The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK III 151
from communion with Peter, with the consequence that Peter publicly
anathematized the Synod at Chalcedon. [115] When this came to
Acacius of Constantinople, he was vexed and arranged to send people to
¢nd out about this. Peter, wishing to reassure them that he had never
done anything of the sort, wrote a memorandum in which certain people
said that they were aware that Peter had done nothing of the sort. 50
17 This Peter, being opportunist and unstable, a man who adapted
himself to the occasion, was far from holding fast to a single opinion, now
anathematizing the Synod at Chalcedon, now uttering a recantation and
accepting it wholeheartedly. So, the said Peter wrote a letter to Acacius,
the prelate of Constantinople, which went like this word for word: 51
The most-high God will recompense your holiness for the great
toils and troubles with which, in the circuit of time, you have protected
the faith of the holy Fathers, which you have con¢rmed
through unceasing proclamations. Since in this we have found
that there is also contained the formula of the 318 holy Fathers, in
which we believed at our baptism, consequently we also believe; 52
this indeed was what the 150 holy Fathers gathered at Constantinople
con¢rmed. So, by ceaselessly guiding everyone, you have
united the holy Church of God, persuading us with strongest
populace, stated that it cancelled and condemned the whole doctrine of the Council and the
Tome of Leo (Zachariah v.7).
50 Zachariah vi.1. Peter Mongus was in an impossible position, since he was expected by
Zeno and the prefect Pergamius to welcome into communion former followers of Proterius,
provided they accepted the Henoticon (Zachariah v.7, 9), but this upset his own Monophysite
supporters, who were already worried by the Henoticon’s failure to condemn Chalcedon
explicitly and were suspicious of Peter in spite of his anti-Chalcedonian speech when
presenting the Henoticon to the Alexandrians (see previous note). Acacius’ investigation
increased Peter’s di⁄culties, since acquittal implied that he had not condemned Chalcedon
and so estranged the Monophysites.
51 A more sympathetic judgement is o¡ered by Frend, Rise 187: ‘Peter Mongus was
forced to balance on the tautest of tight-ropes.’ The letter does not survive elsewhere;
Allen, Evagrius 136, suggests that it was in fact a reply to the letter of Acacius to Peter mentioned
in iii.21.
52 Accepting, with Festugie're 323 n. 50, the transposition of ‘consequently’ from before
‘in which’, as suggested by Bidez^Parmentier (apparatus ad loc.), though this does disrupt
the common formula ‘we believed at baptism and still believe’. The alternative is to supply a
main verb, as BEL 356: ‘we were disposed to accord with it; that symbol in which we
believed at our baptism and still believe’. Fortunately, the sense is clear.