of ecclesiastical historiography. Urbainczyk argues that he introduced secular material deliberately. In his view arguments and division in the church caused trouble in the state. In other words, when church leaders quibbled over theology, they endangered the state. It was their duty, therefore, for the sake of church and state, to unite under the emperor.

This study not only calls on scholars to reexamine Socrates of Constantinople but also makes the wider argument that the ancients were far less concerned with genre than modern scholars, and that the ecclesiastical history is a continuation, not a deviation, from political history.