^[2472] Many writings of the ancients, as Cardinal Mai has remarked, may be disinterred from the Oriental manuscripts in the Vatican library, some of which have been brought to light by that eminent scholar. In an Arabic ms. he discovered a large portion of the following discourse by St. Alexander, the patriarch of Alexandria, which he afterwards met with entire in the Syrian Vatican manuscript 368. The Greek version being lost, Mai, with the assistance of the erudite Maronites, Matthæus Sciahuanus, and Franciscus Mehasebus, translated the discourse into Latin, and his version has been chiefly followed in the following translation. Of its genuineness there is no doubt, and it is quite worthy of a place among his other writings.

^[2473] Gen. i. 26.

^[2474] The passage, as far as to “rise again the third day from the dead,” is generally marked with inverted commas, and Mai remarks that it had been already brought to light by him under the name of the same Alexander, in the Spicileg. Roman., vol. iii. p. 699, amongst some extracts of the Fathers from the Arabic Vatican Codex, 101, in which is contained the celebrated Monophysite work entitled Fides Patrum. It is established therefore that this discourse was written in Greek by Alexander, and afterwards translated not only into the Syriac, but also into the Arabic language. [I have made this passage into a paragraph distinct from the rest.]

^[2475] Isa. xlii. 14.

^[2476] Jonah ii. 4.

^[2477] [Vol. iii. 58, this series. The patristic testimony is overwhelming and sufficient. See Africanus, p. 136, supra, and a full discussion of his statement in Routh, R. S., ii. p. 477.]

^[2478] Hades.

VI.—The Addition in the Codex, with a Various Reading.

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