I. Introduction
In Book III of his Historia Ecclesiastica, Evagrius Scholasticus (c. 536/7–590s) wrote a lengthy polemical digression against the pagan historian Zosimus (c. 460–520) as well as unnamed “idol-maniacs” he identified in Book I. One might think that Evagrius, in calling Zosimus a “wicked and deceitful demon” and the “most polluted and utterly wicked man,” was addressing his contemporary.Footnote 1 Yet, Zosimus completed his Historia Nova nearly a century before Evagrius composed his history. Indeed, this kind of polemical digression was commonplace in the writings of Evagrius’s ecclesiastical historiographical predecessors – Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret – as paganism was still a threat to the synergistic relationship between the Church and the Roman Empire.Footnote 2 However, when Evagrius completed this work by the late sixth century, paganism seems to have been less prevalent in Byzantium. So why did Evagrius see fit to respond to Zosimus and the anonymous “idol-maniacs,” and more broadly, what can this case study of Evagrius’s polemical digressions and their historical context tell us about the lingering presence and influence of paganism in the later Roman Empire in the Christian East?
Scholars have offered several answers to the first part of this question. First, Pauline Allen argues that an anti-pagan polemical digression was part and parcel of late antique ecclesiastical history.Footnote 3 One of the reasons for writing an ecclesiastical history was to refute paganism and articulate how Christianity defeated pagans and won converts. According to Allen, anti-pagan polemical digressions were “tired conventions of ecclesiastical historiography” by the sixth century, and “the canons of ecclesiastical historiography implicitly demanded polemical refutations of paganism.”Footnote 4 Walter Kaegi posited a second possibility, attributing Evagrius’s rebuttal as contextually situated within the reality that, by 594, the Byzantine Empire had lost much of its territories, and the Persians were an ever-present threat in the East. Thus, in this view, the polemical digressions arose from the possibility that these military crises may have “stimulated the remaining Byzantine pagans”; therefore, Evagrius needed to “dust off Zosimus’s old arguments about the harmful results of neglecting to worship the gods.”Footnote 5 Allen also mentions a third possibility, namely that the digression was a Chalcedonian polemic disguised as one that was legitimately anti-pagan.Footnote 6 In other words, the opponent was not an actual pagan but an imaginary Miaphysite.
I want to suggest another possibility: Evagrius was responding to a real pagan presence in Antioch, where Evagrius settled, worked, and composed his Historia Ecclesiastica in the late-sixth century. It is not a novel conjecture to argue for the survival of paganism in the later Roman Empire. Frank R. Trombley noted the influence of paganism in the eastern Mediterranean world, including Antioch and the cities of northern Syria.Footnote 7 Likewise, Michael Whitby discussed the tasks Justinian had given to John of Ephesus (c. 507–586) that involved the suppression and conversion of pagans.Footnote 8 Whitby concluded that these two tasks were part of one unified program to usher in a truly Christianized empire.Footnote 9 Peter N. Bell has also argued extensively for the survival of paganism, especially during the reign of Justinian.Footnote 10 Bell particularly noted the influence of paganism in the eastern Mediterranean where “the evidence is voluminous.”Footnote 11 Finally, Anthony Kaldellis has been an ardent proponent of these arguments for the survival of paganism in the sixth century. He examined the understudied sixth century figure, John the Lydian (c. 491–565), whose works expressed genuine respect for pagan beliefs rather than suggesting any kind of “veneration for—or interest in—Christian beliefs.”Footnote 12 Similarly, Kaldellis discussed the role that prominent pagan intellectuals and artisans played in the construction of Hagia Sophia in the sixth century.Footnote 13 One of these pagan intellectuals was the prefect of Constantinople, Phocas, who was also the subject of a panegyric by Ioannes Lydos.Footnote 14 Concluding his article, Kaldellis took aim at Alan Cameron’s, The Last Pagans of Rome (2010), and suggested that he had downplayed the role of pagans in the fourth century, as if pagans were merely “Christians waiting to happen.”Footnote 15
Glanville Downey was one of the first scholars to argue that one should not ignore the survival of pagan beliefs and practices specifically in Antioch and northern Syria in the sixth century.Footnote 16 Similarly, Whitby suggested the presence of paganism in Antioch as relevant context for Evagrius’s polemical digressions. He wrote, Evagrius’s Antiochene audience “would have seen some contemporary relevance to the polemic,” rather than merely being a “historiographical topos” or concerned with the possible “Monophysite angle,” as Allen has suggested.Footnote 17 Bell also noted the lingering influences of paganism specifically in and around Antioch, not solely in the rural villages but also among the intellectual elite.Footnote 18 Finally, Lucy Parker has demonstrated the lingering impact of paganism in sixth century Antioch.Footnote 19 In her discussion of the Vita of Symeon Stylites the Younger and the scenes involving pagans in the villages of northern Syria, Parker concluded, “Thus, while it is unlikely that we will ever be able to prove how common paganism really was at this time, there is no reason to dismiss out of hand the idea that Symeon and his hagiographer might have encountered ‘real’ pagans in and around sixth-century Antioch.”Footnote 20
