Chronicling occurrences over the course of a century, Sozomen's History is an invaluable source on the fateful reigns of emperors such as Constantine the Great, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate, Valens, Theodosius the Great, and the empress Pulcheria. With an obvious personal interest in monasticism, Sozomen provides some of the best contemporary accounts of the lives and deeds of famous monks from across the Roman world. He provides exceptionally detailed descriptions of the heresy of Arius and the resulting religious controversies which followed the Council of Nicaea, including the recurring depositions and reinstatements of Saint Athanasius as bishop of Alexandria. A religious historian sympathetic to orthodoxy, Sozomen's focus is on the various quarrels, councils, schisms and reconciliations which roiled the Church at the time when Christians exited the catacombs and entered directly into the imperial administration. Covering the momentous years between AD 324 and 425, the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen is one of the most important primary histories of this period of upheaval and transition. The fourth and fifth centuries AD were an era of intense political and spiritual turmoil in the Roman world, when ancient institutions suddenly crumbled and brilliant new edifices emerged from the rubble.
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