THEODORUS the Reader.
Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret having all three written the Ecclesiastical History of the same time, from the Empire of Constantine to that of Theodosius the younger, that happen'd to them, which is scarce avoidable by all those who write the same History, that they often report the same things, * 1.1 and one adds some things which the others had pass'd over in silence: So that a man must either re∣solve to read many times the same things by reading all their three Histories, or else he must lose the knowledge of some things and considerable circumstances by reading one only. To shun these Inconveniencies, it was necessary to compose a Body of the History out of these three Works, and to relate but once those things which are found written by several, and to supply from one Historian what is wanting in the others. This Work was undertaken among the Greeks by Theodorus the Reader of the Great Church of Constantinople and finish'd by Cassiodorus in the Version made by Epiphanius: For as to Theodorus he went no further in this Work then to the Death of the Emperor Constantinus. This Collection was divided into two Books, whereof there are yet some Manu∣scripts. [There is one Greek Manuscript of it in the Venetian Library of St. Mark and Leo Allatius had another, from which Valesius took his various Readings of the Histories of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, Cave p. 393.] But he wrote of his own two Books of the Continuation of the History of these three Authors, drawn to the Reign of Justinus the Elder; of which there remains now no more but an Abridgment of the Chapters, which was preserv'd by Nicephorus, and some Fragments taken out of the fifth and seventh Council; and from St. John Damascene. I think we need not very much regret the loss of this Work, since the Abridgment which we now have of it is very exact, and all things are related in it with great care. It is to be found, with the Fragments, at the end of Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History, publish'd by Valesius, Museulus has also plac'd it at the end of his Version of the Ecclesiastical Historians. [It is printed in Greek, with the other Ecclesiastical Greek Historians, by Robert Stephens at Paris, 1544. Gr. Lat. at Geneva, 1612. and with the Version and Notes of Valesius, Paris 1673. Cave p. 393, 394.