The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

20
EVAGRIUS
it is not named explicitly after Nestorius, but they say it is now called the
monastery of Euprepius, which we know in truth to lie outside Theopolis,
at a distance of no more than two stades. 57 Nestorius himself, then, says
that he spent a period of four years there and received every honour and
enjoyed all privileges, and that when Theodosius passed another decree
he was banished to the place called Oasis. But the speci¢c occasion he
kept secret. For not even when he was here did he abandon his particular
blasphemy, so that even John, the prelate of the Antiochene Church,
denounced this, and Nestorius was condemned to perpetual exile. 58
He also wrote another work in dialogue form concerning his exile to
Oasis, supposedly concocted for some Egyptian, in which he speaks
about these things more fully. 59 But what befell him on account of the
blasphemies conceived by him, since he was unable to escape the allseeing
eye, may be gathered from other writings which he produced for
57 A stade is roughly equivalent to a furlong, 200 metres. According to Downey, Antioch
465 n. 65, the monastery is not otherwise known; the statement of Evagrius, a local resident,
is presumably correct.
58 Cf. Theophanes 91:12^17; Zonaras xiii.22.43^4; Socrates vii.34.10. Theophanes
records that John was concerned that many prominent Antiochenes were being seduced by
Nestorius’ teaching (Barhadbeshabba ch. 27, p. 564, accuses John of jealousy). There was
still considerable support for Nestorius among the eastern bishops: the in£uential Theodoret
of Cyrrhus was only coerced most reluctantly in 435 into abandoning him and returning
to communion with John; Irenaeus and Photius were banished to the solitude of Petra (ACO
I.iv, nos. 277^8); Alexander of Hierapolis and fourteen other staunch Nestorians resisted all
pressure, and were deposed or punished in various ways in the same year (ACO I.iv, no.
279). Apart from Nestorius’ banishment, for which Petra was the original location (ACO
I.i.3, no. 110, p. 67:22^6), Theodosius ordered the destruction of Nestorian works and deprived
his followers of the name of Christians, specifying that henceforth they be known as
Simonians (Cod. Theod. xvi.5.66).
The Great Oasis was a succession of watered areas, about 100 miles long and mostly
about 15 miles wide, in the desert 100 miles to the west of the Nile, which for administrative
purposes was attached to the Thebaid; Olympiodorus, fr. 32, provides a description, especially
of the wells. Cf. Socrates ii.28.11 for the Great Oasis in upper Egypt as a place of
banishment; Zonaras xiii.22.43 locates the Oasis in Arabia, probably through con£ation
with Petra, and calls it a vile place at the mercy of pestilential winds. There were various
monasteries at the Oasis, and Nestorius was presumably kept at one of them.
59 A reference to the Bazaar of Heracleides, of which much survives; parts of it are cast
in the form of a dialogue with a critic named Sophronius. Festugie' re translated Evagrius’
description of the book (dialektiko“ B) as ‘a work using logical arguments’, but dialectical
rigour is not characteristic of Nestorius’ arguments, which, rather, tend to ramble around
the point; BEL translated as ‘a formal discourse’, though also noting (264 n. 1) that Valesius
was perhaps correct to render ‘in the manner of a dialogue’.