Building upon this historiography, I argue that the real, lived experience of living among and reading about the presence of pagans in Antioch and the broader Christian East during Evagrius’s lifetime provided the impetus for his inclusion of these polemical digressions in his Historia Ecclesiastica. This claim is supported by Evagrius’s narrative and other texts written about Antioch during the reigns of emperors Justinian (r. 527–565), Justin II (r. 565–578), Tiberius II Constantine (r. 578–582), and Maurice (r. 582–602) through which Evagrius lived and worked. I handle the reigns of Justin and Tiberius together, as there is not enough relevant material for the reign of Justin concerning pagan activity in Antioch or in the broader Christian East. Also, because of Justin’s mental illness and eventual inability to rule, Tiberius played an active role in imperial politics long before his accession to the throne, acting as a loyal ally of and possible husband to the surviving empress, Sophia.Footnote 21
This study hopes to contribute to the growing historiography of the impact that late antique paganism had on Byzantium and the Christian East before the advent of Islam in the seventh century. Evagrius lived and wrote in a period of crisis for Antioch and Byzantium at large: plague, natural disasters, theological conflicts, wars with the Lombards and other Germanic peoples in the West, and Persian invasions and conflicts in the East. When crisis strikes, it can be tempting to find a scapegoat. Zosimus, the pagan historian, had singled out Constantine and the supremacy of Christianity as precipitating the decline and fall of a truly Roman, and therefore, pagan empire.Footnote 22 Seeing his world crumbling in many ways, Evagrius turned the tables on Zosimus and other pagan historians who had argued Christianity was the cause of crisis for the Romans. His polemical digressions could serve as a broader scapegoating of pagans in Antioch, northern Syria, and the Christian East rather than placing blame on Christian religious and political figures like patriarchs (e.g. Gregory of Antioch) and emperors (e.g. Emperor Maurice) whom Evagrius admired.Footnote 23 In this way, rather than representing “tired conventions of ecclesiastical historiography,” Evagrius’s polemical digressions could both represent an intellectual response to paganism as found in his earlier ecclesiastical historiographical predecessors while also presenting an active defense of the Christian faith and its institutions amidst pagan disturbances in the East in the latter half of the sixth century.
II. Evagrius Scholasticus
Information on Evagrius’s life and work is beneficial to understanding the context in which Evagrius wrote his Historia and the personal crises which affected his own presentation of events in and around Antioch in the sixth century. Evagrius was born around 536/537 in Epiphania in central Syria to a reasonably well-off family.Footnote 24 This was a region of the Empire that represented a particularly staunch Chalcedonian resistance to the Miaphysite Patriarch of Antioch, Severus.Footnote 25 This Chalcedonian identity of the people of Epiphania undoubtedly influenced Evagrius’s orthodox viewpoint in his narration of the events and findings of the ecumenical Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). In his early life, Evagrius was not free from suffering. In 542, while he was a young boy, he survived the Justinianic plague.Footnote 26 Kyle Harper has argued for the significant impact of this plague on cities in the eastern empire, including Antioch where Evagrius eventually settled.Footnote 27
The 540s were an especially turbulent decade for Antioch. The city had already experienced tragedy in the sixth century with a great fire in 525 and two catastrophic earthquakes in 526 and 528.Footnote 28 Then in 540, the Persians captured and sacked the city. Despite all the turmoil that Antioch had encountered, Evagrius decided to leave his hometown of Epiphania to study rhetoric there in 550.Footnote 29 Tragedy struck again as another earthquake ravaged the city in 551, so Evagrius relocated to the capital in Constantinople to study law.Footnote 30 His training as a lawyer earned him the honorific title Scholasticus. Footnote 31 After receiving his qualifications, Evagrius moved back to Antioch to practice as a lawyer, where he remained for the rest of his life. The epidemic persisted in the region, and Evagrius lost his first wife to the plague in 573 and his daughter and grandson to the same plague in 591.Footnote 32
These familial losses particularly distressed Evagrius, as the family of a prominent pagan acquaintance of his had survived, whereas Evagrius had lost his loved ones. Evagrius wrote of his grief and crisis of faith as he sought the advice of the local Syrian saint, Symeon Stylites the Younger: “He saw my thoughts about the loss of my children, and that I was perplexed as to why this had never happened to pagans with many children; even though I had never expressed any of this to anyone, he wrote that I should distance myself from these thoughts, as it was displeasing to God.”Footnote 33 This crisis of faith regarding his pagan neighbor was likely in Evagrius’s mind as he wrote his polemical digressions. (I will return to this personal impact on Evagrius and its import for his polemical digressions later.)
