Sozomenos

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Salamanes Hermeias Sozomenos († around 450) was an important late antique church historian .

life and work

The Greek Sozomenos came from Gaza , which at that time belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire . He had an Orthodox Christian upbringing, had a legal education and was particularly interested in monasticism ; he also apparently stayed for some time in the west of the Roman Empire .

A Greek church history dedicated to Theodosius II ( Historia Ecclesiastica ) by Sozomenos is preserved in nine books, of which book 9 is only partially preserved. It deals with the period from 324 to 439 (following Eusebios ) and is an important source for this period.

The work stands in a similar tradition as the church stories of Theodoret and Socrates Scholastikos , whose work Sozomenos evidently received a lot of attention. Because of their similarities, the three works are usually viewed together, even if recent research has emphasized the differences between them. Because of the Latin translation suggested by Cassiodorus , they also had a great impact in the West that lasted throughout the Middle Ages . Characteristic of Sozomenos is his endeavor to detach the genre of ecclesiastical history from its ties to the chroniclery and to bring it closer to classical Greek historiography . So he drew on the extensive (but lost) classicist historical work of the pagan Olympiodorus of Thebes as an important source , although he probably arranged the material according to his views; In addition to church history in the narrower sense, it also deals with profane historical events.

Editions and translations

  • Sozomenus: Church history. Edited by Joseph Bidez ( The Greek Writers of the First Centuries. New Series, Volume 4). 2nd edition, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1995 (Greek; first edition 1957).
  • Sozomène. Historire Ecclésiastique. Translated by André-Jean Festugière and Bernard Grillet (= Sources Chrétiennes. Volumes 306/418/495/516). 4 volumes, Éditions du CERF, Paris 1983 (Greek / French).
  • Günther Christian Hansen (Ed.): Sozomenos. Historia Ecclesiastica - Church history (= Fontes Christiani. Volume 73). 4 volumes, Brepols, Turnhout 2004 (current scientific edition; Greek / German).

literature

  • Caterina C. Berardi: Linee di storiografia ecclesiastica in Sozomeno di Gaza . Bari 2016.
  • Hartmut Leppin : From Constantine the Great to Theodosius II. The Christian Empire with the church historians Socrates, Sozomenus and Theodoret . Goettingen 1996.
  • Hartmut Leppin: The Church Historians: Socrates, Sozomenus, and Theodoretus . In: G. Marasco (Ed.): Greek & Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity. Fourth to sixth century A. D . Leiden 2003, pp. 219-254.
  • Peter Van Nuffelen : Un héritage de paix et de piété. Étude sur les Histoires ecclésiastiques de Socrate et Sozomène . Leuven et al. 2005.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sozomenos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Salamanes Hermeias Sozomenos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late antique church historian
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century or 5th century
DATE OF DEATH around 450