The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

INTRODUCTION xix
detect evidence for familiarity with the frontier provinces to the east of
Syria. He describes the miraculous delivery in 542 of Sergiopolis, the
desert cult centre for worship of Sergius, and two major donations
which Khusro II sent there after his restoration, of which the ¢rst was
dedicated by Patriarch Gregory in person, but there is no sign that he
accompanied his employer to this remote location. Edessa also experienced
a miraculous escape from Persian attack in 544 (iv.27), but
Evagrius’ knowledge of the city’s topography is vague and he does not
suggest that he had seen the site of Khusro’s great siege mound; as for
the tokens of Christ’s guarantee of protection to Edessa, the letter to
Abgar mentioned by Eusebius and Procopius, and the acheiropoietos
image for which Evagrius is the earliest testimony, there is no indication
that he had seen either. Evagrius reports the violent ecclesiastical
disputes of Egypt in the ¢fth century via his sources, primarily Zachariah
of Mitylene: Egypt is a place of Monophysite discord and disruption, 14
where a patriarch might even be murdered in church and his corpse
subjected to public humiliation (ii.8), whereas comparable problems at
Antioch are not highlighted. 15
Moving west and north from Antioch, the land mass of Asia Minor is
a blank area, with the single exception of the shrine of Thecla at Seleucia,
where Zeno’s dedications were still visible in Evagrius’ own lifetime.
Otherwise there is silence: the holy man Theodore of Sykeon was well
placed to receive visits from travellers moving between Constantinople
and the eastern frontier during the reigns of Tiberius and Maurice, but
his deeds are not recounted by Evagrius. It is possible that Evagrius’
gout-ridden patriarch had preferred to travel to the capital by sea when
forced to defend himself in 587/8. Constantinople itself was known to
Evagrius, since he had spent several years there as a student, and subsequently
more time in the context of Gregory’s trial. Knowledge gained
on the latter occasion probably underlies his presentation of the
impressive details of S. Sophia’s construction (iv.31), 16 but other signs
of eye-witness reporting are less de¢nite. There is a long description of
the site of the church of Euphemia at Chalcedon, and also of the
14 Cf. Allen, ‘Use’ 282^3, who observes that Theodoret regarded Egypt with disfavour,
as the place of Pharoah and Arius.
15 Thus Evagrius does mention the murder of the pro-Chalcedonian patriarch, Stephen
(iii.10), but with none of the details provided for the death of Proterius at Alexandria.
16 These describe the church after its rededication in 562, and so are subsequent to
Evagrius’ time as a student.