Toward the end of the fourth book of his indispensable Church History Eusebius remarked:

At this time there flourished in the church Hegesippus, whom we know from former narratives, and Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, and Pinytus, another bishop of the Cretans, and in addition to them Philip and Apolinarius and Melito and Musanus and Modestus and, above all, Irenaeus, and their correct opinions on the sound faith of the apostolic tradition have come down to us in writing.

Precisely a hundred years ago Preller called attention to a curious passage in the Confession of St. Cyprian describing certain Greek mysteries and printed the text adding a few brief notes. This Cyprian was a famous magician who was converted to Christianity, the prototype of Dr. Faust, and is often confused with his namesake, the bishop of Carthage. His legend became very popular, there are Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Arabic versions, and it has been much discussed. The Confession, so called because in it Cyprian speaks in his own words, was originally independent and later, but before Eudocia's metaphrasis, was inserted between the first book, the Conversion, and the third book, the Martyrdom, of the Greek version. The Empress Eudocia who married Theodosius II in A.D. 421 put the legend into verse, presumably in her old age; she included the Confession, which also was known to Gregory Nazianzen who in A.D. 379 delivered a sermon on St. Cyprian.4 This is valuable because it determines the time in which the Confession was composed, somewhat before A.D. 379. Thus it is roughly contemporary with the Neoplatonic circle of the Emperor Julian and was written at a time when paganism was still a living reality, a fact which adds to the importance of the passage.

The attitude of the Society of Friends to the Bible is a chapter of Quaker history that has yet to be written. Among biographical features it would include the names of several Quaker scholars — including Robert Barclay (1648–1690), the apologist, Anthony Purver (1702–1777), who singlehanded made a complete translation of the Bible, S. P. Tregelles (1813–1875), the textual critic, though he joined later other denominations, Thomas Chase (1827—1892), President of Haverford College and a member of the American Bible Revision Committee, and, not the least, the versatile and venerable Rendel Harris (1852–1941).

In Armand Delatte, Anecdota Atheniensia (Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liége, Fasc. xxxvi), Paris 1927, pp. 313–321, is found a short treatise on various Christian heresies, ending with a creed. The text is taken from a manuscript of the fifteenth century: Athens, Bibliothèque du Sénat. No. 33, ff. 240–244. Delatte remarks, “Le texte présente naturellement de nombreuses analogies avec les ouvrages bien connus sur les hérésies et particulièrement avec certains chapitres de la Panoplie dogmatique d'Euthymios Zygabenos (Patr. gr. t. 130).”