Sozomen

Salminius Hermias Sozomenus (Greek: Σωζομενός; c. 400 – c. 450) was a historian of the Christian Church.

He was born around 400 in Bethelia, a small town near Gaza, into a wealthy Christian family of Palestine.

What he has to tell us of the history of Southern Palestine was derived from oral tradition. He appears familiar with the region around Gaza, and mentions having seen Bishop Zeno of Majuma, the seaport of Gaza.

Sozomen wrote that his grandfather lived at Bethelia, near Gaza, and became a Christian together with his household, probably under Constantius II. A neighbor named Alaphrion was miraculously healed by Saint Hilarion who cast out a demon from Alaphrion, and, as eyewitnesses to the miracle, his family converted, along with Alaphrion's. The conversion marked a turning-point in the Christianization of southern Palestine, according to his account.

The grandfather became within his own circle a highly esteemed interpreter of Scripture. The descendants of the wealthy Alaphrion 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.

Sozomen seems to have been brought up in the circle of Alaphrion and acknowledges a debt of gratitude to the monastic order. His early education was directed by the monks in his native place. It is impossible to ascertain what curriculum he followed in these monastic schools, but his writings give clear evidence of the thoroughness with which he was grounded in Greek studies.

As a man he retained the impressions of his youth, and his great work later was to be also a monument of his reverence for the monks in general and for the disciples of Hilarion in particular.

As an adult he acquired training as a lawyer. He studied law in Beirut. He then went to Constantinople to start his career as a lawyer, perhaps at the court of Theodosius II. While thus engaged he conceived, around the year 443 the project of writing a history of the Church.

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