John of Ephesus: Historian on the Edge

Abstract This paper offers a revisionist account of much within the career and œuvre of John of Ephesus, in particular the famous third part of his Ecclesiastical History . Against the frequent presentation of John as a prominent and indeed ecumenical figure within his own ‘miaphysite’ communion – and the Ecclesiastical History in turn as the collective memory of that communion –, this paper instead presents him as a member of a small and controversial circle of Severan bishops who formed in Constantinople in c. 566, and the Ecclesiastical History , in particular elements within its third part, as John’s attempt both to legitimise that circle’s precarious position and to apologise for its role in successive scandals. In this context, John appropriated to himself a series of powerful Christian images – the evangelist, the archbishop, the confessor. But in each case the claim was dubious, designed to legitimise a figure who was far more vulnerable, marginal, and controversial than his own claims, and those of moderns, allow. In its conclusion, the paper suggests that appreciation of John’s text is likewise inhibited by the wider modern tendency to overestimate, in this period, the coherence, spread, and significance of ‘the miaphysites’.