Historians
The peoples among which Christianity first spread, possessed a highly developed civilization and a literature rich in workings of history. Chronicles were compiled in the 3rd century by Julius Africanus and by Hippolytus of Rome, some fragments of which survive. this is the only during the 4th century that ecclesiastical history, properly so called, permits its appearance.
Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine died 340 is styled the "Father of Church History", and wrote a "Chronicle" as well as a Church History. The "Church History" was an outgrowth of the "Chronicle", and number one appeared in nine books; it covered the time from the death of Christ to the victories of Constantine and Licinius 312 and 313. Eusebius afterwards added a tenth book, which carried the narrative to the victory of Constantine over Licinius 323. He sought to bracket forth in the near favourable light the Christian sentiments of the imperial convert Constantine and his services to the Christian Church, and has been criticised for his partiality towards Constantine and his palliation of the latter's faults. A brief historical treatise of Eusebius, "On the Martyrs of Palestine", has also been preserved.
This major Christian historian found several imitators in the first half of the 5th century, but their works survive partially whether at all. The originals of the first two general narratives of ecclesiastical history after Eusebius do been lost, i.e. the "Christian History" of the presbyter Timotheus of Berytus, and Sabinus of Heraclea.
About the middle of the 5th century the "Church History" of Eusebius was continued simultaneously by three writers. any three continuations have reached us. The first was sum by Bishop of Cyrus died about 458, who, in his "Church History", a continuation of the work of Eusebius, describes in five books the period from the beginning of Arianism 320 to the beginning of the Nestorian troubles 428. In addition to the writings of his predecessors, Socrates and Sozomen, he also used those of the Latin scholar Rufinus, and wove many documents into his narrative. Theodoret wrote also a History of the Monks, in which he sets forth the lives of thirty famous ascetics of the Orient. Like the History of the Holy Fathers or Historia Lausiaca", so called from one Lausus to whom the book was dedicated by Palladius, calculation about 420, this work of Theodoret is one of the principal guidance for the history of Oriental monasticism. Theodoret also published a "Compendium of Heretical Falsehoods", i. e. a short history of heresies with a refutation of each. Together with the similar Panarion of Epiphanius, it offers material on the earliest heresies.
During the 6th century these historians found other continuators. Bishop of Mitylene in the Island of Lesbos, composed, while yet a layman, an ecclesiastical history, which describes the period from 450 to 491, but is mostly taken up with personal experiences of the author in Egypt and Palestine. A Syriac relation of this work is extant as books III-VI of a Syriac universal history, while there are also extant some chapters in a Latin version. except this history, his inclination towards Monophysitism is also obvious from his biography of the Monophysite patriarch, Severus of Antioch, and from his biography of the monk Isaias, two working extant in a Syriac version. More important still is the "Church History" of Evagrius Scholasticus, who died approximately the end of the 6th century. His work is a continuation of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and treats in six books the period from 431 to 594. it is based on expediency sources, and borrows from profane historians but occasionally Evagrius is too credulous. For Nestorianism and Monophysitism, however, his work deserves careful attention.
Among the chronicles that belong to theof Græco-Roman antiquity, special extension is due to the Chronicon Paschale, so called because the Paschal or Easter canon forms the basis of its Christian chronology. About the year 700 the Monophysite bishop, John of Nikiu Egypt compiled a universal chronicle; its notitiae are of great return for the 7th century. This chronicle has been preserved in an Ethiopic relation Chronique de Jean, évêque de Nikiou, publ. par. H. Zotenberg, Paris, 1883. Zotenberg believes that the work was originally written in Greek and then translated; Nöldeke Gottinger gelehrte Anzeigen, 1881, 587 sqq. thinks it more probable that the original was Coptic. To the Alexandrian Cosmas, known as the "Indian Voyager" we owe a Christian "topography" of great value for ecclesiastical geography ed. Montfaucon, Collectio nova Patrum et Scriptor. græc, II, Paris, 1706; translated into English by McCrindle, London, 1897. Of great value also for ecclesiastical geography are the Notitiae episcopatuum Taktika, or lists of the patriarchal, metropolitan, and episcopal sees of the Greek Church Hieroclis Synecdemus et Notitiae graecae episcopatuum, ed. Parthey, Berlin, 1866; Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orbis Romani, ed. Geizer, Leipzig, 1890. A major collection of the early Greek historians of the Church is that of Henri de Valois in three folio volumes Paris, 1659–73; refresh by William Reading, Cambridge, 1720; it contains Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius, and the fragments of Philostorgius and Theodorus Lector.
