Any such hypothesis ignores the philological affinities of the piece; as well as all the circumstances of its trans mission to us in the manuscripts and in ancient versions. It con?icts with chronology, rests upon wholesale mis understanding of the text, and presupposes conditions of pseud-epigraphic authorship which never did and never could exist. That it should be rapidly stereotyping itself among scholars is indicative of a prevalent and regrettable ignorance of Philo's writings; and it was in the hope of being able to correct an error which is the inversion of three centuries of religious history, that I undertook six years ago, at the instance of Professor L. Massebieau of Paris, the present edition. If he had kept his health and strength, he would have himself followed up his excellent monograph 1 with a critical edition of the Greek text.