All Topics  
Evagrius Scholasticus

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Evagrius Scholasticus
 
 
  Topics Evagrius Scholasticus Topic Home

Evagrius Scholasticus (536/537 - after 594) was an ecclesiastical historian, who wrote six books, covering a period of 163 years, from the Second Council of Ephesus
Second Council of Ephesus

The Second Council of Ephesus was a church synod in 449 AD. It was convoked by Emperor Theodosius II as an Ecumenical council but because of the controversial proceedings it was not accepted as Ecumenical, labelled a Latrocinium and later repudiated at the Council of Chalcedon....
 in 431 to the 12th year of the emperor Maurice
Maurice (emperor)

Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus , known in English as Maurice and in Greek as Maurikios, was a Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 582-602....
 (594).

Life
He was born at Epiphania
Epiphania

Epiphania is the name of several places and people. It is the feminine form of the name Epiphanius.*Hama, Syria, was formerly known as Epiphania....
 (Homs
Homs

Hims Hims did not emerge into the light of history until the 1st century BCE at the time of Seleucids. It later became the capital of a kingdom ruled by the Royal Family of Emesa who gave the city its name....
) in Coele-Syria
Coele-Syria

Coele-Syria, meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Strictly speaking, it is the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, but it is often used to cover the entire area south of the An Nahr al Kabir including Judea....
 in either 536 or 537, but accompanied his parents to Apamea
Apamea (Syria)

Apamea or Apameia was a treasure city and stud-depot of the Seleucid kings, was capital of Apamene, on the right bank of the Orontes River....
 for his education, and from Apamea seems to have gone to Antioch
Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the nearer East and was a cradle of gentile hi...
, the capital of Syria, and entered the profession of the law.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Evagrius Scholasticus'
Start a new discussion about 'Evagrius Scholasticus'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Evagrius Scholasticus (536/537 - after 594) was an ecclesiastical historian, who wrote six books, covering a period of 163 years, from the Second Council of Ephesus
Second Council of Ephesus

The Second Council of Ephesus was a church synod in 449 AD. It was convoked by Emperor Theodosius II as an Ecumenical council but because of the controversial proceedings it was not accepted as Ecumenical, labelled a Latrocinium and later repudiated at the Council of Chalcedon....
 in 431 to the 12th year of the emperor Maurice
Maurice (emperor)

Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus , known in English as Maurice and in Greek as Maurikios, was a Byzantine Emperor who ruled from 582-602....
 (594).

Life


He was born at Epiphania
Epiphania

Epiphania is the name of several places and people. It is the feminine form of the name Epiphanius.*Hama, Syria, was formerly known as Epiphania....
 (Homs
Homs

Hims Hims did not emerge into the light of history until the 1st century BCE at the time of Seleucids. It later became the capital of a kingdom ruled by the Royal Family of Emesa who gave the city its name....
) in Coele-Syria
Coele-Syria

Coele-Syria, meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Strictly speaking, it is the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, but it is often used to cover the entire area south of the An Nahr al Kabir including Judea....
 in either 536 or 537, but accompanied his parents to Apamea
Apamea (Syria)

Apamea or Apameia was a treasure city and stud-depot of the Seleucid kings, was capital of Apamene, on the right bank of the Orontes River....
 for his education, and from Apamea seems to have gone to Antioch
Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the nearer East and was a cradle of gentile hi...
, the capital of Syria, and entered the profession of the law. He received the surname of Scholasticus, a term then applied to lawyers (du Cange
Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange

Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange or Ducange was a distinguished Philology and historian of the Middle Ages and Byzantine Empire.Educated by Society of Jesus, du Cange studied law and practiced for several years before assuming the office of Treasurer of France....
, Glossarium), gained great favor with Gregory the Patriarch of Antioch, and was chosen by him to assist in his judgments. He seems to have won general esteem and goodwill, for on his second marriage the city was filled with rejoicing, and great honors were paid him by the citizens. He accompanied Gregory to Constantinople, and successfully advocated his cause when he was summoned to answer there for heinous crimes. He also wrote for him a book containing "reports, epistles, decrees, orations, disputations, with sundry other matters," which led to his appointment as quaestor by Tiberius II Constantine
Tiberius II Constantine

Flavius Tiberius Constantinus Augustus or Tiberius II Constantine, known in Greek as Tiberios Konstantinos was a Byzantine emperor of the Justinian Dynasty....
 and by Maurice as master of the rolls, "where the lieutenants and magistrates with their monuments are registered " (Evagr. vi. 23). This is his own account of his promotion.

His death must have occurred after 594, in which year he wrote his history at the age of 58 (iv. 28). His other works have perished.

