SOCRATES 8
entprtaiiied. and all reasonable deductions made, there can bo no reluctance to reverence Socrates as one of the most memorable, best, and wisest of men : " Bonum vi- rum facile crederes, magnum libenter." Erasmus de- clared tlint lie was often tempted to exclaim, "Sancte StK-rate, ora pro nobis!" ami bis impulse may excite symimtlietic appreciation in others. The highest at- te.siaiinn of the moral excellence, the sublime purpose, and ilie intellectual greatness of Socrates is to be found not in the l>eautiful biographical notices of his loving disciples Xenopbon and I'lato. wbicb have the taint of tiction on them, but in the reputation which he left per- manently lH?liind: in the universal reverence early and alwavs accorded to bis name; in the volume of pbiluso- jibv wbicb traced its descent from him; and in the broader, loftier, healthier, soberer spirit which animated all subseiiuent specidation.
III. Jtijiiience of Socrates.— The unquestioned influ- ence of Socrates was not revealed by any marked im- provement in the political or ])rivate morals of the contemporary and succeeding generations, but in the changed tone of thought and sentiment among the higher natures of the following times, and pre-eminent- ly in the enlargement and more sedate and rational de- velopment of philosophy. Xenojihon and Plato, Euclid ami I'lucdo, Antistbenes and Aristip])us, were his im- mediate disciples, and from them proceeded all the great sects of the (Jreek pbilosoidiers, with the excep- tion of Epicurus— and the morals of Epicurus accorded with Socratic jnirity. It is useless to add that from this Hellenic philosophy issued all Roman, and nearly all that is valuable in mediivval or modern philosophy, so far as these have been independent of revelation. No such extensive and enduring intluence has ever been, or can ever again be, exercised upon the world by any other uninspired teacher. Ko such unending in- tluence could have been exercised by any system or by any founder of a system.
IV. Literature. — Dresig, De Socrate juste Damnato (I^ips. 1732); Vrexei, Observations sur les Causes et sur quelques Circonstances de la Condamnation de Socrate (173G; I'aris, 1809); W'ls^^cra, Sokrates,als Mensch, Biir- ger u. P/iilosoph (liost. 18(J7) ; Schleiermaeher, ifeber den
Werlh des Sokrales, etc. (Herlin, 1815) ; Jleiners, Ueber den Genius de3 Sohrates ; Brandis, Ueber die Grundlinien der Ijfhre des Sokrates (Khein. Mus. 1817); Lelut, Le l>«mnn de Socrate (Paris, 183G); Baur, Sokrates und t'hriilns, in the Tiib. Zeitschrift, 1837 ; Forchhammer, hie. .1 tliener uiul Sokrates, etc. (Berlin, 1837) ; Van Lim- burg Brower, ApoUxjia contra Meliti Rediciri Calumniam ((ironingen, 1838); (Jrote, History o/'6'repcp, ch. Ixviii; Hamie, Sokrates ids Genius der Ilumanitdt (Brunsw. 1841) ; Brikler, Sokrates und sein Zeitulter (Ellw. 1848) ; Ilurndall, I)e I'hilosophia Morali Soci'utis ( Heidelb. 1853); I.Asaulx, I)es Sokrates Leben, Lehre und Tod (Munich, 1H.'>!)); Volipiardsen, Das Ddmonium des So- krates (Kiel, IXtVi); Ililgle, l>as Ddmonium des So- krates (Berne, 18()4); Zeller, Socrates ami the Socratic School ( I»nd. 18G8) ; Alberti. Sokrates (Giitting. 1869) ; Nietzsche, Sokrales, etc. (Basel, 1871); Labriola, La Dotlrina di Snrrate (Naples, 1871). (G. F. II.)
Socrates, SciKji.ASTicirs, an ecclesiastical histori- an, was born at (^)nstantino[ile towards the end of the 6tb century, lie sludic^d graiimiar and rhetoric under Ammoiiiiis and I lelladius, of Alexandria, and afterwards followed the profession of advocate or scholastic. He api»ears, liDwever, to have al)andoned this profession in order wholly to ilevote himself to the study of ecclesi- astical history. In the latter part of his life he undcr- tiMik to write t.b(' history of the Church, beginning at 'M)'.t, where KiiHcbiiis emls, and conlinued it down to 410, in s«-ven books. He is generally considered the most exact ami judicious of I Ik; three continuators of the history of Euseliius, being less florid in his style and n\i,Tv careful in his statements than Sozomen, and li"<s iTiilidoiis than Theodorct. "His impartiality is so strikingly displayed," says Waddington, "as to
4 SODOM
make his orthodoxy questionable to Baronius, the cele- brated Koman Catholic historian; but Valesius, in his life, has shown that there is no reason for such suspi- cion. He is generally suspected of being a Novatian, though he shows but little knowledge upon the subject, and conft)unds Novatian, a priest at Rome, with Nova- tus of Africa." His history has been abridged by Epipbanius, the scholastic, in his Ilistoria Tripurlitu, and was published for the first time as a continuation of Eusebius by Robert Stephens (Paris, 1544, fol. ). There was an edition with notes, published by Reading (Loml. 1720, 3 vols, fol.), and an English edition (Cam- bridge, lt>83, fol.). There is a good French translation of it bv the president Cousin. See Smith, Diet. oJ'Gr. and I\iiin. Bio(/. s. v.
Socratitae, a local name for the Gnostics, which is to be found under the number 26 in St. John Damas- cene's treatise On Heresies.
Socialities (Lat. for societies'), a term applied to certain associations in the Roman Catholic Church. These are composed of laymen, and are instituted for the encouragement of devotion, or for promoting cer- tain works of piety, religion, and charity, under some rules or regidations, though without being tied to them so far as that the breach or neglect of them would be sinful. An example is affordecl by the Sodality of the Living Rosary. Fifteen persons form a company or cir- cle, each taking by lot one of the fifteen " Mysteries of the Rosary" and reciting its decade ( = ten Hail-Marys, with a Lord's Prayer before it, and a Gloria Patri) every day. A niunber of circles, united under a clergyman as director, constitute a sodality.