The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK I 43
things came about by various means, 155 since God honours the holy
memories of His saints.
For the Daphnean Apollo with the Castalian prophetic voice 156
could give no reply to the emperor when the sinful Julian, the tyrant
hateful to God, consulted the oracle, because the holy Babylas was
completely stopping his voice from nearby, and Julian against his will
and under the lash, honoured the saint with translation. 157 At that time
indeed, a most spacious church was built for him outside the city, which
is preserved even to this day, so that in future the demons might do their
own deeds with impunity, as they say they had previously promised to
Julian. 158 This then was what was arranged by the saviour God, so that
both the power of those who had been martyred might be conspicuous
155 Festugie' re, 225 n. 70, rendered the phrase e ’kei“ yen e ’¤nyen with temporal sense, ‘at the
present time’, but the only other occurrence in Evagrius (ii.5, p. 52:26) should not be treated
temporally. Here the sense is that God ensures that his saints are honoured by both pious
and impious emperors, which provides a pretext for recounting the story of Babylas’ relics.
156 The allusion ultimately is to the Castalian spring at Delphi, Apollo’s main prophetic
centre, although it was common to apply Delphic terminology to Apollo’s shrine at
Daphne: see Downey, Antioch 82^6 for the origins of the Temple and its spring, and 659^
64, excursus 18, which refers to the discussion by J. Lassus (in Elderkin, Antioch-on-the-
Orontes I. 114^56) of the Yakto mosaic in which the Daphne springs are labelled ‘Castalia’.
The spring at Daphne had been blocked by Emperor Hadrian, since he had received a prophecy
of his own accession to the throne and subsequently wanted to deny such foreknowledge
to others (Ammianus xxii.12.8).
157 Before reaching Antioch in July 362 Julian had ordered the re-erection of the colonnade
around the temple of Apollo; Julian’s brother, the Caesar Gallus, had puri¢ed the site
a decade earlier by the translation of the relics of the local martyr Babylas, and Apollo’s
temple and its major festival in August were now ignored by most Antiochenes, much to
Julian’s dismay (Misopogon 34^5). Julian frequently visited the temple and presented
lavish gifts, but failed to revive its popularity or obtain an oracular response; the silence
was blamed on the presence of the martyr’s bones, and Julian ordered their eviction, an
event which the Christian community at Antioch turned into an anti-pagan procession. Cf.
Socrates iii.18; Sozomen v.19; Theodoret, EH iii.10; Theophanes 49:28^50:23; John Chrysostom,
De S. Babyla, contra Julianum et Gentiles (PG 50, cols. 533^72), of which the contemporary
narrative section, chs. 75^109, is translated in Lieu, Julian 65^81. G. Downey,
‘The Shrines of St. Babylas at Antioch and Daphne’, in Stillwell, Antioch-on-the-Orontes
II. 45^8; also Downey, Antioch 364, 387.
158 The relics were buried in the Antioch cemetery, until a cruciform church on the west
bank of the Orontes was constructed by Bishop Meletius c. 380: Downey, Antioch 415^16.
Evagrius fails to note that the temple of Apollo was destroyed by ¢re shortly after the
removal of Babylas’ relics, a point celebrated with relish by the Christian sources quoted
above; see also Ammianus xxii.13.1^3.