The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

INTRODUCTION xxiii
Stylites the Elder to Basil of Antioch (ii.10), of the bishops of Asia to
Acacius (iii.9), and of Peter Mongus to Acacius (iii.17), though the information
contained in these is not of such signi¢cance. He refers to, but
does not quote, letters of Severus of Antioch to Soterichus of Caesarea
(iii.33), unspeci¢ed Antiochenes (iv.4), and Justinian and Theodora
(iv.11), as well as to correspondence between Anthimus of Constantinople,
Theodosius of Alexandria and Severus, which he chose to omit
‘leaving them to those who wish to read them, lest I pile up a boundless
mass in the present work’ (iv.11, p. 161:12^14). The patriarchate of
Antioch clearly possessed a reasonable collection of materials on
doctrinal disputes. Evagrius exploited these quite carefully: 28 the organization
and presentation of this ecclesiastical material represents
Evagrius’ major personal contribution to his History.
In addition to ecclesiastical documents, Evagrius also made use of
earlier church histories. Although he claimed to be continuing the work
of his Theodosian predecessors (Theodoret, Sozomen and Socrates),
Evagrius’ treatment of the beginnings of the Nestorian controversy overlapped
with the last events narrated by Socrates. Evagrius, indeed,
admits this and at one point corrects Socrates’ presentation of First
Ephesus (i.5). The Christological debate at First Ephesus was an essential
preliminary to Second Ephesus and Chalcedon, so this minor repetition
was sensible; in addition, Socrates had been rather benign in his presentation
of Nestorius, whom he did not regard as strictly heretical.
Zachariah
Of greater importance is Zachariah scholasticus, whose Ecclesiastical
History of the reigns of Marcian, Leo and Zeno (450^91) is now only
preserved in a Syriac version (pseudo-Zachariah), which abbreviated
the original Greek text but also continued it down to 569. 29 Evagrius
was well aware of, and indeed draws attention to, the fact that Zachariah
wrote from a committed Monophysite perspective (i.2; cf. iii.18), which
Evagrius was concerned to refute: thus he argues, somewhat unconvincingly,
that Nestorius could not have been summoned to the Council
of Chalcedon, and, more usefully, includes the text of Basiliscus’
28 See Allen, Evagrius 113^18, for discussion of Evagrius’ presentation of Chalcedon;
also Whitby, ‘Council’.
29 For discussion of the author, see the introduction to the translation by Hamilton and
Brooks; also Allen, ‘Zachariah’.