Evagrius Scholasticus

Evagrius Scholasticus the Church historian, was probably born at Epiphaneia, on the Orontes, in or about A.D. 536, and had a good education. He lived in Antioch, where he was a lawyer (scholasticus), whence his surname. He rendered essential service to the patriarch Gregory, whom he defended (against charges of adultery and incest) at a synod in Constantinople, A.D. 589. He was made quaestorian, as a reward for his professional skill, by the emperor Tiberius. Evagrius wrote An Ecclesiastical History, in continuation, of Eusebius and Theodoret, which extends from the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, to the twelfth year of the reign of the emperor Maurice, A.D. 5934. He is credulous and superstitious, but orthodox. The best edition, Gr. and Lat., is that of Valesius (Henri de Valois), which includes Eusebius and the other early Greek ecclesiastical historians (Par. 1659-73, fol.; reprinted, with some additional "variorum" notes, under the title Eccl. Scriptores cun not/s Valesi et Reading, Cantab. 1720, 3 volumes); also in Migne, Patrol. Graca, volume 79; translated into English, A History of the Church, with an account of the Author and his Writings, trans. by Meredith Hanmer, in Bagster's Eccl. Historians (Lond. 6 volumes, 8vo); and in Bohn's Ecclesiastes Library (Lond. 1851, 12mo); into German by REssler, in his Bibl. d. K/rcheavdter, volume 7 (1775, 8vo). — Fabricius, Bibliotheca Grceca, ed. Harles, 9:284 sq.; Hoffmann, Bibliog. Lexikon, 2:37; Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 3:882.