Socrates, in his Ecclesiastical History (1.21), narrates the conversion of Caucasian Iberia, with accompanying miracles, effected by an unnamed captive woman [later identified in the Georgian tradition as *Nino (Enlightener of Georgia, S00072)]. Written in Greek at Constantinople, 439/446, based closely on the earlier Latin account by Rufinus of Aquileia [E01402].
E00520
Socrates
Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 1.20.
Socrates essentially reproduces Rufinus' account of the conversion of Iberia, written in Latin in c. 402 (E01402), with some modifications.
During the reign of the Emperor Constantine, the Iberians too converted to Christianity. These Iberians had arrived from Spain and settled near Pontus.
The variant passage in the story is as follows:
Συμβαίνει δὲ τὸν τοῦ βασιλίσκου παῖδα νήπιον ὄντα ἀρρωστίᾳ τινὶ περιπεσεῖν, καὶ ἔθει τινὶ ἐγχωρίῳ παρὰ τὰς ἄλλας γυναῖκας ἡ τοῦ βασιλέως γυνὴ τὸν παῖδα θεραπευθησόμενον ἔπεμπεν, εἴ πού τι βοήθημα πρὸς τὴν νόσον ἐκ πείρας ἐπίστανται. 4. Ὡς δὲ περιαχθεὶς ὁ παῖς ὑπὸ τῆς τροφοῦ παρ’ οὐδεμιᾶς τῶν γυναικῶν θεραπείας ἐτύγχανεν, τέλος ἄγεται καὶ πρὸς τὴν αἰχμάλωτον. 5. Ἡ δὲ ἐπὶ παρουσίᾳ πολλῶν γυναικῶν ὑλικὸν μὲν βοήθημα οὐ προσέφερεν (οὐδὲ γὰρ ἠπίστατο), δεξαμένη δὲ τὸν παῖδα καὶ εἰς τὸ ἐκ τριχῶν ὑφασμένον αὐτῇ στρωμάτιον ἀνακλίνασα λόγον εἶπεν ἁπλοῦν· ‘ὁ Χριστός, φησίν, ὁ πολλοὺς ἰασάμενος καὶ τοῦτο τὸ βρέφος ἰάσεται.’ 6. Ἐπευξαμένης τε ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῷ λόγῳ καὶ ἐπικαλεσαμένης Θεὸν παραχρῆμα ὁ παῖς ἀνερρώννυτο καὶ εἶχεν ἐξ ἐκείνου καλῶς, φήμη τε ἐντεῦθεν τὰς τῶν βαρβάρων γυναῖκας καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν τοῦ βασιλέως διέτρεχεν, καὶ φανερωτέρα ἐγίνετο ἡ αἰχμάλωτος.
'It happened then that the king's son, then a mere babe, was attacked with disease; the queen, according to the custom of the country, sent the child to other women to be cured, in the hope that their experience would supply a remedy. After the infant had been carried around by its nurse without obtaining relief from any of the women, he was at length brought to this captive. She had no knowledge of the medical art, and applied no material remedy; but taking the child and laying it on her bed which was made of horsecloth, in the presence of other females, she simply said, 'Christ, who healed many, will heal this child also'; then having prayed in addition to this expression of faith, and called upon God, the boy was immediately restored, and continued well from that period. The report of this miracle spread itself far and wide among the barbarian women, and soon reached the queen, so that the captive became very celebrated.'
Next follows a summary of Rufinus' story: the healing of the queen, the king's miraculous conversion during a hunt, and finally, the great miracle of the erection of the pillar.
Ταῦτα φησὶν ὁ Ῥουφῖνος παρὰ Βακκουρίου μεμαθηκέναι, ὃς πρότερον μὲν ἦν βασιλίσκος Ἰβήρων, ὕστερον δὲ Ῥωμαίοις προσελθὼν ταξίαρχος τοῦ ἐν Παλαιστίνῃ στρατιωτικοῦ κατέστη καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα στρατηλατῶν τὸν κατὰ Μαξίμου τοῦ τυράννου πόλεμον τῷ βασιλεῖ Θεοδοσίῳ συνηγωνίσατο. Τοῦτον μὲν τὸν τρόπον καὶ Ἰβηρία ἐπὶ τῶν Κωνσταντίνου χρόνων τῷ χριστιανισμῷ προσελήλυθεν.
'Rufinus says that he learned these facts from Bacurius, who was formerly one of the petty princes of the Iberians, but subsequently went over to the Romans, and was made a captain of the military force in Palestine; being at length entrusted with the supreme command in the war against the tyrant Maximus, he assisted the Emperor Theodosius. In this way then, during the days of Constantine, were the Iberians also converted to Christianity.'
Text: Hansen 1995, 63-65.
Translation: Zenos, 1890, 68.
Summary: N. Aleksidze.
