The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

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EVAGRIUS
secular material through selective emphasis (particularly in the case of
the Procopian narrative, as discussed above). One factor in the demise
of ecclesiastical historiography is likely to have been the general decline
in the availability of education in the late sixth and early seventh centuries
as the majority of cities, whose elites had ¢nanced the classical
training of their sons in the expectation of bene¢ts in terms of imperial
employment and status, contracted or were captured in the diverse
attacks to which the empire was subjected. But this cannot be the sole or
complete explanation, since in Constantinople an educated elite did
survive, especially in the Church where complex doctrinal arguments
were still in progress, and so there should have been individuals with the
capacity to compose a narrative of ecclesiastical events, if that had been
regarded as desirable.
Ecclesiastical historians, at least those writing from within the
orthodox or approved community, had always had trouble in dealing
with unresolved ecclesiastical business: Eusebius left the Arian heresy
to be handled by others; Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret had similarly
evaded the full complexities of the Nestorian controversy; and
Evagrius records less about Christological issues in the sixth century
than the disputes of the ¢fth. Any successor to Evagrius would have
had to tackle the Monothelete dispute of the mid-seventh century and,
even if a writer at the end of the seventh century might have felt con¢dent
about reporting this controversy, the arguments about icon
worship soon emerged as an equally divisive topic. Another awkward
issue was the spectacular failure of the Christian empire when faced
by the challenge of Islam. Eusebius’ presentation of the achievements
of Constantine as proof of the validity of the Christian message had
established the precedent for ecclesiastical historians to incorporate
secular events into their narrative as material which was relevant to
the reporting of God’s work in the world. The author of a continuation
to Evagrius would have to decide how to present the successful establishment
of a rival religion. Narrative strategies could have been
devised to cope with this: for example the formulation evident in
Monophysite sources, that Arab successes were the consequence of
heresy, could have been adapted to apply to imperial support for the
Monothelete formula, but there would still have been the question of
why God did not reward the Christians once correct belief had been
restored. For a variety of reasons a providential history might have
seemed too di⁄cult to contemplate.