The Ecclesiastical History Of Scorates Scholasticus And The Ecclesiastical History Of Sozomen Comprising A History Of The Church From Ad 323 To Ad 425

Author : Socrates Scholasticus
Publisher : Jazzybee Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3849621537
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (496 download)

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Download or read book The Sacred Writings of Socrates Scholasticus written by Socrates Scholasticus and published by Jazzybee Verlag. This book was released on 2012 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Sacred Writings Of ..." provides you with the essential works among the Early Christian writings. The volumes cover the beginning of Christianity until before the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea. This volume is accurately annotated, including * an extensive biography of the author and his life This work comprises the 'Ecclesiastical History'. Until the beginning of the fourth century historiography remained a pagan science. With the exception of the Acts of the Apostles and its apocryphal imitations, no sort of attempt hadbeen made to record even the annals of the Christian Church. At the opening of the fourth century Eusebius conceived the idea of writing a history which should include a complete account of the Church's life to his own days. Hence he has correctly been called the Father of Church History. His work was done so satisfactorily to his contemporaries and immediate successors that none of them undertook to go over the same field again. They estimated the thoroughness and accuracy of his work much higher than later ages have done. But this respect, which enhanced the magnitude of his work in their eyes, at the same time inspired many of them with a desire to imitate him. As the title of the work indicates, the subject is chiefly the vicissitudes and experiences of the Christian Church; but the author finds various reasons for interweaving with the account of ecclesiastical affairs some record also of the affairs of the state. His statement of these reasons puts first among them the relief his readers would experience by passing from the accounts of the perpetual wranglings of bishops to something of a different character; second, the information which all ought to have on secular as well as ecclesiastical matters; and third, the interlacing of these two lines, on account of which the understanding of the one cannot be full without some knowledge of the other. ' By a sort of sympathy,' says he, 'the church takes part in the disturbances of the state,' and 'since the emperors became (Christians, the affairs of the church have become dependent on them, and the greatest synods have been held and are held at their bidding.' It cannot be said, however, that Socrates either thoroughly realized or attempted any systematic treatment of his subject from the point of view of the true relations of church and state; he simply had the consciousness that the two spheres were not as much dissociated as one might assume.