Adolf von Harnack and Arthur Cushman McGiffert

“ It is probable that Sozomen did not approve of Socrates’s freer attitude towards Greek science, and that he wished to present a picture in which the clergy should be still further glorified and monasticism brought into still stronger pro- minence. In Sozomen everything is a shade more ecclesiastical—but only a shade—than in Socrates. ”

“ In point of fact this is the view actually taken by Socrates. His utter want of care and consistency appears most clearly in his vacillation as to the relations between ecclesiastical and political history. At one time he brings in politics, at another he excuses himself from doing so. He has not failed to observe that Church and State act and react upon each other; but he has no notion how the relation ought to be conceived. ”

“ Theodoret's chief importance is as a dogmatic theologian, it having fallen to his lot to take part in the Nestorian controversy and to be the most considerable opponent of the views of Cyril and Dioscurus of Alexandria. For more than twenty years he maintained the struggle against the Alexandrian dogmatic and its formulae (Θεοτόκος, ένωσις καθ' ὑπόστασιν, μια ὑπόστασις, ένωσις φυσική, and the like) , and taught that in the person of Christ we must strictly distinguish two natures (hypostases) , which are united indeed in one person (prosopon) , but are not amalgamated in essence. ”

“ The Scriptures, it is true, contain all that appertains to faith and life, but give no clue to the art of confuting gainsayers. Greek science, therefore, must not be banished from the Church, and the tendency within the Church so to deal with it is wrong. This point of view was the common one of the majority of educated Christians at that period, and is not to be regarded as exceptionally liberal. The same holds true of the position of Socrates in regard to dogmatic questions. ”

“ All the enemies of the great Alexandrian he regards merely as empty and vain obscurantists; for the orthodoxy of his hero he appeals to Athanasius. Closely connected with his high regard for Origen are his appreciation of science generally and the moderation of his judgment on all dogmatic questions. According to him, Ἑλληνικὴ παιδεία is quite indispensable within the Church; many Greek philosophers were not far from the knowledge of God, as is proved by their triumphant arguments against atheists and gainsayers of divine providence. ”

“ He was diligent in the cure of souls, labouring hard and successfully for the conversion of the numerous Gnostic communities and other heretical sects which still maintained a footing within the diocese. He himself claims to have brought more than a thousand Marcionites within the pale of the church, and to have destroyed many copies of the Diatessaron of Tatian, which were still in ecclesiastical use; and he also exerted himself to improve the diocese, which was at once large and poor, by building bridges and aqueducts, beautifying the town, and by similar works. ”

“ Both men with their families became zealous Christians. The historian’s grandfather became within his own circle a highly esteemed interpreter of Scripture, and held fast his profession even in the time of Julian. The descendants of the wealthy Alaphion founded churches and convents in the district, and were particularly active in promoting monasticism. Sozomen himself had conversed with one of these, a very old man. He tells us that he was brought up under monkish influences and his history bears him out. ”

“ The Arian Goths who died for their religion are recognized as genuine martyrs. His characterizations of Cyril and Nestorius, and his narrative and criticism of the beginnings of the Christological controversy, are models of candour and historical conscientiousness. ”

“ It is painful, therefore, to find him in his subsequent Epitome classing Nestorius as a heretic, and speaking of him with the utmost hostility. Some of Theodoret's dogmatic works are no longer extant: of his five books Περὶ ἐνανθρωπήσεως, for example, directed against Cyril after the council of Ephesus, we now possess fragments merely. A good deal of what passes under his name has been wrongly attributed to him. ”

“ His reckonings by Olympiads are generally wrong, the error arising chiefly from carelessness. He is greatly indebted to oral tradition and to the testimony of eye-witnesses, especially of members of the Novatian community in Constantinople; some things also he has set down from personal knowledge. The contents of the closing books are for the most part derived from oral tradition, from the narratives of friends and countrymen, from what was still generally known and current in the capital about past events, and from the ephemeral literature of the day. ”

“ Among the apologetico-dogmatic works of Theodoret must be reckoned his ten discourses Πepi πpovoias.
Theodoret gives a valuable exposition of his own dogmatic in the fifth book of his Airetxgs kaxouv0iag eπitog, already referred to. [1] This, the latest of his works in the domain of church history (it was written after 451) , is a source of great though not of primary importance for the history of the old heresies. ”

“ As a man he retained the impressions of his youth, and his great work was to be also a monument of his reverence for the monks in general and for the disciples of Hilarion in particular. After studying law in Beirut he settled down as an advocate in Constantinople, where he wrote his Εκκλησιαστική Ἱστορία about the year 440. ”

“ Sometimes he gives prominence, and correctly, to the fact that the disputants partially failed to understand one another, because they had separate interests at heart—those on the one side desiring above everything to guard against polytheism, those on the other being most afraid of Sabellianism. ”

“ A flattering and bombastic dedication to Theodosius II. is prefixed. When compared with the history of the ecclesiastical historian Socrates (q.v.) , it is plainly seen to be a plagiarism from that work, and that on a large scale. ”

“ He also used writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Archelaus, Acacius, Didymus, George of Laodicea, Gregory Nazianzen, Timothy of Berytus (see Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea, p. 44) , Nestorius, Eusebius Scholasticus, Philip of Side, Evagrius, Palladius, Eutropius, the emperor Julian and orations of Libanius and Themistius; and he was apparently acquainted with some of the works of Origen and with Pamphilus' Apologia pro Origene. (On his sources see Jeep, and especially Geppert.) Jeep alleges (pp. 149 sqq.) ”

“ Moller, art. “Theodoret,” in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencykl.; Venables’s article in Smith and Wace's Dict. of Christian Biography; also Bardenhewer's Patrologie, p. 345 ff. On the sources of Theodoret’s church history see Jeep, Quellenuntersuchungen z. d. Griech. Kirchenhistorikern (Leipzig, 1884) ; and especially Güldenpenning, Die Kirchengesch. des Theodoret von Kyrrhos (Halle, 1889) . (A. Ha.; A. C. McG.)
↑ Roman Catholic writers vary greatly in their estimate of Theodoret’s christology and of his general orthodoxy. ”