Despite these significant trials, Evagrius had a successful career as a lawyer in Antioch during the patriarchates of Anastasius I (r. 559–70) and Gregory (r. 570–592). While Tiberius II Constantine was emperor, he bequeathed Evagrius the title of quaestor, and the apotheosis of his career arrived as Emperor Maurice granted Evagrius the honorary rank of prefect as a result of Evagrius’s literary achievements.Footnote 34 These included “reports, letters, decrees, speeches, discussions and other similar matters” written in the name of the Patriarch Gregory, and Evagrius also composed a panegyric for Maurice after the birth of his son in 583.Footnote 35 Unfortunately, none of these compositions survived, yet his most important literary achievement – the Historia Ecclesiastica – did and covered a crucial period in the development of the Ecclesiology and Christology of the Church.
III. The Historia Ecclesiastica and its Anti-pagan Polemical Digressions
The Historia Ecclesiastica was not composed in a vacuum; rather, Evagrius intentionally wrote his ecclesiastical history as a continuation in the canon of Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339) and his successors.Footnote 36 Evagrius demonstrated this goal in his preface, saying,
Now Eusebius son of Pamphilus, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Socrates have elaborated better to us than everyone else the arrival of the benevolent God, the ascent to heaven, all the accomplishments both of the venerable apostles as well of the martyrs who contended to the end, or indeed, anything else done by others which for us is praiseworthy, or indeed otherwise, up to a point to the reign of Theodosius … I will begin with divine assistance in the lead, from the point where the aforementioned left their history.Footnote 37
The narrative began with the origin of the Nestorian controversy, which led to the formal condemnation of Nestorius (d. c. 451) at the third ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431). Evagrius dedicated a large portion of his history to the Christological debates conducted at the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). These Christological differences created greater disunity between those who accepted the Chalcedonian definition of Christ in two natures united in the person of Christ (Chalcedonians) and the Miaphysites who adhered to a view that Christ was “out of” (ἐκ) rather than “in” (ἐν) two natures.
As a basic outline for the Historia, Book I illustrates the origins of Nestorius and the Nestorian controversy. Book II begins with Marcian’s (r. 450–457) accession and convocation of Chalcedon and includes a summary of the Council’s condemnation of Miaphysites. Book III narrates events during the reigns of Zeno (r. 475–476 and 476–491) and Anastasius (r. 491–518). Book IV follows the reigns of Justin I and Justinian while largely consisting of a summary of Procopius’ Wars. Book V includes the reigns of Justin II and Tiberius Constantine. Finally, Book VI details the accession of Maurice, events involving Gregory of Antioch, and the death of Symeon Stylites the Younger.Footnote 38 Throughout these books, Evagrius primarily focused on events in Antioch and its surrounding areas, highlighting its significant figures, including patriarchs and famous saints such as Symeon.Footnote 39 Evagrius completed the Historia later in his life, sometime between 592 and 594. It is not clear when Evagrius died, but it was not much longer after he completed Book VI as his history does not mention the Persian War in the early seventh century.Footnote 40 The seventh century carried with it great change for the Christian East with the Persian War, Arab conquest, and the introduction of Islam into the region, and with Evagrius’s death, many scholars viewed this as the end of ecclesiastical historiography in the Eusebian tradition.Footnote 41 Michael Hollerich remarked that this tradition terminated with Evagrius because the “church’s impregnable place in the social order removed the apologetic agenda against heresy and paganism that had been constitutive of the genre ever since Eusebius.”Footnote 42 Thus if this apologetic agenda was inherent to the genre that ceased after Evagrius’s Historia, these themes may have been significant as late as the end of the sixth century and provided a context for his anti-pagan polemical digressions.