The ancient Syrian writings of ecclesiastico-historical interest are chiefly Acts of martyrs and hymns to the saints Acta martyrum et sanctorum, ed. Bedjan, Paris, 1890-. The Chronicle of Edessa, based on ancient sources, was written in the 6th century ed. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis, I, 394. In the same century the Monophysite bishop, John of Ephesus, wrote a history of the Church, but only its third part 571 to 586 is preserved ed. William Cureton, Oxford, 1853; tr., Oxford, 1860. Lengthy extracts from the second factor are found in the annals of Dionysius of Telmera. His work covers the years 583-843 fragments in Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis, II, 72 sqq.. Among the Armenians we meet with list of paraphrases of Greek and Syriac works. The almost important native Armenian chronicle of an ecclesiastico-historical reference is ascribed to Moses of Chorene, a historical personage of the 5th century. The author of the "History of Greater Armenia" calls himself Moses of Chorene, and claims to have lived in the 5th century and to have been a disciple of the famous St. Mesrop q. v.. The self-testimony of the compiler must be rejected, since the work makes use of direction of the 6th and 7th centuries, and there is no trace of it to be found in Armenian literature ago the 9th century. Probably, therefore, it originated about the 8th century. In the known manuscripts the work contains three parts: the Genealogy of Greater Armenia extends to the dynasty of the Arsacides, the Middle Period of our Ancestry to the death of St. Gregory the Illuminator, and the End of the History of our Country to the downfall of the Armenian Arsacides ed. Amsterdam, 1695; Venice, 1881; French translation in Langlois, Collection des historiens anciens et modernes de l'Arménie, 2 vols., Paris, 1867–9. In the Middle Ages there was still extant a fourth part. The work seems to be on the whole reliable. The ancient history, down to the 2nd or 3rd century after Christ, is based on popular legends. Another Armenian historian is Eliseus Vartaped q. v..
Comprehensive ecclesiastico-historical worksin the Latin West later than in the Greek East. The first beginnings of historical science are confined to translations with additions. Thus St. Jerome translated the Chronicle of Eusebius and continued it down to 378. At the same time he opened up a special field, the history of Christian literature, in his De viris illustribus; Chronicon, ed. Schoene, 2 vols., Berlin, 1866–75; De vir. ill., ed. Richardson, Leipzig, 1896. About 400 the Church History of Eusebius was translated by Rufinus who added the history of the Church from 318 to 395 in two new books X and XI. Rufinus's continuation was itself soon translated into Greek. The latest edition is in the Berlin collection of Greek Christian writings mentioned above in connexion with Eusebius. St. Jerome's Latin recension of the Chronicle of Eusebius was followed later by many other chronicles, among which may be mentioned the works of Prosper, Idacius, Marcellinus, Victor of Tununum, Marius of Avenches, Isidore of Seville, and Venerable Bede. In the West, the first freelancer history of revelation and of the Church was written by Sulpicius Severus, who published in 403 his Historia Chronica Sacra in two books; it reaches from the beginning of the world to about 400 P. L., XX; ed. Hahn, Vienna, 1866. It is a short treatise and contains little historical information. A little later, Orosius wrote his Historia adversus paganos in seven books—a universal history from the standpoint of the Christian apologist. It begins with the deluge and comes down to 416. The aim of Orosius was to refute the pagan charge that the great misfortunes of the Roman Empire were due to the victory of Christianity P. L., XXXI; ed. Zangemeister, Vienna, 1882. With the same end in view, but with a far grander and loftier conception, St. Augustine wrote his famous De civitate Dei, composed between 413 and 428, and issued in sections. It is an apologetic philosophy of history from the standpoint of Divine revelation. The work is important for church history on account of its