How Chalcedon went East

Every now and again the various "orthodox" Churches would preserve historians whose theologies later slipped out of grace. A fine example is Socrates Scholasticus, a Novatian somewhat sympathetic to the bishop Nestorius. Another example is Philostorgios the Eunomian "Arian", whose work didn't get copied... largely because Photius would quote all you'd want to read of it, as "epitome". So: on to what "Mari bin Sulayman" has on the Chalcedonian controversies in the fifth century. UPDATE 3/9/22: this is the 1899 edition so: ʿAmr. Pages 32-5 in Latin; 36-40 Arabic.

As noted, the Church of the East had slim-pickin's on this century. ʿAmr did not own Elias bar Shenayé, nor Bar Sahdé. As of 2022 I now suspect he did know Nineveh-Siʿrt (also Arabic today); but Siʿrt's not very good here either. ʿAmr figured these decades AD 424-84 as good a span as any to look over West to see what they were up to.

Philip Wood thinks ʿAmr had more-or-less what Evagrius of "Epiphania" Hamath had: a Chalcedonian church-history reaching out East to see if there be some way of reconciling their traditions. I'll suggest: skipping Syriac, and going right to Arabic - for those Melkites whose mother Aramaic was Palaestinian. Or maybe it was Palaestinian all along and got translated to Greek, for Evagrius whose own Aramaic (like PsZacharias') was more-likely Edessene.

This Chalcedonian history reached for heroes and villains. Cyril, whose "Mother of God" sloganeering started this mess, was the villain. Nestorius was a victim, as in Socrates; his eventual successor Flavian a full-on martyr ("confessor", we'd say now). The history supports Theodoret - who had also penned a history, although an inferior one. Needless to say Leo of Rome is megamagnus and his Tome a near Third Testament. And lookie here John Chrysostom, that nasty old Jew-hater, was a hero, whom Cyril - student of Athanasius - would malign at his death. Well, if we're comparing to Cyril . . .

Wood says that it was under Justinian and Theodora, that Chalcedonians quit bothering to salvage Nestorius. (They'd go on to abandon Theodoret as well.) Consider context. Justinian worked through his life to unify with the Monophysites. The Orient still cared about Nicaea, but they were all under Iranian rule. And out west lurked the Latins and the Vandals, Dyothelete and Eunomian respectively; but Constantinople could just conquer them (and did). So Wood's terminus makes sense to me.

Wood concludes that the Chalcedonian history belongs to the earliest sixth century, likely Antioch. Given Leo's prominence I'd say the Latins had a hand in it, although the Greek version seems not to have been notably barbarous in any direction. Anyway certain Syrians appreciated it, and translated it from the Greek. It would not surprise me in the least if Mar Aba catholicos disseminated this one over the beplagued AD 540s: partly as an attack on Theodora, partly to fill that annoying gap in their own fifth-century record. Aba's synod in AD 544 adopted the bulk of Chalcedon, we are informed.