The first digression in Book I begins immediately after Evagrius narrated the dissolution of the Second Council at Ephesus (449).Footnote 43 Then Evagrius wrote: “Let none of the idol-maniacs (τῶν εἰδωλομανούντων) mock me because subsequent Councils overturned their predecessors and always found some additional innovation for the faith.”Footnote 44 Evagrius was referring to doctrinal disputes at the councils and the pejorative charge of doctrinal innovation by his opponents. As previously mentioned, Allen and others view this anti-pagan digression as an indirect defense of Chalcedon.Footnote 45 Yet, Evagrius continued: “But the nurslings of pagan error, not wishing to find God or his care for men, destroyed both the beliefs of their predecessors and of each other, on the contrary devising one God after another and both electing and naming gods of their own passions so that, by endorsing such gods, they might be provided with a pardon for their own licentious acts.”Footnote 46 This was a common rebuttal by Christians to the disparaging charge of innovation by pagans.Footnote 47 Evagrius’s aim here was not to deny the existence of doctrinal disputes among Christians. Instead, he argued that all commonly agreed upon the “essential and vital points” and that the disputes generated a more refined, unified, and pure church.Footnote 48 The polemic consisted in highlighting unity and purity over-and-against pagan beliefs that justified licentiousness. If there were pagans in Antioch and the Christian East, Evagrius could direct this polemic against pagan detractors of the ecclesiastical councils and their decisions. This defense, which was probably most often read by Christian elites (although pagan elites may have read it as well), could both bolster the Christian faithful while also scapegoating pagans during a half-century of crisis and instability for Antioch and its surrounding areas. Therefore, this digression was not nearly as “out-moded and otiose” as Allen suggested.Footnote 49
Evagrius directed his second polemical digression at the pagan historian Zosimus (fl. 490s–510s). Evagrius offered rebuttals to Zosimus’s scathing critiques of the Emperor Constantine (r. 306–337).Footnote 50 He responded to two specific issues elicited by Zosimus: the chrysargyron tax and the executions of Crispus and his stepmother, Fausta.Footnote 51 Regarding the chrysargyon, Zosimus believed that this tax generated revenue for unworthy people and that it was designed to pressure mothers to sell their sons into slavery and force daughters into prostitution.Footnote 52 Zosimus denigrated Constantine for introducing seemingly unnecessary taxes to finance his extravagant lifestyle and construction projects. Evagrius rejoined by saying, “How then can you reckon that the same man was so generous, so munificent, and yet so pusillanimous and parsimonious as to impose such an accursed tax? I am utterly at a loss.”Footnote 53 Evagrius highlighted the attack on Constantine’s character rather than his policies. Yet the second refutation dealt primarily with Constantine’s character after his conversion, executing Crispus because of Fausta’s accusations and either killing her or forcing her to kill herself.Footnote 54 Evagrius appealed to the end of Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica, in which Crispus was alive with his father Constantine, while not recognizing that Eusebius’ work was later edited and brought up to date.Footnote 55 Michael Whitby noted how Sozomen (c. 400–c. 450) had earlier offered a more convincing “riposte to the type of attack on Constantine’s conversion reflected in Zosimus” whereas Evagrius’s later riposte merely “evades, or misses, the central issue” in Zosimus’ critique.Footnote 56
Although Evagrius misunderstood or misinterpreted Zosimus’s critiques, the crux of this polemical digression tackled the question: Did Constantine’s conversion and the establishment of Christianity cause the Roman Empire to flourish or fall? Zosimus argued that Christianity fueled the decline of the empire, while Evagrius argued “that Roman affairs have prospered together with our faith.”Footnote 57 In other words, the Roman Empire did not decline after the conversion of Constantine.Footnote 58 The rest of the digression outlined the successes of Christian emperors and the favor shown upon them when contrasted with the ill fates of pagan emperors.Footnote 59 Evagrius concluded, “Let no one think that these things are irrelevant to the ecclesiastical history, but quite certainly necessary and essential, since the historians of the Hellenes deliberately distort precision.”Footnote 60 Why were these digressions necessary and essential to the Historia Ecclesiastica? Was the purpose merely a rhetorical convention that pedagogically informed Christian readers how to respond to pagan rebuttals? Or is it possible that Evagrius also had actual pagans – cryptic or professing – in mind? Other sources provide evidence for the presence of paganism in Antioch and the wider Christian East, beginning with the reign of Justinian.
