Instead of δέσποινα ("mistress"), Bringel's text gives οὐρανία ("Urania / heavenly").
Bringel's text, slightly more logically, here reads "sent [some] magi of those under his dominion."
Here Bringel's text reads "by madness" ( ὑπὸ μανίας) rather than "by an oracle" ( ὑπὸ μαντείας ).
Or rather: "lest a revolt rise [against them] toward us"—that is, fearing that the people of Judaea would revolt against the high priests and convert to the good news of the Messiah announced by the magi .
Or, "we spoke to him until he was thoroughly disturbed."
I.e., the voice heard in §22, or the divine manifestations and their interpretations more generally. Bringel interprets this sentence differently: "Il fut consacré dans le temple, où il se trouve avec l'inscription que voici."
See Bringel ad loc. for a long exploration of the term διοπετής and its significance.
Bringel's text reads: "gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
Gk. ἀντάρτας . The "rebels" would be rebellious / sinful humans in general.
Bringel's text: "a certain terrifying angel."
It is not clear whether this sentence is part of the report of the magi or part of the enclosing speech.
Bringel's text includes a sentence at this point to conclude the account of the magi , and a further phrase to introduce Aphroditianus' final comments: "And those are the marvellous narrations of the inspired magi. And [here are] mine." I would argue, however, that the account of the magi should be understood to have concluded either after the words, "Christ has become our Savior"—or perhaps even after the statement, "we reported all that we had seen in Jerusalem." The address to "you," who are slandering and opposing Christ, seems to revert to Aphroditianus' situation.
Gk. ἱστόρησε .
Gk. ἀπετέλει .
Here I follow Bringel's text; Bratke's has an infinitive instead of a finite verb.
Bringel: "Pertelaeus."
Gk. τὸ θέλειν τὸ πρακτικὸν ἑτοιμότερον .
Lit., "in those at the end"—it is unclear whether "those at the end" refers to particular "laws" in his collection (so Bringel), or generically to the end of his text.
Gk. ἐπικρατεῖ καὶ στερεὰ ταῦτα . The text and precise sense are unclear. Bringel, with different accentuation, interprets the first word as a dative noun that could be interpreted as the addressee: "to Epicrates"; as a verb [with Bratke], the basic idea is to "prevail over"—which I am rendering, "demonstrates his mastery" since there is no object specified.
Here, Bringel's text has the additional word "progeny."
This phrase is a sentence fragment added to the rest; I suspect that some words have fallen out in transmission.
Gk. Ἕλληνες . Note that the first example is Cyrus the Great of Persia—demonstrating clearly that for the author, "Hellenes" is not an ethnic term but refers to pagans .
In the reading preferred by Bringel, the bodyguards are not female.
This name (unknown otherwise) is the reading favored by Bringel; Bratke does not choose between ms. variants here, printing simply an ellipsis in the middle of the name: C...encrates. Wirth, p. 200, reports Noeldeke's suggestion that the Cynic Crates may be the distant inspiration for this reference.
Gk. παροξυσμοί ; the precise reference is obscure.