Codex 42

[Basil the Cicilian, Ecclesiastical History]

Read the Ecclesiastical Historyof Basil the Cilician.[1] It begins with the death of Simplicius, bishop of Rome,[2] who wrote to Acacius of Constantinople to have no dealings with Peter surnamed Mongus,[3] who was then corrupting Alexandria by anathematizing, publicly and in church, the holy council of Chalcedon. It was through him that Acacius was deprived of his see;for although Acacius at first was justly incensed against him, he subsequently showed no aversion to his doctrines and thereby incurred the suspicion of being a heretic. This matter came up again during the reign of Zeno. The history begins at this time and goes down to the death of Anastasius, after he had reigned twenty-seven years and three months, Justin the Thracian being proclaimed his successor.[4]The present book finishes about this time, and embraces the period from Zeno to the death of Anastasius and the proclamation of Justin as emperor. The author also states that two other books were written by him, the first and the third; the first beginning with the reign of Marcian and ending with that of Zeno, where the second begins, while the third continues the narrative of the second, beginning with the reign of Justin.

The author’s style is rather slovenly and uneven. He also introduces a large amount of episcopal correspondence, the object of which, he says, is to prove what he writes; these vastly increase the bulk of the book and contain but little history, and that buried under a mass of verbiage. The clearness of the narrative is destroyed by the number of parentheses.