tory by THEODORET of Cyrrhus, 386-458. This work covered the years 390-457, and gave an account of the lives of the Syrian monks, especially of one named Jacob who lived as a hermit near Nisibis. It is a monument of religious credulity amazing in so well-read and so intellectual an author. During the year 416-417 the Spaniard, PAUL OROSIUS, f1. 409-420, prepared a historical treatise The History of the World, to confirm by facts the doctrine maintained by AUGUSTINE in his City of God. Written in an attractive style and of convenient size this became the popular historical manual of the Middle Ages. A free abridged translation by ALFRED THE GREAT is extant and testifies to its widespread popularity. The succession was maintained by ZACHARIAS, bishop of Melitene, f1. 540, commonly called Rhetor, who described the events of the period 451-491, in an Ecclesiastical History in Syriac. For the material of this work he borrowed from SOCRATES and from THEODORET. The story of the century 420-520 by THEODORUS the Reader, is now almost wholly lost. The Chronography of JOHN of Antioch, surnamed MALALAS, fl. 600, holds a celebrated place in English literary history. In the first place it was the first Byzantine work edited by English scholarship, and in the second place it was the subject of the celebrated letter of Bentley to Mill. The work is in eighteen books; the first nine deal with the history of the world before the Incarnation; the others treat of Christian times. Much material not found elsewhere is preserved in this Chronography; thus it says that Evodius. the second bishop of Antioch, fixed upon the believers the title of Christians (cp. Acts xi.26). PROSPER of Aquitane, whose other writings have already been noticed (page 136), left a Chronicle in three parts. Part one extends from the earliest age to 326; part two from 326 to 378; part three carries the story down to 455, when Rome was taken by the Vandals. After the death of Maximus, there followed immediately the captivity of the Romans, a thing worthy of many tears. The city was left undefended, and Gaiseric got possession of it. The holy bishop Leo went forth to meet him outside the gates, and his prayers, by God's help, so softened him, that, though all was in his power, as the city had been handed over to him, he refrained from fire and slaughter and punishment. So for fourteen days they were free and at liberty to search. They spoiled Rome of all its wealth, and many thousand captives, according as age or beauty took their fancy, they carried off to Carthage, including the Empress and her daughters. EVAGRIUS the Scholar, 536-c.600, is known only by his History which was written as a continuation of the works of EUSEBIUS, SOCRATES, SOZOMEN, etc.: 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; . . . that no worthy act, by reckless security and languishing slothfulness, the sister of oblivion, might be put clean out of remembrance (Preface). The kinsman of EVAGRIUS, JOHN of Asia, 505-590, a Monophysite leader of the Syriac-speaking Church, was one of its earliest and most serviceable historians. His Ecclesiastical History began with Julius Caesar and carried the story down to 585. The first part however is now lost; the second part is known only by meagre quotations in the Chronicon of DIONYSIUS; the third is a record of the years 571-585, and as a contemporary and largely autobiographical narrative it has very high importance. JOHN was also the author of The Biographies of the Saints, 569. The honour of producing the first real history written in the Middle Ages falls to GREGORY of Tours, 538-594, who compiled an Ecclesiastical History of the Franks to the year 584 from many previous histories, episcopal lists, lives of saints, legends, annals, and traditions. This work is almost our only source of information for the period that it covers. Its attractiveness and its mastery of the art of narration won for GREGORY the title of "the Herodotus of the Barbarians." He is "the last of the Ciceronians, the first of the chroniclers." His Latin was becoming French, it shows an ignorance of grammar for which he apologised. but the occasional passages that are wrought with poetry and grace redeem it from utter rusticity. A serious decline in historical writing took place after EVAGRIUS, and for three centuries this department of Greek Christian literature produced little more than a few Chronicles. In the West the history of the Church became an integral part of the history of the world, and thenceforward the historian found his proper place outside the limits of specifically Christian literature. |