Philostorgius

PHILOSTORGIUS, fîl´´o-ster´jius: Arian controversialist; b. at Borissus in Cappadocia about 364; d. after 425. His father was the strict Arian Carterius, and he became a polemical writer in the same cause. At the age of twenty he repaired to Constantinople for study and met Eunomius on the way, whose works he studied. There is no further knowledge of the course of his life. The work for which he was famous was a church history in twelve books, intended to justify the Arian party and is unfortunately lost. Only excerpts by Photius and others who used it have come down, and these are unreliable except as they report mere facts. It is certain that he used the writings of Aëtius and Eunomius and Arian documents as well as the history of Eusebius. The history began with the controversy between Arius and Alexander and extended to Valentinian III. It would scarcely be reliable in its partizan representation of persons and relations, yet the loss of so much historical matter dealing with an age so intensely, controversial is to be deplored. The work was used and read during the Middle Ages; the excerpts of Photius are mentioned, Suidas used it for his lexicon, Nicetes Akominatus possessed it, and Nicephorus seems to have used it.

(Erwin Preuschen.)

Bibliography: The first issue of the excerpts of Photius, ed. J. Gothofredus, was at Geneva, 1643; Valesius edited them next, Paris, 1673, after which there were several editions, principally the one by W. Reading, Cambridge, 1720, reprinted at Turin, 1748, and in MPG, lxv. New fragments were edited by P. Batiffol in Römische Quartalschrift, iii (1889), 134 sqq., cf. his Quæstiones Philostoggianæ, Paris, 1891, and his articles in the Quartalschrift, iv (1890), 134 sqq., ix (1895), 57 sqq. An Eng. transl. is by Walford, London, 1855. Consult: Fabricius-Harles, Bibliotheca Græca, vii. 509 sqq, Hamburg, 1801; J. R. Asmus, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, iv. 30 sqq.; L. Jeep, in Rheinisches Museum, lii (1897), 213 sqq.; TU, xvii (1899); Ceillier, Auteurs sacrés, viii. 509–514; DCB iv. 390; and the literature under Arianism.