Ecclesiastical History

Page 17.
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The book does not have a title page literally "a door"; instead, it begins this way under a colorless semi-arch a decorative headpiece or lunette at the top of the page with the name P . . . . . partially erased:

In the six thousand three hundred and fourth year By the Byzantine "Creation Era" calendar, 6304 corresponds to approximately 703–704 AD. of this transitory life, according to the chronology held by the Great Cathedral of Holy Sophia The Hagia Sophia in the imperial capital of Constantinople,

And in the seven hundred and fourth year from the coming of Christ, and in the Armenian year one hundred and forty-four, in the ninth indiction A 15-year cycle used in Roman and Byzantine dating, in the first year of the reign of Leo the Second, the Autocrat Augustus Likely referring to Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, who began his reign in this era; "the second" may reflect a specific regional numbering.,

Philo of Tirak translated, as his first undertaking, these specific selected portions from the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates, having left out 2 the prefaces, the letters of others, and the discourses, due to a shortage of paper and parchment (while being in a foreign land) . . . 3

This extremely important colophon hishatakaran A traditional memorial inscription found in Armenian manuscripts where the scribe or translator records details about their work, the date, and the political climate. is not present in the manuscript held at the Mother See The Holy See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia. However, the other colophon of the manuscript, placed at the end of Socrates’s history and at the beginning of the Life of Sylvester, is the same in both manuscripts:

Eighteen years before Philo translated this book—the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates—Abbot Gregory of Zoropor had translated (by command), together with the gloriously remembered Nerses, Prince of Georgia and son-in-law of the Kamsarakans, the book of the History of the Life of Saint Sylvester, Bishop of Rome; and it was on paper.

We have now deemed it appropriate to record it alongside this work. The Jerusalem Manuscript adds: "The parchment being prepared by the hand of Thomas the Clerk."

By complementing the two colophons with one another, the comple—

1. Arsh. Arat. Refers to the periodical "Ararat," published at Etchmiadzin. reads "seven hundredth," which is undoubtedly the correct reading.
2. Bishop Sahak reads "leave also"; Arsh. Arat. reads "having left."
3. The words and fragments placed in parentheses have been taken from Arsh. Arat. It appears that when the manuscript was brought from India, it was undamaged, but later, being kept without care in the monastery of Jerusalem, it was damaged—a very regrettable occurrence.