Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc had purchased a manuscript in
Cyprus containing the work of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus on virtue and vice. Valois took from it numerous previously unedited fragments of earlier historians, which he published in 1634:
Polybii, Diodori Siculi, Nicolai Damasceni, Dionysii Halicarnassii, Appiani, Alexandri, Dionis et Ioannis antiocheni excerpta. In 1636 he edited
Ammiani Marcellini rerum gestarum libri XVIII, with abundant notes which illumined all the history of that period and its institutions, together with two fragments, one from an
Origo Constantini (ca. 340) and one dating from ca. 527; although unconnected with each other, these two items are still usually printed together under his name,
Anonymus Valesianus. He succeeded in recognizing the rhythm of the phrases in the establishment of the text, at the same time making no display of his discovery. This edition was revised and enlarged by his brother Adrien in 1681. In 1650, the
assembly of the French clergy commissioned him to publish the ecclesiastical historians, after Mons. Charles de Montchal, archbishop of Toulouse, was compelled to resign the task. In 1659 he issued
Eusebius of Caesarea's
Ecclesiastical History, and biography and panegyric of Constantine, as well as Constantine's discourse in the assembly:
Eusebii Pamphili ecclesiasticae historiae libri decem . . . De vita Imp. Constantini . . . Oratio Constantini ad sanctos, & panegyricus Eusebii. The text was accompanied by a new Latin translation, scholarly notes and four dissertations (on
Donatism, the name
Anastasis as applied to the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the
Septuagint, and the
Roman Martyrology). In 1668 he published
Socrates of Constantinople and
Sozomen with three books of observations on the history of
Saint Athanasius, on that of
Paul, Bishop of Constantinople, and the sixth canon of Nicaea (against
Lamouy). In 1673, he completed his book with
Theodoret,
Evagrius, and the excerpts from
Philostorgius and
Theodorus Lector:
Socratis, Sozomeni, Theodoreti et Evagrii Historia ecclesiastica. He did important work, and though the manuscripts at his disposal were not always the best, his tact and the certainty of his criticism was admirable. His temperate and sanely learned notes are excellent documents of the French learning of the seventeenth century. Valois was associated with the greatest scholars of his time, with whom however he always maintained his liberty of judgment. He wrote the funeral eulogies of
Jacques Sirmond,
Pierre Depuy, and
Denis Pétau. He also wrote several occasional Latin poems, but to posterity he is the learned and exact editor of the Greek ecclesiastical historians. ==Notes==