Early Church Fathers
68 agrafoij: lit. `unwritten,0' but defined by Hesychius as above.
69 klhrou: cf. Bingham, Eccl. Antiq. I. 5.
70 Sotades, a Maronite, characterized as obscene. On the doctrines of the Maronites, cf. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Ch. XLVII. sect. 3.
71 It has always been the common belief of the Eastern Church that the ecumenical councils were inspired in the same sense as the writers of the Sacred Scriptures. Socrates in this respect simply reflects the opinion of the age and region.
72 Cf. III. 23, where the author makes further mention of Porphyry and his writings; see also Smith, Dict. Greek and Roman Biog.
73 Euseb. Life of Const. III. 17-19.
74 As the Jewish Passover month was a lunar month and began on the fifth day of March and ended on the third of April, it happened sometimes that their Passover began before the equinox (the beginning of the solar year), so that they celebrated two Passovers during the same solar year. Their own year being lunar, of course they never celebrated the Passover twice in a year according to their point of view.
75 Valesius thinks this letter is misplaced; as it alludes to the death of Licinius as a recent event, he thinks it must have been written about 315-316 a.d., hence ten years before the Council of Nicaea. Cf. Euseb. Life of Const. II. 46.
76 Euseb. Life of Const. IV. 36.
77 dioikhsewj kaqolikon: this office was peculiar to the Eastern Church. The nearest equivalent to it in the terminology of the Western Church is that of vicar-general; but as the non-technical expression `financial agent0' describes the official to the modern reader, it has been adopted in the present translation. Concerning the office, cf. Euseb. H. E. VII. 10. It may be also noted that the very common ecclesiastical term diocese (dioikhsij) originated during the reign of Constantine, as becomes evident from his letters. See Euseb. Life of Const. III. 36.
78 Euseb. Life of Const. III. 30.
79 gnwrisma: the sepulchre near Calvary commonly known as the Saviour's is meant.
81 A temple of Venus built by Adrian, the emperor, on Mount Calvary.
82 basilikhn, `basilica0'; the ancient Roman basilicas were often turned into churches. The term has become familiar in ecclesiastical architecture.
83 John v. 16.
84 qeiwn musthriwn.
85 Cf. IV. 28.
86 Sozom. I. 22.
87 Above, chap. 8.
88 Cf. Apost. Cann. 5, 17, 26, 51. In general, voluntary celibacy of the clergy was encouraged in the ancient Church.
89 Heb. xiii. 4.
90 askhthriw: lit. `place for the exercise0' of virtue.
91 On the use Socrates made of Rufinus, and the question of his knowledge of Latin therein involved, see Introd. p. x.
92 This work of Athanasius is not now extant.
93 May 20, 325 a.d.
94 This is not in its place according to chronological order, mas. much as it occurred in 328 a.d. It appears also from the accounts of the other historians of this period that Socrates does not give the correct reason for the banishment of Eusebius and Theognis. Cf. Theodoret, H. E. I. 20; also Sozom. I. 21.
95 Socrates and Sozomen are both mistaken in putting the death of Alexander and ordination of Athanasius after the return of Eusebius and Theognis from exile. According to Theodoret (H. E. I. 26), Alexander died a few months after the Council of Nicaea, hence in 325 a.d., and Athanasius succeeded him at the end of the same year, or at the beginning of the next.
96 See, for additional features of the story not reproduced by Socrates, Rufinus, H. E. I. 14.
97 The Vicennalia.
98 These walls were superseded by the great walls built under Theodosius the Younger; see VII. 31.
99 `Mansion house,0' the building in which the two chief magistrates had their headquarters.
100 The city was formally dedicated as the capital of the empire in 330 a.d.
101 Cf. II. 16, and I. 40.
102 The text seems somewhat doubtful here. Valesius conjectures ta te alla pleista kai touto malista, idiomatically, `this among many other things0'; but the mss. read more obscurely, kai alla pleista.
103 Euseb. Life of Const. III. 33; cf. also 52-55.
104 Isa. i. 8. opwrofulakion, `a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,0' according to the English versions (both authorized and revised), which follows the Hebrew; in the LXX the words en sikuhratw are added.
105 See the Ep. of Constantine to Macarius, in chap. 9 above.
106 coanon, as distinguished from agalma, or andriaj, used with less reverence; the word is derived from cew, `to polish.0'