IV. Justinian (r. 527–565)
Justinian’s reign formed the background of Evagrius’s childhood, education as a lawyer, and the beginning of his career in service of the patriarch of Antioch. During Justinian’s rule, Antioch experienced great natural disasters, plagues, the Persian invasion, and ecclesiastical strife, such as the controversy surrounding Patriarch Severus of Antioch (r. 512–518). Justinian also cracked down on paganism early on in his imperial command. In 529, the Codex Justinianus informs us that Justinian forbade the “teaching of any subject by those who suffer from the insanity of the unholy pagans, lest thereby they pretend to teach those who wretchedly attend their classes, while in truth they destroy the souls of their pupils.”Footnote 61 The Antiochene chronicler, John Malalas (c. 491–578), also narrated Justinian’s persecution of pagans: “The emperor decreed that those who held Hellenic beliefs should not hold any state office, whilst those who belonged to the other heresies were to disappear from the Roman state, after they had been given a period of 3 months to embrace the orthodox faith.”Footnote 62 Apparently also, according to Malalas, some of these pagans died and/or had their property confiscated.Footnote 63 Likewise, pagans who served in the imperial army and pretended to be Christians while leaving their families behind “in the error of paganism” were severely punished.Footnote 64 These edicts did not quell paganism in the empire.Footnote 65 The stakes were extremely high for pagans as, under Justinianic law, the punishment for apostasy was death.Footnote 66
Additionally, various vitae in John of Ephesus’s Lives of the Eastern Saints discuss Justinian’s injunction in 541–542 to root out paganism in Asia Minor, with John as the enforcer and overseer of the program.Footnote 67 In the chapter on a saint called Abraham, John spoke of his admission into the monastic life alongside his nephew Daniel from Syria and his son. They, after being ordained to the diaconate alongside the presbyters Aaron and Leontius, “wholeheartedly and obediently occupied themselves with us in the work of the ministry in the district of Asia in converting men from the deceitfulness of paganism.”Footnote 68 This same kind of work is later described in the Vita of Kashish the bishop who also joined with John and his men in “the work of the ministry of converting men from paganism.”Footnote 69 In another chapter, John names four deacons – Abraham, Cyriac, Barhadbshabba, and Sergius – who served alongside John of Ephesus in the districts of Asia “for the sake of delivering from the error of paganism souls which from the beginning from the foundations of the world had been sitting in the darkness of idolatry… [and] each one of them ran zealously and mightily in his time, and was strengthened to abolish paganism, and overthrow idolatry, and uproot altars and destroy shrines and cut down trees in ardent religious zeal.”Footnote 70 According to John, this “missionizing” activity of rooting out paganism was quite successful as over 80,000 were converted “from the error of paganism” and ninety-eight churches (plus seven converted Jewish synagogues) and twelve monasteries were constructed in the provinces of Asia, Caria, Phrygia, and Lydia.Footnote 71 Scholars have disagreed on how to interpret these events discussed by John of Ephesus, as Lucy Parker has eloquently shown.Footnote 72 Whether these references suggest the actual presence of pagans or are merely utilized as a rhetorical device against political and religious opponents has been widely debated and the issue is still unsettled. But, as Peter Bell has argued (and I believe this is the case with the missions of John of Ephesus), pagans are referenced in ways that imply that “their existence is taken completely for granted.”Footnote 73
What did sources say about the pagan influence in Antioch during Justinian’s reign? Michael the Syrian was the patriarch of the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church (r. 1166–1199), who wrote The Syrian Chronicle, which covered Syrian history from Creation through the death of Saladin (d. 1193) in the Third Crusade (1189–1192).Footnote 74 In the year 562, he wrote: “In the year 35 of Justinian, paganism, and books of magic multiplied in the capital. Five pagan priests were arrested, one from Athens, two from Antioch, and two from Ba’alback. Their idols and books were gathered and burned.”Footnote 75 One can glean two important points from this statement. First, paganism was relevant as an affront to Justinian’s desire for a purely Christian empire near the end of his rule. Second, paganism was not merely prominent in the capital, nor was it solely present in historically pagan cities such as Athens and Ba’albek (Heliopolis).Footnote 76 The presence of pagan priests and the decision to burn their books displayed not only a cultic influence in Antioch and other parts of Syria but also signified the lingering impact of intellectual paganism.Footnote 77
