EVAGRIUS SCHOLASTICUS. - Ecclesiastical writer, b. at Epiphania in Syria in 536-37, d. at Antioch toward the end of the century. He practiced law (whence the epithet "Scholasticus") at Antioch, then held important offices; in 588 he accompanied to Constantinople the patriarch Gregory, who had been summoned to clear himself, and defended him before the Emperor and the Synod.
He mentions (Hist. eccl., VI, 24) a lost work of his, which contained reports, letters, deliberations, speeches and dialogues. What has come down to us, instead, is the Ecclesiastical History in 6 books, in which, proposing to continue those of Sozomen, Theodoret and Socrates, he covers the period 431-594. He makes no mention of Theodore the Lector, and he expresses reservations, inspired by strict orthodoxy, about the doctrinal positions of Eusebius. He deals only with the East, extending also to secular events, such as the war between Romans and Persians (I, VI); but his principal interest is in the history of dogma, and he is important above all for the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies and for the further developments of Monophysitism. Although he is sometimes excessively credulous and fond of the marvelous, he is impartial. He draws, especially for the history of Eutychianism, on Zacharias the Rhetorician, for secular events on the chronicle of his compatriot Eustathius, on Procopius of Caesarea, on Menander Protector, on John of Epiphania, on John Malalas. The style, deliberately archaizing and modeled on Thucydides, is verbose but accurate, continuing the literary tradition of Greek historiography.
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Michele Pellegrino