Socrate le Scolastique
v. 380-v. 440 5th century
Peace kept in the face of difference: what varies from church to church is not what saves.
Who was Socrate le Scolastique?
A lawyer at Constantinople and a layman throughout, around 440 he wrote a Church History continuing Eusebius and covering his own century. He worked from documents, quoted his sources, and rewrote the whole book a second time to correct what he had believed too quickly. Holding no office in the Church, he watched the quarrels of his day with rare patience and refused to make a local custom into a law for everyone.
In their own words
In short, it is impossible to find anywhere, among all the sects, two churches which agree exactly in their ritual respecting prayers.
Since however no one can produce a written command as an authority, it is evident that the apostles left each one to his own free will in the matter, to the end that each might perform what is good not by constraint or necessity.
This diversity was occasioned, as I imagine, by the bishops who in their respective eras governed the churches; and those who received these several rites and usages, transmitted them as laws to their posterity.