Source
Socrates ‘Scholasticus’ was born between 380 and 390 in Constantinople, where he probably spent his entire life. He was trained as a grammarian and rhetorician under the sophist Troilos of Side. From his work, Socrates emerges as a classically educated intellectual, and probably a member of the higher echelons of Constantinopolitan society.His only known work, the 7-volume Ecclesiastical History, was published between 439 and 446, very probably in 439/440. It covers the period from the accession of Constantine to 439, focusing on the Roman East and recounting the fourth-century Christological disputes, the reign of Julian the Apostate, the conflicts that led to the deposition of John Chrysostom, and the beginnings of the Nestorian dispute. Socrates’ synthesis is defined by his loyalties to Nicene Orthodoxy, the Theodosian dynasty, and the Origenist tradition. He is markedly sympathetic to the Novatian community, of which he may have been a member, and is interested in recording information about several other sectarian Christian groups of his time. Although an Origenist, like John Chrysostom and his supporters, Socrates distances himself from the Johannite party.
Socrates draws extensively on the Latin Ecclesiastical History of Rufinus of Aquileia for his account of the fourth century, which results in substantial overlaps between their works. In this database, we record only Socrates’ additions, and not the sections he reproduces from Rufinus. Alongside the recording of doctrinal disputes, successions of bishops, and victims of persecutions, Socrates was the first author to include a relatively systematic treatment of monasticism to the agenda of ecclesiastical historiography. It seems that he had access only to Greek and Latin sources, but not to the Syriac and other Aramaic hagiographies produced in this period in the East.
The work of Socrates is the first of the three Orthodox ecclesiastical Histories published in Greek between 439 and 449. Within less than ten years of its publication, Socrates’ work was systematically reworked and expanded by Sozomen, and may have been known also to Theodoret of Cyrrhus. Socrates’ narrative overlaps extensively with both of these ecclesiastical histories. This boom in Greek ecclesiastical historiography may have been instigated by the publication in Constantinople of an Arian Ecclesiastical History by Philostorgius in 425/433, which survives in fragments.
(Efthymios Rizos)
Discussion
This subchapter by Socrates is of paramount importance for the study of the formation of the cult of the enlightener of Iberia/Georgia in the Caucasus, Nino in Georgian (Nunē in Armenian), since it was taken up by later Armenian writers and was also central to the written tradition in Georgia.It was through Socrates' Greek History that Rufinus' Latin account of the conversion of Iberia entered the Caucasian literary tradition, or at least the Armenian one. Socrates essentially repeats Rufinus' account of the conversion of Iberia (E01402), though, for some reason, he changes one detail. According to Socrates the captive's first miracle was to cure the king's sick child and not, as in Rufinus' account, the child of an unknown woman. The rest of the story is essentially the same. Interestingly, he resolves the problem of there being two Iberias in Late Antiquity, by saying that the Caucasian Iberians had originated in Spain.
After the appearance of this story in the Armenian adaptation of Socrates, which names the captive as 'Nino' (E00519), her story was incorporated into the grand narrative of the activities in Armenia of *Gregory the Illuminator's (converter of Armenia, S00251). In the Armenian adaptation of Socrates, the captive woman is already identified as a companion of *Hripsime (virgin and martyr of Armenia, S00071) and acts on behalf of Gregory the Illuminator. Movsēs Xorenac'i in his History also envisages Nino/Nunē as the companion of Hripsime. Socrates, and Rufinus before him, knew nothing about this and do not even mention the name of the captive woman.
The most detailed version of Nino's story is, however, provided by the Conversion of Georgia and the Georgian Life of Nino, where the events accompanying and following Iberia's conversion by Nino are expanded and embellished, revealing the fully shaped cult of Georgia's Enlightener. What remains unknown is the relationship of the Georgian tradition of Iberia's conversion with Rufinus and especially Socrates. Unlike the Latin and Greek stories, the Georgian account is much more elaborate and is specifically dedicated to establishing the cult of St Nino.
Bibliography
Text:Hansen, G. C. (ed.) Sokrates. Kirchengeschichte, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995.
Translations:
Zenos, A. C. "The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus." In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church: Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, v-178. (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 1-178.
Périchon, P., Maraval, P. Socrate de Constantinople, Histoire ecclésiastique. Sources Chrétiennes 477, 493, 505, 506, Paris: Cerf, 2004-2007.
Further reading:
Bäbler, B., Nesselrath, H.-G. (eds.) Die Welt des Sokrates von Konstantinopel: Studien zu Politik, Religion und Kultur im späten 4. und frühen 5. Jh. n. Chr. Zu Ehren von Christoph Schäublin, München: K.G. Saur, 2001.
Chesnut, G. F. The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius. Atlanta: Mercer University, 1986.
Leppin, H. Von Constantin dem Grossen zu Theodosius II : das christliche Kaisertum bei den Kirchenhistorikern Socrates, Sozomenus und Theodoret. Hypomnemata 110. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996.
Nuffelen, P. van. Un héritage de paix et de piété : Étude sur les histoires ecclésiastiques de Socrate et de Sozomène. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 142. Leuven: Peeters, 2004.
Treadgold, W. T. The Early Byzantine Historians. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Wallraff, M. Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates : Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 68), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997.
Urbainczyk, T. Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
Nikoloz Aleksidze
21/03/2024
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00072 | Nino, Enlightener of Georgia | Uncertain | S00518 | Saints, unnamed | Certain |
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