Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/378

 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" (Pref. to his Hist.).

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. Jortin 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 the Younger 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 (ii. 18). The work is chiefly valuable in relation to the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, and the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. The first ed. of the History is that of Valesius, with notes (Paris, 1673) reprinted at Camb. in ''Hist. Eccl. Scriptores cum notis Valesii et Reading'', and repub. by the Clar. Press. The latest and best ed. is by Bidez and Parmentier (Lond. 1849) in Byzantine Texts edited by J. B. Bury. See also Krumbacher's ''Gesch. der Byz. Lit.'' 2nd ed. p. 246. There is a fair Eng. trans. by Meredith Hanmer (Lond. 1619) along with a trans. of Eusebius and Socrates, and more recent ones pub. by Bagster in 1847 and in Bohn's Lib. (Bell).

[W.M.]

Evaristus (called Aristus in the Liberian Catalogue), bp. of Rome at the beginning of the 2nd cent. With respect to the exact date and duration of his episcopate, as well as the names and order of succession of his predecessors [; ; ], ancient accounts are greatly at variance. Eusebius (H. E. iii. 34, iv. 1) gives Clemens as his immediate predecessor, the third year of Trajan (101) as the date of his accession, and 9 years as the duration of his episcopate; but in his Chronicle he makes the latter 7 years (Chron. iv. 1). Irenaeus, an older authority, who probably got his information when at Rome in the time of Eleutherus towards the end of the cent., also makes Clemens his predecessor, but gives no dates (adv. Haeres. iii. 3, 3). The Liberian ( 354) and subsequent Roman Catalogues, as well as Augustin and Optatus, represent him as succeeding Anacletus, and the former authorities give 96 as the commencement of his episcopate, and between 13 and 14 years as its duration. The best and probably final authority on the order and dates of the early era of Rome is Bp. Lightfoot’s Apostolical Fathers, part i.

[J.B—Y.]

Evodius (1), according to early tradition, first bp. of Antioch (Eus. Chron. ann. Abr. 2058; H. E. iii. 22). His episcopate has indirectly the older testimony of Origen, who speaks of Ignatius as the second bishop after Peter (in Luc. Hom. 6, vol. iii. p. 938; see also Eus. Quaest. ad Steph. ap Mai, Scr. Vet. i. p. 2). This tradition has all the appearance of being historical. Ignatius early acquired such celebrity that it is not likely the name of an undistinguished person would have been placed before his, if the facts did not require this arrangement. The language used about episcopacy in the Ignatian epistles agrees with the conclusion that Ignatius was not the first at Antioch to hold the office. As time went on, the fitness of things seemed to demand that Ignatius should not be separated from the Apostles. Athanasius (Ep. de Synodis, i. 607) speaks of Ignatius as coming after the Apostles without mention of any one intervening; Chrysostom makes him contemporary with the Apostles (Hom. in Ignat. vol. ii. p. 593); the Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46) have recourse to the expedient adopted in the parallel case of Clement of Rome, the hypothesis of a double ordination, Evodius being said to have been ordained by Peter, Ignatius by Paul. Theodoret (Dial. I. Immutab. iv. 82, Migne) and others represent Ignatius as ordained by Peter. The authorities are given at length by Zahn (Patres Apostol. ii. 327).

There is reason to believe that the earliest tradition did not include an ordination even of Evodius by Peter; for the chronicle of Eusebius places the departure of Peter from Antioch three years, or, according to St. Jerome's version, two years before the ordination of Evodius. The chronology of the early bishops of Antioch has been investigated by Harnack (Die Zeit des Ignatius). He infers that the earliest list must have contained only names of bishops of Antioch without any note of lengths of episcopates, but still that Eusebius must have had the work of some preceding chronologer to guide him. We may well believe, as Harnack suggests, that Eusebius got his chronology of early bishops of Antioch from Africanus, to whom he acknowledges his obligation, and whose chronicle has generally been believed to be the basis of that of Eusebius. If the belief had been entertained at the beginning of the 3rd cent. that Evodius had been ordained by Peter, it is incredible that Africanus would have assigned a date which absolutely excludes an ordination by Peter. The date assigned by the chronicle of Eusebius to the accession of Evodius appears to have no historic value, and thus, while we accept the episcopate of Evodius as an historic fact, we have no data for fixing his accession, but may safely place it considerably later than 42.

[G.S.]

Eznik (Eznig, Esnig), an Armenian doctor of the church in the 5th cent. His native place was Koghb or Kolp (whence he was called the Kolpensian), and he was a disciple of the patriarch Sahak (Isaac) and Mjesrop, the praeceptor Armeniae. Besides his mother tongue he understood Persian, Greek, and