Arguably, the most significant source that illuminates the persistent presence of paganism in Antioch during Justinian’s reign is the anonymous Vita of Symeon Stylites the Younger, which narrated the works and miracles of the Syrian saint. According to Symeon, the Persians were the “architects” of Antioch’s “imminent ruin” in the 540s because those in Antioch had “set up a table with libations and sacrifices to demons.”Footnote 78 In other words, God instrumentalized the Persian attack to punish pagan activity in Antioch. Other poignant and explicit references to paganism in the Vita exist, and they focused on two particular features of paganism in Antioch. First, astrology was apparently prevalent. Certain people who “professed paganism” and involved themselves in the “errors of astrology” feared that natural disasters would completely destroy Antioch.Footnote 79 The second pagan feature involved the cult of Aphrodite and other pagan groups who interacted with Symeon’s healing ministry. Sometime in the late 550s, a man who was extremely ill was brought to Symeon in Antioch. Symeon agreed to heal this man provided that he “anathematize Aphrodite and all the idols [and] learn from now on to know the one and only true God, our Almighty Father.” Seeking this healing, this man “anathematized Aphrodite and all the worship of idols, and those who revered them.”Footnote 80 Later, two pagans whom Symeon healed brought two sheep to him to express their gratitude.Footnote 81 The hagiographer mentioned an entire pagan village called Poulionos and a construction worker from nearby this town who “himself belonged to the religion of the abominable pagans.”Footnote 82
Finally, the hagiographer related that Symeon had had a vision that an imperial official would be sent out in order to expose the impious acts of pagans. This official’s name was Amantios.Footnote 83 He was apparently a harsh investigator and incorporated cruel tactics in his investigations. John Malalas wrote that as a result of the Samaritan revolt in 555/6, Amantios had “hanged some, beheaded others or cut off their right hands, and confiscated others’ property.”Footnote 84 His response to the pagans in Antioch was no less severe. Upon his investigation, Amantios discovered that many of the notable men in the city had been found guilty of paganism, Manichaeism, astrology, and other heresies.Footnote 85 Lucy Parker noted the strong socio-political element in this portion of the Vita, arguing that the wealthy elite of Antioch were “disproportionately represented among the pagans detected by Amantios.”Footnote 86 The hagiographer also identified the elite at the upper echelons of society as particularly “pagan.” The wealthy elite in Antioch were probably not disproportionately pagan, but this presentation by the hagiographer makes an important point for the argument suggesting the influence of paganism in sixth century Antioch; that is, pagans could be often associated with wealthy elites, and therefore, influential political and religious players. The threat by numbers may not have been overwhelming, but the gravity of the social influence of a pagan elite in a tumultuous, yet still significant, city like Antioch could worry a Christian writer like the author of this saint’s life or Evagrius.
Pagans persisted while accusations and sanctions against them continued. The evidence surveyed to this point exhibited that as late as 562, Christians in Antioch viewed paganism as a relevant issue regardless of its prevalence throughout the city. Antioch was a large city, but since Evagrius held the prominent position as the legal secretary to the patriarch of Antioch, he presumably was well-acquainted with these stories involving pagans. We know that he was familiar with the ministry of Symeon Stylites the Younger and had been rebuked by him for his crisis of faith in questioning his losses compared to that of his pagan neighbor. It is impossible to get inside the mind of Evagrius, but this pagan neighbor must have been on his mind as he heard the stories of Symeon and the pagans of Antioch and other cities of Syria. Evagrius was probably not aware of John of Ephesus’s writings nor of his missions in Asia Minor, but he may have been acquainted with the vitae of the eastern saints who had supposedly joined John in these crusades to quell paganism in the Christian East. As a legal secretary, educated and trained as a lawyer in Roman jurisprudence, he would also have certainly been familiar with the Codex Justinianus and its discussion of Justinian’s program of closing the academy in Athens, forbidding pagans from teaching in schools and serving in civil service, and punishing soldiers who had returned to paganism. Evagrius’s own personal losses and grief, in comparison to the good fortune of a pagan neighbor in Epiphania, and the surrounding context of anti-pagan activities during the reign of Justinian can be seen as informing his critique of and polemics against pagans in his Historia Ecclesiastica.