The History


The history was intended as a continuation of those of Eusebius
Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
, Socrates Scholasticus
Socrates Scholasticus

Socrates of Constantinople was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret, who used his work; he was born at Constantinople c....
, Sozomen
Sozomen

Salminius Hermias Sozomenus was a historian of the Christianity church....
, and Theodoret
Theodoret

Saint Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, was an influential author, theologian, and Christianity bishop of Cyrrhus%2C_Syria ....
. He sought all sources of information at his command - the writings of Eustathius the Syrian, Zosimus
Zosimus

Zosimus was a Byzantine Empire historian, who lived in Constantinople during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I . According to Photios I of Constantinople, he was a comes, and held the office of "advocate" of the imperial treasury....
, Priscus
Priscus

Priscus was from Panium living in the Roman Empire during the 5th century. He was a diplomat, sophist and historian. He accompanied Maximin, the ambassador of Theodosius II, to the court of Attila the Hun in 448....
, John Malalas
John Malalas

John Malalas or Ioannes Malalas was a , Byzantine Empire chronicler. He was born at Antioch....
, Procopius of Caesarea, Agathias
Agathias

Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus , of Myrina , an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor, was a Greece poet and the historian who is a principal source for that part of the reign of Justinian I covered in his history....
, and other good authors - and resolved to bring their scattered information together "that the famous deeds which slumbered in the dust of forgetfulness might be revived; that they might be stirred with his pen, and presented for immortal memory" (from the preface to his History).

Despite his unnecessarily inflated style, he largely attained his end. He is a warm, often an enthusiastic writer, orthodox in his sentiments, and eager in his denunciations of prevailing heresies. John Jortin
John Jortin

John Jortin was an English church historian....
 indeed has condemned him as "in points of theological controversy an injudicious prejudiced zealot" (Remarks on Eccl. Hist. ii. p. 120); but Evagrius was a lawyer, not a theologian, and we must look to him for the popular rather than the learned estimate of the theological controversies of his time. His credulous enthusiasm led him to accept too easily the legends of the saints, but in other respects he shews many of the best qualities of an historian. Not a few original documents, decrees of councils, supplications to emperors, letters of emperors and bishops, etc. are preserved in his pages, forming most important authorities for the events to which they relate. Goss (in Herzog) especially praises his defence of Constantine against the slanders of Zosimus. In his general arrangement he follows the reigns of the emperors of the East from Theodosius II
Theodosius II

Flavius Theodosius , called the Calligrapher, known in English as Theodosius II, was an Eastern Roman Empire , mostly known for the law code bearing his name, the Codex Theodosianus, and the Walls of Constantinople#The Theodosian Walls of Constantinople built during his reign....
 to Maurice; but the arrangement of details is faulty. There is often great spirit in the narrative, an excellent specimen of which is his account of the Council of Chalcedon
Council of Chalcedon

The Council of Chalcedon is believed to have been the fourth ecumenical council by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. It was held from 8 October to 1 November 451 at Chalcedon , today the district of Kadik?y on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, incorporated into the city of Istanbul....
 (ii. 18). The work is chiefly valuable in relation to the Nestorian
Nestorianism

Nestorianism is the doctrine that Christ exists as two ,persons the man Jesus and the divine Son of God, or Jesus Christ the Logos, rather than as two natures of one divine essence....
 and Eutychian sects, and the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Evagrius used for his work also the (now lost) history of John of Epiphania
John of Epiphania

John of Epiphania was a late sixth century Byzantine Empire historian.John was born in Epiphania . He was a Christian and served as a legal counselor to the Patriarch of Antioch, Gregory ....
.

The first edition of his History is that of Valesius
Henri Valois

Henri Valois or in classical circles, Henricus Valesius, was a philologist and a student of classical and ecclesiastical historians.Belonging to a gently-born family of Normandy settled near Bayeux and Liseux, Valois studied under the Society of Jesus, first at Verdun and then at the Coll?ge de Clermont at Paris, where he studied rhe...
, with notes (Paris, 1673) reprinted at Cambridge in Historia Ecclesastica Scriptores cum notis Valesii et Reading, and republished by the Clarendon Press. The latest and best edition is by Bidez and Parmentier (Lond. 1849) in Byzantine Texts edited by JB Bury. See also Krumbacher
Karl Krumbacher

Karl Krumbacher , Germany scholar, an expert on Byzantine Empire culture.He was born at Kurnach in Bavaria, and was educated at the universities of university of Munich and university of Leipzig, and held the professorship of the middle age and modern Greek language and literature in the former from 1897 to his death....
's Gesch. der Byz. Lit. 2nd ed. There is a fair English translation by Meredith Hanmer (Lond. 1619) along with a translation of Eusebius and Socrates, and more recent ones published by Bagster in 1847 and in Bohn
Henry George Bohn

Henry George Bohn was a Kingdom of Great Britain publisher.Bohn was born in London as the son of a Germany bookbinder who had settled in England....
's Library.

External links