DION. PETAVIUS TO THE READER
A This second volume of Epiphanius contains minor works which are partly beyond controversy, and partly, it may justly be thought, spurious (voθενόμενα) or at least disputed (ἀμφισβητούμενα). Regarding the *Ancoratus*, the *Anacephalaeosis*, and the book *On Weights and Measures*, there has been no doubt until now that they should be ascribed to the genuine Epiphanius. The same judgment must hold regarding the *Physiologus* and the book *On Gems*. That this latter is truly (γνήσιον) the work of Epiphanius is guaranteed by that most weighty author, Jerome; who, writing in Epistle 127 to Fabiola regarding priestly attire, demonstrates that he says nothing about gems and their meaning for the reason that Epiphanius had already covered that same subject in a separate book. "It should suffice," he says, "that the holy Pope Epiphanius has published an excellent volume on this matter: if you wish to read it, you will obtain most complete knowledge." (a) Furthermore, Anastasius composed an *Epitome* of the same work in his *Questions*; which is nothing other than that other minor work *On Gems*, which we have placed after the former and longer one, and which we had already noted in our manuscripts to be different from the other, together with a Latin translation by Franciscus Turrianus. And indeed, we later discovered that this was merely an *Epitome* by Anastasius. In both of those books, we have expressed the commonly accepted edition of those by whom they were first published, and we had no need to change anything or to revise the work, especially since we were devoid of the aid of any ancient copies; and, what is the main thing, we were exhausted by the long-lasting labor of commenting and emending. Wherefore we decided to rest content with the diligence of Gesner and Consal Ponce. Would that we could have done the same in the other works, in which we struggled with more tedious and unpleasant labor, because since these books are supposititious and spurious, they did not bring the same fruit of the mind as the others; and they also caused most people to feel a loathing both for correcting and for interpreting them.
The procession of these is led by the book *On the Lives of the Prophets*, which six hundred trifles of mendacity, with which it is stuffed, persuade us is pseudepigraphical (ψευδεπίγραφον). This was first published by Torinus, a man not sufficiently skilled in Greek, and it was copied from a manuscript that was clearly extremely corrupt. A certain Joachim Zehner, as if some sort of gleaner, picked it up from the dregs of Lutheranism and the pastorate; he testified that he had emended that work in more than three hundred places. But in this, he set a very bad example, and one nearly criminal: relying on no authority of ancient books, but on conjecture alone, he changed not a few things—nay, he rendered them even more depraved than they were before. I shall give here two examples of that corrector’s extreme audacity, or rather incompetence, which seem the most blatant of the lot to those who look closely. In the *Life* of the prophet Elijah, it was written: Οὗτος ἦν ἐκ Θεσσὼν ἐκ γῆς ᾿Αράβων, ἐκ φυλῆς 'Ααρών. The superintendent enclosed those words ἐκ γῆς ᾿Αράβων in parentheses, and indicated in his notes that they were spurious and to be rejected, because the region of the Gileadites should by no means be attributed to Arabia. Then he added that he thought they had been inserted by ignorant monks. We have already amply castigated the utter negligence of this most shallow little man in our observations on *Haer.* 55.
Next to this, or rather even more capital, is the license by which, daring to scour a clean vessel—and not to correct what is curved, but to straighten what is straight—in the following *Life* of Elisha, in place of what Torinus had published, *Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ ἱερεὺς διὰ τὸν δῆλον*, etc., this man rashly rewrote it in the context itself as *διὰ τούτων δηλῶν*. We have restored the *διὰ τῶν δήλων* from the manuscript codex, as was proper. These are the Urim and Thummim. Regarding which, Ecclesiasticus ch. XXXI: *Πιστὸς ὁ νόμος ὡς ἐρώτημα δήλων*. For there was the manifestation (*δήλωσις*) and the truth (*ἀλήθεια*). The priest is therefore said by the author to have pronounced upon Elisha from the pectoral gems. Other things of lighter moment, though of no less impudence, we pass over—in the repairing of which we spent some hours not without stomach. And indeed we removed not a few faults, both in this little book and in the remaining minor works, from those papers which we had long ago received through the singular kindness of the Reverend Father Andreas Schottus. We ourselves labored over the Latin interpretation of this prophetic treatise, lest the symbols of some superintendent or pastor stake a claim for themselves in this edition. We necessarily did the same in some other works, for which the corresponding Latin, published otherwise by Catholics, could not be found.
Now, those Orations which have long been masquerading under the name of Epiphanius declare themselves, both by their style and by certain other signs, to be by another Epiphanius or another author. For the Reverend Father Jacobus Sirmondus observed that there were several Epiphaniuses—even bishops of Cyprus—that is, apart from our own famous one, there were two others. One was Archbishop of Cyprus, in whose name Theodorus, Bishop of Trimethus, subscribed at the Fifth Synod, as is read in act 18. The other was likewise an Archbishop of Cyprus, whose letter to the Patriarch Ignatius is extant, published by our friend Raderus, along with the Eighth Synod. These orations, therefore, are to be attributed to one of these, or to both, or rather to anyone at all, instead of our Epiphanius. Wherefore it was not a crime for us to omit them in this edition. But lest the reader miss anything that was inscribed under the name of Epiphanius, and to ensure that these works, however alien, yet not to be despised, might not gradually be obliterated, we have decided that they should be cast into the end of the works.
(a) See below the Preface of Father Franciscus Foggini to the ancient Latin version of the book *On Gems*, which we have placed at the foot of that work itself. EDIT.