Originally Posted by Duvduv

What is really known about events of the 4th century leading up to the Constantinople Council of 381 which is purported to provide a clear foundation for the revised Nicene Creed with allegedly a mere 120 bishops in attendance from the "East."

And since records don't exist, reliance is made on the historians following in the path of Eusebius, i.e. Sozomen, Socrates of Constantinople, Theodoret, all of whom were born after the year 381.

But practically speaking, what good are their claims about events up to the end of the 4th century?
Nothing is really known about any of them outside of their own works, and they borrowed information from one another.

Theodoret used Sozomen and Socrates as sources.
Little is known about Socrates, Sozomen dedicated his history to the emperor Theodosius II ("flattery gets you nowhere"). Theodoret's work is deemed not to be as good as others.

So from all of that comes information to the 5th century and appears to be the same as Eusebius in terms of reliability, bias, etc. even for modern scholars. Theodoret wrote about scriptures but evidently preferred the Old Testament to the "New" by far, writing in the mid 5th century. Like others he was preoccupied with the nature of the divinity, which sounds like not an unnusual philosophical occupation.

"Christianity" seemed to continue to be working itself out at least until the Chalcedon Council in 451, where it is said that 400-500 participants attended.

Originally Posted by mountainman

"we still learn our history of the late empire from Ammianus Marcellinus"

N/A

Originally Posted by Duvduv

What does that mean, since apparently he didn't have much to say about Christianity:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~drijvers/amm...ristianity.htm