PROLEGOMENA.
[G] and to whom they ought to be attributed, or finally, to what extent they should be ascribed both to his own genius and, at the same time, to the labors of others.
§ II. — Whether Photius was the author of the individual questions.
He often cites the Fathers, such as Basil, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, the commonly known Dionysius, Maximus, and others. But he usually only brings them forward when he briefly and incidentally proffers or touches upon one or another of their sentiments. For it is agreed that Photius sometimes transcribed, word for word, and appropriated to himself almost whole treatises of earlier writers, under their veiled names. Wolf has already deemed it probable that the explanation on Chapter 1, verse 16 of the Epistle to the Colossians was drawn from Chrysostom; Mai truly indicated that that long investigation concerning the end of life, which is contained in the one hundred and forty-ninth question, is declared to be the work of Germanus the Patriarch in two other Vatican codices, and that of two dissertations on the obscurity of the Scriptures, one is taken from Polychronius' prologue to Job; the question concerning the different editions of the Scriptures of the Old Testament (in Greek) [is also discussed].
[Regarding] some things [seen as] pillaged from other authors by Augustine and Pseudo-Augustine, or [as to] whether they should be attributed to the same author, [as well as] the *Interrogations and Solutions* of Saint Maximus and the *Questions and Responses* commonly adjudicated to Anastasius Sinaita: these *One Hundred and Fifty-Four Questions* of Anastasius are a certain anthology from the testimonies of Holy Scripture and the Fathers, [containing] for the most part brief responses with demonstration sought from the fountains of revelation, and the works of the Fathers employed therein are diligently indicated. The author made use of Theodoret in particular. In these works, many questions correspond, sometimes—though more rarely—verbatim, and more frequently, according to their meaning. For a long time, various compilations had supplied the lack of new fruits of genius among the Greeks; *Sacred Parallels* were in use, which confirmed any given theological thesis from the Bibles and the Fathers, as Leontius of Byzantium is known to have done; already the *Catenae* of the Fathers placed expositions upon the Holy Books, and from them an immense material was always available for the sewing together of new compilations and the enriching of older ones with the addition of other lucubrations. With the fecundity of the Greeks extinguished in the collecting and decorating of the treasures of antiquity, learned men were almost solely occupied in these, and Photius himself, if you except some of his writings which are truly his own offspring, and especially works of a polemical nature, seems to be placed among them. But it would be worth the effort to inquire more accurately whether the *Amphilochia* of Photius...