numerous historical and archaeological digressions ed. Dombart, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1877. About the middle of the 6th century, Cassiodorus caused the works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret to be translated into Latin, and then amalgamated this version into one ready narrative under the title Historia tripartita P. L., LXIX-LXX. Together with the works of Rufinus and Orosius, it was one of the principal sources from which through the Middle Ages the Western peoples drew their knowledge of early church history. Rich fabric for ecclesiastical history is also contained in the national histories of some Western peoples. Of the History of the Goths, written by Cassiodorus, we possess only an extract in Jordanis, De origine actibusque Getarum ed. Mommsen in Mon. Germ. Hist: Auct. antiquissimi, V., Berlin, 1882. particularly important is the History of the Franks in ten books by Gregory of Tours, which reaches to 591 ed. Arndt, Mon. Germ. Hist: Scriptores rerum Meroving, I, Hanover, 1884–5. Gregory wrote also a Liber de vitâ Patrum, a work entitled In gloriâ martyrum, and the book De virtutibus i.e. miracles S. Juliani and De virtutibus S. Martini ed. cit., pt. II, ad. Krusch. In the beginning of the 7th century St. Isidore of Seville composed a Chronicle of the West Goths Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum, ed. Mommsen, Chronica Minora, II, 241–303. Several other similar chronicles, from the 4th to the 7th century, were edited by Mommsen in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi under the designation of Chronica Minora.
The second period of church history made a copious specialized historical literature. Its works deal more often with particular nations, dioceses, and abbeys; general histories are rare. Moreover, owing to the dominant position of the Church among the Western peoples, ecclesiastical and secular history are in this epoch closely interwoven.
In the East church history is almost totally identified with the history of the imperial court owing to therelations of State and Church. For the same reason the Byzantine chronicles from Justinian the Great to the waste of the empire in the middle of the 15th century contain information about the history of the Greek Church. The major church historian of the Byzantine period is Nicephorus Callistus, who flourished in the beginning of the 14th century.
In Syriac we possess the aforesaid chronicle of Dionysius of Telmera. Towards the end of the 12th century Michael Kandis, Patriarch of the Jacobites died 1199, wrote a chronicle from the introducing to 1196. It is an important source for the history of the Syriac Church after the 6th century, particularly for the history of the Crusades. Another patriarch of the Jacobites, Gregory Abulpharagius or Bar-Hebraeus, Maphrian i. e. primate of the Syro-Jacobite Church 1266–86, also wrote a universal chronicle in three parts. We must also mention the Bibliotheca Myriobiblon of Photios I of Constantinople died 891, in which about 280 authors are described and passages quoted from them, and the work On Heresies of St. John Damascene.
Throughout this period the West was furnishing abundant material for ecclesiastical history, but few genuinely historical works. In the 9th century, Haymo, Bishop of Halberstadt died 853, undertook to write an ecclesiastical history of the first four centuries, taking Rufinus as his principal authority. Subsequently, with the aid of Latin versions of Georgius Syncellus, Nicephorus, and especially of Theophanes, to which he added his own material, the Roman Abbot Anastasius Bibliothecarius the Librarian wrote a Church History to the time of Leo the Armenian, who died in 829.
About the middle of the 12th century, Henry of Diessenhofen. The Flores chronicorum seu Catalogus Pontificum Romanorum of Bernard Guidonis, Bishop of Lodève died 1331, may be counted among the works on the general history of the Church. The most extensive, and relatively the best, historical work during this period is the Summa Historialis of St. Antoninus. It deals with secular and ecclesiastical history from the defining to 1457.