Evagrius Scholasticus was a Syrian scholar and intellectual living in the 6th century AD, and an aide to the patriarch Gregory of Antioch.
14 Facts About Evagrius Scholasticus
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Evagrius Scholasticus's surviving work, Ecclesiastical History, comprises a six-volume collection concerning the Church's history from the First Council of Ephesus to the emperor Maurice's reign until Scholasticus' death.
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Evagrius Scholasticus was born in Epiphania, a Syrian town located next to the Orontes River in the heart of the Eastern Roman Empire.
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Evagrius Scholasticus's first written work addressed the plague outbreak which infected a vast segment of the population.
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Michael Whitby reasons that Evagrius Scholasticus was born into a wealthy aristocratic family with close ties to the political elite.
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Evagrius Scholasticus again remarried in Antioch, where his own records testify to his prestige among the professional elite since displays of grandeur and a massive audience were present during this wedding ceremony.
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Evagrius Scholasticus's remaining work, The Ecclesiastical History was complete in 593, a six-volume compilation of Christian history from the first Council of Ephesus to his own present time.
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Evagrius Scholasticus was explicitly a Christian in the Chalcedonian tradition, critiquing both Zacharias Rhetor and Zosimus for theological differences, two popular historians during his own time.
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Evagrius Scholasticus respected the former scholar for his contributions to the histories of the 5th and 6th centuries AD but chastised him for his Monophysite position.
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Evagrius Scholasticus's only surviving work, Ecclesiastical History, addresses the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from the official beginning of the Nestorian controversy at the First Council of Ephesus in 431 to the time in which he was writing, 593.
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For example, Evagrius Scholasticus relies heavily on Zachariah's textual study of history even though he was a monophysite, occasionally omitting minor facets of his work that explicitly promote his theology, but largely considering him to be dependable.
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Allen reasons that Evagrius Scholasticus built on Zachariah's work because his was the only comprehensive historical account of events taking place from Theodoret of Cyrus's time till his own era.
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Evagrius Scholasticus is much less critical of the Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, in comparison with Procopius, who described the two as physically manifest demons.
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However, historians acknowledge that there are serious logical errors inherent in Evagrius Scholasticus's surviving work, which is common for its epoch, namely the problematic chronological sequencing and skimming over of undeniably notable events such as major wars and other secular events.