The first, and probably the only, mention of this Work which occurs in any ancient Father of the Church, is to be found in the catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers' by |4 Jerome. And in this, all that this Father says,--after speaking of some of Eusebius's other works,--is, " qeofanei/aj libri quinque," i. e. Of the Divine Manifestation, five books. After him, Suidas says " qeofanei/aj lo&goi e/ ," which is a mere echo of the words of Jerome. Harles, in his edition of the Bibliotheca Graeca of Fabricius, speaks of it in this manner. (Vol. vii. p. 408). " Eu0aggelikh_ qeofa&neia , bis citatur in catena in Lucam in cod. Vindobon. caesareo xlii., teste Lambecio comment, tom. iii. p. 166. not. 4. conf. supra nr. 8. Harl".--" Fragmentum ex Eusebii opere deperd. Theophania Evang. e cod. Coislin. Gött. 1740. 4". And again, p. 395, nr. 8, speaking of the work of our author against Marcellus, he says: " Hos quinque Libros adversus Marcellum Labbeus putat innui ab Hieronymo in Catalogo cap. 81. et Suida, quando inter Eusebii Scripta memorat libros quinque peri\ qeofanei/aj . Videtur enim hoc idem illi esse quod qeofanei/aj . Sed id tamquam incertum omitto, quum Hebed Jesu quoque in catalogo Librorum Chaldaicorum memorat Eusebii librum de ortu divino"
The Catalogue of Hebed Jesu, here referred to, will be found in the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Asseman, tom. iii. pt. 1, and the place in p. 18 of this: where, after speaking of the Ecclesiastical History of our author, Hebed Jesu says, [Syriac], i. e. and the Book on the Divine Manifestation. Asseman refers us, in a note, to Cave's Historia Literaria, p. 95, where mention is made of this work of Eusebius, entitled peri\ qeofanei/aj , libri quinque; but Cave tells us nothing more about it, than that it is a work not now extant.
But the thing most worthy of remark here, is Asseman's referring us to Cave at all; when, if the work had existed in the Library of the Vatican, he would, in all probability, as he has done in many other places, have given us a detailed description of it. It may be added that, although Asseman has given us very extensive lists, in this work, of |5 Syriac books deposited in the Vatican, he has never once spoken of this as being there. And the same might be said, with respect to the present very learned librarian of the Vatican, who has, in his erudite and laborious work entitled, "Scriptorum Veterum nova Collectio," said much, and edited some works, of Eusebius, and even given several fragments from our Theophania; yet he has nowhere informed us, that either the Greek text, or the Syriac version, of this Work is to be found there. I may perhaps conclude therefore, that it is not known to exist in that library.
The Citations as noted above in Fabricius, will be found in the following Work, pages 216, 321-2. The Fragment printed at Göttingen in 1740, also mentioned by him, will be either reprinted or noticed hereafter in this Work, if it can be obtained before the last sheet goes to press.
It must be evident, I think, from what has now been said, that the work of our author entitled the Ecclesiastical Theology, noticed above, could not be the same with that entitled the Theophania, or Evangelical Theophania,-- for by this latter title is our Work designated in the Catena of Vienna:--while it must be equally certain, that a work by Eusebius bearing the title assigned to it by Jerome, did exist in the Syrian Church : and, as no reason can perhaps be assigned why the Syrians should forge such a work, it is probable, that this is the very work so described by Jerome.
Again, from the fragments of this Work hitherto brought to our notice, (see the places referred to above,) it seems sufficiently certain, that this is the work of Eusebius so described by Jerome. I would add, let the reader also examine in the following pages, the very many places marked as corresponding word for word, with several in the undoubted productions of our author. In our Second Book, for example, a very considerable number of the Sections or Paragraphs, are found to be identically the same with many |6 occurring in the "Oratio de laudibus Constantini:" while in our Fifth Book, the far greater part is also found word for word in the " Demonstratio Evangelica;" not to insist on several others, found either in the "Praeparatio Evangelica," the Ecclesiastical History, or some other work of our author, as shewn in the Notes.
There are also certain peculiarities in the writings of Eusebius which may be mentioned here; they are these: It is customary with him, though not constantly, to commence a subsequent book with the matter, and occasionally with the words, which closed the preceding one. The close and commencement of the First and Second, and of the Second and Third books, respectively, of the "Praeparatio Evangelica" will supply examples of this; as will the corresponding ones of our following Work, and more particularly those of the Fourth and Fifth.
