This year is the last definitely mentioned in his work. He must have lived, however, until some time after that date, as he speaks of a revision of the first two books of the His- tory.26 How much later it is impossible to tell: it was not certainly till after the end of Theodosius’ reign; for then he would have brought down his history to that event, and thus completed his seventh book according to the plan, which is evident in his whole work, of assigning one complete book to each one of the emperors comprised in his period. Of the character of Socrates as a man we know as little as of the events of his life. Evid- ently he was a lover of peace, as he constantly speaks with abhorrence of the atrocities of war, and deprecates even differences in theological standpoint on account of the strife and ill-feeling which they engender. xii Socrates’ knowledge of Latin has been inferred from his use of Rufinus,27 but Dodwell28 conjectures that Socrates read Rufinus in a Greek translation, and that such translation had been made by Gelasius. Inasmuch as he lived in, and wrote of, an age of controversies, and his testimony must be weighed according to his theological standpoint, this standpoint has been made the subject of careful study. There is no doubt left by his explicit declarations about his agreement in the main with the position of the orthodox or catholic church of his age, as far as these are distinguished from those of Arians, Macedonians, Eunomians, and other heretics. But as to his attitude towards Novatianism there has been considerable difference of opinion. That he was a member of the Novatian sect has been held after Nicephorus Callisti29 by Baronius, Labbæus, and others, and argued from various considerations drawn from his work. Some of these are: that he gives the succession of the Novatian bishops of Con- stantinople;30 that he knows and mentions Novatian bishops of other places, e.g. of Rome,31 of Scythia,32 of Nicæa;33 that he mentions Novatian churches as existing in Phrygia and 26 II. 1. 27 I. 12, 19; III. 19; IV. 24, 26. 28 De jure sacerdotali, p. 278. Cf. on translation by Gelasius, Smith & Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography, II. p. 621. 29 Niceph. H. E. I. 1. 30 Cf. V. 21; VII. 6, 12, 17. 31 V. 14; VII. 9, 11. 32 VII. 46. 33 VII. 25. 9 Life of Socrates.