The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

lxii
EVAGRIUS
edition went through numerous reprints, most importantly providing the
text for the Patrologia Graeca (PG 86.2; 1865). This edition generated
further translations, including the standard English version, which was
published without indication of author as volume VI of The Greek Ecclesiastical
Historians of the First Six Centuries of the Christian Era, in six
volumes (London, 1846), and then included in H. G. Bohn’s Ecclesiastical
Library. 122 Eventually, recognition of the importance of Laurentianus
lxx paved the way for a new edition to be commissioned as part
of J. B. Bury’s projected series of Byzantine Texts, an initiative whose
main memorial is the edition of Evagrius by J. Bidez and L. Parmentier
(Methuen, London, 1898). 123 The Bidez^Parmentier text provided the
basis for the French translation by A. J. Festugie' re Byzantion 45 (1975),
187^488.
I have used the standard text of Bidez and Parmentier, whose pagination
is included in square brackets in the translation, except at a handful
of instances, signalled in the notes, where suggestions of Festugie' re have
seemed preferable. I have found the anonymous BEL translation to be
pretty accurate overall, even though it is based on the edition of Valesius;
Festugie' re’s translation is less precise, especially in complex passages,
although there are useful notes on linguistic, textual and some historical
matters. I have tried to mark those places where I depart signi¢cantly
from their respective interpretations. This translation aims to provide
an accurate version of Evagrius’ Greek, one which respects his stylistic
preferences and idiosyncracies but which is still comprehensible to the
intended readership. Granted that Evagrius’ contemporaries would
have found his style somewhat formal and di¡erent from everyday
language, there is intended to be a slightly rhetorical and periphrastic
feel to the translation. Each translator has their own preferences in
weighing up the competing claims of precision and readability, and
objections can be raised against any particular compromise.
The notes are intended to guide readers towards other relevant texts,
and in particular to Evagrius’ sources, and to provide clari¢cation of
122 This translation is sometimes attributed to H. G. Bohn (Chrysostomides, ‘Investigation’
xxvii n. 48), or H. A. Bohn (Averil Cameron, ‘Iconoclasm’ 39 n. 27), but I am not sure
on what authority.
123 The series only produced four volumes: the others are F. J. Hamilton and E. W.
Brooks, The Syriac Chronicle known as that of Zachariah of Mitylene (1899); C. Sathas,
The History of Psellus (1899); S. P. Lambros, Ecthesis Chronica and Chronicon Athenarum
(1902).