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BISHOP OF CESAREA

ON

THE THEOPHANIA

OR

DIVINE MANIFESTATION

OF

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST,

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH NOTES, FROM AN ANCIENT SYRIAC
VERSION OF THE GREEK ORIGINAL NOW LOST ;

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A VINDICATION OF THE ORTHODOXY, AND PROPHETICAL VIEWS,
OF THAT DISTINGUISHED WRITER.

INSCRIBED BY PERMISSION TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

BY SAMUEL LEE, D.D.

D.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE; MEMBER OF THE SOCIÉTÉ ASIATIQUE
OF PARIS; OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF RHODE ISLAND, AMERICA;
CANON OF BRISTOL, RECTOR OF BARLEY, HERTS., REGIUS
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN THE UNIVERSITY

OF CAMBRIDGE, &c.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

DUNCAN AND MALCOLM, 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

M.DCCC.XLIII.

[subsumed][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

TO HIS GRACE

HUGH DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

&c. &c. &c.

CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,

THIS ENDEAVOUR TO RESTORE TO THE

Christian Church

A LONG LOST WORK,

AND TO VINDICATE THE OPINIONS, OF ONE OF ITS

MOST LEARNED AND LABORIOUS PRELATES,

IS,

IN TESTIMONY OF A DEEP SENSE OF OBLIGATION

FOR THE MANY MUNIFICENT FAVOURS

CONFERRED ON THE UNIVERSITY,

IN WHICH HE HAS THE HONOUR OF BEARING OFFICE, BY HIS GRACE'S PERMISSION,

MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY

THE TRANSLATOR AND EDITOR.

PREFACE.

HAVING now to discharge the very agreeable duty of presenting to the Christian Church (in a translation), a long lost work of one of its most learned and laborious Pastors, my first duty will be, to give the best account I can of this Work; my second, to describe the Manuscript from which it has been taken; my third, to lay down the principles by which I have been guided, both in editing the Syriac text of this Manuscript, and in making and illustrating my English Translation of it. When I shall have done these things, I shall,—because some of the opinions of my author have been branded as heretical, and some others will in all probability be considered as groundless and untenable, I mean those which contain his views on Prophecy,-give as brief and candid a review of these opinions as I can : leaving it to the reader to make the conclusions for himself, which he shall deem right and just.

I am well aware of the responsibility attaching itself to an undertaking so perilous, as that of offering to the learned of Europe, for the first time, a work coming from a man so learned, so celebrated, and so often eulogized and condemned, as was the Bishop of Cæsarea and Father of Church History. But, for the purpose of satisfying this responsibility to the best of my power, I now proceed, in the first place, to give all the account I can of the Work which I have the honour and pleasure of presenting to the public.

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

Otherwise styled, The lives of illustrious men, "Vitæ illustrium

virorum."

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