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Pauline Allen

owes little to the secular tradition which emphasised the emperor’s greed, and nothing
to the strict Chalcedonian tradition which indicted him as a heretic.74 The accession of
Justin I was, for Evagrius, unexpected, as in his account there were other more influ-
ential candidates; Justin bribed the populace or the excubitores and behaved treacher-
ously towards Vitalian.75 Despite Justinian’s advocacy of Chalcedon, his ecclesiastical
policies do not find favour with Evagrius, who accuses the emperor of being avaricious,
cruel, and led to maniacal excess by his support of the circus faction, the Blues.76
Probably the final straw for the church historian was the emperor’s alleged embrace
of Aphthartodocetism towards the end of his life,77 but John of Ephesus condemned
this too in the emperor (see below). Evagrius appears to have anti-Justinianic sources
or influences here, tendencies which we may imagine Malalas, as a contemporary of
Justinian, was perhaps not unaware of but does not include in his Chronicle.
In the Historic/. Ecclesiastica of the anti-Chalcedonian John, bishop of Ephesus (c.
507-c. 588), Anastasius is presented as a defender of anti-Chalcedonian doctrine, but
most of John’s material for this reign was taken from earlier sources, and the account of
the Trisagion riot comes from Malalas.78 Justin I appears as old, theologically illiterate,
and susceptible to bad advice.79 The portrait of Justinian is mixed: At his command
John, as bishop of Ephesus, was sent to Asia Minor to make converts to Christianity,
but, while the emperor is said to have defended the Christian faith against heretics,
Jews, and pagans, John criticises him for his heretical turn towards Aphthartodocetism
at the end of his life.80
3. Some conclusions: tendencies, influences, sources
In many cases Malalas knew much more than he was prepared to write, as we have
seen, for example, in the cases of Severus of Antioch and Ephrem. It is almost im-
possible to believe that he did not know what was going on between opponents and
proponents of Chalcedon, either in Antioch or Constantinople, if we assume that
he was born in the reign of Zeno and was a boy or young man during the reign of
Anastasius. For many events he was his own living source that he did not use. I sub-
74 See Allen (1981), pp. 166-170.
75 Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica IV1-3; translation in Whitby (2000), pp. 200-202.
76 Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica IV 30, 32; translation in Whitby (2000), pp. 232-233, 236-
237.
77 Evagrius Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica IV 39; translation in Whitby (2000), p. 250. On Justinian’s
attempts at reconciliation with aphthartodocetic doctrine see Noethlichs (2000), pp. 127-128 with n. 36;
Uthemann (1999), pp. 79-83. Blaudeau (2006b), p. 674 n. 120 points out that Evagrius insists on the
unhappy consequences of imperial authority exercised without legitimate church control.
78 See van Ginkel (1995), pp. 105-106. Text and Translation by Brooks in loannes Ephesinus, Historia Ec-
clesiastica pars tertia.
See van Ginkel (1995), p. 106.
80 For details of John’s tendencies see van Ginkel (1994), pp. 323-333; on John’s somewhat mixed portrayal
of Justinian see van Ginkel (1995), pp. 106-107.