The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

30
EVAGRIUS
inscrutable benevolence of God, and wishing to revere it especially and
elevate it, are turned this way and that. And no one of those who have
devised heresies among the Christians originally wanted to blaspheme,
or stumbled through wishing to dishonour the divinity, but rather by
supposing to speak better than their predecessor if he were to advocate
this. 102 And the essential and vital points are commonly agreed by all:
for what we worship is a trinity and what we glorify a unity, and God
the Word, though born before the ages, was incarnated in a second birth
out of pity for creation. 103 But if certain innovations have been made
by Dioscorus at Second Ephesus (n. 96 above) and by both sides in the Arian dispute
(Sozomen iv.17.4, 26.5; vi.25.13; Theodoret, EH ii.31), and was also a powerful accusation
in disciplinary matters (e.g. Sozomen vi.26.2; Theodoret, EH i.19.3). Inconsistency was an
obvious charge against the majority of bishops at Second Ephesus who proceeded to reverse
their decisions at Chalcedon only a couple of years later, and this was used against them by
Monophysites (e.g. Rufus, Plerophories 59, pp. 115^16). Thus Evagrius’ refutation of
alleged pagan arguments turns into an indirect defence of Chalcedon (Allen, Evagrius 83),
a subtle exploitation of the traditional theme of anti-pagan polemic in ecclesiastical history:
the change of mind at Chalcedon is justi¢ed in advance, without the need to cite speci¢c
Monophysite critics, who are, though, tacitly equated with pagans. We have no evidence
for the views about Church Councils of pagan intellectuals in the late ¢fth century, though
refutation of pagan attacks and criticism had still been important for Sozomen in the 440s
(Downey, ‘Perspectives’ 65^6). Evagrius’ failure to name his adversary (contrast iii.40^1 for
Zosimus) supports the hypothesis that pagans were not his main, or only target here. Allen,
loc. cit. (and cf. ‘Hellenism’ 379), dismisses the chapter as a historiographical topos, but,
quite apart from the possible Monophysite angle, there was a major pagan scandal at
Antioch in the 580s, so that Evagrius’ audience would have seen some contemporary relevance
to the polemic (cf. Downey, ‘Perspective’ 68^9).
102 This sympathetic attitude towards heresy is not entirely compatible with Evagrius’
description of the origins of Nestorian doctrine (i.1^2), but is consistent with Nestorius’ own
apology (i.7; cf. the judgement of Socrates vii.32) and with Evagrius’ tolerance of the Monophysite
position. Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration 27.10) had claimed that speculation on a
number of unresolved questions, including Christ’s su¡erings, the resurrection, retribution
and judgement, was not harmful, but the increasing precision of doctrinal de¢nition in the
¢fth century had made this £exibility less acceptable: see the Life of Cyriacus 12, pp. 229:24^
230:10, for ¢erce rejection of Gregory’s position.
103 Cf. ii.5 (pp. 52:27^53:20) for emphasis on the essential community of doctrine
between Chalcedonians and Monophysites. Socrates urged that Christians di¡ered far less
from each other than they did from pagans (iv.32.3), and had organized his narrative to
point to the problems caused by disputations: Lim, Disputation 199^205. Themistius had
developed an analogous argument when addressing Jovian on the theme of religious toleration:
devout adherents of di¡erent faiths had the same objective even if their approach differed
(5.68c^d).