§ 162. THE CHURCH HISTORIANS AFTEli EUSEBIUS. SSS
bisliops and monks, churches and public buildhigs, eartliqiiakeu and otlier calamities ; and interweaves political history, such as the wars of Chosroes and the assaults of the barbarians.' He was strictly orthodox, and a superstitious venerator of monks, saints, and relics.''
Theodokus Lector, reader in the church of Constantinople about 525, coinpiled an abstract from Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, under the title of Historia tripartita, which is still extant in the mafiuscript ; ° and composed a continuation of Socrates from 431 to 518, of which fragments only are preserved in John Damascenus, Nilus, and Nicephorus Callisti.'
Of Philostokgius, an Arian church historian (born in 368), nothing has come down to us but fragments in Photius ; and these breathe so strong a partisan spirit, that the loss of the rest is not to be regretted. He described the period from the commencement of the Arian controversy to the reign of Yalentinian HI. a. d. 423.
The series of the Greek church historians closes with NiCEPHOEUs Callistus or Callisti (i. e., son of Callistus),* who lived at Constantinople in the fifteenth century. He was surprised that the voice of history had been silent since the sixth century, and resumed the long-neglected task where his predecessors had left it, but on a more extended plan of a general history of the catholic church from tlie beginning to the yea. 911. We have, however, only eigliteen books to the death of emperor Phocas in 610, and a list of contents of five other books. He made large use of Eusebius and his successors, and added unreliable traditions of the later days of the Apostles,
' Yalesius blames him " quod non tantam diligentiain adhibuit in conquirendig antiquitatis ecclesiasticse monumentis quam in legendis profanis auctoribus."
' The first edition was from a Parisian manuscript by Rob. Stephanus, Par. 1544. Valesius, in his complete edition, employed two more manuscripts. A ncvr editioii, according to the text of Valesius, appeared at Oxford in 1844.
^ Valesius intended to edit it, and contented himself with giving the variationa, since the book furnished nothing new.
* Collected in the edition of Valesius.
' Not to be confounded with Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, who waa deposed during the image controversy and died 828. His works, among which is also a brief Chronographia ab Adamo ad Micliaelis et Theophili lerapora (828)^ fonu torn. c. in Migue's Patrologia Grasca.
S84: THIRD pp:riod. a.d. 311-590.
♦■he history of Monophysitisin, of monks and saints, of the oai barian irruptions, &c. He, too, ignores the Pelagian contro versy, and takes Uttle notice of the Latin church after the lifth century.'
In the Latin church — to anticipate thus much — Eusebiua found only one imitator and coutinuator, the presbyter and monk RuFixus, of Aquileia (330-410). He was at first a friend of Jerome, afterwards a bitter enemy. He transhited, with abridgments and insertions at his pleasure, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and continued it to Theodosius the Great (392). Yet his continuation has little value. He wrote also biographies of hermits ; an exposition of the Apostles' Creed ; and translations of several works of Origen, with emendations of offensive portions.*
CassiodoruSj consul and rnonk (died about 562), composed a useful abstract of the works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, in twelve books, under the title of Historia tripartita^ for the Latin church of tlie middle age.
The only properly original contributions to church history from amoiig the Latin divines were those of Jerome (f 419) in his biogra])hical and literary Catalogue of Illustrious Men (written in 393), which Gennadius, a Semi-Pelagian presbyter of South Gaul, continued to the year 495. Sulpicius Severcs (f 420) wrote in good style a Sacred History, or History of the Old and New Testament, from the creation down to the year 400 ; and Paulus Okosids (about 415) an apologetic Universal History, wTiich hardly, however, deserves the name of a history.