V. Justin II (r. 565–578) and Tiberius II Constantine (r. 578–582)
According to the relevant sources concerning paganism in Antioch during the life of Evagrius, there is insufficient evidence concerning pagan disturbances in the city or in the Christian East during the reign of Justin II. Pagan disturbances in the reign of Tiberius II Constantine, however, were a different story. In 578, while Justin was near death, Tiberius was proclaimed emperor. During this period, the Patriarch of Antioch, Gregory, was involved in a pagan scandal, one John of Ephesus and Evagrius recorded independently, and was later copied by Michael the Syrian.Footnote 87 This defamation involving his employer must have significantly impacted Evagrius, and his narration of the events differed starkly from that of the Miaphysite, John of Ephesus, who loathed Gregory.Footnote 88
John of Ephesus recorded in his Historia Ecclesiastica that in 579, Tiberius commissioned inquisitors to root out paganism in the Empire’s eastern provinces:
On receiving the king’s commands, this officer, whose name was Theophilus, proceeded at once from Palestine to Heliopolis, and having arrested numerous heathens, recompensed them as their audacity deserved, humbling them and crucifying them, and slaying them with the sword. And on being put to torture, and required to give the names of those who were guilty like themselves of heathenish error, they mentioned numerous persons in every district and city in their land, and in almost every town in the East, but especially at Antioch the Great.Footnote 89
The city of Antioch was labeled a center for pagan activity. During this investigation, the inquisitors caught Rufinus – a pagan priest of Antioch – in Edessa among other “heathens” celebrating a sacrificial feast of Zeus.Footnote 90 Before he was arrested by Theophilus and his men, Rufinus drew a knife and killed himself.Footnote 91 But an old woman and man who had taken part in the sacrifice were there as well. They were threatened with death if they did not immediately give up the names of those who were present at the pagan feast. Among others, they named Anatolius, a procurator and governor, and his secretary, Theodore, as accomplices of Rufinus in the festival sacrifice to Zeus, and Anatolius and Theodore were taken to Antioch for torture and further questioning.Footnote 92 John wrote that Theodore, after being tortured, accused Gregory, the Patriarch of Antioch, and Eulogius (d. 608), who was later the patriarch of Alexandria, of being present with them during the sacrifice of a boy at Daphne. According to the witnesses, the sacrifice had barely finished when Antioch was hit with an earthquake.Footnote 93 John highlighted the uproar this accusation against Gregory caused among the populace of Antioch, which caused the cathedral to be closed, and the liturgy to not be celebrated. But John is measured here in stating that for the “honor of Christianity,” this matter was hushed up as Gregory was exonerated.Footnote 94 Anatolius and his secretary, Theodore, were not so fortunate. The latter “died” (but John suggests that he might have been murdered) and the former was tried and executed at the capital in Constantinople.Footnote 95
John was less measured when he returned to the conclusion of the pagan scandal involving Gregory later in his Historia Ecclesiastica. John wrote that Gregory remained in his episcopal see as a “stumbling block to all the people.”Footnote 96 Furthermore, John noted that Gregory requested that a hippodrome be erected in the city in order to appease the people and that Gregory “not only obtained it, but also the necessary supplies wherewith to erect this church of Satan, in which he himself was ready to be minister […].”Footnote 97 John’s personal feelings of animosity toward Gregory are clearly evident here, but it must not be overlooked how much John emphasized this event among a wider program of the suppression of paganism. At the end of his narrative in Book III, John mentioned that other “emissaries” had been sent throughout Syria and Asia in order to prosecute suspected pagans at the capital, and at this point, “fresh names began to pour in, and every day new arrests were made, and more and more involved in danger, until the prisons were all full.”Footnote 98 Although it is impossible to prove, John narrated these events by presupposing that pagans were present and active in parts of Syria and Asia, including Antioch, in addition to his presentation of Gregory of Antioch representing an ad hominem attack of a Chalcedonian patriarch by a Miaphysite bishop.
Evagrius’s narrative of Gregory understandably differed from that of John of Ephesus due to his unwavering support of his employer and patriarch. Evagrius began his retelling of the scandal with Anatolius’s association with Gregory. He ignored or was ignorant of Rufinus the high priest. Anatolius, as John of Ephesus had also noted, was caught in an act of pagan sacrifice. Evagrius was less detailed, however, when he wrote that Anatolius was “discovered to be an abomination, a sorcerer, a man entangled in countless barbarities.”Footnote 99 Evagrius presented Gregory of Antioch more as a victim of the process. An anonymous “disruptive and malignant Devil” had convinced the Antiochenes that Gregory was an accomplice of Anatolius.Footnote 100 Evagrius, like John, noted the anecdote where Anatolius and his associates had been called to the capital by the emperor Tiberius in order to be investigated. Fearing for his life, he ran to an image of the Theotokos. Both John and Evagrius wrote that, once this occurred, the image turned around as an act of condemnation of Anatolius.Footnote 101 At the capital, Anatolius was brutally executed by having his limbs torn apart by wild beasts in the amphitheater before being impaled.Footnote 102 Evagrius’s narrative is much shorter than John’s and ends abruptly with the statement: “And these things ended thus.”Footnote 103
