Eusebius of Caesarea: On the Star  [Spurious]

The Journal of Sacred Literature, 4th series vol. 9 (1866) p. 117; vol. 10 (1867), pp.150-164.

THE tract which I now offer to the readers of The Journal of Sacred Literature,is ascribed to Eusebius of Caesarea ; and there is no reason, so far as I can see, to doubt the correctness of the statement. It is entitled : Concerning the Star ; showing how and through what the Magi recognized the Star, and that Joseph did not take Mary as his wife.Consequently, it stands in a certain connection both with parts of the Chronicleand with the Quaestiones,edited by Mai in his Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio,t. i., and his Nova Patrum Bibliotheca,t. iv., p. 219 foll.

This tract is, I believe, now published for the first time. The Greek original appears to have perished ; and the Syriac fragment De stella quae Magis apparuit,given by Mai in the Nova Patrum Bibl.,t. iv., p. 281, is evidently extracted from a different work. I have taken it from a manuscript in the Nitrian collection, Add. 17,142, a small octavo volume of seventeen leaves, dating apparently from the sixth century. The text, which I have reproduced as faithfully as possible, is, I am sorry to say, very corrupt ; but I shall endeavour to correct at least some of the mistakes in the notes to the translation, which I hope to publish in the next number of this Journal.

WILLIAM WRIGHT. 24th March, 1866.

[Syriac of pp.118-136 omitted from online text]