Athanasius: Festal Letter 39 (367 CE), Surviving Canonical Excerpt

This section is preserved in the Coptic (Memphitic) Life of S. Theodore (Amélineau Ann. du Musée Guimet. xvii. p. 239). Its contents and the context in which it is quoted appear decisive for its identification as part of Letter 39. But the Letter from which the fragment comes is stated in the context to have been received by Theodore in the spring previous to his death. If Theodore died in 364, as seems probable on other grounds (see p. 569, note 3), the speech from which our fragment comes must have been written for him by his biographer. This is not unlikely, nor does it throw any suspicion on the genuineness of the fragment itself.

Copt. ἀπογράμμων : astrological charts or tables appear to be meant.

The remainder of the thirty-ninth Letter has long been before the world, having been preserved, with the heading of the Letter, in the original Greek, by Theodorus Balsamon. It may be found in the first volume of the Benedictine edition of the works of S. Athan. tom. i. p. 767. ed. 1777. [Migne, ubi supra ]. A Syriac translation of it was discovered by Cureton in an anonymous Commentary on the Scriptures in the collection of the British Museum ( Cod. 12, 168). This translation commences only at the quotation from S. Luke. The Syriac is apparently the work of a different translator.

2 Cor. xi. 3 .

Luke i. 1 .

i.e. Ezra and Nehemiah.

i.e. Baruch vi .—The Syriac has the conjunction, which is rejected by the Benedictine editors.

Matt. xxii. 29 ; John v. 39 .