This incident involving his patriarch would have been extremely embarrassing and politically and religiously charged in continual Chalcedonian-Miaphysite conflicts. This tension can be seen in the differing presentations of Evagrius and John of Ephesus. For John, Gregory was a possible accomplice to pagans, a poor episcopal leader, and a heretic. According to Evagrius, Gregory was a victim of slander and wrongful accusation by pagans and his own people. Lucy Parker rightfully noted that based on these two independent and distinct accounts of this scandal, it is “unlikely that it will ever be possible to establish the precise sequence of events.”Footnote 104 But although the exact sequence of events is difficult to reconcile, both accounts presupposed a society in which paganism was a thorn in the side of the church and imperial hierarchies even if not necessarily a prevalent issue. Pagans could still disrupt social order, as was the case in Antioch and the investigations in Constantinople, and the charge of paganism could smear the identity of a key religious and political figure like the patriarch of Antioch. This charge was still, as Parker wrote, “perhaps the most powerful way of destroying someone’s reputation and status.”Footnote 105
VI. Maurice (r. 582–602)
Sources during Maurice’s reign do not offer much to illuminate the role of paganism in Antioch. Yet Ramsay MacMullen wrote, “Tiberius’s reign ended as it had begun in a vigorous campaign against paganism that lasted well into the next reign.”Footnote 106 The Persian advance in the late-sixth and early-seventh centuries may have overshadowed this campaign, but it appears that Maurice also saw fit to subdue paganism. This conjecture arises from John of Ephesus, who wrote, “And when Maurice was established in his stead, he was conspicuous for the same zeal and gave orders that all should be sought out and tried, who professed to be Christians, but really were guilty of idolatry. And so, every day they were tried, and received the just reward of their deeds, both here and hereafter.”Footnote 107 Maurice commanded that pagans from “every region and city” be subjected to trials in the courts.Footnote 108 This injunction suggests that paganism was not merely a memory; rather, pagans were present and active, particularly in the East, while Evagrius completed his Historia.
VII. Conclusion
This essay argued that a significant pagan presence in Antioch during Evagrius’ lifetime provided the impetus for his inclusion of anti-pagan polemical digressions in his Historia Ecclesiastica. It did not emphasize archaeological evidence from sixth century Antioch, as unfortunately, much of the evidence supporting the presence of paganism is lacking in this period in Antioch and other parts of northern Syria.Footnote 109 Even so, a few notes concerning archaeology are warranted. An archaeological dig in 1963 revealed a “cache of twenty-three pagan objects, statues, and votive reliefs [that] were found in a ditch at Tomis on the Black Sea (the modern Constantza)…. The ditch was sealed behind a wall approximately in the fifth or sixth century, exactly as the statues at Menouthis were concealed.”Footnote 110 Indeed, several of these caches have been discovered, including at Antioch.Footnote 111 The remains of a native Syrian pagan ivory pyxis with the image of Dionysus from the sixth century have been discovered, which suggest a form of pagan sculpture in the “vein of folk art.”Footnote 112 Although Derickson Brinkerhoff demonstrated that production of these objects ended around the year 600, along with their use in pagan sacrifices, their survival in church treasuries and prominence as late as the sixth century suggest at least some usage by pagans in and around Antioch before the beginning of the seventh century.Footnote 113 Archaeological support for the survival of late antique paganism has also been demonstrated in other areas of the empire including Greece, islands off the coast of western Asia minor, and Anatolia.Footnote 114 But, the weight of evidence for the persistence of paganism in Antioch and the wider Christian East rests in the textual material.
It is challenging to imagine what a seventh century ecclesiastical history would have looked like in the Eusebian tradition following this work of Evagrius. We know what form it took in the West as Bede composed his eighth century Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum which has its own polemical concerns but was largely confined to issues in the British Isles. Although Greek ecclesiastical histories largely went extinct beyond the seventh century, Byzantine historical writing remained a significant endeavor in the East throughout the remainder of the empire’s existence. But the Greek, Eusebian tradition of ecclesiastical historical writing terminated at the end of the sixth century with Evagrius, and with it, anti-pagan polemical digressions. Polemics were increasingly directed at Muslims, non-Chalcedonian Christians, and western barbarians. Evagrius’s Historia Ecclesiastica can be seen as a turning point in the history of Greek ecclesiastical historical writing and his polemical digressions as a fading, but still relevant form of response to pagans in Antioch and the Christian East at the end of the sixth century.
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual ASCH conference in 2025 as a part of the panel, “Early Church Apologetics and Polemics.” I want to thank Dr. Andrea Sterk for encouraging me to work further on this paper and submit it to this journal after hearing my presentation. An even earlier version of this essay arose from a graduate seminar on early Byzantine historians with Dr. Warren Treadgold at Saint Louis University. Dr. Treadgold’s initial guidance and instruction were instrumental in the early stages of this project. Finally, I want to thank the editorial team and anonymous readers of this journal. Their comments and critiques have been invaluable in shaping this paper into its final form.
