Modestus at Edessa: Imperial Officials in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret

Modestus at Edessa: Imperial Officials in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and TheodoretMillenniumSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference PortalThe National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe International Balzan Prize FoundationDavid A. Michelsoncbsc_adminRecord added to Zotero bycbsc_adminSyriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/cbss/HYPPAPKB/tei

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2025-05-20-05:00

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CREATED: This bibl record was autogenerated from a Zotero record.RobinWhelanModestus at Edessa: Imperial Officials in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodorethttp://syriaca.org/cbss/HYPPAPKBhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/a_comprehensive_bibliography_on_syriac_studies/items/HYPPAPKBhttps://www.zotero.org/groups/4861694/items/HYPPAPKBMillennium20:12023149-192This article considers the depictions of imperial officials and their interactions with Christian communities in the genre of ecclesiastical history. It focuses on one particular episode where the emperor Valens ordered his praetorian prefect Domitius Modestus to disperse an assembly of Nicene Christians at the martyrium of Thomas at Edessa. The four fifth-century Nicene ecclesiastical historians Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret offer the same basic narrative of the events which led to the prefect’s abandonment of his mission. Yet they construe the causes and implications of his reluctance to persecute in strikingly different ways. These adaptations reveal their differing views of the role of imperial officials in matters concerning the church and, more broadly, of what Christian communities might expect from the imperial state in a Christian empire. Whelan, Robin. “Modestus at Edessa: Imperial Officials in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret.” Millennium 20:1 (2023): 149–92. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/mill-2023-0009. Robin Whelan, Modestus at Edessa: Imperial Officials in the Ecclesiastical Histories of Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, Millennium 20:1 (2023): 149–92, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/mill-2023-0009.