The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK III 133
well-disposed to him. 6 And so once Basiliscus had thus acquired the
crown of the Roman realm and proclaimed his son Marcus as Caesar,
he proceeded in the opposite direction to Zeno and those who had
ruled previously. 7
4 As a result of an embassy of some men from the city of the Alexandrians,
he recalled Timothy from the banishment which he had experienced
for eighteen years, while Acacius was presiding over the bishopric
of Constantinople. Next indeed, [101] after reaching the emperor’s city,
Timothy persuaded Basiliscus to send encyclical letters to the priests
everywhere, and to encompass with anathema what had been transacted
at Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo; 8 the text of these says the following: 9
6 Malalas (378:1^2) agrees that Ariadne escaped from Constantinople after her
husband, whereas the Life of Daniel, 69, states that she accompanied Zeno to Chalcedon
and then on to the east. Zeno was besieged in the fortress of Sbide (in the central Isaurian
highlands, south of the Calycadnus river: see Ramsay, Asia 368) by the Isaurians Illus and
his brother Trocundes.
7 Basiliscus calculated his reign from the date of Zeno’s £ight, 9 January 475. In the light
of the sustained criticism of Zeno’s actions, the statement that Basiliscus proceeded in the
opposite direction might suggest approval for the new regime, but, as emerges in the next
chapter, Evagrius is now thinking in purely doctrinal terms: Basiliscus reversed the Chalcedonian
policy of Marcian and Leo. Allen, Evagrius 122, notes the remarkable mildness of
Evagrius’ treatment of the heretical usurper.
8 Zachariah (v.1) provides more details of the Alexandrian mission, which had originally
setout tosee Zeno;one of the Egyptian monks,Theopompus,was brotherof Basiliscus’magister
o⁄ciorum, Theoctistus. Timothy Aelurus had been in exile at Cherson on the Black Sea
since 464 (cf. ii. n. 127 above), so that his return to Alexandria naturally took him through
Constantinople.The Encyclical was supposedly drafted by Paul, one of the monastic delegation,
who had been a rhetorician and sophist. See Blaudeau, ‘Timothe¤ e’ 113^16.
9 Zachariah (v.2) preserves the address to Timothy and most of the ¢rst two paragraphs.
A long version is also included in the anti-Chalcedonian collection edited by Schwartz,
‘Codex’ no. 73 (pp. 49^51), with an address to all metropolitans (as implied by Evagrius p.
101:2^3); other variants are noted by Festugie're 482^4. This version contained various references
to the canons of Nicaea and the actions of Second Ephesus, and a rejection of new
regulations introduced at Chalcedon: the intention was to return to the earlier episcopal
hierarchy speci¢ed in the sixth canon of Nicaea (privileges for Rome and Alexandria; all
other provinces to control their own ordinations). Schwartz, ‘Codex’ 134, suggested that
the version in Evagrius was a hasty revision which attempted to make the Encyclical less
obnoxious to Acacius of Constantinople; after this compromise failed, Basiliscus was
forced to issue the Counter-Encyclical (iv.7). Grillmeier, Christ II.1 242^3, by contrast, suggested
that the long version represented an interpolated text which Timothy proclaimed at
Ephesus after departing Constantinople (see iii.5 with n. 17 below). Schwartz’s hypothesis
seems more plausible, but certainty is impossible.