Ecclesiastical History

Page 9.

...since it appears from the previous mention that he knows only the Great Socrates The "Great Socrates" refers to the full, seven-book Armenian translation of the Ecclesiastical History by Socrates Scholasticus., how is it that he considered the Life of Sylvester to be the work of Socrates? The Syriac original would easily solve this problem, but we are not familiar with it. However, this absurdity would vanish if we were to remove the words "to this Socrates the Roman bears witness" 1—words that have no connection to the original history—as an interpolation. The one who added them is Vardan, the translator of Michael's history and a contemporary of Kirakos Gandzaketsi, who only knew the Small Socrates The "Small Socrates" was a popular, shortened Armenian version that often appended the legendary Life of Pope Sylvester I to the historical narrative..

The testimony of Kirakos Gandzaketsi A 13th-century Armenian historian. is as follows:

"And 2 then the most wise Socrates, with vigorous words, beginning from Saint Sylvester, Patriarch of Rome, and from Constantine the Great, leads [the history] until the days of Theodosius the Younger; he transmits the deeds and acts of each of the kings and bishops—the virtuous and the wicked—and the many councils that took place, both useful and worthless, with an extensive and frequent narrative."

He already knows and has read the Small Socrates. After Mkhitar Ayrivanetsi—who, however, concluded what he had to say in just a few words—the more or less important information is this, by which one can clearly point out when our historians—

1. Fr. B. Sargisian, in Examination of the History of Sylvester and the Sources of Moses Khorenatsi (Venice, 1893, p. 9), mentions that Michael the Syrian took this from a Syriac author, but does not explain why the name of Socrates was added.
2. Kirakos Gandzaketsi, History, Venice edition (1865), p. 2; however, we are using Etchmiadzin Manuscript No. 1670 as a superior copy.