To this may be added the Style of Eusebius, which is universally allowed to be any thing but simple and obvious. His periods are often long, and his style both inverted and involved. He seems moreover, to have been studious to avoid the language in common use, and often to have be-iaken himself to that peculiar to the poets. This latter consideration could not have affected our original text, which is only a translation; while the former has, to a very considerable extent. For our Translator, anxious to shew himself faithful in the discharge of this his duty, has so closely followed his original by endeavouring to render it word for word, that his translation may occasionally be considered as obscurity personified ; the Syriac very ill admitting of either inversion, or involution, of style. Several instances of this sort,--to which many more might have been added,--will be found in the Notes attached to the English Translation. Another consideration is, his Platonic manner of speaking of the Deity as a self-existing Being, and with reference to which, no other can be said (properly) to exist, |7 of which we shall speak more particularly a little farther on. His manner of speaking of the Son has too its peculiarities; His being God of God, begotten of God, proceeding from the Father; hence complete, and in all respects like Him; His having ever been, and still being, with, and in, the Father ; extending Himself nevertheless throughout all things, and meekly lowering Himself to converse with men, and the like ; which will be more particularly noticed hereafter. His occasional allusions moreover to the things passing under his own eyes, as the sufferings of the Martyrs (p. 50) ; the state of the Church of Caesarea over which he presided, may all be considered, I think, as genuine evidences that Eusebius was the author of this Work ; and to these may be added his reasoning generally after the manner of Plato, and in many instances, his adopting the terms used by that philosopher.
From these considerations, I think it must be sufficiently evident, that our Work is a copy of the genuine Greek work of Eusebius, so long lost.--But if not, let it be supposed for a moment that it is a forgery, and that some Syrian was the author of it, who, the better to secure its reception, attached the name of Eusebius to it. I would now ask, Where are we to look for the man, among the writers of the Syrian Church, equal to this task ? Philoxenus of Mabug, and Jacob of Edessa , had, no doubt, ability sufficient to compose a work on the same subject; but neither of them, |8 nor yet any other Syrian writer, of which I have any knowledge, had any thing like the vigour and learning evinced in this. Much less likely is it, that in such an attempt the Syriac language would have been subjected to the unnatural contortions and involutions so visible in this Work, or that it would be found to have copied Eusebius word for word, to the extent noticed above.
Nor is it in any degree probable, that such an imposition could ever have been practised upon the learned of the Syrian Church. Besides, the original of the Theophania must have been in existence when this Syriac work first made its appearance, and indeed for a long time after; which would have effectually given the lie to any attempt of this sort had it been made. And to this, its unquestioned reception in the Syrian Church, affords full and sufficient testimony.
Having then disposed of this question, let us now approach our second, which is to give some account of the Manuscript from which our Work has been taken.
Sometime in the year 1839, the Rev. Henry Tattam of Bedford, who is an excellent Coptic scholar, formed the resolution of visiting Egypt for the purpose of procuring Coptic manuscripts, in order to complete, if possible, an edition of the Coptic Scriptures. At the suggestion of his friends a subscription was set on foot, for the purpose of assisting in defraying the expense of this undertaking, and this subscription was headed by a contribution of £300. by government. Individuals contributed to a small extent: and Mr. Tattam accordingly set out for Egypt. In a short time he returned, having procured some good Coptic manuscripts, of which a list has been printed and circulated; and also about 50 volumes of Syriac manuscripts , some of which were of an extreme age, and very valuable. |9
These manuscripts Mr. Tattam sent to me, with the request that I would give him some account of their contents ; and, at the same time, say what I thought their value might be: which I did as soon as my other engagements would allow. It was in looking over these manuscripts that I had the extreme pleasure of discovering that of which the following Work is a translation. Knowing then, as I did, the extreme rarity of this Work; in other words, that no other copy of it was known to exist, I requested Mr. Tattam to allow me to take a copy of it before it should leave my hands, in order that the Work might not be lost, whatever might happen to this MS. Mr. Tattam, with the disinterestedness for which he is so remarkable, instantly gave his consent, allowing me moreover to retain the MS. as long as I might want it: and, although he soon after disposed of the collection generally to the trustees of the British Museum, he was so obliging as to make this stipulation, that I should be allowed to retain this MS. as long as I might deem it necessary.
My first business now was, to make a correct copy of this very rare and valuable Codex, as far as our work was |10 concerned ; and I accordingly copied it out myself with all the expedition I could command. Soon after I had done this, I applied to the Society lately established in the Metropolis for printing Oriental Texts, requesting they would print it, and thus multiply the copies, so as to ensure the safety and permanency of the work. To this request the Committee of that society very graciously acceded. The work was accordingly put to press, and printed by Mr. Richard Watts, a tradesman long and well known for his ability in printing Oriental works generally . In his hands it had moreover the advantage of being printed in a Syriac type, which was made some years ago under my own inspection, for the purpose of printing a Syriac Bible for the use of the Syrian churches in Malabar. I will add here, that during the passing of the sheets through the press, I collated every one of them with the MS., so that I do trust the Syriac text, now some time completed, will be found as neatly and correctly printed, as the greatest care on the part of both the editor and printer could be expected to insure.
The MS. containing our Work, is very neatly written in the Estrangelo, or old Church-hand-writing of the Syrians, on very fine and well prepared skin. It is of the size of large quarto, each folio measuring about 14½ inches by 11½, and containing three columns each of the width of 2¾ inches, as may be seen in the fac simile prefixed to this Work. The exterior margins average 2½ inches in width, the interior 1¼; and the space between the several columns is about 5/8 of an inch. The MS. contains 245 folios; 71 of the first of which contain a Syriac translation of the Recognitions of St. Clement, as they are called. The 83 |11 next following, the work of Titus Bishop of Bostra , (or Bozrah) against the Manicheans ; the next 76 folios contain our Work of Eusebius ; the next 14, Eusebius's account of the Martyrs of Palestine, as published in the 8th book of his Ecclesiastical History ; and the last folio, Encomiums on their excellencies, entitled, [syriac]. This last work is incomplete, some leaves having been lost from the end of the MS., and on this account the original date of the MS. has not come down to us in its close, as is usually the case.
