Christianity the Ecclesiastical History of Term Paper

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Also, men oppose her for reasons of jealousy, he stresses, not because they really think that she is acting in an anti-Christian manner. Thus while Socrates Scholasticus himself never even entertained any point-of-view remotely considered heretic, including Gnosticism and Manichaeism as well as Arianism, he never condoned violence and was able to see how personal and political biases could fuel hateful actions masking as 'anti-heretical' actions like the murder of a woman preacher. Although he on a few occasions used the term "evil" is in regards to the Arians, and he gave ample attention to the benefits of the creation of the creed of Nicene, praising its ideals, more often than not Socrates Scholasticus used cool and factual language to describe controversies. Sometimes even the Arians who denied the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and Trinitarian notions of God are given a chance, through excerpts, to 'speak' their peace, even while the author makes it clear he disagrees with them.

This stands in contrast to the way that Philostorgius is treated by the patriarch of Constantinople. Philostorgius believed, like Arius, that the Son was a different being, not holding to what Socrates Scholasticus called the "sacred doctrine which declares that the Son is of the Father, but is not a part of his substance" (33). But in what survives of Philostorgius' writings, he is called "impious" by the Patriarch of Constantinople even when the patriarch grudgingly admits that Philostorgius showed a balanced perspective, praising "Eusebius Pamphilus as well on other grounds as on account of his Ecclesiastical History." (I.2). Some of Philostorgius' statements sound relatively benign, or rather like statements of fact, despite the Patriarch's inflamed rhetoric: "He [Philostorgius] says that Arius, after his secession from the church, composed several songs to be sung by sailors, and by millers, and by travellers along the high road, and others of the same kind, which he adapted to certain tunes, as he thought suitable in each separate case, and thus by degrees seduced the minds of the unlearned by the attractiveness of his songs to the adoption of his own impiety" (II.2).

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Even allowing that Arius composed a song is considered an act of impiety, and rather than generously admitting his faith in Christ, which Socrates Scholasticus does when speaking his opponents, Philostorgius is merely called absurd for praising Arius, even while he, like Trinitarian believing Christians, upholds Christ's divinity. "Though Philostorgius extols Arius to the skies for impugning the Divinity of the Son, yet he asserts that the latter is involved in the most absurd errors, because he everywhere affirms that God cannot be known, or comprehended, or conceived by the human mind; and not only by men, (which perhaps were an evil more easy to endure,) but also not even by His own only-begotten Son. And lie asserts that not only Arius, but also a large body of his followers, were carried away into this absurd error at the same time" (II.3).

This suggestion that God can only be comprehended in the mind and not the body affirms that Philostorgius was a Platonist, most likely, who believed in the existence of a purer, ideal world, much like the types of teachings prohibited by Constantine, to Socrates Scholasticus' great regret, even while Socrates Scholasticus disagreed with Platonic teachings. It is perhaps unfortunate that the advocates of the so-called Arian controversy are largely passed down in the testimony of those who hated them, although Socrates Scholasticus' Ecclesiastical history in its range, generosity, and depth, provides a counterweight to those who would merely disparage rather than present or reasonably contend with the Arian view, the ability of female preachers to give insight,….....

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