ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the fluctuations in the role attributed to the devil by ecclesiastical historians from Eusebius to Evagrius. It focuses on some telling episodes in which Eusebius re-worked and adapted patterns of diabolical motivation and causation found in other kinds of Christian texts. The chapter explores the varying emphases on diabolical and demonic motivation among Eusebius' successors in the genre. Indeed, Eusebius' Greek successors related a number of stories about the vengeful activities of demons and furies which use 'pagan' classical literary tropes, sometimes incorporated into Christian cosmology, sometimes defiantly set apart from it. The picture of diabolical intervention in human history which emerges from Rufinus is increasingly exercised by Satan's minions. Socrates reported an opinion offered by a pagan in his verse epic, about which he expressed doubt while asserting that Julian's own actions exposed him to harm. Theodoret echoed Eusebius' antonomastic habit of referring to the devil by epithets like baskanos.