We have nevertheless on the reverse of the fourth folio, after the conclusion of our Work, written on the outside margin of one of the folios of the Tract on the Martyrs of Palestine, the following Inscription in a bold, but rather unsightly hand, and in the common Peschito character ;
[Syriac]
See, my brethren, if the latter part of this ancient book has been cut off, and has perished together with that (with) which its writer closed and completed it ; it was thus written at its end, viz. that " This book was written in the city |12 of Edessa of Mesopotamia, by the hands of a man named Jacob, in the year seven hundred and twenty and three, (and) was completed in the month of the latter Teshrin." (February). And, just as that which was written there, I have also written here without addition. And the things which are here, I wrote in the year 1398, in the (aera) of the Greeks (i. e. the Seleucidae).
If then we are to take the first of these dates, as given in the aera of the Seleucidae, and this Note as containing a true statement respecting the age of our MS., A. D. 411 will be its date, and its age 1432 years ! The date of this Note is, we are told, that of the Greeks (or Seleucidae), that is, A. D. 1398, corresponding to A.D. 1086, just 757 years ago, when, as its author tells us, this manuscript was such as to merit the appellation of ancient!
I was once inclined to think that our MS. could not be so old as this first date made it, and that the year 723, must be that of our common aera; which would give 1120 years for its age; and that this, both from the appearance of the MS., and from some other considerations, was nearer the truth. Yet I must confess, as I have never seen, or heard of, a Syriac MS. bearing a date in our common aera; and, as all Syriac MSS. said to be written at Edessa, do,--as far as I know,--always bear dates according to the aera of the Seleucidae; I do not see how this date can be given in our common aera.
As to the appearance of the MS., although it certainly is in very perfect and clean condition, yet as the climate of Egypt, in which it has been kept probably for many centuries, is extremely dry, it is by no means impossible that the fresh appearance of the MS. is anything more than the nature of the case requires. There certainly are MSS. in the same collection bearing a date, making them but little short of 1300 years old, and yet appearing in quite as sound a state of preservation as this does, but which, as written on |13 skins of a description greatly inferor to this, do not present so clean and bright an appearance. Asseman too, gives us an account of a Syriac MS. of a gospel, preserved in the library of the Vatican, which was written in the year of our Lord 78 : and this he affirms was, in his day,--about 100 years ago,--as plain and perfect as ever it was.
From this it should seem, that it is impossible to say how long a MS. written on good skin and well preserved may endure; and consequently, how unsafe it is to pronounce positively on the age of any MS., merely from its appearance. The colour of the ink must in all such MSS. as Montfaucon and others have well remarked, necessarily have faded ; but to what precise extent, it must, as before, remain undefined for many reasons. The ink in our MS. is so faded though not, I think, to so great an extent as is observable in the Beza MS. at Cambridge. But this might have been occasioned by the place, or manner, in which that MS. was preserved, which was apparently less favourable than that of ours. This question therefore, I am disposed to leave in the state of uncertainty, in which I found it.
I said, in my Preface to the Syriac edition of our Work, that the MS. from which it was taken was, probably not less than a thousand years old. I was not then aware that |14 a date was to be found in it. I am not sorry however to find, that I had greatly underrated its age, as this must be a good evidence to my readers, that I had no disposition to exaggerate.
It may be suggested however, that this very early date might be that of the MS. from which it, or some other prior to it, was copied: it being no uncommon thing with copyists to transcribe, with MSS. which they copy, their dates also; so that a MS. of very modern date, may, in its epi-graphe, carry with it one of the highest antiquity. To this I would answer: If we are to ascribe any credit to the Note given above, this MS. must have been considered an ancient one 757 years ago: and to such a MS. we cannot, perhaps, ascribe an age less than 600 or 700 years: if we take the least of these, the age of our Codes will be 1357 years: if the greatest, 1457 : while the date, actually ascribed to it by the Note, makes it 1432 years old, just twenty-five years less than this last computation would make.
There are however some considerations, which would at first sight seem to prove the contrary, and which indeed operated forcibly on my mind in this way, when the very early date given to our MS. first occurred to me: they are these: First, Eusebius died about A.D. 340. If then our MS. was written A. D. 411, this must have happened 71 years only after the death of the author of the original Greek work. We shall now have therefore 71, or a few more years, for the period within which our Syriac translation was made, and, as it appears to me, must have been copied out several times |15 before our MS. could have been written; which might seem too little. I see no reason however, why this Work of Eusebius,--which must have been a popular one,--could not have been translated into Syriac very soon after it was published : and if so, the Syriac version might have been copied out times innumerable, before the date of our MS.