Sacred Texts Christianity Early Church Fathers Index Previous Next
Chapter IX.—Of the Virtue and Age of the Two Hundred and Fifty Bishops.
Of these ministers of God, some were distinguished by wisdom and eloquence, others by the gravity of their lives, and by patient fortitude of character, while others again united in themselves all these graces. 3245 There were among them men whose years demanded veneration: others were younger, and in the prime of mental vigor; and some had but recently entered on the course of their ministry. For the maintenance of all ample provision was daily furnished by the emperor’s command.
This is the way it is interpreted by Sozomen, 1, 17. The phrase, which is literally “of middling character,” is translated by Molz. and others as if it meant “mild” or “modest,” as if it referred in some way to the doctrine of the mean.